My Nissan Leaf Forum

I did an overnight trickle charge and the next day had about 95 miles show as the range for eco-mode. After driving a few miles and going down some hills, the range exceeded 100 and maxed out at 105 before i hit level ground and starting using more juice.

Anyone else experience this. I'm wondering how much more range is possible beyond the 100m indicator.

Since the run from my house is all downhill, I have seen as high as 135 on the days when I charge to 100 percent... Of course, coming back home it quickly dropped!

It is generally agreed here that the big number you were looking at is mostly useless, at least until you get close to empty, when it is fairly reliably pessimistic. We call that meter the guessometer, because the car's computer is trying to use your recent driving history to guess how you will be driving in the future.

• You just dropped 1000 feet in the last five miles? The computer will guess that you are going to drop 10,000 feet in the next 50 miles
• You just spent the last five minutes in a traffic jam? The computer assumes you will be in that same traffic jam for the next hour.
• You went to the grocery store last night? Then surely, according to its logic, you are not going to be on the freeway today.

My suggestion, which I think most frequent posters on this board agree with, is to ignore the guessometer. Watch the number of blue and white bars which surround it. That is your equivalent of a "gas gauge". And, like most cars, there is a "reserve" after the gauge tells you the battery is empty. At some point, probably while you still have one bar showing, you will hear a message telling you your battery is low. If you drive slowly and carefully you should be able to get another 15 miles or more out of the battery after that, but unless you are close to home you should treat that as a suggestion to slow down, and if you are on the freeway you should probably get off soon.

Perhaps ten to twelve miles of cautious driving after that you will get a second verbal warning that your battery is very low. Now you need to start thinking very seriously about finding a place you can get some electricity. You can probably go about half as far after that second warning as you went between the first one and the second one, but you normally shouldn't count on using that range. It might possibly be hard on the battery, and it's definitely hard on your nerves. The final warning is turtle mode, but you don't want to go there. If you see the red turtle on your dash, quickly find a safe place to get off the road, and stop. It's time to call 877-NO GAS EV for help.

Ray

Maybe some day the computer will be able to figure in altitude changes, traffic, wind, weather, and the phase of the moon and come up with a more accurate prediction. Currently, the algorithm seems to be a bit primitive.

The basic info to do all that is available, if Nissan decided to use it.

Like everything, it would cost money to develop.

Nissan should use a two week average to drive the "Guess-o-meter", the way it is now it scares owners and forces them to ignore it. Nissan can be obtuse at times, but thats probably what it takes to go ahead and spend $6 billion to mass manufacture electric cars in 3 continents.

I love my guess-o-meter! It's such fun entertainment...

How are the bars any more accurate than the 'guessometer' figure? Isnt the visual representation via number bars simply corresponding to the mileage remaining number? Has anyone actually compared the two and proven that the bars are more accurate?

They are accurate. The guessometer will only settle on a realistic number if you have driven in a linear and predictable fashion for about 10 miles. If you are willing to give it a shot, try the following method next time you are driving a longer distance (15+ miles):

- reset the in-dash MPK gauge
- reset your trip odometer
- wait for the MPK readout to settle (~ 3 or 4 miles)
- multiply the MPK readout by 1.5kWh (= miles per bar)
- watch your bars go down
- multiply bars lost with mileage estimate per bar (= total miles per trip)

This method is usually within 2-3 miles of the actual and is quite reliable.

To get the total range at the outset of the trip, multiply the MPK readout by 21kWh (total available battery capacity) if charged to full and by 17kWh if charged to 80%. Keep in mind however, that the last remaining 3kWh, or the reserve, will be accompanied with multiple low battery charge warnings and the last 10-15 miles of your journey can be a bit nerve-wracking because of that. The method itself is quite accurate however.

Tony Williams has prepared a very nice chart for other owners to use and once the SOC meter gets more sophisticated, we should be able to program our own guessometer, which will hopefully be a little less crazy than Nissan's.

The sooner you learn to ignore that number the better! People call it the "Guess-o-Meter" for good reasons!

You can find energy economy/range figures derived from observations and calculations. Those figures provide a good "ballpark" for your expected usage figures. In the end, because no two people have the same terrain, weather, driving style, driving condition, traffic condition, etc, you have a "ballpark" range of figures. If you need to locate the pitcher's mound, I would encourage you to keep a log of your usage: energy economy (mi/kWh), trip/odometer readings, state-of-charge bars, etc. Over time, unless your driving varies widely (for example, if you're a mobile technician and drive all over town), you will arrive at averages that are reliable and useful to you: mi/kWh, miles per SoC bar, etc. It took me as few as 7-8 charge/discharge iterations for my averages to converge to their long-term values.

(To be quite fair, I have the impression that the Guess-o-Meter is much more accurate at smaller values, when I'm down to the last 3, 2, or 1 bars, than it is when the battery is fuller. That's just an impression; I need to analyze my recorded data to be sure.)