Range question

I decided to check the range from full battery (100% not to 80) (The computer estimated 80 when I unplugged)

Drove 59 miles and got the ---- no more miles left and I drove and extra 4. Total 63. Didn't get into cruel mode.

Charged the car and my charger reported the car pulled 17.9 kWh

My efficiency rating on the car which I reset said 4.7miles kw.

If I divide 63 with 4.7 i get 13.4kWh

I actually believe the 4.7 because I drive very efficiently.


Do I have a bad battery? (I have one line missing but this seems to be really bad range)


Thanks.

Forget the GOM (your "computer estimated" value).

lowspeed said:

charger reported the car pulled 17.9 kWh

Click to expand...

Charger? For level 1 and 2 AC charging, the charger's on-board the car. You're referring to an EVSE, right? See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14728&p=332668#p332668.

lowspeed said:

My efficiency rating on the car which I reset said 4.7miles kw.

If I divide 63 with 4.7 i get 13.4kWh

Click to expand...

You mean 4.7 miles per kWh. Did you reset it at the beginning of the trip?

lowspeed said:

Do I have a bad battery? (I have one line missing but this seems to be really bad range)

Click to expand...

So, you're missing a capacity bar? What year's your Leaf? Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

There's a lot of guessing here unless you get a proper OBD2 dongle and Leaf Spy. Maybe you already have it? I believe a bad cell (which would be visible in Leaf Spy) could cause VLBW (2nd warning) to trigger early since its voltage would be much lower than the rest.

I think you're going to have to give more details by answering most of http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=275421#p275421 here.

- How fast are you driving? What % is city vs. highway? city/highway limit I'd say mostly city I guess 20% highway

- What is your miles/kWh reading on the dash? (on the black and white display) Is it reset for every trip? If not, please do so. 4.7

- How full are you charging to? (for '13+ Leafs, list the % state of charge value) 100%

- How are you "determining" your range? Examples: driving down to some value on the GOM (guess-o-meter aka virtually worthless "distance to empty" display), driving down to a certain # of "fuel bars", driving to LBW (Low Battery Warning), VLBW (Very Low Battery Warning) or turtle, driving down to a certain # of gids, driving down to a certain % state of charge (SoC) value ('13+ Leaf only)

Reset the trip counter. until low battery and drove 4 miles past it.


- How many temperature bars (left side) are shown at the start of the drive and during? it's right in the middle.

- What are your cold tire pressures? 35

- Can this experience be reliably repeated? Yes

- After how many months of ownership did you first experience the range loss? New 2nd hand owner.

- Outside air temps when this is happening? 60-70

- How are you using the heater/AC system? yes.

- When cold, are you using the heated seats and steering wheel? Yes.

- Did you buy the vehicle new or used and when? (month and year is enough) What model year is it? Used came to service 03/2013

- How many capacity bars have you lost? They're the thin bars on the very right of wiki/index.php?title=Battery_Capacity_Loss. That one shows 3 capacity bars lost.

One


- Any changes to car from stock (different tires, bike rack, Texas cattle horns, roof rack, flags, etc)? No.

- (If you have a gid meter) Gid count at 100% charge? Date and outside temp when taken? 10/11/15 219GIDS about 60f


leafspy screenshot

http://imgur.com/J9osVXQ

and

http://imgur.com/v5PrUL8

You may want to add air to you tires (suggest 40 to 44 psi) for a little better range and much better tire life. Your measured 17.9 kWh from the wall is a little low for 1 capacity bar missing so you probably have some hidden range below the very low battery warning (---). With my typical driving both the 2011 and 2015 display about 4.0 mi/kWh on the dash and that translates to 3.0 mi/kWh from the wall (charging at nominal 240 volts) so you need to consider the difference between dash and wall efficiencies in your range/capacity calculations.

Gerry

So what you're saying is that what the leaf tells you as the "MPG" is just B.S?

What should I assume to be a range of a leaf ?

I always thought 100 miles is easily achievable. But i'm getting 65 at most which sucks.

lowspeed said:

So what you're saying is that what the leaf tells you as the "MPG" is just B.S?

Click to expand...

Not B.S. Per se, just different from what you measure from the wall. The dash tells you your efficiency from the battery to the wheels. There is additional loss from the wall to the battery.

lowspeed said:

So what you're saying is that what the leaf tells you as the "MPG" is just B.S?

What should I assume to be a range of a leaf ?

I always thought 100 miles is easily achievable. But i'm getting 65 at most which sucks.

Click to expand...

If you want to be safe the only range you should assume is a minimum no worry range and any time you have to travel between min and estimated maximum plan in advance.

use http://www.plugshare.com and become familiar with plugs around your area. Usually a slow non highway route is quicker than a highway route where you have to charge.

100 miles is easily achievable with a patient driver in a brand new car at city speeds in good weather and going close to or to turtle mode. I would assume your 65 is to your own safety point and not turtle, you could probably do 6+ miles of careful city driving between --- and turtle. Sometime when you get to --- and are at home reset your miles/kWh at that point and keep driving a short loop around the block till you hit turtle. You'll probably get bored before it happens. I've done it once and after about 15 min I started flooring it from every stop sign and braking in N (no regen), did that about 7 times before I hit turtle.

lowspeed said:

...
I always thought 100 miles is easily achievable. But i'm getting 65 at most which sucks.

Click to expand...

Where would you get that erroneous idea :?:

As has been discussed many times on MNL and as I have stated many times, the LEAF is nominally a 40 to 60 mile range vehicle and in winter if you want or need heat can be only 30 to 35 miles.

It is only a 100 mile vehicle when brand new under ideal conditions and driven slowly on level ground at steady speed.

At 65 miles you are doing pretty well.

Annoys me that it gives me an estimate of 80 when it's fully charged. if it's really 65, then that's what it should show. It already has enough data to know the limit.

It has no way to know how you are going to drive in the future or what the terrain and speed will be. Thus, it is just a guess based on what has gone on before...

lowspeed said:

Annoys me that it gives me an estimate of 80 when it's fully charged. if it's really 65, then that's what it should show. It already has enough data to know the limit.

Click to expand...

TomT said:

It has no way to know how you are going to drive in the future or what the terrain and speed will be. Thus, it is just a guess based on what has gone one before...

lowspeed said:

Annoys me that it gives me an estimate of 80 when it's fully charged. if it's really 65, then that's what it should show. It already has enough data to know the limit.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

That's kinda silly if I never reach 80 miles range it shouldn't always show that. if anything i'm conservative when I drive (4.7-4.8) and if i'm unable to get the DTE then no one will.

Not true. If, for example, you trip home was mostly downhill, it would assume that you were going to continue getting that kind of efficiency... And if you did, you WOULD get that range...

lowspeed said:

That's kinda silly if I never reach 80 miles range it shouldn't always show that. if anything i'm conservative when I drive (4.7-4.8) and if i'm unable to get the DTE then no one will.

Click to expand...

TomT said:

Not true. If, for example, you trip home was mostly downhill, it would assume that you were going to continue getting that kind of efficiency... And if you did, you WOULD get that range...

lowspeed said:

That's kinda silly if I never reach 80 miles range it shouldn't always show that. if anything i'm conservative when I drive (4.7-4.8) and if i'm unable to get the DTE then no one will.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

OMG.

TomT said:

Not true. If, for example, you trip home was mostly downhill, it would assume that you were going to continue getting that kind of efficiency... And if you did, you WOULD get that range...

lowspeed said:

That's kinda silly if I never reach 80 miles range it shouldn't always show that. if anything i'm conservative when I drive (4.7-4.8) and if i'm unable to get the DTE then no one will.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

My GOM always reads optimistic. It usually reads 70-80 miles on an 80% charge. And I'm down to 11 capacity bars. That would probably require over 5mi/kWh, but I never average over 4. Usually I'm averaging ~3.5 in the summer, ~2-2.5 in the winter.

my 2012 (12 bar) is similarly optimistic. However, with my maximum daily use case being about 40 miles I don't have much of a problem.

Is this a pre P3227 characteristic perhaps? I have been avoiding that update so due to reported loss of regen...

essaunders said:

my 2012 (12 bar) is similarly optimistic. However, with my maximum daily use case being about 40 miles I don't have much of a problem.

Is this a pre P3227 characteristic perhaps? I have been avoiding that update so due to reported loss of regen...

Click to expand...

I got the update done on my car. It helped a little, but definitely robs me of regen, particularly when the temperatures are below 60F. And they are below 60F for a good portion of the year in upstate NY.

Mine is just the opposite when I leave the house since the last 5 miles or so home is fairly steeply uphill. I usually show around 48 miles with a 100% charge...

GetOffYourGas said:

My GOM always reads optimistic.

Click to expand...

TomT said:

Mine is just the opposite when I leave the house since the last 5 miles or so home is fairly steeply uphill. I usually show around 48 miles with a 100% charge...

GetOffYourGas said:

My GOM always reads optimistic.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Interesting. The last <1 mile to my house is 30MPH speed limit through a flat residential neighborhood. I normally drive 20-25MPH due to kids playing, people walking dogs, etc. Could it really have that short of a memory that it would use less than a mile worth of driving to estimate my range? Most of my driving is on the highway, so my typical efficiency is 3.5-3.7 mpk.