80% Charge only 9 bars?

Hi all -

So suddenly and just in the past couple of days when I charge the LEAF to 80%, it stops charging with only 9 bars.

We've had the car since 8/2011. We charge to 100% maybe once every other month and have only QC'd once. We have a Blink EVSE and that timer is off. We have the LEAF timer set to charge at off peak hours only and always to 80%.

Any ideas as to what might be going on? Up until now, we would always gets 10 bars when charging to 80%.

The 10th bar is only a partial bar at 80% charge. The Leaf rounds the bars up if over 9.5 bars, but if slightly less will round down. So, for example, you probably went from, say 9.7 bars to 9.4 bars. Assuming about 14 actual bars, this is a change of about 0.3/14 = 2.1% or about 6 Gids. It could be even less, depending on exactly where your car was on an 80% charge in terms of the number of bars displayed. Bottom line is that without a Gid-o-meter with before and after readings, there is no way to be sure exactly how much less charge the battery is holding.

Go 100% one day a week and see if it helps.

smkettner said:

Go 100% one day a week and see if it helps.

Click to expand...

You're thinking for balance? If so, agree, but not 100% by timer override. Timer off.

This happens to me often. More often lately than before. I chalk it up to the rounding errors in the indicator and the meter/sensor.

Here's something you can try. If you only get 9 bars and charging at 80% is stopped, manually start charging again either via Carwings or with the timer override button. Then get a charging level request through Carwings immediately and repeatedly until you see 10 bars.

If within a minute or two, you go from 9 bars to 10 bars, then it means that you're already VERY close to getting 10 bars (a minute or two away from it), therefore it's just rounding errors and only a minute more of charge pushes you to 10 bars. It's just that the 80% sensor stops the charging only a minute or two prematurely compared to the bar reader due to the slight differences in the sensor reading and the bar indicator reading. So you have nothing to worry about.

If it takes much longer than a minute or two before you go to 10 bars, then you may have something to worry about.

Of the several times I tried out this test, I always get to 10 bars within a minute or so of further charging. So I'm not worried.

You also have to remember that the bar scale isn't necessarily linear, so the top bar couple of bars may represent more or less charge than the middle bars. There is a lot of folklore building up about this, which is why a numerical SOC meter would be so useful. Just give me the numbers....

That said, I also think of destinations in terms of number of bars. So, my wife will use 6 bars getting to work, get four bars charging and make it back home with four bars.

shrink said:

Hi all -

So suddenly and just in the past couple of days when I charge the LEAF to 80%, it stops charging with only 9 bars.

We've had the car since 8/2011. We charge to 100% maybe once every other month and have only QC'd once. We have a Blink EVSE and that timer is off. We have the LEAF timer set to charge at off peak hours only and always to 80%.

Any ideas as to what might be going on? Up until now, we would always gets 10 bars when charging to 80%.

Click to expand...

Wow - the same thing is happening to me also, and I also bought my Leaf in 8/2011. I normally charge to 80%, then about 2x a month, I charge to 100% when needed. Just in the last couple of weeks an 80% charging was giving 9 bars.

One thing I tried was to change the Leaf timer to end around 7AM, instead of 5AM. This was closer to the time I leave in the morning. And suprisingly, that made a difference. Several days have goon by, and an 80% charge always give 10 bars now.

As others have mentioned, it's clear it was barely into that 10th bar anyways, as it never lasted there anyways - only got a few miles with that 10th bar. So, perhaps it would drop just sitting there a little longer. I don't know if that's an indicator that we're seeing some capacity drop of some sort? Or is it because of the recent increase in average temperature affecting things, and the battery's warmer while charging?

ebill3 said:

smkettner said:

Go 100% one day a week and see if it helps.

Click to expand...

You're thinking for balance? If so, agree, but not 100% by timer override. Timer off.

Click to expand...

Balance might be some but mostly just for excercise to flex the battery chemistry to the top.
Just use the second timer to go 100% once a week. Do this the night before a normally busy day if you don't put a lot of miles on the vehicle. I might be full of it but that is my reccomentation.

I think Volusiano may have been the first to report this phenomenon last summer. I noticed it happening to me in mid-summer as I recall and it seemed to go back to a 10-bar showing in the fall and winter. I noticed it again in the past week or so.

Don't know if this happens to folks in other parts of the country or not.

Charging to over 9.5 will show 10 bars, but under 9.5 shows just 9 bars.
So, charging to 9.45 instead of 9.55 will show 9 bars instead of 10.

Try to equalize the battery cells by charging to 100% and staying
plugged in for 3 or 4 hours after the charging finishes.

Volusiano said:

Here's something you can try. If you only get 9 bars and charging at 80% is stopped, manually start charging again either via Carwings or with the timer override button. Then get a charging level request through Carwings immediately and repeatedly until you see 10 bars.

If within a minute or two, you go from 9 bars to 10 bars, then it means that you're already VERY close to getting 10 bars (a minute or two away from it), therefore it's just rounding errors and only a minute more of charge pushes you to 10 bars.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I actually did exactly as you suggested and what do you know - 10 bars after about a minute.

I'm still a bit concerned, but glad I'm not alone. Maybe it is the Phoenix heat. We are in the 90's already.

garygid said:

Try to equalize the battery cells by charging to 100% and staying
plugged in for 3 or 4 hours after the charging finishes.

Click to expand...

I'll try that, too. Looks like there are a couple of other Phoenix area folks here and we are dealing with the same conditions. Chalk it up to the heat or do you think equalizing will help?

IMPORTANT: Bars are not an absolute measure of energy in the battery. They are a (very rough) measure of how much energy is there compared to how much could be there.

If the battery were to be so degraded that it could hold only half as much energy as it used to hold, and you filled it up, it would still show 12 bars. [There are five full pages of glass-half-full pictures in the Service Manual with the sole purpose of making that and related charge vs. capacity vs. temperature issues clear to service people.] We all have to stop thinking of a bar as being like a "gallon" of electricity. A bar is a variable amount of electricity, depending on how much life is left in our battery.

Until we pound that apparently illogical reality into our heads we will continue to react incorrectly to an observation like "only 9 bars". It does not mean that the battery is losing capacity. It might mean, for example, that the battery was charged to 80% when cold, and then it warmed up. A warm battery can hold more electricity, so now it is less than 80% full, but it hasn't lost any electricity. Instead, the capacity has increased! That's a good thing, no?

Ray

Yep, Ray is correct. I now have about a 10% or so battery capacity loss, but it always charges to 12 bars (83%-85% SoC on the gauge).
And it is only a minute or so to make ten bars from a full nine after charging to 80%.
Even with my 10% battery capacity loss, I still did 150 miles/8.5 console/8.4 dash (only goes to 8.0 on the readout) on ONE CHARGE yesterday at the EV 100 Mile Efficiency Rally which was all on city streets. I could have done 170 miles if I had started with full capacity. (I'll post the photo shots later for those that are skeptical...lol). :mrgreen:
I've never had any urge or reason to drive 100 miles or more on one charge (even though I always had the m/kW h numbers to prove it) until this EV Rally came about and I respectfully decline 'membership' in the 'mile' clubs.

10% capacity loss..? how and when did that happen ?

I thought we had another member in this forum who had a similar or more loss, almost right after he bought the car.

LEAFfan said:

Even with my 10% battery capacity loss, I still did 150 miles/8.5 console/8.4 dash (only goes to 8.0 on the readout) on ONE CHARGE yesterday at the EV 100 mile Efficiency Rally which was all on city streets.

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Did you reset your 'avg speed' (dash) before the rally?
If so, what was your avg speed to achieve your '8.5 console/8.4 dash' mi/kwh nos.?

mkjayakumar said:

10% capacity loss..? how and when did that happen ?

I thought we had another member in this forum who had a similar or more loss, almost right after he bought the car.

Click to expand...

My LEAF also sat three months (in the heat) in the LA port like Ticktock's. It just started showing the capacity loss a couple weeks ago. I first realized it with my SoC gauge, then later, the 'EV systems warning light' (orange car with !)

JPVLeaf said:

LEAFfan said:

Even with my 10% battery capacity loss, I still did 150 miles/8.5 console/8.4 dash (only goes to 8.0 on the readout) on ONE CHARGE yesterday at the EV 100 mile Efficiency Rally which was all on city streets.

Click to expand...

Did you reset your 'avg speed' (dash) before the rally?
If so, what was your avg speed to achieve your '8.5 console/8.4 dash' mi/kwh nos.?

Click to expand...

LOL, that's proprietary information. I may want to enter the next one. I will say that I did drive somewhere between 24 and 35 most of the time using Cruise.

LEAFfan said:

I will say that I did drive somewhere between 24 and 35 most of the time using Cruise.

Click to expand...

So, 150 miles at about 30 mph -- Any bathroom breaks?

I know we've razzed you in the past about "coulda, woulda, shoulda," but today I only have one word for you: Congratulations!

Ray

planet4ever said:

LEAFfan said:

I will say that I did drive somewhere between 24 and 35 most of the time using Cruise.

Click to expand...

So, 150 miles at about 30 mph -- Any bathroom breaks?
I know we've razzed you in the past about "coulda, woulda, shoulda," but today I only have one word for you: Congratulations!
Ray

Click to expand...

Thanks Ray.
Actually, we took several restroom breaks and a lunch break so I drove my extra 50 miles later that evening, again on city streets. It was really nice that it wasn't a race, although a Mitsubishi flew by me so maybe they thought it was a race instead of an efficiency rally.