Driving range display 'changes' after NTB11038 Svc Campaign

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Adrian said:
What if Nissan decreased the available portion of the battery?
As I stated earlier, I'm pretty sure they didn't do this since it would invalidate the EPA rating as required by law and be illegal under consumer protection laws regarding bait-and-switch. Nissan has stated publicly as well as in writing that the battery is 24 kWh customer usable. If we could no longer get in and out 24 kWh, that would be opening them up to some serious liability.
 
Are you in ECO mode or D and you must be driving at 70+ mph? Ya

Driving usual 65 on fwy plus a little stop n go, usually in eco mode although I have found that it doesn't make much difference on flowing fwy speeds. The thing that strikes me is I never averaged a miles per kw less than 3.6 but now I'm averaging 3.2-3.5. I'm puzzled.
I will know for sure after my Monday commute since I have a very good log for it. May just be coincidence, but I'm starting to get paranoid. I'll be glad when someone comes up with a add on battery pack so I will have plenty of range.
 
DarkStar said:
Adrian said:
What if Nissan decreased the available portion of the battery?
As I stated earlier, I'm pretty sure they didn't do this since it would invalidate the EPA rating as required by law and be illegal under consumer protection laws regarding bait-and-switch. Nissan has stated publicly as well as in writing that the battery is 24 kWh customer usable. If we could no longer get in and out 24 kWh, that would be opening them up to some serious liability.

Sorry, I missed you said that. Yet, if all was changed was the range estimate, the bars should not be decreasing this fast, even if the rate of change for the last 2 red bars was adjusted. If those on this board that have access to the diagnostics software can verify that we still have 24 kwh available, it would be good info to have. The only other thing I can think of doing is running the car out of juice or low on juice to see if I can still drive the same number of miles as before.

Yes, if they did limit the usable battery without full disclose and consent by customers (I know I did not consent to such a change), they would have screwed up and some (me included) would not take that lightly.
 
Just chiming in my two cents, I have put about 40 miles on the car and am getting the "bars" that I expect from the car with no real change noticed. Now the range estimation is much different ( and I think better then before) but I haven't noticed my bars dropping any faster then before (could just be lack of attention on my part as most of my commuting is very short distances)

-Matt
 
Adrian said:
Sorry, I missed you said that. Yet, if all was changed was the range estimate, the bars should not be decreasing this fast, even if the rate of change for the last 2 red bars was adjusted. If those on this board that have access to the diagnostics software can verify that we still have 24 kwh available, it would be good info to have. The only other thing I can think of doing is running the car out of juice or low on juice to see if I can still drive the same number of miles as before.

Yes, if they did limit the usable battery without full disclose and consent by customers (I know I did not consent to such a change), they would have screwed up and some (me included) would not take that lightly.
No problem. I'm suspecting that there is now more SOC % available after the bars are gone... Maybe each bar represents 7% SOC instead of 8% SOC each.

Code:
Bars - Percent
12 - 100-93%
11 -  94-86%
10 -  86-79%
 9 -  79-72%
 8 -  72-65%
 7 -  65-58%
 6 -  58-51%
 5 -  51-44%
 4 -  44-37%
 3 -  37-30%
 2 -  30-23%
 1 -  23-16%
 0 -  16- 0%<-- The New Reserve
They've left the "Nissan Miles" calculator to still figure the range, but maybe now base it on a 100% to 16% SOC. This is the best theory I've been able to come up with, but I don't really have a good way to prove it...

Maybe someone else has the info! :D
 
They've left the "Nissan Miles" calculator to still figure the range, but maybe now base it on a 100% to 16% SOC. This is the best theory I've been able to come up with, but I don't really have a good way to prove it...

That sounds possible, I hope you're right.

I'm going to run it completely out of juice sometime soon. That should get me the data I need; I'll see if I can drive the same number of miles given the same driving style and conditions.
 
Adrian said:
They've left the "Nissan Miles" calculator to still figure the range, but maybe now base it on a 100% to 16% SOC. This is the best theory I've been able to come up with, but I don't really have a good way to prove it...

That sounds possible, I hope you're right.

I'm going to run it completely out of juice sometime soon. That should get me the data I need; I'll see if I can drive the same number of miles given the same driving style and conditions.
*AND* keep track of how much is needed to charge it back to 100% (Kill-A-Watt, TED, 2nd meter, or other alternatives available to you).
 
I decided to take one for the team and see how low it will go, post update. The car is currently sitting half in my driveway, half in the street. I do NOT recommend trying to push this thing uphill (or even up a driveway) - it's HEAVY! :cool:

  • I got the low battery warning at 8 miles and 1 bar SOC remaining.
  • I got the very low battery (---) warning at 2 miles and 0 bars remaining after having traveled 8 miles on the trip meter.
  • I got turtle mode after having traveled 13 miles on the trip meter.
  • The car died on me after 14 miles on the trip meter.
  • I coasted another tenth of a mile and had to push from there.
  • Pushing on flat terrain was hard enough, the motor seemed to add significant drag. Trying to push it up my driveway was impossible. Maybe if I were Arnold Schwartzenneger...

This was all in D mode, 20-35mph speeds, climate control and headlights on. :lol:

CORRECTION: The first two miles after low battery were on the freeway at 65-70, and the next two miles were on a major surface street at 45-50. After that it was all neighborhood speeds.
 
I've got one. It's sitting charging from my modded L1 charger as my wall mount won't reach. It's been 30 minutes so far and it still won't let me move it. :shock:
 
IBELEAF said:
Btw, what was your actual total range from 1 bar to dead
1 bar SOC, 8 miles estimated and low battery warning all occurred simultaneously. When that happened I reset the trip meter and cruised around local neighborhoods bleeding it off. all total I got 14.0 miles under power, 14.1 before I had to push. I'm now standing next to my car (which is half in the street) typing this on my iPhone while I wait for it to juice up enough for me to pull it in the driveway.
 
GeekEV said:
I decided to take one for the team and see how low it will go, post update.
Thanks for taking one for the team!

I have not yet completely wrapped my head around what you have reported so far but the behavior you experienced since the update is quite different. I really wish Nissan would tell us what exactly they changed.
 
GeekEV said:
IBELEAF said:
Btw, what was your actual total range from 1 bar to dead
1 bar SOC, 8 miles estimated and low battery warning all occurred simultaneously. When that happened I reset the trip meter and cruised around local neighborhoods bleeding it off. all total I got 14.0 miles under power, 14.1 before I had to push. I'm now standing next to my car (which is half in the street) typing this on my iPhone while I wait for it to juice up enough for me to pull it in the driveway.

Well, personally, I think getting 6 miles MORE than the 8 mi/one bar indication pretty good. The bars are generally about 7 miles anyway. So this kinda bolsters my thoughts that the software update moved the bars 'up one' so when you see only 1 bar, there's sorta one 'hidden'. This will give a more pessimistic outlook when viewing the bars.....this might help people from running dead. (shrug)
 
So I have thought about what GeekEV reported with his turtle experiment with the update and from what I can gather the low battery, very low battery and turtle are actually working the same way as before. I can't seem to find it but I seem to remember low battery comes on when around 4 kWh is left in the pack very low comes on when around 2 kWh and turtle less than 0.5 kWh.

If this is indeed the case it certainly looks like the 12 bar SOC display has been shifted a full bar or even more with the update. To me it seems like after the update there are now 13 bars total instead of 12 with the bottom bar being invisible. If this is indeed the case I can change my behavior accordingly and rely more on the low battery and very low battery than the bars until I get used to the changes. Do these assumptions seem reasonable? Once again if Nissan would just tell us what they changed it would make things a lot easier.
 
That sounds about right to me. FYI, I made a small edit to my earlier post. I forgot that the first two miles after low battery were on the freeway at 65-70, and the next two miles were on a major surface street at 45-50. After that it was all neighborhood speeds. So yeah, it seems pretty safe to rely on the low battery warning now...
 
Interesting, I agree that it would be nice if Nissan explained what is going on.
Now by my simple math a 24 kw battery with 12 bars on the gauge = 2 kw per bar and assuming 13 bars with a "hidden" bar = 1.8 kw/bar.

Now I just did a 50 mile test trip and the dash trip meter shows 3.5 miles/kw so I used 14 kw, however I used 10 bars which 14kw/10=1.4kw/bar.

At that rate the full 12 bars x 1.4 kw would mean Nissan is limiting the battery to 16.8 kw and using the 13 bars theory would be 18.2kw.

I'm beginning to loose my sanity but I am really beginning to think Nissan is up to some shenanigans with the "service campaign"
Anybody able to double check my reasoning, I wish I had a more scientific way to calculate the amount of KW that Nissan is letting us use.
Any thoughts.
 
Jimmydreams said:
So this kinda bolsters my thoughts that the software update moved the bars 'up one' so when you see only 1 bar, there's sorta one 'hidden'. This will give a more pessimistic outlook when viewing the bars.....this might help people from running dead. (shrug)

This is very similar to the gas display in the Prius. 10 pips which closely correspond to 1 gallon or ~50 miles each. When the last pip disappears, the DTE says 0, you still have almost two "hidden" pips - or just under 2 gallons left in the car. Makes sense for Nissan to have something similar.
 
MrFish said:
I'm beginning to loose my sanity but I am really beginning to think Nissan is up to some shenanigans with the "service campaign"
Anybody able to double check my reasoning, I wish I had a more scientific way to calculate the amount of KW that Nissan is letting us use.
Any thoughts.
Personally I am waiting to see what turbo2ltr finds on the CAN bus with the update.

As far as pure speculation goes it might be that Nissan changed the SOC 12 bar display so it is less linear with the update in addition to adding an invisible bar at the bottom.
 
Spies said:
If this is indeed the case it certainly looks like the 12 bar SOC display has been shifted a full bar or even more with the update. To me it seems like after the update there are now 13 bars total instead of 12 with the bottom bar being invisible.
According to the service manual there was already supposed to be an invisible half bar at the bottom. i.e. 8% SOC for each bar with the last bar disappearing at 4%. The Spies hypothesis, which I agree is plausible, would change 8 * 12½ = 100 to 7.7 * 13 = 100.

So, yes and no, Spies. I think it may have been shifted half a bar at the bottom end, not a full bar or more. I have to point out, though, that unless someone has done some really fancy coding in CarWings (highly improbable), its pretensions of giving a precise state of charge are going to become even more misleading than before if the Spies hypothesis is true.

Ray
 
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