My battery temp gauge hasn't moved

In the week I've had the car, I haven't seen the battery temperature gauge move at all. It has been rock solid towards the middle of the scale at the "9 o'clock" position.

I guess that's a good thing...The weather has been pretty mild here in San Diego and the car is garaged at night.

Has anyone else's gauge moved around at all? I'm curious what temperature range each of the bars equates to...

Randy said:

Has anyone else's gauge moved around at all? I'm curious what temperature range each of the bars equates to...

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This morning it is 42 °F and the Batt Temp reads one bar down from the middle or 4 bars up from the bottom. I'll check the service manual later to see if it says anything about temp ranges.

Possibly 10 ºC (18 ºF) per bar?

34, 42, 50, 68, 86, 104, 122 ºF?

It may not be dynamic within the normal range

It's probably like a BMW temperature gauge: It stays dead center until the temperature has moved significantly one way or the other from normal. There is a lot of center hysteresis built in.

smkettner said:

It may not be dynamic within the normal range

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Randy said:

Has anyone else's gauge moved around at all? I'm curious what temperature range each of the bars equates to...

Click to expand...

From the service manual, MWI P.21:





We should get more heat from the pack as it ages and cell internal resistance increases. It'll take a while for that, though. These cells aren't inefficient NiMh or lead acid, or re-purposed laptop cells.

Nice to see that Nissan only built the gauge tables to work down to 80% battery. They must have a high degree of confidence that consumers won't see worse.

By "Deterioration x%" they mean the opposite, right ?

Ohe certainly hopes so.

garygid said:

Ohe certainly hopes so.

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Oh ... and so AndyH should add that to corrections for the manual ... now where did that thread go ?

According to this chart, 5-bars will continue show as long as the temperature remains between 27 and 74 ºF, a rather wide "winter" range!

Then, 6 bars for the "summer" (non AZ) range of 50 to 98 ºF, also a large range!

LEAFer said:

garygid said:

Ohe certainly hopes so.

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Oh ... and so AndyH should add that to corrections for the manual ... now where did that thread go ?

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I thought I saw that the CAN message related to cell degradation was a 'count down from perfect'...but I haven't been successful re-finding the manual page. :?

In the mean time, here's the change form. :lol:
http://www.absoluteefficiency.com/LEAF/change_form.pdf

Andy

DeaneG said:

Nice to see that Nissan only built the gauge tables to work down to 80% battery. They must have a high degree of confidence that consumers won't see worse.

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As I see this, cell internal resistance is expected to increase slowly as the cell ages. As Ri increases, the pack generates a bit more heat than when new during charging and discharging. Therefore, the 'normal' and expected range of temperatures changes. The chart appears to maintain the same 'no go' zone on the more critical hot end while remapping the rest.

It's, ahhh, a bit like self adjusting pants for the 40+ crowd.

garygid said:

According to this chart, 5-bars will continue show as long as the temperature remains between 27 and 74 ºF, a rather wide "winter" range!

Then, 6 bars for the "summer"

Click to expand...

I can confirm an extra bar for yesterday afternoon (80ºF).

garygid said:

According to this chart, 5-bars will continue show as long as the temperature remains between 27 and 74 ºF, a rather wide "winter" range!

Click to expand...

Cold does not really hurt the batteries, actually prolongs their life.. but heat can kill them quickly.

Herm said:

Cold does not really hurt the batteries, actually prolongs their life.. but heat can kill them quickly.

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Well, it might be more accurate to say that cold alone does not do permanent damage to the battery. It certainly will reduce available energy and power output if the cells are too cold... but too hot will permanently damage the battery's chemistry.
=Smidge=

So, how hot is too hot ... living in AZ?