Climate Control Timer running the battery down before use

[Deleted member 1622]

Hi all -
We've had our Leaf since February 2011 and we really love the car. Lately, though, we've been noticing that the Climate Control Timer, which comes on to heat the car just before using it in the morning, has been running our 10 bars (80% charge) down to 9 bars before we turn it on. That's strange since the charger actually comes on when Climate Control is activated to compensate for the power the Climate Control uses. But the charger now doesn't seem to be able to keep the battery at 80% while the Climate Control is on. Has anyone else experience this, and would it have something to do with battery degradation?
Best,
Josh

 

[planet4ever]

Completely independent of climate control there have been quite a few reports of seeing only 9 bars after charging to 80%. And, yes, a number of people have suggested that this seems to happen shortly before losing the first battery capacity bar. I don't know if anyone has shown a statistically significant correlation for that, and I haven't heard any convincing scientific arguments for why it should be true, but it could be. It may simply be an artifact of inaccuracies in the calculations used to decide how many bars to display.

Battery degradation will cause the battery to use, and provide, less energy for each charge bar, so it should, if anything, reduce the charging load, making it less, not more, sensitive to a climate control load.

Ray

 

[essaunders]

what Ray said and - just start the climate timer earlier to compensate. once the heater power requirement drop below the ~3kw the battery will start to recover (and even get ahead).

another reason a 6kw charger would be nice. that, or how about a software option to limit pre-heat to shorepower only...

 

[stjohnh]

This could be aggravated if you are using trickle charging (120V), the trickle charger cant quite keep up with the power draw from the pre heat under some conditions.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Ever since the update that was applied to meet the new warranty, the 80% charge can't make up it's mind if it wants to be 9 bars or 10 bars, and that's just sitting still in the garage with no CC or anything.

 

[Stanton]

I don't know where you live or how many bars you have (would be good to update that info and/or include it in your sig), but I think what you're seeing is completely independent of pre-heating. I believe it's just a coincidence that you're about to lose a capacity bar around the timewhen you started pre-heating again. Of course, since it's obviously NOT summer, you may not lose it until next year.

 

[Deleted member 1622]

My location is Berkeley, CA (so really, we don't need much climate control, but the mornings can be chilly -- sorry, those of you in places with real winter!)
We are at 85.6 capacity with 12 bars left, so yes, we are close to losing the first bar... I'll take everybody's word for it that the climate control issue is related to that, though I don't get the logic behind it. Sometimes there is no logic, I guess. We charge on a 240V Aerovironment charger every night.
Most people are saying the heater does not require more juice than the charger can give. But then are saying the 9-bar issue is just some software problem, and why doesn't it happen every morning?

Best,
Josh

 

[dgpcolorado]

I saw the same thing as the OP yesterday when preheating after an 80% charge at 3.3 kW. While the preheating was taking place the charge dropped by about 1.5% SOC. And the car did show nine fuel bars.

I have the car set to CC priority; might be different if set to charge priority and had the charge end time set to later than CC end time. If I had left the heating on longer — I deliberately set it for later than I leave home because I don't want it that warm — I would guess that the power draw would have been low enough to boost the charge back up a bit. I'd play with it except that 80% is plenty to manage the 43 mile commute in 21ºF temperatures, so it is of no concern to me if I lose a little charge while preheating; anyway, a large majority of the energy to heat the car is coming from the wall.