My Nissan Leaf Forum

Split the balancing posts into a new thread : viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2795&start=0

One thing we do know from the service manuals is the car is aware if any cell group reaches minimum voltage. That triggers an error with the 'check engine' light (CEL) on the dash, and also triggers a 'no drive/no charge' state with the car.

Were there any wrench, CEL, or other dash warnings? Or it more like a computer lock-up?

Congratulations on being the first!

I would guess that some other issue caused the rapid decrease in range also. I'll also be interested in the resolution (please let there be one!)

He said he'd be gone for a week so it might be a while before he'll give us a report. But this post from martinr probably sums things up:

The display said 17 miles were left, but that turned out to be "about 5". That's a 12 mile difference. If you take the variance due to speed/terrain into account, maybe we are down to 8 miles. That's less than 10% of the total battery capacitance across more than one charging cycle. It probably doesn't get any better.

Probably just a combination of changing drive cycles and bookkeeping errors. IOW don't count of the display to be accurate all of the time. Someone in another thread with a Vectrix said that the range estimator on that cycle is affectionately called "The Random Number Generator".

After Kelangst's Leaf goes through a few more charge and drive cycles it would be interesting if he could run it down in that critical range again to see if the trouble repetes.
Or did I miss it?

Maybe you are the first, but it happened to me too! On 2/22 I was driving back from SeaTac airport back home, with 26 "miles" on the range estimation. Trip distance was ~ 15 miles. Some driving on I-5, eco mode on, no heating (at 32 F outside temp!) and around downtown the range is down to 8 miles (still plenty to get home, which was by then 5 miles away). At the ship-canal bridge it went into turtle, I barely got off the freeway. 2 Mile from home and after about half the distance it told I would have from the airport, i.e. 13 actual miles driven, it went dead. I actually managed to drive 400 yards in turtle mode. 10:30 pm, wife and screaming kids in the car (which was blocking the right lane of a busy road), just came back from the east coast, cars zooming by and honking, several near misses, I called Nissan for help.

Their initial response:
Sure we will tow you, but it will take an hour for the tow truck to arrive and we will only tow you to the next dealership (10 miles from my home). I said, well its an electric car and arent you supposed to tow me to my home when I run out of battery? Ah, its a battery problem, do you need a boost or a jumpstart??
It was hilarious..no clue about their own product....neither the operator nor her supervisor were aware of special roadside assistance for leaf-owners.

The experience with roadside assistance was quite sobering...
What I find scarier though is this gross mismatch in estimated and actual range. Any ideas if this is normal or a bad battery?

WOW! Now that is scary (and embarrassing)! How in the world can a Leaf driver ever trust the "remaining range" indicator?? readings??

klapauzius, How long did you have the car at that point? How many 100% charges had it been? Was it the first time that low? Did you try to turn off and on to see if it would go again?
I bet DW is thinking you are crazy for buying this toy

Hate to think that the normal "safe range" at speed on the freeway might be about 33 miles: 80% (of charge) of 60 miles at 70mph, minus 15 miles to avoid this potential situation, 48-15 = 33!

Fortunately, that's exactly my roundtrip commute distance.

Wow...klapauzius, do you remember how many bars were left before you started your journey from the airport? From reading this forum, SOC is prob a way better indicator than that range estimate (although the closest to SOC is the bars, it's pretty grainy). 2 bars left (red) would have been 9-15 miles using 3miles/kwh type of driving.

Also, that was pretty low 32F temperature when you started your homeward trip! I wonder if the "low" ambient temp reduced the battery capacity even more than the bars would indicate, making things worst. eg. the 26 miles were based on your "warmer" battery when you left it at the airport. When you were ready to drive home, the computer wasn't able to adjust (or didn't know how to take temp into account) for temperature, and thus just showed 26 miles of the last estimate when the 32F would really give you 10!

Sorry to hear any kind of LEAF stranding, as it is not good PR. However, thanks for posting your experience since the very knowledgeable people here will give the rest of us more data and info so we would be more aware of what Nissan can't tell us, ie all the scenarios that could strand you. Experience is gold here, IMO.