Partial battery charge

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WichitaKS

Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2013
Messages
14
Location
Wichita, KS, USA
It turns out from driving the Leaf 2 months now (1800 miles) that I know I only need a full 100% charge on Wednesday and Saturday. I can charge on Sunday to 80% and it does not really need charged again until Tuesday night, and Thursday & Friday also only needs one charge to 80% on Wednesday night. So my question is does it make sense to charge it to 80% every night, or would I be better off leaving the charge at 60% Sunday night, 45% Monday night and by the time Tuesday night comes around it is down to 3 bars and I charge it for my busy day on Wednesday? Like wise on Saturday should I charge to 80% on Friday night and during the middle of the day on Saturday charge it a little for the 2nd half of Saturday, in other words would this be better than the 100% charge on Friday night? Wednesday there is no option for partial charge since I am not home any time during that day to do any charging. Just wondering what Nissan would recommend for best battery life or what others think.
 
newownermnl
Assuming that you lived in Kansas, do you own or lease? Is the LEAF garaged overnight? How many temperature bars do you see in the morning? Hope you don't mind all these questions, there is some method to the madness.

Without going into the specifics, keeping the average state of charge low will benefit the battery. Charging to 100% will not be disproportionally harmful, if you don't leave the car sit fully charged for very long. As already said, what should matter more is the average state of charge, not individual spikes.

It should be also noted that LEAF owners have so far found ambient temperature to have greater effect on battery capacity than their charging habits. For a list of of different cities and the projected lifetime of the battery depending on local climate, please see the Wiki.
 
Yes Kansas, Wichita. The car is a new on a 3 year lease, but still I want to be nice to the battery, who knows maybe I will buy the car at the end of the lease. The car is in a partially heated/cooled garage at night so right not even though we are down to 10 F at night the garage never goes below 50 but is not at the 72 of the house. During the summer the car will not have the 100 F of the day, but in the garage maybe 85 only when not running around the city.

I currently use the timer function so the car is at the 80% or 100% charge for morning departure and preheated.
 
WichitaKS said:
I currently use the timer function so the car is at the 80% or 100% charge for morning departure and preheated.
Click to expand...
Given how cold it is, I wouldn't worry about the charging protocol too much. Perhaps in the summer, but not right now. If an 80% charge gets the job done most of the time, then great. You can always charge up to 100% in about an hour if needed. If you found your range wanting, I would not hesitate to switch to 100% charging if I were you. I don't think that you would see much of a difference either way in three years.

You might want to keep the battery cool in the summer, and try to minimize the time spent at six temp bars and above. I believe that might prove to be a greater challenge than not charging to 100%, and could be more beneficial for longevity. Overall, you have a good chance that the pack will last a while where you live.

That said, it's good to hear that you are leasing. I would keep current with the world of EV. Who knows, there might be some very tempting choices available in three years time.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Mossy Nissan has a truck with 12 LEAFs coming tomorrow (Friday), and I will get a call to see them as soon as they roll off the truck.
Click to expand...
Wow, nice. Are those 2013 model year?
 
surfingslovak said:
WichitaKS said:
I currently use the timer function so the car is at the 80% or 100% charge for morning departure and preheated.
Click to expand...
Given how cold it is, I wouldn't worry about the charging protocol too much. Perhaps in the summer, but not right now. If an 80% charge gets the job done most of the time, then great. You can always charge up to 100% in about an hour if needed. If you found your range wanting, I would not hesitate to switch to 100% charging if I were you. I don't think that you would see much of a difference either way in three years.

You might want to keep the battery cool in the summer, and try to minimize the time spent at six temp bars and above. I believe that might prove to be a greater challenge than not charging to 100%, and could be more beneficial for longevity. Overall, you have a good chance that the pack will last a while where you live.

That said, it's good to hear that you are leasing. I would keep current with the world of EV. Who knows, there might be some very tempting choices available in three years time.
Click to expand...

Leasing was good and the best price option, I though they were literately giving the car away at 85$/month with 3000 down, but they did get a truck load of 2012 Leaf forced on them to sell in December from Nissan and they wanted to lease them so a bunch of us at the University took the offer and the truck load of Leafs were gone in 2 weeks.
 
We have over 21,000 miles on our 2011 LEAF and still show all 12 bars of battery capacity. However, one thing I learned early on was, as stated elsewhere, not to leave the car at 100% charge. Thus, for those days that you need 100% charge, you might want to set the timer so that the car does not start charging until sometime later in the evening or early morning so that when you are ready to leave, the car will only have sat for a short time at 100%.

Also, I charge to only 80% for the vast majority of the times because that also allows me to use the regenerative feature immediately. You've probably noticed that when the battery is at 100% charge that the car will not "regen" until the charge has worn down a bit.
 
ERG4ALL said:
We have over 21,000 miles on our 2011 LEAF and still show all 12 bars of battery capacity. However, one thing I learned early on was, as stated elsewhere, not to leave the car at 100% charge. Thus, for those days that you need 100% charge, you might want to set the timer so that the car does not start charging until sometime later in the evening or early morning so that when you are ready to leave, the car will only have sat for a short time at 100%.
Click to expand...
It is worth mentioning that we have 19,000 miles on our 2011 Leaf and also have all 12 bars. And this is despite the fact that the first year I owned the car I charged to 100% every day, multiple times a day. And the first year we had it was one of the worst Summer heat waves we've had around here since 1980. After hearing about all of the capacity losses, I started charging to 80% during the second year of ownership and only charge to 100% about twice a year.
Also, I charge to only 80% for the vast majority of the times because that also allows me to use the regenerative feature immediately. You've probably noticed that when the battery is at 100% charge that the car will not "regen" until the charge has worn down a bit.
Click to expand...
Yes, I've noticed this benefit as well. I have a long hill to go down in the mornings and used to I would have to ride the brakes. but now I can just put it in eco mode going down the hill to maintain speed.
 
dhanson865 said:
I'm assuming the partical in question was an electron or more accurately a bunch of electrons flowing.
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Does anyone know what the ion in the battery media is that carries the charge, we know it is Lithium plates, but the specific chemical potential of the liquid media of the battery could tell us a lot.
 
WichitaKS said:
Does anyone know what the ion in the battery media is that carries the charge, we know it is Lithium plates, but the specific chemical potential of the liquid media of the battery could tell us a lot.
Click to expand...
Could you please fix the typo in the title of this thread? Only the OP can do that :)


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PjyJhe7Q1g[/youtube]
newownermnl
 
Avoid full charging when you can....
One reason that batteries in mobile devices only last a couple years is that they are being pushed to their maximum capacity—frequently getting fully charged and fully drained. Consumer products are advertised by their battery operation time, not their battery lifespan. This means that every possible electron will be shoved in there. Charging to maximum capacity might give you the most possible use for that one charge, but it is one of the worst things that you can do to lithium batteries.

In the 2011 Nissan LEAF, there is a Long Battery Life setting that tells the car to stop charging at 80 percent. This reduces the available range, but could greatly increase the lifespan of your battery pack. If your normal daily driving can be done with less than an 80 percent charge or you can charge mid-day, this simple setting is one of the easiest things that you can do to increase the battery’s lifespan.

One additional advantage of not charging up all the way is that it leaves room to store energy from regenerative braking. Often when the batteries are full or near full, regen will be disabled to avoid overcharging the batteries.
 

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