First 2012 Bar loss? First East Coast Bar Loss?

[Newporttom]

Today's the first day it actually dawned on me that it could happen. (the new battery under replacement). Without looking it up I thought Bar one was 15% loss and the rest were 8%. At any rate it only took 8 months to lose bar #2. I'd been debating what to do since vehicle is getting to point where existing range is starting to be a problem.

I wondered about leasing a new one (this is owned). But if I could end up with a new warm weather battery in 18 months, that would be sweet and might make me feel a little better for having purchased.

 

[RegGuheert]

Today's the first day it actually dawned on me that it could happen. (the new battery under replacement). Without looking it up I thought Bar one was 15% loss and the rest were 8%.

Loss of the first capacity bar is indeed 15%. But each of the other bars are only 6.25%.

At any rate it only took 8 months to lose bar #2. I'd been debating what to do since vehicle is getting to point where existing range is starting to be a problem.

I wondered about leasing a new one (this is owned). But if I could end up with a new warm weather battery in 18 months, that would be sweet and might make me feel a little better for having purchased.

We have seen other owners lose their fourth capacity bar slightly faster than their second capacity bar, so it seems likely that you will lose your fourth bar before five years of time elapse, likely within the next 16 to 24 months.

Will you still be below 60,000 miles at that point?

 

[Weatherman]

A vast majority of Florida LEAF owners will see enough battery degradation to qualify for a new battery (assuming they keep the car for 5 years or 60,000 miles). In fact, a good fraction of Florida LEAF lessees (3-year) will also qualify.

I'm very happy to note that, in the over two years I've driven a LEAF, I've only seen about three others on the road. I've seen many, many more Volts and Teslas. Local car dealers won't even try to sell used ones. They will send them to auction as soon as they get them.

Florida is just a bad place to own an electric car which has no temperature management for the battery.

 

[DaveEV]

Florida is just a bad place to own an electric car with a battery that has horrible calendar life even in moderate temperatures.

Fixed that for you.

In my climate, TMS would rarely need to run, yet after almost 3 years it appears all LEAFs around here are down almost 20% even with babying it. Warmer climates only make that worse, though I suppose TMS would help bring battery life in-line with moderate climates at least.

Tesla, for example, uses a chemistry which is much more resistant to heat, it's TMS does not do much except keep pack temperatures even by circulating coolant unless the pack gets pretty warm - at least 90F, I believe. Even in Florida TMS would not do much there.

The Volt at least will cool the battery down to 75F when charging or driving which would be a good benefit in warm climates.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Not sure how close I am to losing a bar. Leaf DD says I am at 59.23ah, Hx is 88.06, and I am at 20,742 miles as of coming to work today. So figure this summer here in Virginia when the temps get over 100F will probably go down a bar.

At 59.23 Ah, about 10-11% capacity loss, you are still a ways from losing the first bar. But if it took two summers to get to where you are, it does seem possible that you will lose the first bar this year.

 

[Weatherman]

Florida is just a bad place to own an electric car with a battery that has horrible calendar life even in moderate temperatures.

Fixed that for you.

That is a better statement, since there are suggestions that a few, appropriate tweaks of electrolyte chemistry (something the LEAF battery, obviously, doesn't have) can significantly improve battery life.

 

[TimeHorse]

As y'all can see from my sig, I flipped my 2012 because, not so much the bars as the cold temperature, no heater, hypermiling it still couldn't get me home from work, 62 mi (100 km) round trip with no Charge At Work, when the temperature went below about 23 fahrenheit (-5 celsius). So I did check and Carmax and Tesla (AutoTrader) would only give me $10,000 or so for my fully-loaded SL, a car I purchased for $41,000, though obviously with a $7,500 kickback and $6,500 remaining on the financing, so more like $27,000 for 27 months of use. I had over 42,000 mi and would have hit 60,000 in just over 3 years, so would have had something like a 50-50 chance of missing out on warranty qualification (I have my last Ahr reading at home IIRC as part of my last LEAF Spy reading for that vehicle). But a 5-hour commute because you ain't got enough juice, with all the sacrifices already, to get to and from work was just untenable. So I had to take loss and flip to a 2013 LEAF SL, but fully loaded, $1,000 off MSRP (I miss the Zero-Emission Decals though). The dealership was nice enough to give me $15,500 for the trade-in ($9,000 after the payoff), and I put $3,000 down and agreed to about $87 in monthly payments on a 2-year lease (because I figured the battery wouldn't be enough to get me home after 2 years again) and a 40,000 mileage limit ($800) and a 50% residual (not that I'll take that). Overall, that put me in for $27,000 + $3,000 + $2,000 for 4 years, and about $1,000 in electricity ($1,000 for about 76,000 mi / 122,000 km) with a total annual cost of $8,250 or so per year of driving. Compare this to maybe $2500 for fuel and $1,625 for annual maintenance on the old ICE and that came to $4,125 per year, half of what the LEAF is costing me. So overall I still argue for EVs on a National Security / Domestic Energy basis but it's hard to get me to argue for them on cost after all I've been through. Sure, the ICE would be approaching $3,000 per year in Maintenance soon enough, and fuel would be $3000 per year in no-time too, but it's still less than $8,000 or so per year for the LEAF. I blame my employer for not letting me pay for electricity at work at even 300% or more of cost. And I blame Nissan for having a KBB value of $15,500 for best-market-value on my LEAF as opposed to a normal car at top condition with my mileage expected to go for $24,000 (according to Edmonds). I blame Nissan for that $8,500 loss and my Employer for the rest of my $20,000 net loss over what I'd hoped to be paying over a 4 year period. And when my current Lease expires, I would be happy to leave Nissan for a Tesla Model E as I'll never be able to afford a Model S with this loss on my books. Grrr. But anyway, good luck and I hope you can get bluebook on your LEAF at least!

(But man do I love the Leather and surround cameras!!)
BTW, can we get this board to support UNICODE?

 

[DaveEV]

As y'all can see from my sig, I flipped my 2012

That sucks. A couple of QC stations along your route would also have made your commute a lot more livable - a 10-15 minute stop should be more than enough to make the drive even in the winter and you can run the heater at full blast while charging, too. And as you say, at-work charging is really the next important area to build out EV infrastructure, even if it's only 120V/20A outlets. 8 hours of 120V/12A (or 16A on the '13+ LEAF with a modded EVSE) gives you a lot of flexibility.

 

[TimeHorse]

That sucks. A couple of QC stations along your route would also have made your commute a lot more livable - a 10-15 minute stop should be more than enough to make the drive even in the winter and you can run the heater at full blast while charging, too.

There's a L2 near my route which added an hour or a CHAdeMO 45 minutes out of my war with traffic. Also one about 10 minutes from my house, in the opposite direction from work.

 

[Newporttom]

Jax, FL (again). Lost bar #2 today March 25, 2014. 30,100 miles. Looked all over garage for it..... it's gone.

Bar 3 said goodbye today (Jan 3, 2015) about about 38,750... so 8,650 and 8.5 months since last one. I might be looking at Sep for a replacement.