New to the forum - q. about charging patterns

Hey there. I'm in Seattle and bought my '13 SL as a CPO in July '15. ~24K with 12/12 at the moment. I have a charging/battery health related question:

I use my Leaf almost exclusively for commuting and have a very predictable daily 48 mile highway round trip. The car's guess-o-meter registers it as ~60 miles, so I'm down to an indicated ~30% when I return. Not enough for much else, so I charge to 100% each night on a Siemens Level 2 in my garage. No charging resources at work. The car gets the weekends off.

Question is: is this repeating pattern best for the battery, or should I change things up a bit? Should I be charging to less than 100% at the risk of leaving less margin on the return trip? Should I use the Level 1 overnight instead? There's usually time. I'm working on getting a Level 2 at work, so I have the option of charging in smaller chunks, but I'm not sure if this has any benefits other than driving around with more juice.

Cheers.

When you charge to 100%, it's really more like 95% actual state of charge (SOC). As long as you drive the car more or less immediately after charging is finished, I wouldn't worry about what you are doing - it will keep the cells better equalized. Just try to avoid charging the car when more than 5 battery temperature "bars" are showing on the dash, or leaving it fully charged for more than a few hours.

My Siemens EVSE has a delay function. Are you saying that I am better off postponing the nightly charge so that the battery tops out shortly before I drive away in the AM? Currently, I charge immediately upon arrival. I prefer the idea of having the car ready ASAP.

Bibendum said:

My Siemens EVSE has a delay function. Are you saying that I am better off postponing the nightly charge so that the battery tops out shortly before I drive away in the AM? Currently, I charge immediately upon arrival. I prefer the idea of having the car ready ASAP.

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Having the charge finish charging right before you leave is better for the pack. That being said, having it finish a few hours early isn't likely to matter much.

Bibendum said:

I use my Leaf almost exclusively for commuting and have a very predictable daily 48 mile highway round trip. The car's guess-o-meter registers it as ~60 miles, so I'm down to an indicated ~30% when I return. Not enough for much else, so I charge to 100% each night on a Siemens Level 2 in my garage. No charging resources at work. The car gets the weekends off.

Click to expand...

This is a topic that has received a lot of comment/speculation on the board for a long time in a lot of different threads. It MIGHT be that cars that get driven and used more fair better battery-wise than cars driven less, but it really is an unknown. Everyone agrees that high temperatures will kill a battery fast.

Here is a tread you should read through to hear some of the issues about what's best for the battery long-term

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=21117

Charge using Level2. Higher input voltage will have higher efficiency in charging.
Avoid 120V if possible. Avoid Very Low Battery warning.

If you have predictable drive and you return with 30% I would not recommend
leaving with 80%. Getting below Low Battery Warning is worse than charging above 80%.

I would recommend you to use charging end timer so it does not get to 100% when you
unplug*. Somewhere between 93-96% would be awesome (more efficient charging*).
Also for weekend charge to 80% and not 100%. Letting it sit at 100% is not as healthy
as sitting at 80%.

So just experiment with charging timer. Also don't forget to preheat or precool the vehicle
if your AC system uses more than 0,5kW constantly during the trip. You can also set
departure time a little bit later than you really depart. This way car will not be absolutely
preconditioned. For me Leaf does too much. Running AC for an hour is overkill.

Pushing those last 2-5% does take 1-2 hours and it uses power to just keep systems online.

Hello,
We plug in when we get home with the timer set to 80%. We kick off charging again when we get up in the morning so it is at 100% when we leave. Only sits at 100% for 1/2 hour or so before we leave. I may delay plugging in until we are going to bed if the temp is hot. It gives the batt a chance to cool. The wife's new job has covered parking so it came home a lot cooler this summer.

Charging as soon as arrived is fine but you can save few bucks if you have dual tariff meter and you charge while power is cheaper.
If you don't care about 20-50% electricity cost difference it would be nice not to start charging at peak time.

Something at around 15-17:

Grid is usually heavily loaded. If you have non fixed tariff then you will notice it on the bill

There's absolutely nothing wrong with charging to 100% if you drain it to at least 40%.
Just charging above 95% uses more electricity but charging is very slow (battery is unable to suck the juice
but charger is activated, water pump is running etc).