My 2015 leaf uses 75 of my charge to go 30 miles, whats up?

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bootsforlizzy

New member
Joined
Mar 29, 2018
Messages
3
so, I just bought a 2015 Nissan Leaf with 12k miles on it. I charge it overnight from my household outlet. In the morning there is 94 charge done. I drive it to work and back-30 miles-and it goes down to 24 charge by the time I get home. I use the radio the whole time and run the heater and headlights for the morning 15 mile trip only. Is my battery bad or is this normal? It has all 12 bars.
 
At that rate you'd have about a 40 mile range :( Unless your driving freeway speeds of 80+ I have a hard time believing you have a 12 bar Leaf.....sounds like my 8 bar looser :(
I wonder if you had a BMS reset done? How long have you had the Leaf and try resetting your miles/kwh meter and see what your getting, if you have a 12 bar leaf your number would have to be in the low 2's which is really bad :(
 
I just bought it on monday, it says I'm using 3.6. When I'm reading the bars I'm counting the 2 bottom red bars too, so 10 whitish bars and 2 red ones. This is my first electric car. I drive mostly freeway to work and back with one giant hill that does the braking recharge going to work and then takes a lot going home, but even the straight hi way driving is taking double the charge compared to miles driven. The car was a one owner 2 1/2 yr lease, bought from the dealer.
 
bootsforlizzy said:
oh, and I drive slow, 55mph

Then you definitely have something wrong. Even with low tire pressure (inflate them to 40-42psi) you should have better range than that. Where did you buy the car? Given that it's a '15 it may have one or more bad cells in the battery.
 
Are "94" and "24" SoC readings ?
If so, tell us the SoC change in the AM vs PM commute and whether there is a net elevation change one way.
Also mention how long it takes to drive to work in the AM.

Part of your answer is going to be heater use, but with more details from you I can better estimate how much. Many of us cold weather owners rely on the heated seats and/or wheel for comfort and avoid use of the cabin air heater since it can draw up 5 kW.
 
bootsforlizzy said:
so, I just bought a 2015 Nissan Leaf with 12k miles on it. I charge it overnight from my household outlet. In the morning there is 94 charge done. I drive it to work and back-30 miles-and it goes down to 24 charge by the time I get home. I use the radio the whole time and run the heater and headlights for the morning 15 mile trip only. Is my battery bad or is this normal? It has all 12 bars.

You can forget about things like radio and headlights; they don't consume enough power to make a significant impact on range. The two main consumers are the motor, and then heating/AC.

The range does sound a bit low if you're really consuming 3.6 miles per kWH. Did you reset that statistic before beginning the drive? If not, the 3.6 could be the average over many miles or even the car's life.
 
bootsforlizzy said:
oh, and I drive slow, 55mph

We also need to know what outside temperature you are using the car in and how much heat you are using. The overnight temperature will determine the morning battery temperature. The battery may warm up a little during the day but it warms quite slowly. Is the car garaged?
 
Reporting miles is almost useless. Report the number of charge bars and the percentage you have when you get home. If you really want to know about your battery, search for LEAFspy on the forum.
 
you say you go downhill in the morning and then up hill in the evening. in the morning you won't be regenerating much since your battery is full. how much actual altitude are you dropping and then having to regain in the evening? look up the vertical height on google maps. Altitude has a lot to do with how much power the car takes. Switch to bicycle mode on google maps and it will show you the altitude change when you put in directions from your home to work.

Marko
 
I once went about 29 miles and went from 98% to 23%. But I have an 11 bar 2013 Leaf it had only warmed up to -15°F, I was driving down a highway at around 50mph and during the last part I had just started up a steep hill that wiped out a whole lot more battery capacity than I thought it would.
 
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