Driving tips and concern re efficiency

Ok, I did a search of topics and couldn't find what I was looking for specifically, so I apologize if this is redundant.

Picked up our 2012 SL (21,700 miles) Friday afternoon. I currently have only the standard level one charger. Drove it around town all weekend, keeping it on the charger when not in use.

First concern - the estimated range never exceeds 70 miles. It drops rapidly after starting out. I attribute some of this to being a new EV driver, but I'm also a little concerned about capacity degradation.

Jump to today. I made my first bi-weekly commute of 42 miles. It's a mix of city and highway driving; roughly 50/50. I BARELY made it to the level 2 charger I'm using. Rolling hills, nothing steep. No climate control or lights. Radio was on. Car was showing "Charged" when I left home.

My obdii reader arrives today. I already downloaded Leafspy Pro to check my battery health, and will try that tonight, but surely there's something I'm missing? I didn't expect long distances, but is less than 45 miles a common experience?

What normal driving tips should I employ while making my occasional commute aside from the obvious (more stuff on uses more battery)?

Thanks, and cross your fingers that I make it home tonight! I have a little more elevation gain returning than getting here!

Yes we will need more information. I assume your charging to 100%? Are your tires pumped up to at least 40 PSI? How many of the battery bars (to the right of the battery full bars) is the dash showing?

As far as driving, the obvious, try to avoid quick starts and heavy braking.

minivini said:

I BARELY made it to the level 2 charger I'm using. Rolling hills, nothing steep. No climate control or lights. Radio was on. Car was showing "Charged" when I left home.

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Could you elaborate on this part? What do you define as "barely made it"? Did you hit the first low battery warning? The second one (wherein the range guess-o-meter turns to "---")? If you didn't hit the first warning, but the dash read some small number of miles remaining, don't trust it. You have 10-15 miles left AFTER the first warning in normal driving.

Will check the bars and tire pressure shortly!
Yes - charging to 100%
Thanks for the input!

By "barely", I mean the estimated range was at 1 mile. I hadn't hit the turtle yet, but the meter type changed from the usual vertical meter to a horizontal one with an ominous looking countdown.

minivini said:

By "barely", I mean the estimated range was at 1 mile. I hadn't hit the turtle yet, but the meter type changed from the usual vertical meter to a horizontal one with an ominous looking countdown.

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I'm not familiar with the horizontal countdown display. I have a 2012 SV, so I assume you have the same instrumentation as I do.

Another thought: next time you make the drive, reset the efficiency display, either on the dash or on the nav unit. This can help you determine if you are driving efficiently or not.

Two things that may not seem intuitive are to keep the highway speed below 60MPH (or just at 60 at most) and to reduce speed when climbing hills so you are using no more throttle than you use to maintain highway speed. Add to that higher tire pressure (40-42psi is good) and coasting in neutral on long downgrades if any, and you should be able to add 5 miles or so to your range. I'm afraid you are faced with the main reason not to buy a 2011-2012 Leaf: substantial battery degradation. Were you using the heater on the commute? If not, there is more Bad News ahead...

need a LOT more info here

what does "barely made it" mean? were you in turtle? LBW (first low battery warning) or VLB (2nd battery warning)

also keeping it plugged in all the time is a mistake. its one thing to make sure you have enough charge to get to where you are going but constantly topping off the charge is not good. plugging it in at night to ensure a full charge in the morning is the way to go unless you know you won't be doing much driving. the name of the game is reducing the time the battery pack sits at very low or very high SOC

Ok - good info so far!
Was on a level 2 charger, and now I'm at 100%.
The tire pressures were all at 36psi, so I bumped them up to 43.

Now that I know how to check the battery bars, it appears the first two are gone. From what I e been reading, at under 22,000 miles, that's not great news.

When I get home, after dinner, I plan to dig into the obd and Leafspy, but I'm admittedly a little concerned.

Once I'm connected and using Leafspy, can anyone tell me how to do a quick and dirty check on the vitals? Tomorrow is my last day to return the car if I need to find a "fresher" sample!

Thanks!!

LeftieBiker - no climate control of any sort on my drive in this morning. It was a nice 65 degrees.

minivini said:

LeftieBiker - no climate control of any sort on my drive in this morning. It was a nice 65 degrees.

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You're going to want to wear warm clothes in Winter, then, and preheat the car before unplugging it.

Alright, home now. Definitely better. I took a photo of the dash when I pulled in, so maybe I can get a clearer opinion here as to whether I'm ok with this particular car or if I should take it back tomorrow and keep looking.

Ok, then. I'll apparently have to post the pic on a hosting site and then link it, but the bottom line is
42 miles
3.9 miles/kilowatt
3 bars left (14 miles estimated), but that third bar stuck with me for a while. I imagine it was about to drop to two.

It appears that two of my bars to the right are off. My concern at this point, seeing that many of you are losing the first one at around 20k miles, should I be worried?

Adding 7psi to my tires, watching the power meter (trying to keep it below three as much as possible), keeping my speed at 60mph, and making even gentler starts seemed to me a pretty big difference coming home. Over the winter I'll obviously be needing heat to some degree and my headlamps more still makes me wonder about my cars capacity.

In about an hour I'll be trying the Leafspy/obd thing.

The wifi obdii reader was an easy setup. I'm not really sure how to interpret the data at this point, but there's data. I'll take a look over it more in the morning.

Feel free to chime in with the most relevant information I should be checking to determine the basic health of my battery.

I don't have Leaf Spy, so I'll leave that stuff to others. Your miles per kilowatt hour reading is good, especially if you didn't reset it after adjusting your driving style and adding air to the tires. Anything over 4.0 is very good, and over 4.4 is outstanding. Don't worry about 12 volt accessories like the headlights reducing range - that's negligible. There are steps you can take to improve the heating (insulating the lines and tank, adding a heater off switch) but the basic design of your car's heater means that it will still suck lots of power when used. I tested an independent supplemental heating system based on a storage battery, inverter, and two small ceramic 120 volt heaters a while back, and as a last resort you could try something like that. Assuming that you own the car, you could always just use a much larger AGM type battery in the car, with a hardwired inverter, and run supplemental heaters from that, charging it at home as needed if the car can't keep up with the drain.

look at the page with all the blue lines it should be the first page. on top it reads Bat Sts ...66 AHr is new and 42 AHr is 4 bars down or 67 % the next line has Hx= that is heath. it is a good indicator. the third page is not what you want that will help you driving .
What state are you in. what city? Tony Williams range chart is a big help it range figures, it is a good guide...

ahr, kwh available (on summary screen) and Hx are the biggies but there are other concerns like voltage deltas at low SOC under moderate loads, etc. you are missing two capacity bars (the short ones to the right of your SOC gauge) which means you have lost a quarter of you usable charge or just over 20% of your SOC.

first bar disappears at 15%, each bar after at roughly 6.25%

So, here are the numbers...
Ahr = 51.46
SOH = 78%
Hx = 60.29

Sit tight or run?! I have to decide today. If this is on the low end of normal, I'm tempted to wait it out, but if it's too low to be ok, I would appreciate the advice!

Thanks, y'all

If you can run . Run away as fast as you can. give it back if you can. I think you will run out of time before you get a new battery. and learning to drive a EV with short range sucks. I did it. I bought a 3 bar looser. ended loosing the 4 bar at 57000 miles. it was no fun. we are going into winter , and it is a 2012 right. buy a new 15 with the deals that are out there you will be happier. I m o If not find some place hot to park the car with a full charge at all times.. until the battery drops to 42 amp hours... Leaf Spy is your new friend.

Well, no one replied in time. I decided my paranoia was probably a little overkill, so we sat tight. If you're right, we'll just have to figure it out from here!

Your best bet is probably to lease a 2015 or 2016, then buy the car at end of lease if you still love it in two, three or four years. It doesn't cost substantially more than buying one new from the start, surprisingly. It may even cost less, in the case of residual discounting. This way you get the apparently much longer-lived pack.