30kwh battery, warranty and capacity bar questions I cannot find elsewhere....

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cdherman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 8, 2012
Messages
182
Location
Kansas City, Missouri
I have 2016 SV with 30kwh battery. Now in 2017, they all will be that way. The 96 month, 100k miles warranty to retain 9 bars is certainly a great improvement, at least at first blush. But I've been bothered and have tried reading every 30kwh thread out there to no avail to answer this question:

How do we know what "9 bars" will mean for the 30kwh pack? For all we know, the new 30kwh pack could have capacity bars that are 15-15-15-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6 There is evidence out there that the original 15-6.25-6.25 etc got changed during a software update to something more beneficial to Nissan. 4th bars are dropping at SOH numbers below 66% for most people.

This discussion my Mark Larson supports that: http://www.casteyanqui.com/ev/capacity_2016_30kwh/

Don't get me wrong. I am LOVING the 2016 with 30kwh pack. Perhaps that's because I was driving a 2012 that was down to 77%, with a slow charger and very inefficient heater. But the 30wkh pack makes the Leaf so much more forgiving. Now, its only the rare destination that you even bother to care.... Most of the time, you just drive, plug it in when remaining charge is under 50% or so.

Second question/observation on a similar bent: I babied the 2012. Never charged to 100%, bare minimum QCs, and drove at or below speed limit. What thanks did I get? Well at 4 years from purchase, I still had 77% capacity and no replacement battery was in sight. So I sold it at a very large depreciation. Battery was too good, and at the same time, not good enough......

Now, I ask myself how to behave with the the 2016 30kwh..... Baby it? Avoid 100% charges? Set the timers to charge for 120 min each night, which about balances my daily use, then pay attention to charge extra on days with extended drives. Hassle myself constantly, changing the timers to avoid the dreaded 100% charge that is not used immediately.........

And find myself in 2024 with an 8 year old, 70% capacity battery someday, asking myself again, why exactly did I go to all that effort to save Nissan the cost of a replacement battery.......

So I am now charging to 100% at every charge. And I drive 5 mph over the speed limit like I used to. And I have given up my ear muffs and driving gloves -- I keep it a toasty 72F in the cab. And when the windows fog over, I use the defrost (with 2012, I would open windows and play freeze out till the windows were clear.) Gosh. Feels like I am driving a modern car again...

My only fear is that I will discover too late that Nissan is NOT going to stand behind that battery staying at 67% or better....
 
I have a feeling Nissan is going to regret increasing the capacity warranty on the 30kWh battery based on some of the early feedback on the other threads. 100k miles is a bunch of cycles.
 
cdherman said:
I have 2016 SV with 30kwh battery. Now in 2017, they all will be that way. The 96 month, 100k miles warranty to retain 9 bars is certainly a great improvement, at least at first blush. But I've been bothered and have tried reading every 30kwh thread out there to no avail to answer this question:

How do we know what "9 bars" will mean for the 30kwh pack? For all we know, the new 30kwh pack could have capacity bars that are 15-15-15-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6 There is evidence out there that the original 15-6.25-6.25 etc got changed during a software update to something more beneficial to Nissan. 4th bars are dropping at SOH numbers below 66% for most people.

This discussion my Mark Larson supports that: http://www.casteyanqui.com/ev/capacity_2016_30kwh/

Don't get me wrong. I am LOVING the 2016 with 30kwh pack. Perhaps that's because I was driving a 2012 that was down to 77%, with a slow charger and very inefficient heater. But the 30wkh pack makes the Leaf so much more forgiving. Now, its only the rare destination that you even bother to care.... Most of the time, you just drive, plug it in when remaining charge is under 50% or so.

Second question/observation on a similar bent: I babied the 2012. Never charged to 100%, bare minimum QCs, and drove at or below speed limit. What thanks did I get? Well at 4 years from purchase, I still had 77% capacity and no replacement battery was in sight. So I sold it at a very large depreciation. Battery was too good, and at the same time, not good enough......

Now, I ask myself how to behave with the the 2016 30kwh..... Baby it? Avoid 100% charges? Set the timers to charge for 120 min each night, which about balances my daily use, then pay attention to charge extra on days with extended drives. Hassle myself constantly, changing the timers to avoid the dreaded 100% charge that is not used immediately.........

And find myself in 2024 with an 8 year old, 70% capacity battery someday, asking myself again, why exactly did I go to all that effort to save Nissan the cost of a replacement battery.......

So I am now charging to 100% at every charge. And I drive 5 mph over the speed limit like I used to. And I have given up my ear muffs and driving gloves -- I keep it a toasty 72F in the cab. And when the windows fog over, I use the defrost (with 2012, I would open windows and play freeze out till the windows were clear.) Gosh. Feels like I am driving a modern car again...

My only fear is that I will discover too late that Nissan is NOT going to stand behind that battery staying at 67% or better....

I am using the same charging pattern I used on my '13
When cold, 83% may sit for 48 hours, 100% once a week to balance.
When temps rise, 83% max charge , 100% every 2 weeks to balance.
I do not let the car sit for more than an hour max after full charge then reduce to at least 83%.

The 13 was at 19.4 Kwh when I traded it in on Oct 31, the 16 I now drive is holding at 27.4 Kwh.

I use the defroster and heat to reduce energy if needed to that 83% level on a short spin after charging to 100%.

Once I re-apply the window visors and the temp increases that short spin might become a little longer.

Yes I agree its nice to have good range again although I do tend to do the speed limit + 2Kms
 
ElectricEddy said:
I am using the same charging pattern I used on my '13
When cold, 83% may sit for 48 hours, 100% once a week to balance.
When temps rise, 83% max charge , 100% every 2 weeks to balance.
I do not let the car sit for more than an hour max after full charge then reduce to at least 83%.

The 13 was at 19.4 Kwh when I traded it in on Oct 31, the 16 I now drive is holding at 27.4 Kwh.

I use the defroster and heat to reduce energy if needed to that 83% level on a short spin after charging to 100%.

Once I re-apply the window visors and the temp increases that short spin might become a little longer.

Yes I agree its nice to have good range again although I do tend to do the speed limit + 2Kms


Seems to me you are a slave to the inadequacies of the Leaf battery, and the Leaf computer. You have to charge to 100% and then drive around wasting energy to get your charge back to 83%???

I don't have time for that.

Once again, Nissan offers a battery warranty that is really vague. Just like the guys that got a new 24kwh battery on the last day of warranty, versus the suckers whose battery held out for 2 days too long and got no new battery, I am troubled a lot. The problem is that with most automobile issues, it is either working, or its not. Now with a battery, the same cannot be said. I really wish Nissan had offered some sort of pro-rated warranty. Would have made a lot more sense.

And I still don't really know what 8 or 9 bars really means....

And LeafSpy Pro tells me that today my 30kwh battery is at 100% SOH, with 28.2 kwh available. Mfg date 4/2016 and spent a hot summer in Missouri. So I don't really believe much of anything anymore...... LeafSpy does not tell all either.....
 
ElectricEddy said:
I am using the same charging pattern I used on my '13
When cold, 83% may sit for 48 hours, 100% once a week to balance.
When temps rise, 83% max charge , 100% every 2 weeks to balance.
I do not let the car sit for more than an hour max after full charge then reduce to at least 83%.

The 13 was at 19.4 Kwh when I traded it in on Oct 31
How many mile were on your 13 when you traded it in?

My 13 is at 25K miles. I've charged it to 100% at work almost every weekday for the last 2.5 years. About half the time it would get to 100% charge by noon and then stay that way for 5-6 hours until the drive home (the other half of the time it would charge from noon-3PM, and sit at 100% for under 3 hours). I would not charge it at home, so it would sit at about 85% (or less if I drove it in the evening) until the morning.

Charging to 100% currently gets me to 20.5kWh. LeafSpy reports: AHr=61.19 SOH=93% Hx=94.18, 42 QCs, 1055 L1/L2

I don't live in a hot climate and the car is either in a garage or parking garage almost all the time.

I certainly didn't baby it at all.
 
jlv said:
ElectricEddy said:
I am using the same charging pattern I used on my '13
When cold, 83% may sit for 48 hours, 100% once a week to balance.
When temps rise, 83% max charge , 100% every 2 weeks to balance.
I do not let the car sit for more than an hour max after full charge then reduce to at least 83%.

The 13 was at 19.4 Kwh when I traded it in on Oct 31
How many mile were on your 13 when you traded it in?

My 13 is at 25K miles. I've charged it to 100% at work almost every weekday for the last 2.5 years. About half the time it would get to 100% charge by noon and then stay that way for 5-6 hours until the drive home (the other half of the time it would charge from noon-3PM, and sit at 100% for under 3 hours). I would not charge it at home, so it would sit at about 85% (or less if I drove it in the evening) until the morning.

Charging to 100% currently gets me to 20.5kWh. LeafSpy reports: AHr=61.19 SOH=93% Hx=94.18, 42 QCs, 1055 L1/L2

I don't live in a hot climate and the car is either in a garage or parking garage almost all the time.

I certainly didn't baby it at all.
Mileage at trade in was approx 26K Kms.
I am sure I didn't have 22.5 Kwh from new as it was on the lot for 3 months and I didn't have Leaf spy until 6 months later.
 
ElectricEddy said:
Mileage at trade in was approx 26K Kms.
I am sure I didn't have 22.5 Kwh from new as it was on the lot for 3 months and I didn't have Leaf spy until 6 months later.
That's much less mileage than me (about 16K miles). My battery topped out at 22kWh when new. You had a lot more battery degradation in your 13 than mile.

I'm not sure keeping your battery at 83% did anything.
 
cdherman said:
So I am now charging to 100% at every charge. And I drive 5 mph over the speed limit like I used to. And I have given up my ear muffs and driving gloves -- I keep it a toasty 72F in the cab. And when the windows fog over, I use the defrost (with 2012, I would open windows and play freeze out till the windows were clear.) Gosh. Feels like I am driving a modern car again...
So long as ~ 67% of new battery capacity is enough range for you the strategy makes sense. Otherwise you are increasing the odds that you will have a period of time that the LEAF is inadequate for your use
 
SageBrush said:
cdherman said:
So I am now charging to 100% at every charge. And I drive 5 mph over the speed limit like I used to. And I have given up my ear muffs and driving gloves -- I keep it a toasty 72F in the cab. And when the windows fog over, I use the defrost (with 2012, I would open windows and play freeze out till the windows were clear.) Gosh. Feels like I am driving a modern car again...
So long as ~ 67% of new battery capacity is enough range for you the strategy makes sense. Otherwise you are increasing the odds that you will have a period of time that the LEAF is inadequate for your use


Charging to 100% is really only charging to around 97%. Besides, what proof is there that charging to 100% all the time has really degraded the battery any faster? From what I've read on this forum it appears time & heat are the leading causes of degradation in the Leaf battery. People have babied their batteries by not charging to 100% all the time and still ended up with a lot of degradation anyway!

The average Joe isn't going to deal with manipulating charge timers on a daily basis, too much hassle! All the consumer should have to do is charge it and drive it, not be bothered with the daily task of setting up charge timers. Nissan should have found a way to keep the user selectable charge to 80% option if charging to 100% is a problem.
 
rcm4453 said:
Besides, what proof is there that charging to 100% all the time has really degraded the battery any faster?
I don't know what you would accept as proof, but Nissan telling me to avoid 100% charges if I want to prolong battery life is good enough for me, even if I didn't know about a mountain of information that shows that minimizing SOC deviation from 50% decreases battery aging. Admittedly this is a lot more true for NiMH than Li-X, but it still holds true for Lithium as e.g. Toyota's handling of the SOC range in their plug-ins demonstrate. Toyota wants the AER range to maintain through 150k miles so they baby the SOC.

A different question could be: how long do you want the battery to last, and what aging rate are you happy with ?
 
SageBrush said:
rcm4453 said:
Besides, what proof is there that charging to 100% all the time has really degraded the battery any faster?
I don't know what you would accept as proof, but Nissan telling me to avoid 100% charges if I want to prolong battery life is good enough for me, even if I didn't know about a mountain of information that shows that minimizing SOC deviation from 50% decreases battery aging. Admittedly this is a lot more true for NiMH than Li-X, but it still holds true for Lithium as e.g. Toyota's handling of the SOC range in their plug-ins demonstrate. Toyota wants the AER range to maintain through 150k miles so they baby the SOC.

A different question could be: how long do you want the battery to last, and what aging rate are you happy with ?


Well Nissan never told me anything like that when I leased my Leaf. The average consumer is NOT going to bother with charge timers anyway, they will charge it like they charge their cell phones and not worry about it. Like I said if it mattered that much then why was there still lots of degradation with the people who didn't charge to 100% often? The question is why doesn't Nissan figure out a way to allow an 80% charge option if charging to 100% isn't good? You'd think it would be in their best interest to avoid degradation warranty claims. I'm thinking it's because they figured out that charging to 100% has very little to do with premature degradation. As for me personally, it's not worth the hassle, it's a car not an ongoing science project so I just charge it and drive it! If the battery degrades like crazy it will be the next guy's problem which is why I chose to lease.
 
SageBrush said:
rcm4453 said:
Well Nissan never told me anything like that when I leased my Leaf.
RTFM

Like I care what the manual says! Just admit it that there's no real proof with the members on here that babying their batteries did them any good when it comes to premature degradation. You said Nissan told you so, just calling you out on that, Nissan did not tell me that, has nothing to do with not reading the manual (how many consumers do?!?)

If you want to plan your daily life around charge timers to avoid 100% charging then knock yourself out! You will find in the end that it was a total waste of your time as your battery will have only degraded slightly less then the guy who just charges to 100% :lol:
 
rcm4453 said:
The question is why doesn't Nissan figure out a way to allow an 80% charge option if charging to 100% isn't good? You'd think it would be in their best interest to avoid degradation warranty claims. I'm thinking it's because they figured out that charging to 100% has very little to do with premature degradation.
For the bolded part, it WAS on US market 2011 to 2013 Leafs. I'm on my 2nd '13 Leaf.

IT was REMOVED on 2014+ US Leafs, most likely in order to look more competitive at 84 miles vs. almost everyone else that was in the 70s to 80s range of EPA mileage due to the stupid 80%/100% averaging rule.

If a potential buyer/lessee If they see a Leaf at 75 miles and most everyone else in that price range is above 75 miles (since the others don't have a charge to 80% setting), there's a 95+% chance that that customer will NOT know the backstory below and that a "75 mile" Leaf actually gets 84 miles on the EPA test at 100% charge.

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/02/21/2013-nissan-leaf-revealed-gets-75-mile-range-actually-84-in-n/
http://insideevs.com/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/

Yet, they left the feature in on 2015 Irish market Leafs: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=416013#p416013. I'm not clear what other markets still have it, but presumably many/most outside the US still have it.

Nissan leaves some portion of the battery not user accessible at the top and bottom, so 100% isn't really 100%.

I usually only charge to 80% on most work days via the 80% midnight to midnight timer trick (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=452029#p452029) unless I need the range and except on Fridays.
 
SageBrush said:
rcm4453 said:
Besides, what proof is there that charging to 100% all the time has really degraded the battery any faster?
I don't know what you would accept as proof, but Nissan telling me to avoid 100% charges if I want to prolong battery life is good enough for me, even if I didn't know about a mountain of information that shows that minimizing SOC deviation from 50% decreases battery aging. Admittedly this is a lot more true for NiMH than Li-X, but it still holds true for Lithium as e.g. Toyota's handling of the SOC range in their plug-ins demonstrate. Toyota wants the AER range to maintain through 150k miles so they baby the SOC.

A different question could be: how long do you want the battery to last, and what aging rate are you happy with ?

I charged to 100% every time and never had degradation for 3 years. I know many people that did the same but I live in a cool climate. Hybrid batteries are subjected to more torture and heat by a long shot. Heat and sitting at high SOC is the main killer.
 
cwerdna said:
rcm4453 said:
The question is why doesn't Nissan figure out a way to allow an 80% charge option if charging to 100% isn't good? You'd think it would be in their best interest to avoid degradation warranty claims. I'm thinking it's because they figured out that charging to 100% has very little to do with premature degradation.
For the bolded part, it WAS on US market 2011 to 2013 Leafs. I'm on my 2nd '13 Leaf.

IT was REMOVED on 2014+ US Leafs, most likely in order to look more competitive at 84 miles vs. almost everyone else that was in the 70s to 80s range of EPA mileage due to the stupid 80%/100% averaging rule.

If a potential buyer/lessee If they see a Leaf at 75 miles and most everyone else in that price range is above 75 miles (since the others don't have a charge to 80% setting), there's a 95+% chance that that customer will NOT know the backstory below and that a "75 mile" Leaf actually gets 84 miles on the EPA test at 100% charge.

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/02/21/2013-nissan-leaf-revealed-gets-75-mile-range-actually-84-in-n/
http://insideevs.com/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/

Yet, they left the feature in on 2015 Irish market Leafs: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=416013#p416013. I'm not clear what other markets still have it, but presumably many/most outside the US still have it.

Nissan leaves some portion of the battery not user accessible at the top and bottom, so 100% isn't really 100%.

I usually only charge to 80% on most work days via the 80% midnight to midnight timer trick (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=452029#p452029) unless I need the range and except on Fridays.


I'm aware of Nissan removing this feature after the 2013 MY, that's why I said "if Nissan can figure out a way". It probably was for EPA mileage reasons and because maybe the engineers determined that charging to 100% doesn't have that big of an impact on degradation. If it did present a big problem I'm sure they would have found a way to keep the 80% charge option since replacing battery packs under the degradation warranty is quite costly for Nissan. The unused portion at the top of the battery is most likely sufficient in avoiding excessive degradation when charging to 100%. Thanks for the links and info!
 
rcm4453 said:
Like I care what the manual says!
You don't HAVE to read the manual, but stop complaining that your are uninformed. That manual is Nissan TELLING YOU what's up.
 
rcm4453 said:
If it did present a big problem I'm sure they would have found a way to keep the 80% charge option since replacing battery packs under the degradation warranty is quite costly for Nissan.
This is what I was alluding to earlier. If the battery is 30% aged by 5y/60k miles it is not a warranty problem for Nissan, but it sure may be a problem for an owner if they were relying on some of that lost range for their use case.
 
Charging to 100% is not a problem. It is actually recommended, on a regular basis, to keep the cells balanced. Letting the battery sit at 100% for extended periods, especially in high heat, is what does the damage. The ideal charge level, for the battery sitting idle, is between 20% and 80%. If the car has the option, and it matches the range needs of the driver, regularly charging to 80% with periodic charges to 100% (for cell balancing) is supposed to extend the usable life of the battery. How much it will extend the battery life is unknown, and factors like climate and battery chemistry can have a greater impact on usable life than the 80% charge option.

I used the 80% charge option with periodic charges to 100% until the battery degraded enough that the range was no longer sufficient. I now charge to 100% weekdays and 80% on weekends, which possibly accelerates the degradation. Two summers in Las Vegas dropped the battery health from 89% to 65%. The car was manufactured in January 2013, so it has one of the batteries with the 2012 chemistry. I expect the fourth bar to drop sometime this spring. If I can get by with the range, I'll probably wait until the end of summer to have the battery replaced.
 
ElectricEddy said:
I am using the same charging pattern I used on my '13
When cold, 83% may sit for 48 hours, 100% once a week to balance.
When temps rise, 83% max charge , 100% every 2 weeks to balance.
I do not let the car sit for more than an hour max after full charge then reduce to at least 83%.

The 13 was at 19.4 Kwh when I traded it in on Oct 31, the 16 I now drive is holding at 27.4 Kwh.

I use the defroster and heat to reduce energy if needed to that 83% level on a short spin after charging to 100%.

Once I re-apply the window visors and the temp increases that short spin might become a little longer.

Yes I agree its nice to have good range again although I do tend to do the speed limit + 2Kms

you are degrading your pack for no reason. there is no need to charge to 100% once a week. unless you plan to drive at least 40-50 miles, you shouldn't be doing it.
 
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