Lowest Charging Temperature

Hello,

Here in the Denver area this morning my 28.6 mile commute was 14 degrees the whole way. Made it to work with no problem (or heat) with 59% and 50 miles to go. Not bad I'm thinking especially because I use much more energy going to work than going home. But my question is. . . What's the lowest temperature you've been able to charge your LEAF at? I stopped at two charging stations near my office and neither one of them wanted to give me a boost. The Eaton station didn't even turn on (it was working the other day) and the ChargePoint station seemed like it was working but twenty minutes in, it said "nope, you're not getting any juice".

What say you?

Thanks!

Hmm, I woke up to 21 degrees this morning here in Iowa...took son to school, then hooked-up the Charge-Point at Hy-Vee for about 30 min. while I had coffee and breakfast...I gained 15 miles in that charge, so it must have been working OK. This was the first "real cold" morning on my 16 mile commute, and it worked out fine. Seemed my usage only went down about 3 miles. Hopefully I get the same result coming home.

My cold weather question is this; My LEAF is going to sit in the parking lot for 9 hours with no hook-up. Will I loose any of my charge (currently at 50 miles) when I go to leave for the day? I guess I will find about in about 8 hours!!!!!

Thanks for the reply IowaShocker. . . .

So mine's been sitting outside for about four hours now in 15 degrees and it hasn't seemed to have lost anything.

ed

Charging the battery will warm it up, so when it is really cold, it helps to charge it. I don't think it can be too cold to charge the battery?

This is the coldest I've charged at, using my upgraded Nissan/Panasonic portable EVSE:



However, my battery was warm from charging/driving all the previous day and I charged overnight to keep it from getting down to that ambient temperature; it was on the cusp of one to two temp bars, so not all that cold.

If the battery really does get down to the 0ºF range — the battery heater comes on at -4ºF — the LEAF reportedly doesn't charge well (as the folks in Norway discovered early on). In that case it is best to drive it a bit to warm up the battery before charging. Unless you park outside at night, charging issues due to cold seem unlikely in the Denver metro area. The battery has a lot of thermal mass so it takes some time to fall in temperature and 8 hours outside during the day seems unlikely to get the battery down to ambient temperature unless it starts out quite cold.

My the way, it is a balmy 49ºF over here on this side of the mountains!

The battery will shut off at -30C.

The heaters (six 50w heaters) come on at -20C, and turn off at -10C.

You guys ROCK! Thank you.

So if the charging stations were in good operating order it should have been charging. I'm going to go hit one in a little bit that is always solid so hopefully it goes well. If not, it needs to go to the shop and have NISSAN give it a look. We've still got a bunch of low temperatures to get through so they'll have plenty of time to check it out.

Thanks again for all of the great feedback.

Sounds more like the problem was with those two stations, not your car.

DNAinaGoodWay said:

Sounds more like the problem was with those two stations, not your car.

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+1

Also note that today isn't a good indication of how the car will behave as temps stay cold. Before that cold front came through Colorado, Kansas and the rest of the Mid-West yesterday, temps were very mild at 60-70 degrees. There's a lot of thermal mass in that battery. It will take a couple days to really cool down to close to ambient temps. Keep an eye on the temp bars on the left side of your dash over the next day or two to see this happen.

Last winter I used a Nissan branded sumitomo built dcfc at 4F several times with no issues
One time the cord was so frozen I could barely bend it to get it in the socket

Also at my old house my L2 unit was on the outside wall of the garage and I parked the leaf outside at night to charge, no issues at all down to 0F many nights

In fact I recommend outside charging for summer night time cooling!

My end of day random wrap up. . . .

• My guess was that one charging station was Out of Services and there was some "user error" to blame for the other one. I may not have hit the button to disable the timer, the car did what it was supposed to do and the charging station was fine.
• Left the office after lunch for an appointment in the PM. Got to a good charging station and juiced up for about an hour and ten minutes. Left with 80% and 70 miles (with climate control on). Started charge at 58% and 52 miles (Not 100% sure on these numbers but they're close).
• Outside temp never got above 15 degrees, no wind and around an inch of snow for a good part of the drive. BTW, the car handled GREAT on the somewhat slick roads.
• The LEAF (and it's battery/range) absolutely LOVES bumper to bumper traffic. I guess that can be counted as kind of a "benefit" of crappy weather.
• swaltner mentioned the battery temp bars. It's been at three bars for a good part of the day. My garage stays around the mid 40's so I'm wondering if I'll have more bars in the AM.
• Home with 25% and 25 miles of range.
• 3.6 miles per kWh to end the day.

All and all I feel it turned out to be a good day. Oh, and when I figured out I had no range issues, I cranked that heat up, AWESOME.

Was definitely cold in CO today. We put the snow tires on the Leaf yesterday and with the cold temps and new snow tires we went from our nearly static 4.8 m/kwh to a dismal 3.4 m/kwh. It was depressing. I have added some air to the tires and hope that that will help a little bit to get back above 3.5. I think a reasonable winter range in the Leaf in the Denver area is about 60 miles on a full charge. A heated garage would make a nice difference but I'm not any where close to that yet, would be a lot of work in the garage to make that happen. BTW we have a 3.6 kWh solar system installed, and just love charging from sunlight.

Cheers,
Shane

TonyWilliams said:

The battery will shut off at -30C.

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Shut off? Like in not charge anymore..Or?

Last winter it was wicked cold here, I posted in thread about cold and range. I remember traveling 18 miles at -22F without issues. And my G/F's Leaf sits outside full time and did take a charge through that cold spell. Admittedly slower, 'about' 2 hours per traction bar with Level I trickle charging.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11123&p=347552#p347552" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Redjr said:

TonyWilliams said:

The battery will shut off at -30C.

Click to expand...

Shut off? Like in not charge anymore..Or?

Last winter it was wicked cold here, I posted in thread about cold and range. I remember traveling 18 miles at -22F without issues. And my G/F's Leaf sits outside full time and did take a charge through that cold spell. Admittedly slower, 'about' 2 hours per traction bar with Level I trickle charging.

Click to expand...

The battery won't get to -30ºC if the battery heater is working properly and/or the car is being driven and charged regularly (warms the battery). The ambient air temperature is not the same as the battery temperature except under unusual circumstances (no battery heater function, left outside uncharged and undriven for more than a day).

Nevertheless, as you well know, extreme cold OAT does have a major effect the range of the LEAF, for a variety of reasons. And cold battery temperatures slow the charging speed considerably, again, as you know from experience.

dgpcolorado said:

The battery won't get to -30ºC if the battery heater is working properly ...

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The early 2011 LEAFs do not have a battery heater.
Cold weather package was add around mid calendar year 2011.

Fortunately for me it doesn't get that cold here very often.
I have only been outdoors one time in -24ºF.
Many years ago when I lived in Knoxville, TN.
And it was a once in one hundred year event.

NeilBlanchard said:

Charging the battery will warm it up, so when it is really cold, it helps to charge it. I don't think it can be too cold to charge the battery?

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With Li Ion cells, Lithium metal can begin plating on the anode if charged at too low of a temperature. I don't know where that point is on the LEAF cells. As far as I know the field data shows that the cooler the region the longer the life so I suspect you're right and wherever the danger point is for the LEAF cells, it's probably below the point at which the car will accept a charge.

TimLee said:

The early 2011 LEAFs do not have a battery heater.
Cold weather package was add around mid calendar year 2011...

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As you may recall, Nissan sold the the 2011 LEAF in mostly warm weather states; the rest of us had to wait. I ordered a 2012 because I wanted the cold weather package and when I placed the order in August 2011 I wasn't aware that they had been installing the CWP on some late 2011s. Could have gotten one of those cheaper — they raised the price on the 2012s by quite a lot — and a bit earlier.

Anyway, Redjr, who asked the question, has 2012 and newer LEAFs. And lives in a seriously cold weather state: Wisconsin.

dgpcolorado said:

The battery won't get to -30ºC if the battery heater is working properly and/or the car is being driven and charged regularly (warms the battery). The ambient air temperature is not the same as the battery temperature except under unusual circumstances (no battery heater function, left outside uncharged and undriven for more than a day).

Nevertheless, as you well know, extreme cold OAT does have a major effect the range of the LEAF, for a variety of reasons. And cold battery temperatures slow the charging speed considerably, again, as you know from experience.

Click to expand...

Even here on the front range part of Colorado we have had it go down that low for many days in a row. I only charge my Leaf every few days and from L1 at work. And on weekends it can sit outside for the entire time not plugged in near that limit. Is the Leaf smart enough to run the battery heaters continuously if it is plugged in to keep it warm? There were at least 10 days last year where the battery temp bar showed 1bar. We are usually about 20C colder than what is reported for the city at the airport. And we recorded a few days at -23C already this year at the airport, over -40C at the house, and I expect a couple more too.