Battery died, 1st time experience.

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jason98

Well-known member
Joined
May 24, 2010
Messages
86
Charged to usual 80% and drove to work three days without charging (skipped two nightly charges).
The battery died about half a mile from home on a quiet street. Had a chance to pull over after it switched itself to N.
Had a choice to call AAA or Nissan Road Side Assistance. Called Nissan, the truck came within 30 minutes.
Had to charge from 110V using an extender since it was not feasible to push it to the garage.
After one hour of level-1 charging, the car was still immobile!
Last time I checked was after two hours, when I was able to finally "turn" the engine on.

Some stats:

Average efficiency: 5.2 mpkwh
Total distance: 85.2 miles
Effective 80% capacity: ~16.4 kwh
Effective 100% capacity (x 1.25): ~20.5 kwh
Freeway miles: 15 (top speed 59 mph)
Express ways miles: 60 (top speed 50 mph)
Almost no AC
Low battery level warning: 75 miles (4 miles remaining)
Very low battery level warning and turtle mode: 84.7 miles
Turtle distance: 0.5 miles
 
Thanks for posting this, Jason! I have to admit that I halfway assumed you had a warranty event based on the title of your post. I crunched your numbers, and it looks good to me, but we seem to miss about 1kWh. Total available capacity on 80% charge should be closer to 18kWh and the reserve capacity between low battery warning and turtle should be about 3kWh, and not 2. Hmm...
 
Stoaty said:
Did you purposely run the battery out to see how far you could go, or was this an accidental occurrence?
Click to expand...

Both :)
I wanted to see if I could make three trips to work on one 80% charge, and I was prepared for not being able to make it.
 
The remaining usable power at the low end of the battery
appears to be somewhat unpredictable at this point.
Likely, I think, that this is the reason for the "hidden" reserve.

Use Caution.
 
You would be better off charging to 80% every night.. its not good for the battery to sit discharged for long.. there is no need to fully discharge the battery, there is no benefit from this since lithium batteries dont suffer from "memory" effects.
 
Stoaty said:
I guess you now have that hard won information. ;)
Click to expand...


As do I.

This week I also ran out of battery juice. On Wednesdays, I normally drive 105 miles (my range=90), so I have arrangements to trickle charge at two spots in Seattle, netting me about 7 hours of trickle charging.

But this Wednesday, I had to run an errand at lunch. Then my daughter needed a ride to driving school after work. Then I realized that there was a baseball game in the evening.In short, I suddenly had to drive more miles than expected, with greater travel delays, and no time for additional charging.

By my math, 7 hr should have been about 10kWh, or 40 miles additional - 135mi total. At the end of the day, I had driven 121 miles. This may have been caused by driving at 70 when traffic broke free. I kept an eye on my distance to drive and miles remaining. It looked like I could make it.

When I finally pick up my daughter, she has only 16 minutes to get to class (barely enough, but not to go home and change cars) and I have only 4 miles remaining. Class is about 5 miles away. Since she has to sing a song if she is late, I decided to risk it, knowing that there is a reserve after miles goes to dashes.

Thanks to the wonders of living on hills, we get to class as the range goes to dashes and with 1 minute to spare. She avoids embarrasment and I am left to ponder where to charge.

My prior turtle test led me to believe that I had 4 miles from dashes to turtle and the net told me I might have 1 or 2 miles after that. My home was 4.8 miles away, but up a 500ft tall hill. He class is 2 hours, so I decided to risk it.

I made it to the crest of the hill before turtle kicked in. I was able to maintain the 44 mph I was already driving. 1.3 miles to go. I make my turn onto a little up and down road and at the end of it, my leaf feels sluggish. I make another turn, but can only get up to 24 mph even floored. I noted only one bubble on the power meter. Very sluggish.

I don't have to slow down turning into my neighborhood and I get it into my garage. I'm impressed that I had something to spare, so I call my wife to come look at what turtle looks like (and the 4 trees I grew - a first). While on the phone, turtle goes away, a red battery lights up, and the car goes out of gear. I had run out of juice not 30 seconds after I made it to my garage. Pure dumb luck.

Now at least I know how far away I can be when the miles remaining goes to dashes and still get home.
 
surfingslovak said:
Total available capacity on 80% charge should be closer to 18kWh and the reserve capacity between low battery warning and turtle should be about 3kWh, and not 2. Hmm...
Click to expand...

When did the 80% change to 18? I've always multiplied by 17. That would make it over 160 miles @ 15mph @ 80% charge for me.
 
LEAFfan said:
When did the 80% change to 18? I've always multiplied by 17. That would make it over 160 miles @ 15mph @ 80% charge for me.
Click to expand...
Hmm, I didn't realize you were doing that. When you charge to 80%, is the 10th bar full or 30% full? If it was partially charged, then the 17kWh would make sense. Otherwise, it should be 18kWh.
 
garygid said:
The remaining usable power at the low end of the battery
appears to be somewhat unpredictable at this point.
Likely, I think, that this is the reason for the "hidden" reserve.

Use Caution.
Click to expand...


This is VERY troubling. This is the second time that I know of that this has happened. We absolutely need this to happen with an SOC meter hooked up to see what the heck is going on!!

Code: 
Data Event #----A-----B-----C-----D----E-----F-----G---This Event
LowBattery----11.0---8.6---13.6---6.7---16---10---9.9----9.7
VeryLow-------6.7----5.5---8.4---5.2---10----7----8.0---0.5

Total2Turtle-17.7---14.1--22.0--11.9---26---17---17.9--10.2

VeryLow/Low--61%---64%----62%---77%----63%--70%--80%----5%

C = Me at about 38-45mph with lots of rolling downhill
E = Edmonds 132 mile run at 35mph on a track
 
jason98 said:
Average efficiency: 5.2 mpkwh
Total distance: 85.2 miles
Effective 80% capacity: ~16.4 kwh
Effective 100% capacity (x 1.25): ~20.5 kwh
Freeway miles: 15 (top speed 59 mph)
Express ways miles: 60 (top speed 50 mph)
Almost no AC
Low battery level warning: 75 miles (4 miles remaining)
Very low battery level warning and turtle mode: 84.7 miles
Turtle distance: 0.5 miles
Click to expand...
Looks like what we would expect to see. I did 88.6 on 80% charge at 5.3 m/kWh.
 
After reading this entire post, I just don't understand the reasoning behind completely depleting the battery on the Leaf. We have fairly consistent data regarding the range @ certain speeds/driving conditions. I fail to see what we gain by doing this; and it certainly can't be good for the battery life?? With a bit of planning, you should never wind up stranded--calling for a tow truck, except in an unexpected situation.
 
derkraut said:
After reading this entire post, I just don't understand the reasoning behind completely depleting the battery on the Leaf. We have fairly consistent data regarding the range @ certain speeds/driving conditions. I fail to see what we gain by doing this; and it certainly can't be good for the battery life?? With a bit of planning, you should never wind up stranded--calling for a tow truck, except in an unexpected situation.
Click to expand...
I think everyone should go to turtle once - that gives them a better appreciation- and moreover confidence in available energy and range. But, ofcourse, I'd do the final rounds very close to home so that I don't have to call help.
 
evnow said:
Looks like what we would expect to see. I did 88.6 on 80% charge at 5.3 m/kWh.
Click to expand...
Yes, that would be consistent with 17kWh of available energy on an 80% charge. This would also mean that bar #10 is likely not entirely full when you charge to 80%. There is also the issue of reduced range from low battery warning to turtle. Our model predicts two reserve bars with about 1.5kWh each and this should yield 15 miles if energy economy was around 5 miles per kWh. Jason only got 10 miles. I PM'd him about this to see if there were any hills or other environmental factors involved.
 
garygid said:
The remaining usable power at the low end of the battery
appears to be somewhat unpredictable at this point.
Likely, I think, that this is the reason for the "hidden" reserve.

Use Caution.
Click to expand...
Gary, looking at the data AESC published recently, could this be due to the non-linear and less predictable cell discharge characteristic between 0 and 30%?

image008.gif
 
I've run the battery to "Very Low" many times, and of course, Turtle a total of 6 times, to get the data that I have.

I've never once had the occasion to get a relatively normal mileage on "Low Battery" (9.7 miles is certainly in the normal range) and then NOT get something between 60% and 80% of that number on "Very Low".

In the previous instance that I'm aware of that this happened, we don't have any hard mileage data, but just like this event, when it went to VLB, it then quickly went to Turtle. We know in this case, the battery (presumably with the car) was going up hill.

But....... I was one or two miles into VLB and then wound it up to 95mph (high load to see if that made a difference... and it didn't. I still went the normal 60%-80% of the distance that I went in Low Battery.
 
jason98 said:
Low battery level warning: 75 miles (4 miles remaining)
Very low battery level warning and turtle mode: 84.7 miles
Click to expand...
What? I've never heard of anyone getting turtle at the same time as VLB. I see from the delivery chart that you got your car in early March. It sounds to me as if you have never gotten the firmware upgrade. True?

Ray
 
evnow said:
derkraut said:
After reading this entire post, I just don't understand the reasoning behind completely depleting the battery on the Leaf. We have fairly consistent data regarding the range @ certain speeds/driving conditions. I fail to see what we gain by doing this; and it certainly can't be good for the battery life?? With a bit of planning, you should never wind up stranded--calling for a tow truck, except in an unexpected situation.
Click to expand...
I think everyone should go to turtle once - that gives them a better appreciation- and moreover confidence in available energy and range. But, ofcourse, I'd do the final rounds very close to home so that I don't have to call help.
Click to expand...

if I am ever in turtle mode - it will be a very unforeseen circumstance or very poor planning - certainly won't be my intention
 

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