My Southern California battery experence

I purchased my Leaf December 18, 2011. At that time I did not have a LeafCAN but I assume the battery was 281 gids.

On June 2 my Leaf read 281 gids and 100%

Yesterday morning my display for 80% read 221 gids or 78.6%. In June it read 82.4%

This morning my 100% charge read 264 gids or 94%

My conclusion is that the battery was affected by this summer's Anaheim temperature. At this rate the battery will still be above 80% when I turn in my 3 year lease. I am not happy with any degradation but that is a fact of lithium life. Motorola expects 3 to 5 percent a year and Cadex, the manufacturer of battery analyzers, says never purchase an old battery.

One of the members of a group I am in fly's electric model airplanes. He keeps his batteries in a refrigerator for storage and transports them in a cooler. We can not do that. Unless you live in Alaska the battery is going to warm up and we have to live with it.

On the Tesla forum one of the members was deciding on batteries. Since they have stated to expect 70% in seven years he was going to go for the larger pack. In my case after 3 years the battery is Nissan's problem. I am glad I leased.

GlennD said:

This morning my 100% charge read 264 gids or 94%

Click to expand...

My WAG is that the accuracy of the GID counter is 5%, so perhaps you only had 1% degradation, or you sneezed while less than 10ft from the the Leaf

Herm said:

GlennD said:

This morning my 100% charge read 264 gids or 94%

Click to expand...

My WAG is that the accuracy of the GID counter is 5%, so perhaps you only had 1% degradation, or you sneezed while less than 10ft from the the Leaf

Click to expand...

My understanding is that a timed 100% charge will not perform cell balancing, only a manual override 100% and leaving it plugged for a couple of extra hours will get the balancing done. However just doing one manual 100% charge is not enough because the LEAF's top-balancing involves bleeding higher voltage cells until all cells are within a small difference, which means the battery is not really at 100% after a cell balance and an additional charge will be required. Thus most recommend doing two or three successive 100% charges, the first being a manual timer override to perform the cell balance and depleting the battery at least 10% in between the charges, to get the actual peak GID number.

So even taking into consideration the GID error measurement percentage, there is a source of error for a lower GID reading. No guarantee, but from other postings on this subject I'll bet that you pick up enough GIDs to raise your percentage if you follow the recommended practice.

I don't know how long is your lease but I'd still be happy with 20% loss in 3 years. Today I only use the car on 80% of the battery and it's still more than I need. So I'll be able to continue to use it just like today except that I'll charge it to 100% more often. And I'm not just using it to get the groceries: I put 80 miles every week day on it (28K in 1.5 year).

padamson1 said:

My understanding is that a timed 100% charge will not perform cell balancing, only a manual override 100% and leaving it plugged for a couple of extra hours will get the balancing done.

Click to expand...

And the rumors I've heard say that balancing only occurs when using the timer. :? And I believe that the real answer is that it doesn't matter how you initiate a 100% charge.

However just doing one manual 100% charge is not enough because the LEAF's top-balancing involves bleeding higher voltage cells until all cells are within a small difference, which means the battery is not really at 100% after a cell balance and an additional charge will be required.

Click to expand...

Well, no, the bleeding circuit only matches the current being applied to the cell, so the result is no current into the cell (it all goes around it) and the cell just sits at whatever charge level, waiting for the others to catch up.

That's my story for today, anyhow. To pull extra charge out, while charge is in progress, would require higher wattage parts, generate more heat, etc. Doesn't seem like the engineers would choose that path.

Do not get me wrong. I love my Leaf and if my lease expired today I would lease another. In 2 years there may be other choices.

I knew going into my lease that the battery would degrade. This is a fact of lithium battery technology and I can live with its limitations. The fact is that there is no perfect battery. If you think yours is I have some Florida swamp land I will make you a deal on.

FYI, I lost my second capacity tick a few days ago... Based on when I lost my first, it seems to be fairly linear...

GlennD said:

Do not get me wrong. I love my Leaf.

Click to expand...

So what was the point of this thread?

My So Cal experience is the Leaf still does what I want it to do, and it does so without complaint. I drive a little slower now to not see a VLBW - I time my longest journey (65 miles over a large mountain) to get there at the LBW.

I have 22,000 miles and have owned my Leaf since March of 2011.

The temp gauge in the car read 105 today when I was in the Mojave desert, as I am almost every Sunday. I charged it to 100% after I arrived at 8 AM, and then moved the car into the shade of a tree around 1PM when I observed two numbers - one the temp gauge I already stated, and the other a 95 on the GOM. (This summer in Burbank I saw 103 on the temp gauge many times at 4 pm as I left work, so my car has seen its share of high temps.)

I didn't really believe either number today.

I did however know my Leaf would get me home, which it did, with a drive through In N Out (AC on) added on in Lancaster.

I also love my Leaf, and they can't have it back.

TomT said:

FYI, I lost my second capacity tick a few days ago... Based on when I lost my first, it seems to be fairly linear...

Click to expand...

Strange to hear you have lost two bars when I have lost none TomT. Our milage is close to the same, how often do you go to 100%?

Very rarely; maybe once or twice a month... Perhaps it is hotter on average where I live than you...

It will be interesting to see what happens starting next month when work moves to a new facility at Universal City... It'll be closer to home but hotter than where I presently work on the West Side... However, I'll be parking indoors rather than outdoors.

Caracalover said:

TomT said:

FYI, I lost my second capacity tick a few days ago... Based on when I lost my first, it seems to be fairly linear...

Click to expand...

Strange to hear you have lost two bars when I have lost none TomT. Our milage is close to the same, how often do you go to 100%?

Click to expand...

TomT said:

Very rarely; maybe once or twice a month... Perhaps it is hotter on average where I live than you...

Caracalover said:

TomT said:

FYI, I lost my second capacity tick a few days ago... Based on when I lost my first, it seems to be fairly linear...

Click to expand...

Strange to hear you have lost two bars when I have lost none TomT. Our milage is close to the same, how often do you go to 100%?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Could be, do you park in a garage?

What elevation?

I park in a garage, and am at about 1800 feet.

A garage at about 1,400 feet...

Caracalover said:

What elevation?
I park in a garage, and am at about 1800 feet.

Click to expand...

padamson1 said:

Herm said:

GlennD said:

This morning my 100% charge read 264 gids or 94%

Click to expand...

My WAG is that the accuracy of the GID counter is 5%, so perhaps you only had 1% degradation, or you sneezed while less than 10ft from the the Leaf

Click to expand...

My understanding is that a timed 100% charge will not perform cell balancing, only a manual override 100% and leaving it plugged for a couple of extra hours will get the balancing done. However just doing one manual 100% charge is not enough because the LEAF's top-balancing involves bleeding higher voltage cells until all cells are within a small difference, which means the battery is not really at 100% after a cell balance and an additional charge will be required. Thus most recommend doing two or three successive 100% charges, the first being a manual timer override to perform the cell balance and depleting the battery at least 10% in between the charges, to get the actual peak GID number.

So even taking into consideration the GID error measurement percentage, there is a source of error for a lower GID reading. No guarantee, but from other postings on this subject I'll bet that you pick up enough GIDs to raise your percentage if you follow the recommended practice.

Click to expand...

I live in coastal Orange County, Southern California. Just some comparison data from my LEAF:
Delivery date: March 30, 2011
Manufacture date: 2/11
Mileage: 16,550
EDIT: My usual Gid count at 100% up until early May, 2012 was 281 Gids.
Usual Charge %: 100% first 13 months, 80% for the past 5 months
Battery capacity bars: still 12 bars
Driving range from full charge to turtle on July 7, 2012 at 4.0 mi/kWh indicated on dash: 75 miles. This is 87% of the full range at a similar driving economy when the car was new of 86.5 miles.

My 80% charge Gids most recently were in the range of 206 to 204 this past week (about 88% of new battery 231 Gids).
I charged to 100% each night for the past four nights. I used an end timer for the first of these four charges, and a start timer only for the remaining three charges. The Gid readings after the four charges were 243, 240, 247 and 246 (about 88% of new battery 281 Gids).

You can draw your own conclusions, but it looks like successive 100% charges without an end timer might contribute to a more complete full charge.

I agree that I'd rather have zero battery degradation, and when I took delivery of the car, I didn't expect to see any loss for the better part of the first three years. Now that I've read a lot more about lithium batteries, it's clear that capacity loss comes with the territory, though to a varying degree depending on chemistry, temperature management, depth of charge and discharge and many other factors. I think that Nissan should have prepared us better for early capacity loss by making it clear during the initial publicity and buyer screening that we should expect measurable range reduction within the first 18 months. I'm glad I leased, and that decision was carefully made with the expectations that new technology carries with it many unknowns and that the first generations of most new technology are rapidly succeeded by better versions, often at lower prices.

That said, my average daily driving is 30 to 40 miles, and even at 80% charge, I can drive 60 miles. So it looks like the LEAF will be able to fulfill our driving needs through the end of our 39 month lease. Nissan claims that capacity loss is greatest at the beginning of the battery's life and then it levels off. The Arizona loss data looks more linear than that. I'm very curious as to whether we'll see lessening of the rate of Gid loss as the temperatures drop this fall, and even an increase in Gid capacity.

some background for me. i got my LEAF in Jan. used 120 volt charging for 4 months SOC stayed around 40-70%. charged to 100% about 3-5 times a month.

Summer started and i moved started charging 240 at 12 amps and going to 100% 8-10 times a month then going back to 100% charges 3-5 times a month when winter 2011/2012 started.

from March 2nd on, i started charging to 100% 15-20 times a month and i currently have 22,000 miles.

now, the SOC meter should be used as a guideline and no single measurement taken with more than a grain of salt.

my last 6 measurements
274
271
271
273
277
280 (this morning)

temps got colder over the last few days but another thing. if all things were equal each GID should be good for just over .3 miles.

my 280 was measured this morning at 6:30 am when i reset the meter thinking SO was taking it and she took Prius instead. it was 56º

i ended up leaving house at 12:30 and temps were mid 60's. GID was at 279. i take off and GID count drops rapidly to 275 all within ½ mile so about a GID per 10th which tells me the real GID count is closer to 276 max.

on your 264 reading. i did a hot weather charging experiment where instead of charging at night, i parked the car in direct sunlight on the hottest day of the year and started charging at 11 am to 4:30 pm and did this for 4 days in a row.

my GID count was as low as 263...

now, in your case, my situation may mean nothing.

I am starting to hear people describe their LEAF as
around 3 months old and already at 91% capacity.

I am beginning to wonder if the new LEAFs are
actually showing 99% to 100% when delivered.

If not, then maybe the cells going into the packs,
or the packs themselves, are substantially older
than the vehicle itself.

Try to find some LEAFs at a dealer that are freshly
charged to 80% and see if the GID-Meter indicates
82% as it did on mine when it was new.
(or 281/100% GIDs for a 100% charge).

garygid said:

I am starting to hear people describe their LEAF as
around 3 months old and already at 91% capacity.

Click to expand...

Gary, i can believe that. if you are in an area where you are seeing temps in the mid 90's and better on a regular basis i think you will get 4-6 % back when the weather cools down.

i really wish i had your GID meter last Summer

DaveinOlyWA said:

garygid said:

I am starting to hear people describe their LEAF as
around 3 months old and already at 91% capacity.

Click to expand...

Gary, i can believe that. if you are in an area where you are seeing temps in the mid 90's and better on a regular basis i think you will get 4-6 % back when the weather cools down.

i really wish i had your GID meter last Summer

Click to expand...

If only it would, cool down, it hit 105F today.

My point is I am not of "My Leaf can do no wrong", but I can live with its inevitable battery degradation. Anyone that thinks Nissan has achieved the prefect battery is drinking that Kool Aid.

I am unfortunately one of the folks who just suddenly was affected by this problem. In fact, the car has been going great up to this point - so much that I wasn't even aware that there *was* some sort of battery issue.

I have had my car for 16 months, and it has about 17.5k miles on it and all of a sudden (seemingly in the past 3 months) I have been getting less and less range, and last week I lost my first capacity bar. When I charge my car up it now shows about 65 miles of range (5:00 full charge time btw) , and I am able to get between 50-60 with my normal freeway drive to work.

This is a pretty huge issues for me- and at this rate, by Christmas I won't actually be able to drive my car anymore to work.

I took it to the dealer - they did some capacity tests and confirmed that I have lost ~20% capacity. They also gave the standard "this is normal" answer - even though I was led to believe that I would have 80% capacity at 5 years, not 16 months. I leased the vehicle for 39 months figuring that I would have no real issues with battery capacity.

I called Nissan Consumer Affairs and logged a case number - so I am on "The List" now... but the representative, while nice, didn't really have any information he could give me other than that Nissan was "looking into the reports" and for me to keep calling and checking in.

I also called NMAC to see if I could just early-term the lease and walk away from it - since the car is licensed in California things are more difficult - they would have to put the car up on auction and then I would be financially liable for the difference between what it sold for on auction and what my buyout is today. I broached the subject of how unfair that seemed since I was turning the vehicle in because it wasn't actually living up to expectations and I would be able to not drive it in a couple of months. The NMAC representative made the distinction that I need to work with Nissan on that - NMAC was just the finance group (which I get, but its frustrating).

So - At this point I will just have to wait and see what Nissan is able to do about this. I really hope I don't have a huge paperweight in my driveway in a couple of months and me still paying the lease payment.

Matt

Mathewbeall did you call Nissan start a case 1-877 NO GAS EV (664-2738) , if you have your car info it can be added to the WIKI, check out some other post here , Nissan seems to be coming to the table with offers for AZ cars. still waiting to see what that is. if you get a case number post the info here http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; , sorry to hear the loss.