Leaf SOH bars too good to be true?

[stevep63]

Hello,

I'm new to whole Leaf world, and my wife and I are shopping for our first used one. We test drove a very nice 2015 Leaf, which has 45,000 miles on it, but it's has 12 SOH bars, which seems high to me. I ran Leaf Spy Lite on it, and it said the SOH was 91.59% and said that it had 3302 L1/L2 charges and 5 quick charges.

Can a Leaf that has 45,000 miles on it still have a 91% SOH?

Also, if someone reset the SOH battery indications (without actually installing a new battery), would that rest the number of charges too?

Like I said, I'm new to the electric car thing, but we're REALLY ready for a Leaf! Any input would be greatly appreciated!

- Steve J

P.S. - I can attach a screenshot of my Leaf Spy report, if that would help

 

[LeftieBiker]

Where are you and the car located? Yes, it is quite possible for a 2015 Leaf to have 12 bars after this long. The mileage is pretty much irrelevant. What matters most is how warm the climate is, followed by how the battery was treated. The main red flag here would be a Leaf that was driven in a Hot climate but still has high SOH. Avoid keeping it at or near 100% charge for more than a few hours if you do buy it. If the BMS was reset, then it was a while ago. Keep checking the SOH if you buy it, to see if it drops too quickly.

 

[alozzy]

Can a Leaf that has 45,000 miles on it still have a 91% SOH?

Like LeftieBiker said, absolutely it can. I live in Vancouver, Canada and imported a Washington 2013 LEAF, in January of 2017, which had 49k miles on it and 93% SOH. PNW LEAF packs consistently have relatively low degredation rates.

I'm guessing that Idaho, Montana, Colorado, etc LEAFs also have healthier packs on average.

Also in your favor is that the 2015 pack is the best one Nissan has made to date, although the jury is still out on the 40 kWh packs.

 

[kaiat]

My 2014 has 90% SOH at 50,000 miles here in Norway, and I understand that is about average for a Leaf in colder areas.

 

[stevep63]

Where are you and the car located? Yes, it is quite possible for a 2015 Leaf to have 12 bars after this long. The mileage is pretty much irrelevant. What matters most is how warm the climate is, followed by how the battery was treated. The main red flag here would be a Leaf that was driven in a Hot climate but still has high SOH. Avoid keeping it at or near 100% charge for more than a few hours if you do buy it. If the BMS was reset, then it was a while ago. Keep checking the SOH if you buy it, to see if it drops too quickly.

The car is from Georgia and I live in Georgia too. Mostly warm weather, but it's not usually Arizona/Texas hot or something like that. Would being from Georgia at 91% SOH be a red flag?

Also, does the range guess-o-meter fluctuate how quickly the miles go down? Because if memory serves, when we started the test drive it was at 80 miles, but after only driving it about 4-5 miles it said it had a range of 70 miles left. Is that odd? Or is that about how the guess-o-meter goes?

 

[alozzy]

There's a reason why it's called the guess-o-meter

If the car has always resided in Georgia, that high of an SOH, for a 2015, would be exceptionally good. I wouldn't buy that Leaf without doing a range test of at least 25 miles. Search on these forums for details on how to conduct that test...

 

[Randy]

Don't forget, the first bar is worth something like 15% and subsequent bars are worth about half that (if I'm remembering correctly). So it takes longer for the first bar to disappear than others...

 

[LeftieBiker]

Also, does the range guess-o-meter fluctuate how quickly the miles go down? Because if memory serves, when we started the test drive it was at 80 miles, but after only driving it about 4-5 miles it said it had a range of 70 miles left. Is that odd? Or is that about how the guess-o-meter goes?

That is fairly typical. If the range estimate dropped to, say, 60 miles in that period, I'd be suspicious.

Range testing, in short, is done by driving 10-25 miles and watching the state of charge (SOC) display. The easiest, most reasonably accurate test, would be to drive for 25% of a charge, then multiply the miles driven in that test by four. That will give you the car's actual range. 10% and multiplying by ten will also work, but the fewer miles driven, the more room for error.

 

[stevep63]

Also, does the range guess-o-meter fluctuate how quickly the miles go down? Because if memory serves, when we started the test drive it was at 80 miles, but after only driving it about 4-5 miles it said it had a range of 70 miles left. Is that odd? Or is that about how the guess-o-meter goes?

That is fairly typical. If the range estimate dropped to, say, 60 miles in that period, I'd be suspicious.

Range testing, in short, is done by driving 10-25 miles and watching the state of charge (SOC) display. The easiest, most reasonably accurate test, would be to drive for 25% of a charge, then multiply the miles driven in that test by four. That will give you the car's actual range. 10% and multiplying by ten will also work, but the fewer miles driven, the more room for error.

Thank you so much! I was having a hard time finding how to do a range test on the forum. Glad I found this place, you guys are awesome! Thank you!

 

[LeftieBiker]

You're welcome. You can also test the battery capacity by measuring the charge input. Hopefully someone else will explain that, as I'm currently frazzled.

 

[WetEV]

You're welcome. You can also test the battery capacity by measuring the charge input. Hopefully someone else will explain that, as I'm currently frazzled.

Drive the car until it needs a substantial recharge. Note the charge level (xx%).

Go to a charging station that records energy delivered.

Charge the car, and note the energy required (nn.n kWh)

Total energy the battery can store is efficiency% * energy_required / (100% - charge_level%)

Efficiency varies with charging power, is lower at lower power, and somewhat with temperature... For 240V and normal temperatures a bit less than 90% is close enough.

So if you drove the car down to 10%, and put 20kWh into the car,

Energy capacity in battery = 90% * 21kWh / (100%-10%)

So for this example, 21kWh would be the capacity of the battery. Fairly typical for a new "24 kWh" battery. Accuracy is only as good as the three parts of the measurement. Battery charge % isn't exact, metering is off by a few %, and efficiency is off by a few %. Clearly good enough to point out large issues. Like a BMS reset or a rapidly failing battery.

If you have a home charging station that records power, and you repeat the test at the same temperature conditions, you can track battery condition.

 

[alozzy]

Also, does the range guess-o-meter fluctuate how quickly the miles go down? Because if memory serves, when we started the test drive it was at 80 miles, but after only driving it about 4-5 miles it said it had a range of 70 miles left. Is that odd? Or is that about how the guess-o-meter goes?

That is fairly typical. If the range estimate dropped to, say, 60 miles in that period, I'd be suspicious.

Range testing, in short, is done by driving 10-25 miles and watching the state of charge (SOC) display. The easiest, most reasonably accurate test, would be to drive for 25% of a charge, then multiply the miles driven in that test by four. That will give you the car's actual range. 10% and multiplying by ten will also work, but the fewer miles driven, the more room for error.

Thank you so much! I was having a hard time finding how to do a range test on the forum. Glad I found this place, you guys are awesome! Thank you!

The forum search feature is atrocious, you really need to use Google to find any useful results. Just paste this into a Google search window:

"range test" site:mynissanleaf.com

 

[GerryAZ]

To give some perspective, my 2015 SL lost its first capacity bar during an overnight charge at 29,936 miles (over 20 months of use) with AHr=52.61, SOH=84%, Hx=74.77%, QC=29, and L1/L2=500 in Phoenix. The second bar dropped at 49,007 miles (over 32 months of use) with AHr=48.47, SOH=78%, Hx=60.44%, QC=104, and L1/L2=802.

It is certainly possible for a 2015 to have 12 capacity bars if it has not been exposed to extreme heat and not had the battery heated by frequent quick charges. The car described in the OP only has 5 QC's so that battery has not been heated excessively by quick charging. The high number of L1/L2 charge cycles is likely due to charge timer and climate control timer use.

 

[rwaudio]

I'm in the process of buying a 2013 Leaf S with 190,000km (118,060miles) with 11 bars, 83% SOH 4 quick charges 7300 L1/L2 charges. There's no indication the battery has been replaced in leafspy or carfax.

It's pretty cheap (for Canada), likely because everyone is afraid of the mileage even with a "healthy" battery all things considered. I build battery packs for small electric vehicles and will be looking at doing a custom 50-70kwh pack to replace the 24kwh, I'd like to get a feel for energy use first, then build a pack that has suitable range to make it on the various trips I'd like to do.

I'm rebuilding my electric Porsche 944 conversion first with a small tesla drive unit and 66kwh LG battery. So the new pack for the leaf will take awhile.

 

[goldbrick]

Very cool. Feel free to start a thread in the engineering sub-forum if you have time. I'm sure some of us here would love to follow your progress. You probably know about the more technical EV forums already and while this forum is oriented more towards the general public as time marches on I'm sure some of us here will take the plunge into battery swaps, etc.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Hello,

I'm new to whole Leaf world, and my wife and I are shopping for our first used one. We test drove a very nice 2015 Leaf, which has 45,000 miles on it, but it's has 12 SOH bars, which seems high to me. I ran Leaf Spy Lite on it, and it said the SOH was 91.59% and said that it had 3302 L1/L2 charges and 5 quick charges.

Can a Leaf that has 45,000 miles on it still have a 91% SOH?

Also, if someone reset the SOH battery indications (without actually installing a new battery), would that rest the number of charges too?

Like I said, I'm new to the electric car thing, but we're REALLY ready for a Leaf! Any input would be greatly appreciated!

- Steve J

P.S. - I can attach a screenshot of my Leaf Spy report, if that would help

No location makes this an extremely difficult answer but you are only looking for possibilities and yeah, its VERY possible. We have a 2015 LEAFer who lost his first bar at 155,000 miles.

 

[dcdisc]

Looks very good.Did you see the for sale section.A 13 sl with a newer pack,white in Atlanta.Also 92 % soc.