Cabin Air Cooling the Battery

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Danl said:
I Have a 2013. I am doing some experimenting with battery temperature and I think the cabin air exhausts down into the Battery area.
I've been meaning to ask, is there a way to test this? I thought about getting a smoker and just filling the cabin with some harmless smoke and blasting the fresh mode to see where it all comes out. :D
 
knightmb said:
Danl said:
I Have a 2013. I am doing some experimenting with battery temperature and I think the cabin air exhausts down into the Battery area.
I've been meaning to ask, is there a way to test this? I thought about getting a smoker and just filling the cabin with some harmless smoke and blasting the fresh mode to see where it all comes out. :D
This was the reason I ran the AC in the first place. I have a hand held infrared temp meter. Between that and just feeling around under the car, it was obvious where the cool air was coming out.

Thanks,
Dan
 
Danl said:
knightmb said:
Danl said:
I Have a 2013. I am doing some experimenting with battery temperature and I think the cabin air exhausts down into the Battery area.
I've been meaning to ask, is there a way to test this? I thought about getting a smoker and just filling the cabin with some harmless smoke and blasting the fresh mode to see where it all comes out. :D
This was the reason I ran the AC in the first place. I have a hand held infrared temp meter. Between that and just feeling around under the car, it was obvious where the cool air was coming out.

Thanks,
Dan
Ok, where? :D

Nissan-Leaf-2014-1600-60.jpg
 
Remember, it's easy to draw on a photo if you import it into Windows Paint. You wouldn't expect that primitive little program to handle real photos, but it does.
 
Danl said:


Here is todays data.
You see that during the last charge T3 stayed level and did not climb as it had done in the first charge of the day when the AC had not been on.

Thanks,
Dan

Unless I'm missing something it looks like only a 3 or 4 degree drop maximum. You're shoveling against the tide with a spoon. No advantage gained in the limited time the car is driven or charged.
 
Lambtron said:
Unless I'm missing something it looks like only a 3 or 4 degree drop maximum. You're shoveling against the tide with a spoon. No advantage gained in the limited time the car is driven or charged.

Yes, it seems that way.

This 3-4 degF temp is about what you add with a 15 mile drive and charge. So much more than a Spoon but not near as much as what we would like. The key here is to continue taking data and experimenting to see if there is a process that would make a difference.

Thanks,
Dan
 
Aftrr reading all of this, I'm wondering if the heater is a heat pump. If so, perhaps running the heat, and letting it out the windows may flow the "waste cold" over the battery, similar to the a/c flowing waste heat over the battery.

Whatdo you think?

John B
15 Leaf SV, 15,000 MI,
Purchased new
still close to 100% capacity
NO QUICK CHARGER
13 Leaf SL 33,000 MI
Purchased 5/17
With QuickCharger
Down to 16 KW capacity
 
I have a 2018 Leaf. I did a simple test using my level 2 garage charger. I did two normal charge sessions. The first with the cabin fan off, then again with the fan on intake at full speed the next time I needed to charge. Both were 4 hour sessions, The second charge was early in the morning when the ambient temperature was well below the starting battery temperature.

With the fan off the battery temperature (Leaf Spy pro) rose from 73.8 to 83.7 deg F. Up 9.9 Deg in 4 hours.
With the fan running full speed the temperature rose from 79.2 to 86.7 Deg F. Up 7.5 Deg in 4 ours.

There might be something to this!

This needs to be tested after a quick-charge on a log trip.

Al Klappenberger
 
Today did a short chilldown after heavy trip. Battery was
37,7C, 36,3C, 33,7C, Sprayed some water through service hatch (rear seat) for 10 minutes. And 20 minutes later temperatures were:
36,6C, 34,5C, 31,2C. And ambient was 29C. So 2 degrees (in metric) within very short duration.
Water trick does work. Unfortunately, without preparation (piping above the pack) it is hard to get water onto
rear seat cellstack. Hose trick works but it cumbersome. Manual spray from back seat :lol:

Also measured wind speed OVER the pack while driving. Yes it is there. And also there is airflow when AC fans are active (1m/s).
Therefore they do help if vehicle is stationary and there is no wind outside. But AC load must be minimal. Either set HEAT on newer
vehicles with heatpump or set fans speed to minimum and recirculation on. This way outside air is hardly warmer than it should be.
 
The crazy thing is the Nissan eNV-200 does have air cooling, when charging :?
I would think it would quite easy to implement it on the Leaf, if Nissan cared :(
 
jjeff said:
The crazy thing is the Nissan eNV-200 does have air cooling, when charging :?
I would think it would quite easy to implement it on the Leaf, if Nissan cared :(

While that might help in some climates, very hot climates, it does not do enough. A person uses their car about 4% of the time. In a hot climate,a battery can be overheated just by setting going nowhere. Kia Soul, which has cabin air battery cooling, has been failing in hot climates. The problem is going to show itself in the Hyundai brand too if they don't end up changing to liquid cooling.
 
The Kona is liquid cooled, so I would assume that all future EVs built by Hyundai will be liquid cooled as well. Perhaps liquid cooling will be added to the IONIQ in the next generation...
 
jjeff said:
The crazy thing is the Nissan eNV-200 does have air cooling, when charging :?
I would think it would quite easy to implement it on the Leaf, if Nissan cared :(

Easy to implement, perhaps. But not very effective. And liquid cooling has both safety concerns and is more expensive to implement.

There is a real reason why a passive cooled BEV should exist, at least in climates where battery life is reasonable.
 
WetEV said:
Easy to implement, perhaps. But not very effective. And liquid cooling has both safety concerns and is more expensive to implement.

There is a real reason why a passive cooled BEV should exist, at least in climates where battery life is reasonable.

I agree. For different climates different solutions. In California, all Leafs should have naked battery (not covered with plastics) and
lots of air passages. That would help considerably. In Norway, no need for cooling, just heating and even thermal insulation.



About liquid cooling. Battery cells absolutely do not care the medium that is used for cooling. Be it refrigerant tube walls,
cold air or liquid glycol. Battery only cares about the temperature, in the worst possible place (so usually in the center of the cell).
If Leaf had that eNV200 cooling unit, it would help a LOT. BUT.... it would not help for those Leafs that degraded all the time at
30-35*C weather. As cooling unit mostly only works when parked (it is unreasonable to keep it running randomly when parked.

Problem with Leaf is chemistry, that does not accept 40*C in 30-35*C climate. That was the biggest mistake.
Tesla's chemistry loves 40*C. Though hates cold. So much that Tesla is CONSIDERABLY worse than Leaf, for my climate.
Not that it degrades. No. It is just heavily restricting and heat-hungry.
 
arnis said:
WetEV said:
Easy to implement, perhaps. But not very effective. And liquid cooling has both safety concerns and is more expensive to implement.

There is a real reason why a passive cooled BEV should exist, at least in climates where battery life is reasonable.

I agree. For different climates different solutions. In California, all Leafs should have naked battery (not covered with plastics) and
lots of air passages. That would help considerably. In Norway, no need for cooling, just heating and even thermal insulation <snip>.
No. In California most LEAFs need active cooling. You might want to check summer temps here, including this past week's. Here's an example of some July records in SoCal:
All-time high temperature records set throughout Southern California, including Los Angeles
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-friday/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8eed91e8b44c

Triple digit (100+ deg. F.) highs are common throughout the Central Valley and in various other areas of the state in summer, including most of the major metro areas. I live in one of the more moderate Bay Area microclimates ('70s F. this week), but I only need to go 10 miles east to see 90s and 100s (32 - 38C+) on a regular basis in summer. The large wildfires burning in the Redding area and in Lake County now are all being made worse by triple digit temps, with the lows only falling into the '70s (22-28C) at night:
Nearly 2 weeks of 100-plus heat bakes Redding: Everything becoming 'susceptible to burning'
https://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/Carr-Fire-Redding-weather-heat-record-high-temp-13111435.php

Hottest temp I've ever experienced here was 114F (45.5C) in Red Bluff (central valley, 30 miles south of Redding), but I've seen 111 in parts of the Bay Area. Some cities in desert areas were hitting 119 (48C) this past week, and Death Valley held the world record for some years at 134 (56.7C).
 
GRA said:
No. In California most LEAFs need active cooling. ..
Triple digit (100+ deg. F.) highs are common throughout the Central Valley and in various other areas of the state in summer, including most of the major metro areas.

What's wrong with triple digits and air cooling? Tesla tries to warm up the pack to 104F.
The reason LEAF pack fails is not lack of cooling, it is lack of temperature tolerance.
As soon as vehicle is switched off (which is 95% of 24h, except charging, applies to plugin vehicles) cooling
system will be deactivated. So if parked outside in 105*F, battery will reach that really really fast.

PS: It's been extremely hot in Europe lately. Here (Scandinavian corner) we have 28-32*C pretty much every day.
This is extraordinary, but I don't mind :D
Leaf's pack is hovering between 33-39*C.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
No. In California most LEAFs need active cooling.

Or perhaps different battery chemistry for hotter places. The problem with one size fits all is that it doesn't.

Exactly. BTW, Tesla's chemistry is NOT good in cold climates where I live (or Norway).
It is not acceptable that battery can not charge (at all) below 0*C. Nonsense. It's not like it has water for electrolyte :|

Schrödinger's Leaf has a chemistry that fits everybody. And doesn't.
 
arnis said:
Schrödinger's Leaf has a chemistry that fits everybody. And doesn't.

Of course the problem is you can't tell which it is until you buy it to find out. Maybe if it was just leased the answer could remain uncertain and then you wouldn't have to worry about it.
 
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