Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

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Ingineer said:
With an 80% timer limit set, then you can feel free to leave the car plugged in and get your climate pre-conditioning benefit. The car will always stop at 80% even if the Blink reboots or anything similar happens.

What you describe is my setup. However I have found that pre-cooling in the summer months often results in the 11th bar lighting up. The car does charge beyond 80% during pre-cooling. Even if the 11th bar doesn't light up, I can travel almost 14 miles on the 10th bar which indicates that the 11th bar was partially full.

During the winter pre-heating often depletes the 10th bar slightly, since the heater consumes more kW than the charger can put back in. During the winter after pre-heating the 10th bar disappears just 2-3 miles down the road.

I agree that if the Blink reboots during the evening it will not charge beyond 80% at that time.

I just went past 10,000 miles in 9 months of ownership. No detectable loss of capacity or distance I can travel 'per bar'.
 
JPWhite said:
I just went past 10,000 miles in 9 months of ownership. No detectable loss of capacity or distance I can travel 'per bar'.

If that's the criteria for battery capacity loss, then I guess mine is still good even though my SoC gauge says otherwise. When I charge to 100% now, it only goes to 83-85% which is 10-12% loss of capacity. However, I can get 14 miles on the top bar and another 11 on the eleventh bar so I doubt if this is a good indicator of capacity loss. I also drove 50 miles on just the bottom two full bars and still had 4.6% left when I arrived home. VLBW came at 8.5%. Turtle would have been 1.4%. I've had my 'EVBS' light come on three times in the last couple weeks, so I know I have some bad cells/module.
 
LEAFfan said:
JPWhite said:
I just went past 10,000 miles in 9 months of ownership. No detectable loss of capacity or distance I can travel 'per bar'.

If that's the criteria for battery capacity loss, then I guess mine is still good even though my SoC gauge says otherwise. When I charge to 100% now, it only goes to 83-85% which is 10-12% loss of capacity. However, I can get 14 miles on the top bar and another 11 on the eleventh bar so I doubt if this is a good indicator of capacity loss. I also drove 50 miles on just the bottom two full bars and still had 4.6% left when I arrived home. VLBW came at 8.5%. Turtle would have been 1.4%. I've had my 'EVBS' light come on three times in the last couple weeks, so I know I have some bad cells/module.

If the EVBS warning light is coming on I imagine codes are set in the computer that a dealer should be able to retrieve.
 
JPWhite said:
What you describe is my setup. However I have found that pre-cooling in the summer months often results in the 11th bar lighting up. The car does charge beyond 80% during pre-cooling. Even if the 11th bar doesn't light up, I can travel almost 14 miles on the 10th bar which indicates that the 11th bar was partially full.

During the winter pre-heating often depletes the 10th bar slightly, since the heater consumes more kW than the charger can put back in. During the winter after pre-heating the 10th bar disappears just 2-3 miles down the road.

I agree that if the Blink reboots during the evening it will not charge beyond 80% at that time.

I just went past 10,000 miles in 9 months of ownership. No detectable loss of capacity or distance I can travel 'per bar'.
Because there is charge/discharge possible during preconditioning, it's normal for this to happen if you operate preconditioning for a longer time. (Leaf reaches set temp, so extra charge capacity makes it into the battery)

Of course, since you are going to immediately use this charge it's of no consequence for pack aging.

-Phil
 
By nissan's standards, I abuse my battery as well, probably worse than azdre....and live in phoenix... guessing I won't be far behind in capacity. Mine is 15mo, but only about 13k miles.
 
turbo2ltr said:
By nissan's standards, I abuse my battery as well, probably worse than azdre....and live in phoenix... guessing I won't be far behind in capacity. Mine is 15mo, but only about 13k miles.

You keep your battery at 100% most of the time, or only half the time?.. how long does the battery stay at 100% everyday?
 
We charge to 100% every night. Top off about 70% of the time each a.m. after about 3 miles (wife going for coffee and bagels). Then drive/charge/drive during the day--not to 100% there is not enough time between turnarounds. Ironically, maybe that 3.3 on-board is a good thing--otherwise it would be 100% every time car is parked :p .

Going on 1 year in June with 19,000 miles. Battery performs like day 1. No problems or loss of capacity or power. Nothing to report, folks.
 
Another data point....

I just lost a bar this weekend. I have had my Leaf almost exactly one year. Mileage is 13,633. I live in the Phoenix area and charge to 100% every night. I have never used a DC Quick Charge. I had my one year dealer checkup about two weeks ago, and got the "5 stars" rating, display still showed 12 bars.

Regards,
Brett
 
bturner said:
Another data point....

I just lost a bar this weekend. I have had my Leaf almost exactly one year. Mileage is 13,633. I live in the Phoenix area and charge to 100% every night. I have never used a DC Quick Charge. I had my one year dealer checkup about two weeks ago, and got the "5 stars" rating, display still showed 12 bars.

Regards,
Brett

another Phoenix resident...why am i not surprised?
 
bturner said:
Another data point....

I just lost a bar this weekend. I have had my Leaf almost exactly one year. Mileage is 13,633. I live in the Phoenix area and charge to 100% every night. I have never used a DC Quick Charge. I had my one year dealer checkup about two weeks ago, and got the "5 stars" rating, display still showed 12 bars.

Regards,
Brett


Thanks for sharing Brett, have you noticed any drop off in range?

-Matt
 
Speaking of charging to 100% and then immediately using it. As already mentioned I always charge to 100% but only use L1. It is not uncommon for our LEAF to finish a 100% L1 charge just as we are getting up or within an hour or two of it being driven off to 80-90%. This is good since it does not sit very long at 100%. Everyone's schedule is different but I wonder if others in the 100% crowd could deliberately mix in L1 overnight to prevent their cars from sitting for hours at 100% on L2? What would be cool is if Nissan added a variable charge rate feature to the LEAF. You tell your car when you plan to first drive it in the morning, and it times it's charge rate to finish off 100% at that exact drive time. Could be a useful additional tech feature in mitigating capacity loss for everyone in the 100% crowd.

Maybe the LEAF App could start recommending a charging level each night before you plug in?
 
TRONZ said:
Speaking of charging to 100% and then immediately using it. As already mentioned I always charge to 100% but only use L1. It is not uncommon for our LEAF to finish a 100% L1 charge just as we are getting up or within an hour or two of it being driven off to 80-90%. This is good since it does not sit very long at 100%. Everyone's schedule is different but I wonder if others in the 100% crowd could deliberately mix in L1 overnight to prevent their cars from sitting for hours at 100% on L2? What would be cool is if Nissan added a variable charge rate feature to the LEAF. You tell your car when you plan to first drive it in the morning, and it times it's charge rate to finish off 100% at that exact drive time. Could be a useful additional tech feature in mitigating capacity loss for everyone in the 100% crowd.

Maybe the LEAF App could start recommending a charging level each night before you plug in?

Doesn't the charging timer end time (without start time specified) achieve the same goal you describe? See Page CH-20 of the 'old' owners manual.
 
Up until a couple weeks ago, the charge timer was set for 9pm and always 100%, because I never know if I will need the range on the following day.
Many days I drive less than 20 miles. About once or twice I week I get down to near empty (1-2 bars, old firmware)
So on the light days, if I start by 9pm, its done by 11pm. So it sits at 100% for 8 hours nearly every night.

After a conversation with someone at nissan, I changed my charging to just provide an end time of 4am significantly reducing the amount of time it's sitting at 100%. I may even push that a little farther to 5 or 6am since it always seems to be done early.

Over the weekends, I tend to top off to 100% from short trips.

Over the past few months, I have been noticing that I get the "charging stopped" at 11 of 12 bars very regularly now. Then a "charge complete" a few hours later. Whereas before it almost always charged to completion the first time.

I'm also a heavy footed driver so my battery experiences high loads quite often (as in every day).

I have not noticed any perceivable decrease in range, but I don't do long trips regularly that I'd notice. The trips I do do still take the same amount of bars as far as I can see. My driving style is still the biggest factor in how many bars I use (i.e. highway speed I choose to drive).

Car is always charged in my garage.
 
one thing i do now (before i had to be AT work AT 6 AM) that i have changed jobs is charge to 50-70% the night before, then get up and plug in. depending on the night before, i either get to 100% less than an hour before i leave or simply leave with 90+%. either way, its more than workable.

granted probably not an option for most but just saying ya know...
 
TickTock said:
turbo2ltr,
How many miles do you get from 100% to VLBW and what efficiency?

The dash says I get 4.0mi/kWh. I've seen it range +/- 0.2%

A common trip I do is about 55 miles of mixed driving and I usually have between 2-4 bars left depending on how I drive.

(type for non local people)
It includes driving jomax/I17 to I17/101 (3 miles 45mph, 5 miles highway)
Bell/303 via 101 and bell (8 miles highway, 9 miles 45mph with lights)
back to I17 via the 303 (26 miles highway, 3 miles 45mph)

The 303 return trip is pretty draining (long gradual elevation changes, and seems to have a total increase in altitude in that direction) and how much charge I use is greatly dependent on my speed. I typically do 62-65.

I left my laptop at work, but I'll do a GID check tuesday morning. I know what I was getting when I first got the car, and I haven't checked since.
 
rainnw said:
At over 20,000 miles and closing in on a year at the end of the month, i have not lost any of the "high voltage battery status" bars.
RuneW said:
Personally, I find posts describing problems with the Leaf about 1000 times more interesting than posts stating that "my car has no problems", but that's me...
I disagree. More information is always better. But that's just me. I encourage all high mileage (say, > 13K miles/year) LEAF owners to report battery capacity loss/non-loss, along with pertinent info: locale/temperature, charging habit, etc.
 
bturner said:
Another data point....

I just lost a bar this weekend. I have had my Leaf almost exactly one year. Mileage is 13,633. I live in the Phoenix area and charge to 100% every night.
Just reinforces that if you are concerned about longevity of your battery, charging to 100% in a hot climate and leaving it there for a period of time is not a great idea. What time is your Leaf set to reach 100% charge relative to when you typically leave in the morning?
 
DurkaDurka said:
* We always charge to 100% (we drive it a lot, 17,000 miles in 14 months of driving).

To me, this is not a lot of driving and I don't see a problem charging to 100%.

Nissan LEAF Owner's Manual, page CH-20:
"Long life mode
NISSAN recommends charging the Li-ion battery
using the long life mode to help maximize
the Li-ion battery useful life.
Long life mode can only be set using the
charging timer function.
The long life mode is set by changing the [%
Charge] to [80% Charge (Improves Battery
Longevity)] [...]
"

Furthermore, the LEAF's warranty includes an exclusion regarding Li-Ion battery being charged full on a daily basis "despite the lithium-ion battery keeping a high state of charge level (98-100%)". (LEAF Warranty Booklet, page 9)

From: http://mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery,_Charging_System#General_Info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
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