Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

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I think we've reached the beating-a-dead-horse point when it comes to arguing specifics on LEAF battery capacity and degradation rates.

Fact is, LEAF batteries from Texas to California already being replaced under warrantee, due to rapid capacity loss. Florida, Georgia, and the rest of the southeast will join the battery replacement fun by the end of this year. Most early adopters in warm climates have already lost 20%+ of their original battery capacity. The best they can hope for is to turn the car in at the end of the lease or be lucky enough to get a replacement battery before their warrantee period expires and/or the car has too short a range to be practical anymore.

There's no sign of any, significant, improvement in battery heat resistance, at least through the 2015 model year. So battery replacements are going to continue through at least 2020.

The Nissan LEAF: The Throw-away Electric Car
 
highend said:
is this normal that my leaf (located in Poland) loses around 0.02 AHr daily (showed using Leaf Spy Pro).
P3227 update was done in middle of March (capacity got up, but quicly went down).
Climate is not hot, just normal.. (between 10-20 degrees celcius). And a month ago capacity was AHr=61.5
now AHr =59.98, so about 1.5Ahr in not even warm month. Leaf is two years old.
Probably normal. May want to start a new thread as you will get buried in this monster.
 
edatoakrun said:
drees said:
...my own measurements of energy used to charge the car have directly correlated with the car's reported capacity loss and so has everyone else's...
You keep making the same claim drees, without offering any supporting data.
Here's the latest data point:

Drained my car to turtle (5 GIDs) on a 80% charge (188 GIDs) driving 51.6 mi at 3.5 mi/kWh (About half surface streets, half freeway at ~70 mph). LBW came on a bit over 40 miles and VLBW came on around 48 miles. Pulled into garage with 12 GIDs and drained the rest using the heater/defroster on max. Turtle came on at 6 GIDs. Lowest cell-pair around 3.1V, average 3.3V, max 3.45V. Finishing battery temp around 90F, started the morning with the battery around 80F.

Charged to 80% immediately after that which took 4:18:35 drawing 16.157 kWh according to my Blink EVSE. I didn't charge all the way to 100% as I wasn't planning on going anywhere soon this morning, but my last five 80-100% charges in the last 3 months ought to be good enough to take an average. Here they are in descending order from most recent to oldest:
1:08 3.567 kWh
1:00 3.268 kWh
1:04 3.116 kWh
1:10 3.683 kWh
1:00 3.300 kWh

Average time was 64 minutes, average energy 3.39 kWh.

So we can safely assume a full charge would have taken about 5h 22m and drawn 19.5 kWh.

We know that a new LEAF will pull about 24.5-25.0 kWh from the wall. Mine pulls less than 20 kWh.

In conclusion, my current Ah reading of 53.6 is 81% of a new LEAF's ~66 Ah. My energy used to charge is about 78-80% of what a new LEAF pulls from the wall to charge from turtle to 100%. If anything, the car is over-estimating capacity, not under.
 
drees said:
edatoakrun said:
drees said:
...my own measurements of energy used to charge the car have directly correlated with the car's reported capacity loss and so has everyone else's...
You keep making the same claim drees, without offering any supporting data.
Here's the latest data point:

Drained my car to turtle (5 GIDs) on a 80% charge (188 GIDs) driving 51.6 mi at 3.5 mi/kWh (About half surface streets, half freeway at ~70 mph). LBW came on a bit over 40 miles and VLBW came on around 48 miles. Pulled into garage with 12 GIDs and drained the rest using the heater/defroster on max. Turtle came on at 6 GIDs. Lowest cell-pair around 3.1V, average 3.3V, max 3.45V. Finishing battery temp around 90F, started the morning with the battery around 80F.

Charged to 80% immediately after that which took 4:18:35 drawing 16.157 kWh according to my Blink EVSE. I didn't charge all the way to 100% as I wasn't planning on going anywhere soon this morning, but my last five 80-100% charges in the last 3 months ought to be good enough to take an average. Here they are in descending order from most recent to oldest:
1:08 3.567 kWh
1:00 3.268 kWh
1:04 3.116 kWh
1:10 3.683 kWh
1:00 3.300 kWh

Average time was 64 minutes, average energy 3.39 kWh.

So we can safely assume a full charge would have taken about 5h 22m and drawn 19.5 kWh.

We know that a new LEAF will pull about 24.5-25.0 kWh from the wall. Mine pulls less than 20 kWh.

In conclusion, my current Ah reading of 53.6 is 81% of a new LEAF's ~66 Ah. My energy used to charge is about 78-80% of what a new LEAF pulls from the wall to charge from turtle to 100%. If anything, the car is over-estimating capacity, not under.
It's interesting, Drees that our two cars are almost like "twins":
I took delivery within a week of you (June 14, 2011)
My Leaf DD readings are almost identical to yours at this time, and we are both at 11 bars.
We both live in the same area (San Diego)

About the only significant difference I see is that my mileage is @ 19,000+ (much lower than yours.) This reinforces my belief that mileage isn't really much of a factor in contributing to battery degradation----it's mostly about temperature and time.
 
derkraut said:
It's interesting, Drees that our two cars are almost like "twins":
I took delivery within a week of you (June 14, 2011)
My Leaf DD readings are almost identical to yours at this time, and we are both at 11 bars.
We both live in the same area (San Diego)

About the only significant difference I see is that my mileage is @ 19,000+ (much lower than yours.) This reinforces my belief that mileage isn't really much of a factor in contributing to battery degradation----it's mostly about temperature and time.
I agree for the most part. What's your driving schedule like? I have to wonder if your car spends more time at higher SOC which makes up for the fewer cycles. Either that or it's slightly warmer where you are, though my car bakes in Vista during the week (85-90F battery temps this week!).
 
I charge to 100% only about twice a month, as needed; otherwise, always to 80%. Car is driven an average of 5-6 days per week, almost always trips of 15-20 miles, or less. Virtually all my charging is done on the car timer between 0100-0600 in the garage. I've used the QC one time, for about 10 minutes---just to see if it works. I've never been @ vlbw. I've never seen battery temp above 6 bars, (or above 90 degrees F on the Leaf DD).
How's that for babying the sucker? :)
 
derkraut said:
I charge to 100% only about twice a month, as needed; otherwise, always to 80%. Car is driven an average of 5-6 days per week, almost always trips of 15-20 miles, or less. Virtually all my charging is done on the car timer between 0100-0600 in the garage. I've used the QC one time, for about 10 minutes---just to see if it works. I've never been @ vlbw. I've never seen battery temp above 6 bars, (or above 90 degrees F on the Leaf DD).
How's that for babying the sucker? :)

I have about the same mileage as your LEAF (19700 mi) and a bit longer ownership. I also do QC now when I drive to SF - over 30 QCs so far. The highest temp I have recorded for my 11 LEAF is 93F, never see more than 6 temp bars, and no turtle or VLBW. I still have 12 cap bars and 56.7 Ah capacity. From the data I have obtained, for the same mileage of MY11 and MY12 LEAF, the degradation rate in San Diego/LA is slightly higher than that in the SF-San Jose area.
 
linkim said:
I have about the same mileage as your LEAF (19700 mi) and a bit longer ownership. I also do QC now when I drive to SF - over 30 QCs so far. The highest temp I have recorded for my 11 LEAF is 93F, never see more than 6 temp bars, and no turtle or VLBW. I still have 12 cap bars and 56.7 Ah capacity. From the data I have obtained, for the same mileage of MY11 and MY12 LEAF, the degradation rate in San Diego/LA is slightly higher than that in the SF-San Jose area.
Yes, but we already knew that from the Battery Aging Model. Unscaled aging factors:

LA Civic Center - 1.00
San Diego - 0.97
San Jose - 0.90
San Francisco - 0.76
 
TomT said:
So, my third bar loss is literally right around the corner! Amazing how fast it drops when the weather heats up!
Tom, it seems this warranty is tailor-made for your LEAF! Do you think you will need to park it for a little while when you get up in the high 50Ks to let that last bar drop?
 
Since it is a four year/ 60K lease and is going back at the beginning of March, there is probably no incentive as I expect I will be just a tick under 60K at the four year mark and the fourth bar will likely have dropped a few months before that. If it does drop the fourth bar while I still have it, I'm going to make then replace the battery even if there is only a month left though!

RegGuheert said:
TomT said:
So, my third bar loss is literally right around the corner! Amazing how fast it drops when the weather heats up!
Tom, it seems this warranty is tailor-made for your LEAF! Do you think you will need to park it for a little while when you get up in the high 50Ks to let that last bar drop?
 
TomT said:
Since it is a four year/ 60K lease and is going back at the beginning of March, there is probably no incentive as I expect I will be just a tick under 60K at the four year mark and the fourth bar will likely have dropped a few months before that. If it does drop the fourth bar while I still have it, I'm going to make then replace the battery even if there is only a month left though!
Considering all the crap Nissan has put people through re batteries, I'd probably demand they replace it at 59,999 miles and/or 3 years, 11 months and 29 days!
 
drees said:
...Here's the latest data point:
...In conclusion, my current Ah reading of 53.6 is 81% of a new LEAF's ~66 Ah. My energy used to charge is about 78-80% of what a new LEAF pulls from the wall to charge from turtle to 100%. If anything, the car is over-estimating capacity, not under.

I've posted a reply, on-topic, at:

Collecting data:Off-the-wall power for turtle to 100% charge

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=6876&p=365452#p365452" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The real question, as far as I am concerned, is what are the results for LEAFs with far more miles, that have experienced higher ambient temperatures, or have seen far larger gid/ capacity bar losses than drees or my LEAFs have.

Have any eight-capacity-bar LEAF reported either constant-speed range or recharge data, since the one LEAF in the Tempe range test, which with~39% gid loss, only range-tested (with 59.3 miles at ~62 mph, very roughly) ~20%-25% capacity loss?

http://electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery_Capacity_Loss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I understand folks are mostly concerned with getting your own batteries replaced under the 5/60 warrantee, but it would be very helpful for those of us who may not receive any warrantee coverage, and are still wondering (thanks to Nissan) what our replacement batteries will cost, if you could help us to know when we can expect to need to pay for one, by posting recharge or range test results.
 
Valdemar said:
Sad day today, lost my 2nd bar. I know, I had it coming :)
Sorry to hear that. My SOH is waffling between 81-82%, so I am guessing I'm not too far away myself. Just cleared 53K miles yesterday (my third LEAFiversary!).
 
I'm turning in my Leaf today for the end of the 3 year Leaf, I was really hoping that 4th bar would drop before turn-in, but it looks like it's going to hang on.
 
xtremeflyer said:
I'm turning in my Leaf today for the end of the 3 year Leaf, I was really hoping that 4th bar would drop before turn-in, but it looks like it's going to hang on.
Would you have bought the car end of lease if you had a new battery?
Any consideration to buy out and get a new battery by end of Summer?

Or just time to move on...
 
Well, even with all my battery babying and gentle driving, I lost my 1st BB a bit over a week ago. :( Since I rarely charge to 100%, I may have lost it much earlier and didn't realize it. I charged to 100% on the weekend, and noticed the notched tooth grin on the BB display. Darn, I was hoping to make it through the summer. I know this isn't big news because of everyone's reports, but I have about 18,500 mi on the odometer. This suggests that calendar loss is more important than miles driven (darn, I was hoping otherwise). Unfortunately, this puts a serious dent in my expectation for driving my 2011 Leaf all over town on it's 25th birthday.

I really thought I would be able to forestall the inevitable for another year. I am in PNW, but in SE WA state and we do get temps in excess of 110 F at times. Last summer was tough and much longer heat than normal and with a much higher average temp. With El Nino coming I'm pretty sure we will have some scorchers this decade. Add me to the wiki list.
 
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