Cold weather losses?

Anyone have data on cold weather losses?

Yesterday 40' and raining took 3.3kw to get to work versus the normal 1.9kw

On the way home no rainf temp up to 46' 1.8kw to get home.

Today no rain 41' 3.1kw to get to work again (guessing the .2kw was the rain itself?)

Is this normal? 50% increase in consumption at 40' ?

I thought i was pretty safe till it fell below 20' ?

No climate control except a few seco ds of defrost a few times to clear the windscreen like normal.

Not even using the heated seats and wheel. I have a gas heater so plenty warm

Battery temp at 4 bars unchanged all day. Charging the battery does not seem to warm it up at least not enough to change the temp bars.

Thoughts?

I typically lose 25 to 30% range when fall arrives. Tony's range chart states 1% range loss for every 2c below 20C (68F) (conservative). The heat pump take very little energy but initial 3kwh draw from the resistive heater for about 2 minutes upon start. Also sea level and pouring rain doesn't help. Add to that the 30% MINIMUM soc for the battery heaters to work when the temp hits -17c (1.4F) ( only happens here for a few days usually in late Dec. or Jan.) and I find I am charging a lot more in the winter. On the positive side, the degradation slows down at these temps ( apparently).

nerys what gas heater are you running?

If that's what the car and battery used in your hands, then that is what they used. Where would you think the stored energy has gone, if not into tractive and heating power? It is within the bounds of normality.

The battery usage is an estimate based on a number of parameters. It may be that which has a degree of uncertainty, adding to the trend you are seeing.

These numbers don't add up to me. It seems like there is another variable here, perhaps one you aren't considering, like wind speed and direction. A 20-30mph headwind can really increase the energy consumption.

Colder air is also more dense than warmer air, so it takes more energy to push the car through it.

I have found that the car uses more energy at 4 temp bars than at 5 or 6. I assume that the battery's internal resistance is higher at lower temperatures. But the difference is on the order of 10%.

Donald. My fear is in reporting.

What is uses is what it uses. That is correct.

But what it reports to me is in no way assured to be what it is using.

My concern is my battery is more degraded that instrumentation indicates. Ie the instruments are lying so to speak.

This is clearly obvious to some extent. Do this. Charge the car overnight. How many miles does it say you can go.?

Now drive 10 miles and charge it to full again. Now how many miles does it say?

Mine says 103 the first time and 89 the second time.

I was a bit shocked when 40' f made such a large difference. Will it drop linearly as tempts drop?

I am using a little buddy indoor propane heater that runs on the little 1 pound canisters that i refill myself.

I only run it when in the car.

No idea. I was quite shocked. At first i thought something was wrong with the car. My max speed was 35mph and i drive like granny.

Once it warmed up i was getting 5+ m/kw again. Coming home no rain and lights on i got over 5.5 m/kw

That or the top (fully charged) kw reading is a fiction. Ie battery is holding less than the 18.5kw reported so the m/kw is whacked as a result of the reading dumping to catch up to its actual capacity.??

I am guessing here but it seems to fit what is happening.

It just got a lot worse at 40'.

temps are now 45 and its behaving normally again. In fact today its windy as crap. 20+ sustained winds and it is not "visibly" effecting my mileage. Still holding at around 4.8 to 4.9 m/kw. I suspect my average and max speeds are so slow that any increase in wind resistance is just small potatoes compared to my base loads.

Just concerned over what will happen at 30' or 20'

I am not worried about having too little range.

I am worried about the car feeding me garbage and me taking off on a trip i think i have enough range for and i do not. (Note i am using leaf spy for these numbers not the gom)

That would suck.

I am also worried my battery will dip below 60% in the future and i wont get a warranty replacement because the system ficticiously thinks it has more than it really does.

Just really hoping i get 90,000 usable miles. After that i dont care if the battery melts. I will just buy another one.

Is there any chance you had the climate control in vent with temperature set to lowest setting? If so, the resistance heater will run when the interior gets cold enough. That would explain your mi/kWh difference between morning and evening. Bring up the energy screen on the NAV unit to keep an eye on climate control use. I must be careful when using vent even in Phoenix to keep the resistance heater from coming on.

Gerry

Is the car being pre-warmed while attached to L1/L2 power? Finding it helps a lot along with using the heated seats/steering wheel.

I'm also running through 40*F commutes and deliberately parking outside overnight to see what 4 temp bars does to my expected range It's definitely hungry for power and hitting LBW 3-4 miles from home instead of at the end of the driveway on the return trip. So counting on maybe another month of daily use before parking the LEAF in favor of my CRV for the winter. Oh well, electric commutes were good while they lasted.

I am pretty good about checking that. Especially since i had to use defrost a few times i check to aee the mileage change take effect.

I have a feeling it is the top portion of the charge where the kw reading from the battery is simply not accurate. If i use 81m as the start metric then the 71 i had when i arrived fits perfectly.

It reports 18.5 but i do not think it actually has 18.5kw in it. Think how a car battery has around 14v on charge but drops to 12.8 to 13v "resting" voltage.

I am thinking something similar here.

Battery gives x voltage car calculates 18.5kw voltages rapidly drop into "real" values once you start using it but the software simply assumes you "used" that power and gives readings accordingly.

When i got the car 6 weeks ago it was reporting 20kw. (19.9kw)

Then 19.5 then 19.0 and now it seems to have stabilized around 18.5kw.

Problem is that is nearly 10% of the battery. I might have altered my decision based on that ie saught one with lower degredation. Though h I nestly i would likely still have b ought it and just crossed my fingers

Now i just want to plan for winter. Make sure i dont end up stuck somewhere.

Yes i pre heat 1 to 2 hours these last few days now that i have 220v charging.

I am not even using the wheel or seat heat. Just dont need it yet especially if i have the gas heat going.

Today over 50' back to normal 2kw to get to work in the morning.

I just hope it is not linear as temp drops ie bug drol them taper off to stability.

I am still hoping to squeeze 53 miles out of it in the winter.

nerys said:

Yes i pre heat 1 to 2 hours these last few days now that i have 220v charging.

I am not even using the wheel or seat heat. Just dont need it yet especially if i have the gas heat going.

Click to expand...

What EVSE did you end up getting?

nerys, why do you keep on using the wrong units? It's confusing.

We went over this before and you were involved in arguments about this, as well. kW and kWh are very different metrics. It's the same as confusing gallons with horsepower. Think of kW = horsepower, kWh = gallons.

Your car's displays report miles/kWh, NOT miles/kW. Your battery, when it was new had about 21 kWh usable, out of 24 kWh. Your electric provider bills you in kWh. If you're one of the rare folks who has a residential plan that also has demand charges, that would be based on kW draw within a certain time window, but that's more the exception, than the rule. And, you'd still be charged per kWh.

As stated at http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/charging-range/battery/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, the Leaf has a 24 kWh battery. Documents at http://avt.inel.gov/fsev.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; all report battery capacity in kWh.

When i type kw. READ kwh. Context makes it clear what i am talking about.

Anyway. Thursday. 30' range dropped to 70 miles actual. Roughly. Drove 65 miles lights on no climate or heating. Had 5 miles left indicated when i got home.

So 30' costs me about 20 miles. Ouch. But not as big an ouch as i feared. Next up we see what happens at 20' when the weather hits that low.

I got an evse upgrade. I also now have 220v at all 3 locations. Egg harbor hurt.

$226 in stuff to do that outlet. 97ft run. Ouch. took 3 hours to cut and run the conduit and wire. But car is happy it can now feed properly.

nerys said:

Anyway. Thursday. 30' range dropped to 70 miles actual. Roughly.

Click to expand...

At 30 I need the AC on. Costs about 10.

Wow. When i turn the heat on it knocks 21 to 22 miles off my range!

Newer heater?

nerys said:

Wow. When i turn the heat on it knocks 21 to 22 miles off my range!

Newer heater?

Click to expand...

Too hot at 30. you have a 220 mile range, then?

??? My good weather range is 90 miles. When i turn on climate control the mumber drops by 25 but in practice the drop is about 21.

nerys said:

When i type kw. READ kwh. Context makes it clear what i am talking about.

Click to expand...

nerys, why expect everyone to transpose what you write? Why do you steadfastly refuse to use the correct terms? Are you still confused by them, or is there some principle you're standing on here?


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmIGonMm9jk[/youtube]