Cold Day in Chicago!

[Phatcat73]

-13F brrrrrr



Update: 12:59 PM. Received the following alert for the first time. It was after 6 hours, being outside. Originally I had 3 TB (battery temp 33F), and outside it's been -13F most of this time:

LEAF™ status update
12:59 PM, January 06, 2014
Battery Heater auto started

Mark's Leaf battery has become cold enough to automatically activate the battery heater. Please plug in your vehicle at your earliest convenience to maintain adequate battery charge. The heater uses battery power and will operate until the battery reaches 30% remaining charge, at which time continued cold weather may cause the battery to shut down completely for protection. In this state, vehicle will be inoperative until battery temperature rises sufficiently.

Update 2: 5:30PM Stepped in car and noticed the following:
1) Battery temperature was 9F per the app = 2TB
2) Battery warmer was only on for 1 cycle, and reduced my range by 5 miles
3) The LCD dash screens had a slow refresh due to it being cold
4) Heater struggled to provide warm air, but it wasn't too uncomfortable. (Although my 20 mile commute consumed about 60% of my battery with the cold and evening preheat)

Update 3: Leaf does not like the extreme cold temps. Miles per kW dropped more than 50% from ambient temps

 

[Limey]

-13F brrrrrr

I'm In Milwaukee; getting a "real feel" of -46 here!

I said damn the power reserves this morning and cranked everything to full heating mode!

 

[xado1]

this is -25 celsius,horrible.
here in vienna we should have 20 F-33F,but we have exact 50F(+10 celsius)and there is no more winter coming ,the tv says.
do you park the car in a garage?battery has 33F

 

[Phatcat73]

yes, car was in a garage overnight. When I pulled out it was 27F on the dash. The real test will be the car sitting outside all day, then my 10 mile commute home. Surprisingly the heater's been performing well and keeping up.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Similar experience here. -9*F in KC. Preheated in the garage but had to keep the defroster running. The interior started to frost up when I turned off the heat. 4 battery temp bars when I got to the office. I'll see what happens at lunch.

 

[cgaydos]

10 miles will be fine. Our LEAFs do well in the extreme cold - even the 2011 LEAF without the cold weather package - except that the range falls below 50 miles.

But this reminds me of the winter of 1984-5 when I lived in the Chicago area and we had two consecutive weekends of temps below -26F. I lived in an apartment complex and of course all cars were parked outside. My Nissan pickup started okay, albeit with a lot of hesitation from the electric starter, but most of the other cars weren't so lucky. By the second weekend of extreme cold many/most of the people were leaving their cars running outside to prevent icing up.

 

[adric22]

It's even ridiculously cold here in Ft.Worth, TX. My Leaf was showing 14 degrees F this morning. That's remarkable for our city. Fortunately my car is garaged and I pre-heated it for 20 minutes.

 

[thankyouOB]

59 here

 

[GregH]

-13F brrrrrr

Update: Received the following alert for the first time. It was after 6 hours, being outside. Originally I had 3 TB (battery temp 33F), and outside it's been -13F most of this time:

LEAF™ status update
12:59 PM, January 06, 2014
Battery Heater auto started

Mark's Leaf battery has become cold enough to automatically activate the battery heater. Please plug in your vehicle at your earliest convenience to maintain adequate battery charge. The heater uses battery power and will operate until the battery reaches 30% remaining charge, at which time continued cold weather may cause the battery to shut down completely for protection. In this state, vehicle will be inoperative until battery temperature rises sufficiently.

Brrrrr indeed! Wow, so the heater can come on with 3TB showing? Any idea what the battery temp was? One of the LeafDD users in Montreal sent me a picture of 0 TB(!) Another sent data showing raw Leaf temp sensor showing 826 which could be as low as -10C (not 100% sure yet) Does Leafspy show any of the raw temperature information from the car?

 

[Phatcat73]

3TB when I parked outside in -13F weather and the batteries were 33F. 6 hours later, the battery warmer email triggered. In those 6 hours the battery temp dropped from 33F to -1F. I imagine the TB were well below 3, however I have no way to check without going to the car.

 

[mwalsh]

Great here in sunny Southern California, if you like that sort of thing. Plants and animals are totally confused though - they think it's Spring already - I've got 4 of my Daylilies already bloomed, and crows were back in town tormenting our cats before heading North (boy will they be in for a shock once they get to SFO!). Aside from the fact that LA only got 3.5" of rain last year (behind Palm Springs at 4.5", if you can believe that!), climate change appears to be turning our neck of the woods into an absolute paradise, with year-round moderate temperatures.

 

[Berlino]

Not in Chicago,

But In the space of 48 hours the temperature went from -33.6C (-28.5F) to +5C (41F). Then after 24 hours in the 0C to 5C range (and plenty of freezing rain) the temp is now dropping like a rock. -20C (-4F) expected overnight. The next time I get the battery warmer activated warning, I'll immediately check the temp bar and LEAF Battery App readings. (The car is parked outside).

 

[ksnogas2112]

Talked to one of our customers. He's in King of Prussia, PA. High today was 57*F. Tonight's low is supposed to be 7*F. I'm like daayaaam. We were -8*F in the a.m. and 4*F on the way home(Kansas City). Supposed to be a high of 37*F tomorrow.

This all could be affect of climate change but I remember things like this happening when I grew up so it's not like this hasn't happened before. The 12" of snow back on May 4 was new to me but Mom told me a story growing up when they had snow in Springfield, MO in early June when she was at Girl Scout camp.

Time to head out to walk the dogs. Everyone stay warm and be careful.

 

[OldQuadDog]

I am another Chicago area Leaf driver.

I am trying to recall but I believe I saw somewhere that the battery heater comes on at -4deg and off at 14deg Fahrenheit I think., which would be on at -20C and off at -10C
Just installed my LeafDD this morning but it does not display those cold temps. I will start watch it's data now.

As for me....
Nights it is garaged.
Jan 06 at -13deg F parked outside at work and 208VAC to Imagineer's modded trickle charger. Charging to 100%.
Started in morning at 3 temp bars. None, Nada, Zero temperature bars at leaving at 4:30 outside temp still -11 deg F. That zero bars had me a bit cautious.
Heater stayed at about 4.5 Kw h for the 1 hr trip home. 19 miles and up to 2 temperature bars!

 

[GregH]

I am another Chicago area Leaf driver.

I am trying to recall but I believe I saw somewhere that the battery heater comes on at -4deg and off at 14deg Fahrenheit I think., which would be on at -20C and off at -10C
Just installed my LeafDD this morning but it does not display those cold temps. I will start watch it's data now.

Working on that.. If you go to page 2 and hold down the button, the raw data from the car shows up. Unfortunately -1C is 255 in 8bit land and LeafDD only displays 2 digits there so anything less than 0C (32F) will be "99". However the raw A/D info is available as the 3 digits adjacent..
720 is 0C (32F)
730 is no less than 1C (30.2F)
740 is no less than 2C (28.4F)
750 is no less than 3C (26.6F)
etc... I say no less than because from +25C down to 0C it's more or less 0.1C per step..although in the really cold zone it should be less based on the thermistor curve.. Will know more in a week or so (Can't really test it here in SoCal)

 

[Skyffej]

I am another Chicago area Leaf driver.

I am trying to recall but I believe I saw somewhere that the battery heater comes on at -4deg and off at 14deg Fahrenheit I think., which would be on at -20C and off at -10C
Just installed my LeafDD this morning but it does not display those cold temps. I will start watch it's data now.

Working on that.. If you go to page 2 and hold down the button, the raw data from the car shows up. Unfortunately -1C is 255 in 8bit land and LeafDD only displays 2 digits there so anything less than 0C (32F) will be "99". However the raw A/D info is available as the 3 digits adjacent..
720 is 0C (32F)
730 is no less than 1C (30.2F)
740 is no less than 2C (28.4F)
750 is no less than 3C (26.6F)
etc... I say no less than because from +25C down to 0C it's more or less 0.1C per step..although in the really cold zone it should be less based on the thermistor curve.. Will know more in a week or so (Can't really test it here in SoCal)

Can you give more details on what you mean by this "Working on that.. If you go to page 2 and hold down the button, the raw data from the car shows up."

THanks

 

[kikbuti]

I just received message LEAF™ status update 07:34 AM, January 29, 2014 - Battery heater auto started. battery has become cold enough to automatically activate the battery heater. Car has been sitting in the driveway unplugged for 3 days. It is -8 in Maineville Ohio... 25 miles north of Cincinnati.

I had my garage door replaced on Saturday. It froze to the ground and I mangled up the old door by trying to force it open. Now I have to go out in sub zero temps to clean up so that I can get the Leaf back in its bay.