Stoaty said:
We are all hoping that Nissan will create a tool similar to the Battery Aging Model (they certainly have tons more data than we do) and make it available to help people decide whether a Leaf is right for them. I would like to see them make this information available in simplified form and communicated to prospective purchasers at the time of sale/lease. Then those that live in Phoenix would know that perhaps a 2 years lease would be the best for them (or maybe they should skip the Leaf altogether), while in Seattle a Leaf purchase is a slam dunk. The Leaf is a great car, but if Nissan doesn't disclose realistic expectations about both range and battery capacity prior to sale they are asking for trouble later on.
PS The Battery Aging Model predicts 90.5% remaining capacity for me after 17 months and 12,400 miles. From my Gid meter reading (90.7% on full charge) it appears to be spot on. EOL for me is somewhere between 9.5 years (Van Nuys, near work) and 11.4 years (Santa Monica, near home), so the Leaf will work out great for me if my model is correct.
Hi, Stoaty:
I applied the data from your table for Phoenix to plot its corresponding polynomial curve for battery loss over time. Compared to
my own graph that uses Nissan's generic 5- and 10-year benchmarks, It differs significantly, as you can see:
If your model is correct, the 80% and 70% capacity losses certainly do occur
much earlier, because your proposed 1.81 aging factor for Phoenix drops the curve much lower and at a faster rate. Indeed, the model projects a 70% capacity several months before Nissan anticipates even 80%.
I am still puzzled, however, when I see how your model's curve applies to the ranges achieved in the owners' test. To compare projections, I have overlaid your model's polynomial curve on top of my own graph of those ranges. We can see that your model's
purple curve does indeed plot lower and drops faster than Nissan's
green curve:
As for the ranges achieved in the test, the 2 red outliers are still notably below your curve; 1 Leaf is barely below it; 2 are on top of it; and... 7 Leafs are above it. It therefore seems to me that, despite what their faulty gauges were predicting, most of the Leafs tested actually achieved
better ranges than one might expect in Phoenix using your Battery Aging Model...?
As you can see, these are the same 7 Leafs, curiously enough, that fell within their corresponding error bars of Nissan's projected ranges in my analysis.
I dunno. I think we really do need Nissan to come up with some definitive data to put all the speculations to rest.