My Nissan Leaf Forum

OP: it's not clear from your postings, but how long did you have the CC on for in your experiments? Like others here, I have no experience with your kind of cold but, hopefully, if you pre-heat long enough, your heat draw will stabilize at less than what is supplied to the charger and you can start gaining back charge. Here in California in mid-40F temperatures, if I pre-heat for 1 hour, starting with 10 bars (80%), I end up at 11 bars of charge.

I would try your experiment again, but try for at least 1 hour. If this does not return you to at least 10 bars, it may just be too cold.

Why would anyone preheat for an hours time. The car can warm up just fine in 5 minutes.

as said don't be afraid to prewarm for a good long while from an 80% charge... eventually it will actually charge the battery some once the core of the car warms up enough for the thermostat to go off intermittently.

To preserve the heat the most, change the mode to "foot/defog" set auto to the temp you like and then hit the on/off button to set the CC to Off for the first leg of the drive, this will retain the heat. the foot/defog setting allows some passive defogging while having the temp set already will make it easy to simply hitt the on/off button to turn the CC on without requiring further adjustment once underway. simply toggling the on/off button based on comfort vs required range is easier than constantly changing the set temp.

Heh, not if it's cold outside. I need at least 15 minutes to clear ice from the windshield, sometimes upwards of 30 minutes to clear all windows.

Maybe in SLC, but not in Puyallup, and I'm certain not during deep winter in Minnesota. I've been there in January, and it ain't nice.

15 minutes of preheat inside a 20 degree garage has my Leaf toasty warm. The warmth lasts about 10 miles before my feet get cold. I do not see a need to preheat any longer than that. Also, I, too notice that a 80% charge with preheated Leaf does indicate 9 bars when I depart each morning.

The request of the OP was to pre-heat and not lose any bars after 80% charging. That's why I suggested pre-heating for an hour. Try to get the heater's draw down enough for a long enough time to regain any lost charge in the initial pre-heating. It may not require an hour, but that's a good starting point.

The other approach, especially in winter with low temperatures, is to just charge to 100%, hopefully finishing not too long before driving. This way, even after a shorter pre-heat, you'd still be over 80%. AFAIK, at these low temperatures, leaving the battery at 100% for a few hours is unlikely to any damage.

For these experiments I'm using the CLIMATE CONTROL departure timer to pre-heat the car automatically each morning and I set it to expire before I actually unplug and drive. It typically runs heat for about 30 minutes prior to the departure time and I lose one bar, (or a portion of a bar in theory, or ~2.5 miles range) during the preheat. I tried some timer trickery by using a departure CHARGE timer set to later than the CC departure timer but to my surprise this charging timer finishes the charge hours prior to my departure rather than minutes prior. Also it seems that the charger won't trigger on twice, once prior to heating, & once after. Minnesota Gary

Try, instead of using the timer, remotely starting CC through CarWings (web, smartphone app, etc.). This way, it will run for up to 2 hours (if plugged in).

Or try the method reserved for those who do not have access to web or smartphone:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=11006&p=253593#p253593
This method does not pull electrons from the battery, only the wall.
Reddy