Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

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tokenride said:
You can imagine why it's tough to warranty a battery. It can be subject to too many variables. The best option would be to drive up to a station and switch it out every time you want get a full one.
caplossmnl


Sorry, come again?
 
surfingslovak said:
tokenride said:
You can imagine why it's tough to warranty a battery. It can be subject to too many variables. The best option would be to drive up to a station and switch it out every time you want get a full one.
caplossmnl


Sorry, come again?

Companies dont want to over warranty batteries since they will degrade no matter what. I think that owning vs leasing it, and then replacing it would always be too expensive. Therefore, if there were an infrastructure of battery stations with battery packs charged and ready. You could drive up and have your empty battery switched out with a fresh battery. This would take two minutes. I remember reading about this concept from a European company that has some stations like this.
 
tokenride said:
surfingslovak said:
tokenride said:
You can imagine why it's tough to warranty a battery. It can be subject to too many variables. The best option would be to drive up to a station and switch it out every time you want get a full one.
caplossmnl


Sorry, come again?

Companies dont want to over warranty batteries since they will degrade no matter what. I think that owning vs leasing it, and then replacing it would always be too expensive. Therefore, if there were an infrastructure of battery stations with battery packs charged and ready. You could drive up and have your empty battery switched out with a fresh battery. This would take two minutes. I remember reading about this concept from a European company that has some stations like this.
Better Place did battery swapping via its stations. Not surprisingly, they went bankrupt. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=295700#p295700" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and the posts before it re: their death spiral that preceded it.
 
tokenride said:
Companies dont want to over warranty batteries since they will degrade no matter what.
caplossmnl


I'm not sure if I necessarily agree with this statement. It should be possible to build a fairly robust battery, which would last a decade or longer without experiencing unacceptable degradation levels. We already had batteries that would meet this design goal in the previous generation of EVs, which were on the road around the millennium. Some of the 1st gen RAV4 EV drivers are still getting nearly full utility our of their EVs a decade and many miles later. The particular problem we face is that the previous generation of batteries (NiMH) cannot be used in EVs due to a patent held by Chevron. These batteries were also heavier and less energy dense, which makes them less desirable given the recent advances in battery technology. Also, some of the raw materials, especially the heavy metals, are not desirable due to their toxicity and relatively high prices.

The Prius, which is a hybrid and not an EV, is allowed to continue use this technology. When you look at the battery Toyota was recently using, it weighs around 100 lbs and provides a little more than 1 kWh of capacity. If you took this exact same technology and scaled it to the capacity level the LEAF is using, the battery would literally weigh a ton. The lithium-ion batteries in the new generation of EVs are more advanced and desirable, but also less proven. The first automaker to put them into larger-scale use was Tesla with their Roadster, I believe. Generally speaking, this means that these cars have been on the road less than 5 years. It's probably fair to say that the technology is not fully proven and field tested yet. As an aside, Tesla used a robust active cooling system to mitigate some of the risks they assumed by pursuing some of these design decision.

A warranty arrangement usually gives the manufacturer an additional incentive to come up with better and more robust systems and designs. The consumers on the other hand has some assurance that they will get a certain minimum level of utility of out the car they purchased. This arrangement is not ideal, obviously, but it has been shown to work reasonably well. I think it's encouraging to see that other EV manufactures seem to be offering a capacity warranty with their new products this year as a matter of fact. In that sense, however painful the experience might have been for some, early LEAF drivers might have their place in EV history.

The other alternative is not to sell the battery, but lease it instead. The ownership stays with the manufacturer in this case, and they sell a service with an associated performance guarantee. In a way, it's like an unlimited warranty, but you have to pay for it. Not dissimilar to the battery swap scheme you suggested above. Although the perpetual rental option was not popular with owners on MNL, the EV industry might try to move in this direction. Car buyers in Europe are typically already offered the option of either buying or leasing the battery when they get a new vehicle.

(I apologize for the verbosity of this post, and for stating the obvious, but I felt we had to find some common ground.)
 
surfingslovak said:
tokenride said:
Companies dont want to over warranty batteries since they will degrade no matter what.
caplossmnl


<snip a lot>

The other alternative is not to sell the battery, but lease it instead. The ownership stays with the manufacturer in this case, and they sell a service with an associated performance guarantee. In a way, it's like an unlimited warranty, but you have to pay for it. Not dissimilar to the battery swap scheme you suggested above. Although the perpetual rental option was not popular with owners on MNL, the EV industry might try to move in this direction. Car buyers in Europe are typically already offered the option of either buying or leasing the battery when they get a new vehicle.
And the Smart ED offers this in the U.S. (I know you know, but maybe tokenride doesn't).

Warrantying batteries is just like any other product. You set the warranty bar high enough based on your testing/real world data that only a small % of outliers will need replacement under warranty. If you've got accurate data and done your sums correctly, the amount you've set aside for warranty (in the MSRP, typically 5% for an ICE car as a whole, but presumably considerably more for a BEV with immature technology) is enough to cover the claims. Lacking accurate data or doing the math wrong can be costly, but if you want to keep your customers you'd better pay it without quibbling.

Nissan is now claiming that they will (hopefully) have a hot weather battery available next year. Until they're ready to put their money where their mouth is and warranty capacity to match the claims they made in 2010, i.e. 80% for 5 yr./60k miles, why would anyone put any faith in these new claims, which are presumably based on the same type of accelerated testing that proved so inadequate in real life with the current battery?

Lacking any large-scale real world data from customers when they start using the new batteries (assuming it goes into production), even warrantying them initially at 80% (none of this 'bar' nonsense) for 3yr./36k mile would be a step forward. At least that way people would know they had a guaranteed minimum capacity for the length of a lease.
 
I had lost my first bar two weeks ago at about 9000 miles and 15 months--saw it come back this morning. It was the first time temps in my garage dropped under 62 in three months. I had 242 gids after a 100% charge yesterday morning.
 
jimbennett said:
I had lost my first bar two weeks ago at about 9000 miles and 15 months--saw it come back this morning. It was the first time temps in my garage dropped under 62 in three months. I had 242 gids after a 100% charge yesterday morning.

Wow. I can't remember reading if that's ever happened before.
 
Lost my 12th bar today.

2 years 3 months since purchase (June 2011)
22245 miles
55.21 Ah
235 / 194 GID 80% / 100%
4.5 mi/kWh average

Typical usage: Charge to 80% nearly always. End timer set to 5:40AM (actual finish time around 5:00 +- 15 min). Drive about 22-24 mi / day. Longer drives on weekends. Never sits at 100% for very long (hasn't sat at 100% for more than an hour or two). QCd 4 times. Have never seen the 7th temp bar. Never seen turtle. Only seen VLBW a few times.

Ever since the P3227 update (also had grabby brake update) have noticed about 1-less bubble of regen from 70-80% SOC. Didn't see that the first year of ownership until late fall / winter with cool temps. Today I even saw only 3 bubbles of regen briefly despite battery being pretty warm.

Range seems to be down at least 10 miles on a 100% charge, if not more compared to the first year of ownership.

98ap.jpg

yvao.png

kacy.png
 
Can someone update Wiki for me? I think I have a distinction that I do not want. I appear to be the first Oregon LEAF owner to report losing a battery capacity bar. What is interesting is that my AHr dropped all the way to 54.44 in the heat of August and has rebounded to 54.84 with the cooler temperatures, and then I lost a bar. I am currently at AHr 54.76, Cap 82.70% & Hlth 68.26%.

I lost my bar sometime last night, with my battery temps. the lowest since last spring, 4 temp. bars, between 53-57 degrees. It was 41 degrees outside this morning. It took 26.5 months of driving the car and 41,124 miles. I also quick charged 189 times (25 to 100%, 89 to 80% or 80+, & 78 20-75% range).
 
I wish all the leafs were like yours. would be great to go 40,000 plus miles on the first bar. sadly the rest of us, our batteries suck.
 
Starting in July of 2012 I began using two ground fans from about 7 PM to 7 AM, with the car in the garage. One blowing under the front of the car and one blowing in the back of the car with the garage door cracked and a window open to get the cold night air in the garage and under the car. Beginning this summer, I had the car outside every night, with two fans blowing under the front of the car. Now fall through spring I will have the car in the garage, with it cracked to get the cold air in. My fans are not waterproof and I am entering the wet season.
 
If you keep temperature records with Leaf Spy, LeafDD or any one of the other Leaf instruments, I suspect you'll find it makes little practice difference due to the thermal mass of the pack... I tried it for a week here and the difference was only a couple of degrees... Definitely not worth it in my case and climate...

ColumbiaRiverGorge said:
Starting in July of 2012 I began using two ground fans from about 7 PM to 7 AM, with the car in the garage. One blowing under the front of the car and one blowing in the back of the car with the garage door cracked and a window open to get the cold night air in the garage and under the car. Beginning this summer, I had the car outside every night, with two fans blowing under the front of the car. Now fall through spring I will have the car in the garage, with it cracked to get the cold air in. My fans are not waterproof and I am entering the wet season.
 
TomT,

I don't keep records from my Leaf spy, but in my climate it makes a difference for me to use fans. My battery temps. hit the 100s in the summer due to my work location (The Dalles, OR and probably more like your location in Granada Hills, CA) and sometimes multiple QCs in a day. I usually can cool the battery down into the 60's overnight. This morning my battery temps. were around 55 degrees and it was 53 degrees outside. My battery temps were around 78 degrees yesterday when I got home. I live at 800' on the North side of Mt. Hood in the Cascade Range. I seem to get about 5 to 10+ degree cooler battery temps. each time I use the fans. Maybe in the long run, the fans won't matter, but I have faith they will help a little against degradation. I am going to take full advantage of the QC port I bought and all of the QCs in my area. I don't feel that I should have to sacrifice my ability to QC due to a lack of TMS, though I do suspect that heat is affecting my rate of battery degradation.
 
drees said:
Lost my 12th bar today.

2 years 3 months since purchase (June 2011)
22245 miles
55.21 Ah
235 / 194 GID 80% / 100%
4.5 mi/kWh average

Typical usage: Charge to 80% nearly always. End timer set to 5:40AM (actual finish time around 5:00 +- 15 min). Drive about 22-24 mi / day. Longer drives on weekends. Never sits at 100% for very long (hasn't sat at 100% for more than an hour or two). QCd 4 times. Have never seen the 7th temp bar. Never seen turtle. Only seen VLBW a few times.

Ever since the P3227 update (also had grabby brake update) have noticed about 1-less bubble of regen from 70-80% SOC. Didn't see that the first year of ownership until late fall / winter with cool temps. Today I even saw only 3 bubbles of regen briefly despite battery being pretty warm.

Range seems to be down at least 10 miles on a 100% charge, if not more compared to the first year of ownership.

98ap.jpg

yvao.png

kacy.png

holy crap! your car seems to violate everything I thought I knew about degradation.

you have insufficient miles,

charge insufficiently deep or discharge

no QCs

no real heat (never seeing 7 TBs) but you lost your first bar in less than half the miles it will take me to lose mine? that makes no sense at all.

seems the real sweet spot for TBs is 5 bars or less? (FYI; I have seen the 7th bar for about 30 mins last Summer but spent nearly the entire Summer of 2013 at 6 bars which also is when 90% of my loss happened)

is the what?? 10 degree average temp difference during Spring/Summer/Fall really making that much of a difference?
 
ColumbiaRiverGorge said:
Can someone update Wiki for me? I think I have a distinction that I do not want. I appear to be the first Oregon LEAF owner to report losing a battery capacity bar. What is interesting is that my AHr dropped all the way to 54.44 in the heat of August and has rebounded to 54.84 with the cooler temperatures, and then I lost a bar. I am currently at AHr 54.76, Cap 82.70% & Hlth 68.26%.

I lost my bar sometime last night, with my battery temps. the lowest since last spring, 4 temp. bars, between 53-57 degrees. It was 41 degrees outside this morning. It took 26.5 months of driving the car and 41,124 miles. I also quick charged 189 times (25 to 100%, 89 to 80% or 80+, & 78 20-75% range).

you are a bit warmer than Olympia so that I can take comfort in. the fact that I am less than 300 miles from you is not making me happy but the cooler weather has caused me to rebound almost a full ahr and health has gone up almost 2%
 
actually, drees & my LEAF exhibit almost exactly the same degradation for almost exactly the same profile (delivery date, area, mileage, use, loss).
currently 1 bar down & 55 Ahr

DaveinOlyWA said:
drees said:
Lost my 12th bar today.

2 years 3 months since purchase (June 2011)
22245 miles
55.21 Ah
235 / 194 GID 80% / 100%
4.5 mi/kWh average

Typical usage: Charge to 80% nearly always. End timer set to 5:40AM (actual finish time around 5:00 +- 15 min). Drive about 22-24 mi / day. Longer drives on weekends. Never sits at 100% for very long (hasn't sat at 100% for more than an hour or two). QCd 4 times. Have never seen the 7th temp bar. Never seen turtle. Only seen VLBW a few times.

Ever since the P3227 update (also had grabby brake update) have noticed about 1-less bubble of regen from 70-80% SOC. Didn't see that the first year of ownership until late fall / winter with cool temps. Today I even saw only 3 bubbles of regen briefly despite battery being pretty warm.

Range seems to be down at least 10 miles on a 100% charge, if not more compared to the first year of ownership.

98ap.jpg

yvao.png

kacy.png

holy crap! your car seems to violate everything I thought I knew about degradation.

you have insufficient miles,

charge insufficiently deep or discharge

no QCs

no real heat (never seeing 7 TBs) but you lost your first bar in less than half the miles it will take me to lose mine? that makes no sense at all.

seems the real sweet spot for TBs is 5 bars or less? (FYI; I have seen the 7th bar for about 30 mins last Summer but spent nearly the entire Summer of 2013 at 6 bars which also is when 90% of my loss happened)

is the what?? 10 degree average temp difference during Spring/Summer/Fall really making that much of a difference?
 
It makes me wonder if the "Hot Battery" is going to be the panacea that some think it will be...

opencar said:
actually, drees & my LEAF exhibit almost exactly the same degradation for almost exactly the same profile (delivery date, area, mileage, use, loss).
currently 1 bar down & 55 Ahr
 
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