Mismatch between dashboard % and LeafSpy

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BuckMkII

Well-known member
Joined
May 6, 2017
Messages
258
Location
Seattle
When I turned on my car this AM, dashboard said 23% then almost immediately clicked down to 22%. LeafSpy said 30.3% then clicked to 30.2%. Who to believe? Why such a big mismatch? I've seen mismatches sometimes, but not always. This is the worst I've noticed.
 
The dash display % SoC was developed before and independently of Leaf Spy. It appeared as a (much requested) new feature beginning on model year 2013 Leafs. '11 and '12 Leafs didn't have it.

If http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=14285 is correct w/the approx start date of the 1st public version of Leaf Spy, that wasn't until the '13 Leaf had been on the market for many months. I have no idea if Turbo3 was able to retrieve the value used by the dash display and whether he renders it anywhere in the UI. I personally don't care about much about any sort of % SoC or % gid values in Leaf Spy as I don't know the denominator.
 
BuckMkII said:
When I turned on my car this AM, dashboard said 23% then almost immediately clicked down to 22%. LeafSpy said 30.3% then clicked to 30.2%. Who to believe? Why such a big mismatch? I've seen mismatches sometimes, but not always. This is the worst I've noticed.
Just a WAG but is your car missing a bar or two? I see the same thing, worse with my '12(missing 3 bars) vs full bars on my '13. I kind of thought LeafSpy might be reading % of remaining battery capacity vs the car which could be reading % of a new battery?? As the battery degrades the car won't be able to show 100% even for a fully charged battery because it's going off 100% of a new full capacity battery.......just guessing.
 
I swear, Leafspy has caused more problems for people since the writer tried to help people by creating the app.

People love to complain about their car's voltage, cells, capacity, and even the reported air pressure in their tires. Its like people cant handle getting a little information. They get obsessed with calculating, proving, and comparing the information on Leafspy and other things.

Leafspy is a great little program that was made to give use more information than the stupid GOM. Used it to get a general idea of your car's functioning, and just drive the car.
 
To expand on what I said earlier, since '11 and '12 Leafs had such crap instrumentation due to lack of % SoC display, people were using gids as a proxy for % SoC. It's far more granular than the 12 fuel bars (not the capacity bars).

New Leafs started at around ~279 to 281 gids on a full charge on a new battery: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=251341#p251341. There was this thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=5582.
 
powersurge said:
I swear, Leafspy has caused more problems for people since the writer tried to help people by creating the app.

People love to complain about their car's voltage, cells, capacity, and even the reported air pressure in their tires. Its like people cant handle getting a little information. They get obsessed with calculating, proving, and comparing the information on Leafspy and other things.

Leafspy is a great little program that was made to give use more information than the stupid GOM. Used it to get a general idea of your car's functioning, and just drive the car.
What the Terminator said to the guy who asked if he had a dead cat in there.

If a thread doesn't interest you, just saying nothing is always an option.
 
BuckMkII said:
When I turned on my car this AM, dashboard said 23% then almost immediately clicked down to 22%. LeafSpy said 30.3% then clicked to 30.2%. Who to believe? Why such a big mismatch? I've seen mismatches sometimes, but not always. This is the worst I've noticed.

Nissan grades on a curve at the bottom and top of the pack. Get your car to 50% SOC ((dash soc% + leafspy SOC%)/2)=50% and see how much difference there is between the two. Whatever that difference is at the middle of the pack expect Nissan to round up drastically at the top of the pack and round down drastically at the bottom.

The purpose is to get you to avoid using the car over or undercharged.
 
dhanson865 said:
Nissan grades on a curve at the bottom and top of the pack. Get your car to 50% SOC ((dash soc% + leafspy SOC%)/2)=50% and see how much difference there is between the two. Whatever that difference is at the middle of the pack expect Nissan to round up drastically at the top of the pack and round down drastically at the bottom.

The purpose is to get you to avoid using the car over or undercharged.
When the dash says 100%, LeafSpy is around 97% and a couple of tenths. I always resent the five or so "missing" GIDs, but for my purposes, this is inconsequential. We only use 20 to 50% of the capacity in a typical day. I asked this question mainly to see if there was any interesting lore about how LeafSpy works.
 
Here's what I've observed at cool temperatures (from 40-60f). Leafspy starts out a little bit under 100%, then crosses at about 80% and ends up higher at the low end.

Dash Leafspy
100 97
90 88
80 80
70 72
60 63
50 55
40 46
30 38
20 29

At the low end I don't have very much data, but I think that at warm temperatures they start to converge again. The interesting thing is at low and high temperatures the bottom end changes quite a bit. When it was 80 this summer the dash and leafspy were pretty similar. The last few days it's been well below zero and I've noticed that the difference at the low end is MUCH larger. Last night it was about -3 and when the dash said 24 Leafspy said 42.
 
bongo2 said:
At the low end I don't have very much data, but I think that at warm temperatures they start to converge again. The interesting thing is at low and high temperatures the bottom end changes quite a bit. When it was 80 this summer the dash and leafspy were pretty similar. The last few days it's been well below zero and I've noticed that the difference at the low end is MUCH larger. Last night it was about -3 and when the dash said 24 Leafspy said 42.

Yes, it is very useful but then begs the question: which one is right? I use a similar meter (LeafDD) that gets particular attention when I'm at the "bottom of the pack"...especially when it's cold out (like it is now).
 
I'm "guessing" LeafSpy is more correct and the dash SOC meter is being optimistic at the top end and pessimistic at the low end, similar to the GOM :)
 
For me, the dash says 100% and LeadSpy 90.5%. That seems like a big discrepancy to me, any clues as to why?
 
cmwade77 said:
For me, the dash says 100% and LeadSpy 90.5%. That seems like a big discrepancy to me, any clues as to why?
Did you see my replies near the beginning of the thread?

I don't care about Leaf Spy's percentage displays.
 
cwerdna said:
cmwade77 said:
For me, the dash says 100% and LeadSpy 90.5%. That seems like a big discrepancy to me, any clues as to why?
Did you see my replies near the beginning of the thread?

I don't care about Leaf Spy's percentage displays.
Ok, you dont, others might and while I understand some discrepancy, that seems like a large one to me.
 
STOP arguing about a bunch of freakin percentage points.. The numbers that the car gives you is standard across all cars. THe Leafspy numbers "may" be more precise. THEY WERE NOT MADE TO AGREE.

This is like complaining and arguing about why a gas car fuel gauge isn't accurate of how many gallons of gas you have left... Because it is not supposed to be.
 
BuckMkII said:
When I turned on my car this AM, dashboard said 23% then almost immediately clicked down to 22%. LeafSpy said 30.3% then clicked to 30.2%. Who to believe? Why such a big mismatch? I've seen mismatches sometimes, but not always. This is the worst I've noticed.


Dash; usable

LEAF Spy; reality
 
cmwade77 said:
cwerdna said:
cmwade77 said:
For me, the dash says 100% and LeadSpy 90.5%. That seems like a big discrepancy to me, any clues as to why?
Did you see my replies near the beginning of the thread?

I don't care about Leaf Spy's percentage displays.
Ok, you dont, others might and while I understand some discrepancy, that seems like a large one to me.
To quote my reply:
cwerdna said:
The dash display % SoC was developed before and independently of Leaf Spy. It appeared as a (much requested) new feature beginning on model year 2013 Leafs. '11 and '12 Leafs didn't have it.

If http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=14285 is correct w/the approx start date of the 1st public version of Leaf Spy, that wasn't until the '13 Leaf had been on the market for many months. I have no idea if Turbo3 was able to retrieve the value used by the dash display and whether he renders it anywhere in the UI. I personally don't care about much about any sort of % SoC or % gid values in Leaf Spy as I don't know the denominator.
Given what I stated, why would you expect them to match? Also, Turbo3 (author of Leaf Spy) didn't have a '13 Leaf. AFAIK, he still only has an '11 Leaf. Maybe a year or two ago, he borrowed my '13 for an evening to do some testing as he lives near me.

If you are really curious how Leaf Spy's % SoC is derived and/or what he renders from the CAN bus which has that value/is used to derive it, you'll need to try to dig for posts from Turbo3 on this. It's obviously not the same as whatever black box algorithm 2013 to 2017 Leafs use for the dash display, which '11 and '12 Leafs didn't even have.

I think the earliest build months we've seen of US market '13 Leafs are 1/2013.

See why I don't care?

edit: I think I found some posts that relate to where Leaf Spy's % SoC comes from. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=280721#p280721 and the response from garygid (for which the unit gid was named, in his honor). Looks like someone sorta asked the question in the OP before: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=314356#p314356.
 
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