Being first - Texas - Battery has lost its top bar

Pipcecil · Jun 17, 2012

Dallas, Texas - on the exact 1 year anniversary, I got in my car today to find the top bar of my battery is gone. 1 year, 20,200 miles. Garage at home, but not at work. First 6 months was all 100% charge, last 6 was 80% weekdays and 100% weekends. QCd numerous times (over 20 at least), and QCd twice in one day only once.

This should start mirroring arizona since Texas cars have been around for just as long, but have a slightly lower temperature, but still greater than the west coast. It looks like this is definitely a trend and not an "isolated incident" as Nissan is calling it. I do have my 1 year battery check tomorrow. We shall see what the dealership says.

EdmondLeaf · Jun 17, 2012

Sorry, I guess GID meter is not needed anymore for you.

shrink · Jun 17, 2012

Thanks for sharing. The lack of TMS is looking like a big mistake.

Cheezmo · Jun 17, 2012

Those of us that leased are feeling smarter every day.

I honestly didn't consider the fact that I lived in a hot climate, hadn't studied battery characteristics to know that would be a consideration, but just the general uncertainty of new technology and experience with laptop batteries was definitely part of the equation.

It remains to be seen how fast the decline continues, but it seems clear this is something Nissan is going to have to address.

The fact that they were willing to put that capacity bar right there in our faces implies they had confidence in a rate of decline they would be able to defend. Imagine if it wasn't there and this was happening without anyone without a special meter noticing.

Stoaty · Jun 17, 2012

shrink said:
Thanks for sharing. The lack of TMS is looking like a big mistake.

Not for every area of the country, but certainly for the hot areas. Wonder what Nissan will do as this mushrooms.

adric22 · Jun 17, 2012

Not sure where to congratulate you or offer condolences.

LEAFfan · Jun 17, 2012

Pipcecil said:
It looks like this is definitely a trend and not an "isolated incident" as Nissan is calling it. I do have my 1 year battery check tomorrow. We shall see what the dealership says.

Most of us already knew it wasn't an isolated incident when one after the other here started losing a bar. I'm willing to bet that there are hundreds of LEAFs here that have either lost a bar or are close to it. The reason Nissan said "five" is because they monitor this forum and used that old information. They really know that it is in the hundreds.
The dealership will say what all the other dealerships have said, "It's gradual and normal."

mark13 · Jun 18, 2012

Pipcecil you and I charged the Leaf almost idenical in our history of charging..Congrats on not losing the top bar until 20k ...I lost mine @ 16k...
Ill wait for winter time to do majority of 100% charging when the garage in the 70 degree range and do 80% charges the majority of time doing the summer when the garage is 90+ @ night..

LTLFTcomposite · Jun 18, 2012

We came out one morning it was supposed to charge to 100% and found the top bar wasn't lit. It was a night that we charged to 100% when the battery was already at a fairly high SOC, I think 80%. Haven't seen the problem since and we've been back to our usual ritual of 100% on weekdays and 80% on weekends.. I chalked it up to a bug/feature in the SW where it gets confused topping off.

Has anyone else seen the top bar go away and then come back?

+1 on the leasing. From time to time I entertain the idea of buying out the lease early, then things like this pop up as a reminder of why I did so in the first place... better to stick with the three year test drive for now

Edit: I see now that is the capacity indicator, not SOC, and don't recall which was missing when we had our anomaly.

retrodog · Jun 18, 2012

The only positive aspect of this is the potential extended performance that you get out of warm batteries vs. people in cold climates, where it drops quite a bit. But at least they aren't getting their batteries damaged. Just lowered run times.

Herm · Jun 18, 2012

Even active cooling might not help unless the car is plugged-in all the time. Better battery formulas are needed. Nissan might decide that allowing the customer to charge up to 100% was not a good idea, keeping an additional 3.6kWh in "never use reserve" might be the solution, it would cost Nissan about $2k to add that extra capacity.

I wonder if keeping the AC running might not help the battery remain cooler, a white car plus tinted windows would help also.

phxsmiley · Jun 18, 2012

Herm said:
Even active cooling might not help unless the car is plugged-in all the time. Better battery formulas are needed. Nissan might decide that allowing the customer to charge up to 100% was not a good idea, keeping an additional 3.6kWh in "never use reserve" might be the solution, it would cost Nissan about $2k to add that extra capacity.

I wonder if keeping the AC running might not help the battery remain cooler, a white car plus tinted windows would help also.

I would tend to agree about the active cooling. My car tends to be outside, away from any charging possibility, for 9-10 hours a day, in 100-110 degree heat. I don't think battery-powered cooling would be a good idea. Also, my Leaf is white, with tinted windows, and I can attest that this doesn't help much. I lost my first capacity bar after 10 months, just yesterday.

TomT · Jun 18, 2012

Since the battery is outside the cabin, I don't see how it would make much difference... GM using a much smaller portion of the available battery capacity on the Volt likely greatly helps their cause in reducing battery degradation, along with their slightly different construction and chemistry...

Herm said:
I wonder if keeping the AC running might not help the battery remain cooler, a white car plus tinted windows would help also.

surfingslovak · Jun 18, 2012

TomT said:
Since the battery is outside the cabin, I don't see how it would make much difference... GM using a much smaller portion of the available battery capacity on the Volt likely greatly helps their cause in reducing battery degradation, along with their slightly different construction and chemistry...

We still have a very small sample of cars that have lost a bar and only anecdotal data. While it appears logical that lower SOC wold help, we had folks that have nearly always charged to 80% lose a bar in Phoenix. Perhaps going even lower - 70% or 60% SOC in the summer heat would have a more noticeable effect. It's tough to say without having solid data.

I hate to be harping on this, but there appears to be a degree of seasonality, which could account for a few percentage points. GM uses a slightly different chemistry in the Volt (NMC), but they have been as non-specific about its thermal characteristics as Nissan has been about theirs. At least GM has publicly acknowledged that battery degradation figures from the field have been better than expected. For what it's worth, I've noticed that Volt owners calculate and track the number of kWh used from the battery, and report variation of up to 5%.

The spreadsheet I maintained early on indicated that red and white were the most common colors in the group of affected Leafs, but this could be simply due to the fact that they were popular choices in Phoenix.

shrink · Jun 18, 2012

I found an interesting article on the Volt's TMS:

http://www.myperfectautomobile.com/general-motors/chevy-volt-thermal-management-system.html#hide" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EdmondLeaf · Jun 18, 2012

Pipcecil said:
I do have my 1 year battery check tomorrow. We shall see what the dealership says.

so what dealer said

Pipcecil · Jun 19, 2012

Dealership said nothing useful at all (I think it really has to do with they have no clue what to say). I got 5/5 in all categories except the "topping off" category, which was a 4/5. So really, compared to Nissan's standards I am treating my battery awesomely! The check DID record a battery capacity loss, and when I asked if it was normal he just pointed to the crappy text next to the information, "Gradual loss of capacity is normal battery characteristic as experienced with cell phones and laptops. The degree of capacity loss will vary based on driving, charging habits, and environmental conditions." This didn't answer my question at all.

He said the loss is normal, but I honestly don't think he has even seen it before and knew what to say to it. Plus, I doubt any explanation by the sales guy as he said lithium ion batteries are the type that should be fully charged and fully discharged every time to get the most life, a way way way way WRONG answer (he is thinking of the old Nickel Cadmium batteries).

Needless to say, kindof dissapointed that the Nissan "experts" still know less than I do about the batteries in their own vehicles. Its sad when I can't even get straight answers from an "expert" and need to go back to and resort to online research only. That isn't the best way to win new, regular, joe-blow customers.

Herm · Jun 19, 2012

TomT said:
Since the battery is outside the cabin, I don't see how it would make much difference...

Herm said:

I wonder if keeping the AC running might not help the battery remain cooler, a white car plus tinted windows would help also.

Click to expand...

Since the pack cools by heat conduction to the air and metal chassis, I was hoping that by cooling the chassis down a dew degrees might help.. but if you are parked over blacktop at 150°F all bets are off.

gbarry42 · Jun 19, 2012

Pipcecil said:
the crappy text next to the information, "Gradual loss of capacity is normal battery characteristic as experienced with cell phones and laptops.

I have been lecturing the crowds that cell phone/laptop/Tesla/Li-Cobalt chemistry is not representative of the chemistry in Nissan's batteries, especially with respect to the short-life and bursting-into-flame attributes. But now Nissan gives you this bad analogy in writing. :roll: I think I have to give up.

Herm said:
Since the pack cools by heat conduction to the air and metal chassis, ...

Well, actual "conduction to the air" doesn't amount to much if the air isn't moving. Moving air is "convection". The cells are pretty much insulated by the air in their enclosure. The other mechanism is radiation, which only works after the battery heat warms up the surrounding metal. And then the surroundings have to be cooler. Like you say, with a hot pavement, the radiation will be going the other way.

I encourage some of you to feel the floor (or the outside pan?) when the battery is supposedly hot. I tried this after a charge session and thought that maybe-perhaps I could feel it a tiny bit warmer, but I think I imagined it. Anyway, if it doesn't feel warm, not much cooling is going to happen.

Edit: Tony Williams did the "QC across Oregon" thing, and got the temperature up to 10 bars. He says he still could not feel anything warmer than ambient on the car. I'm referring to this message.

EdmondLeaf · Jun 19, 2012

Did you noticed drop in range what is reported here is not very impressive.

Pipcecil said:

Being first - Texas - Battery has lost its top bar

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