Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

Hopefully we can put to bed the false rumor that 2013 leafs have a better battery. Or at least acknowledge that the difference isn't worth paying for.

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This is exactly what I have saying [fearing] all along, that the minor tweaks that Nissan did to the chemistry in 2013 will actually do little other than cheat hundreds of more people out of a free battery replacement. We are already hearing from lots of 2011/2012 owners who were just over 60,000 miles when they lost their 4th bar, and Nissan won't give them a new battery, and I have a feeling this is just going to add to that segment of 4 Bar losers.

There is also a theory that the battery "improvements" didn't get to the assembly line until mid-year.

Palmer said, on more than one occasion, that the changes to the 2013 battery were primarily to lower manufacturing costs, not to improve the battery in any way...

keydiver said:

Hopefully we can put to bed the false rumor that 2013 leafs have a better battery. Or at least acknowledge that the difference isn't worth paying for.

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This is exactly what I have saying [fearing] all along, that the minor tweaks that Nissan did to the chemistry in 2013 will actually do little other than cheat hundreds of more people out of a free battery replacement.

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Just bought the leaf, I think about 2 or 3 weeks ago and today the 12 little blocky bars on the far right came down to 11. I guess this will affect resale value? It is a 20113 used nissan leaf 23952 miles. Hoping it will stay at 11 and not suddenly go to 10 after a few more weeks.

Good times at the 12 bar club good times... .... kind of short ..

Bar loss isn't a sudden event. If it took 24,000 miles to lose the first 15% capacity, it may take another 10,000 miles to lose the next bar (6.25%).

NissanLeafCamper said:

Just bought the leaf, I think about 2 or 3 weeks ago and today the 12 little blocky bars on the far right came down to 11. I guess this will affect resale value? It is a 20113 used nissan leaf 23952 miles. Hoping it will stay at 11 and not suddenly go to 10 after a few more weeks.

Good times at the 12 bar club good times... .... kind of short ..

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Note that the remaining bars are worth less than half of the top battery bar. Whatever you do, don't "baby" the battery like many of us did. Have fun driving the LEAF and treat it like a normal car. You'll quite possibly lose four out of 12 battery bars before five years or 60K miles, and get that defective 2013 battery replaced under warranty.

I'm not saying to abuse the battery; just don't go out of your way to be gentle on it. Earlier in my LEAF ownership, I limited my power on mountain climbs, took extra steps like zealously parking in the shade to keep the battery cool, and kept the SOC (state of charge) as low as practicable in warm weather. Combined with my cooler mountain climate, I'm left with a battery that's too good for the warranty but significantly more degraded than initially expected. In any case, while I try to take reasonable care of my battery, I no longer "baby" it.

It's ironic, but I find myself driving at 80 mph more often these days than when my Leaf was new despite losing 30% range, I know I have to charge on the go anyway, so why bother. Thankfully there is many more charging options these days than 4 years ago.

NissanLeafCamper said:

Just bought the leaf, I think about 2 or 3 weeks ago and today the 12 little blocky bars on the far right came down to 11. I guess this will affect resale value? It is a 20113 used nissan leaf 23952 miles. Hoping it will stay at 11 and not suddenly go to 10 after a few more weeks.

Good times at the 12 bar club good times... .... kind of short ..

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can you give us the last 6 digits of the VIN and the manufacturing date from the driver door jamb label?

Exactly! About a year and half ago, I realized that my only hope of making the battery warranty was to try and speed up degradation. I started charging to 100%, leaving it there for a while, keeping the battery as warm as possible, and driving it harder. If I didn't make the warranty cutoff, I was planning to turn it in at end of lease anyway so I didn't really care... Well, I dropped the fourth bar with 17 miles to go, got a new Lizard battery, and extended the lease... If I hadn't pushed it, I KNOW I would not have made the battery capacity warranty cutoff mileage.

abasile said:

Earlier in my LEAF ownership, I limited my power on mountain climbs, took extra steps like zealously parking in the shade to keep the battery cool, and kept the SOC (state of charge) as low as practicable in warm weather. Combined with my cooler mountain climate, I'm left with a battery that's too good for the warranty but significantly more degraded than initially expected. In any case, while I try to take reasonable care of my battery, I no longer "baby" it.

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dhanson865 said:

NissanLeafCamper said:

Just bought the leaf, I think about 2 or 3 weeks ago and today the 12 little blocky bars on the far right came down to 11. I guess this will affect resale value? It is a 20113 used nissan leaf 23952 miles. Hoping it will stay at 11 and not suddenly go to 10 after a few more weeks.

Good times at the 12 bar club good times... .... kind of short ..

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can you give us the last 6 digits of the VIN and the manufacturing date from the driver door jamb label?

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Yes of course I can !

VIN: 1N4AZ0CP5DC405736

And the manufacturer date on the door jamb is:

03/13

Should I start sleeping inside my leaf with the A/C on to speed up the degradation process?

-edit-

Would love to sleep inside the leaf with the A/C on. Would save me money since I recharge it while @ working free charging stations.

abasile said:

Note that the remaining bars are worth less than half of the top battery bar. Whatever you do, don't "baby" the battery like many of us did. Have fun driving the LEAF and treat it like a normal car. You'll quite possibly lose four out of 12 battery bars before five years or 60K miles, and get that defective 2013 battery replaced under warranty.

I'm not saying to abuse the battery; just don't go out of your way to be gentle on it. Earlier in my LEAF ownership, I limited my power on mountain climbs, took extra steps like zealously parking in the shade to keep the battery cool, and kept the SOC (state of charge) as low as practicable in warm weather. Combined with my cooler mountain climate, I'm left with a battery that's too good for the warranty but significantly more degraded than initially expected. In any case, while I try to take reasonable care of my battery, I no longer "baby" it.

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whaaat? How can the rest of the 11 bars be worth less than half the value of the 12th bar? Sounds like I just have a HUGE loss to my electric leaf? Is it really that bad? If so, wow... I have some pretty weird luck lol. I got this car as a replacement to my van which has a bad transmission, and before that I had a red geo prizm that did not have an original motor... but a 'used' motor with unknown history. Wow, wow ~

Sounds pretty crazy that you had a leaf, baby it, then ended up still with bad battery capacity. I actually run the leaf now in ECO mode all the time because, uh, well.... heck, i don't know anymore . Why am I running it in ECO mode? I should be driving it in "DRAG" mode

I'm actually afraid of running the leaf in "D"rag mode because a few days ago I went by here http://abc7.com/news/woman-killed-in-crash-involving-7-cars-in-rosemead/878184/ at about 6am which was about less than 1 hour before that happened .

Would sleeping inside the leaf 8hrs plus naps help draing the battery quicker? Plus also driving it a lot, of course.

Valdemar said:

There is also a theory that the battery "improvements" didn't get to the assembly line until mid-year.

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For what its worth. 3-4 months ago before I bought my leaf, Nissan Leaf customer service told me that the 2011-2012 Leaf battery chemistry had problems with cold and hot temperatures, but the 2013-14 chemistry was changed to degrade less in very cold weather. So according to the Nissan rep. 2013-2014 batteries only help in very cold weather but degrade the same as 11'-12' in hot weather. So the 2015 batteries are supposed to degrade much less in both cold and hot weather.

Don't know if this was worth reporting, but here it is. :roll:

Rule number 1 of life with Nissan and Leaf... NEVER take anything that CS tells you at face value! In this case, as usual, they are dead wrong!

EV4Taos said:

For what its worth. 3-4 months ago before I bought my leaf, Nissan Leaf customer service told me that the 2011-2012 Leaf battery chemistry had problems with cold and hot temperatures, but the 2013-14 chemistry was changed to degrade less in very cold weather.

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That is how Nissan did it, perhaps to hid initial degradation... The first bar is 15% and all the rest, except for the very last one, are 6.25%...

NissanLeafCamper said:

whaaat? How can the rest of the 11 bars be worth less than half the value of the 12th bar?

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TomT said:

Rule number 1 of life with Nissan and Leaf... NEVER take anything that CS tells you at face value! In this case, as usual, they are dead wrong!

EV4Taos said:

For what its worth. 3-4 months ago before I bought my leaf, Nissan Leaf customer service told me that the 2011-2012 Leaf battery chemistry had problems with cold and hot temperatures, but the 2013-14 chemistry was changed to degrade less in very cold weather.

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Not saying that Nissan CS has any idea of what they are talking about. So if they are even partially right its because its better to be lucky than smart. However, there is a higher internal resistance at very low temperatures (-4F). It might be OK if the Leaf didn't allow charging at those temps but to be a real car it has to anyway which can cause dendrites to form on the SEI layer. I believe these dendrites cause degradation. This is perhaps why they added a battery heater to late 2011s and 2012s. Having a better electrolyte can minimize dendrite formation too, but I don't know if any of the Leafs have a better electrolyte, even the 2015s.

This will never be a concern in California, but where I live in Taos it always gets down to -20 F at least a couple of times a year.

TomT said:

That is how Nissan did it, perhaps to hid initial degradation... The first bar is 15% and all the rest, except for the very last one, are 6.25%...

NissanLeafCamper said:

whaaat? How can the rest of the 11 bars be worth less than half the value of the 12th bar?

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Well, drats. I did not know that. I'm unsure as to why nissan would do that .

On the other hand after reading this thread I officially ran the nissan leaf in 'D'rag mode on the city streets . It was kind of a nice rush, but still feel a little risky. Would it not be better for me to sleep in the leaf over night with the A/C on? I bet that would give a bit of a work for the battery. Who knows maybe I could save some rent money too on top. That would be nice.

NissanLeafCamper said:

Would it not be better for me to sleep in the leaf over night with the A/C on? I bet that would give a bit of a work for the battery. Who knows maybe I could save some rent money too on top. That would be nice.

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IMHO, pack heat is (nearly) all that matters (calendar losses too). Unless you can keep pack temps above capacity loss thresholds nothing else that you'd except to encourage it has much (if any) effect.

Heat is the primary enemy, not cold. Heat causes degeneration. Cold just causes a temporary loss of capacity (up to the point where the battery actually freezes, which is why they added the heater)...

EV4Taos said:

However, there is a higher internal resistance at very low temperatures (-4F). It might be OK if the Leaf didn't allow charging at those temps but to be a real car it has to anyway which can cause dendrites to form on the SEI layer. I believe these dendrites cause degradation.

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NissanLeafCamper said:

Sounds pretty crazy that you had a leaf, baby it, then ended up still with bad battery capacity. I actually run the leaf now in ECO mode all the time because, uh, well.... heck, i don't know anymore . Why am I running it in ECO mode? I should be driving it in "DRAG" mode

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Exactly. That's the dirty little secret: don't baby it, drive it!

NissanLeafCamper said:

Would sleeping inside the leaf 8hrs plus naps help draining the battery quicker? Plus also driving it a lot, of course.

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No, but charging it to 100% and leaving it sit in the sun (or a hot garage) will do wonders.

TomT said:

Heat is the primary enemy, not cold. Heat causes degeneration. Cold just causes a temporary loss of capacity (up to the point where the battery actually freezes, which is why they added the heater)...

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What about loading it up to maximum load capacity, running it in 'D'rag mode plus also sleeping inside with the A/C on constantly? Wouldn't that constant demand of charging and discharging the battery cause it some degradation? Or would that only destroy the motor/A/C unit? :arrow:

The A/C is actually quite efficient, especially on the 2011 and 2012 cars, and doesn't pull that much energy... Running it in D mode or at maximum capacity is not going to have much affect...

NissanLeafCamper said:

What about loading it up to maximum load capacity, running it in 'D'rag mode plus also sleeping inside with the A/C on constantly? Wouldn't that constant demand of charging and discharging the battery cause it some degradation? Or would that only destroy the motor/A/C unit? :arrow:

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