The 62kWh Battery Topic

[LeftieBiker]

Nissan used to give 2 years of free 30 minute DCFC sessions.

 

[SageBrush]

You mention that you frequently DCFC, does your electric cost of about $800 include these costs? Using the sort of standard $.40 per kWh for DCFC the cost comparison is about equal to an ICE getting 40 MPG..... (assuming 4 m/kWh and 4 dollar gas, for rough figures...)

Nissan offers free DC charging at its headquarters and manufacturing plant. His money story is not available to 99% of the LEAF buying populace.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

I was able to use my free DC sessions via EVGo "no charge to charge" on a few road trips with both Leafs which was nice.

For our trips to/from Kansas (round trip about 1500 miles with local driving) most stations we use are .25 -.30 /kWh. With the cheapest (not including free stations) DC station at .14/kWh and the most expensive .40/kWh. As to that free destination charging (L1/L2). In total it's still less than half the cost of gas (when we drove a vehicle which managed 29mpg).

 

[knightmb]

Even including the electricity that I had to pay for, which works out to $800 (that's a high guess since rates were actually cheaper years ago) at my state's current kW/h rate would have easily been eaten up by the oil changes and other ICE maintenance over those 2 years.

You mention that you frequently DCFC, does your electric cost of about $800 include these costs? Using the sort of standard $.40 per kWh for DCFC the cost comparison is about equal to an ICE getting 40 MPG..... (assuming 4 m/kWh and 4 dollar gas, for rough figures...)

Charging at home is where my savings happen.

I have a unique advantage, all the QC in my area is free via Nissan. I rarely charge at home for a long time. To be fair in my comparison, I just took all the miles and divided it into my electrical rates as though I charged at home for all those 53K miles. Reality is, I have spent less than $50 on my actual electric bill over the past 2 years to charge my Leaf. When I make trips around the state, then I rack up about $8 per QC station along the way. I try to stay with Electrify America as they are the cheapest in my state. So the $800, for me, is way too high an estimate. But if I wasn't getting free QC, that number would make more sense and if I didn't put that in, I know someone would chime in about why my actual "electric bill" for all that charging was so low to nearly zero most of the months. :lol:

All of those miles I rack up is city driving and less long distance trips. If you had a typical ICE vehicle and was racking up 3K to 4K miles a month in city, stop n' go, traffic driving, then you would have to keep up with the maintenance on your ICE vehicle that would include a lot shorter intervals for oil changes, air filter, brake pads, etc.

 

[knightmb]

You mention that you frequently DCFC, does your electric cost of about $800 include these costs? Using the sort of standard $.40 per kWh for DCFC the cost comparison is about equal to an ICE getting 40 MPG..... (assuming 4 m/kWh and 4 dollar gas, for rough figures...)

Nissan offers free DC charging at its headquarters and manufacturing plant. His money story is not available to 99% of the LEAF buying populace.

That's why I included an estimate of "paying" for it all instead

53,000 miles divided by my monthly average of 5.0 (which can be higher or lower depending on the weather), so that's (53000 / 5 = ) 10,600 kWH of power needed. Then I took the kW/h rate of $0.08 (which it was recently raised to $0.10 a few months ago, curse you MTE!!) Multiply that out (10,600 kWh X 0.08 = ) $848 in raw electricity. That doesn't include the charging losses, so now that I did a little better in the math, you could say if I did all the charging at home, it would be closer to $900 for all that driving. It's all back of the napkin math and the true value might be lower, but the margin of error is small enough that I am confident I wouldn't have spent the same amount of money on gas instead.

 

[SageBrush]

^^ Fair enough -- I stand corrected and accept your method -- for you.

Although I don't really agree that your conclusions have anything but a very narrow applicability since it is a rare car owner who can boast of beating EPA as a year-round average, let alone 30% higher. My annual miles/kWh average is right about EPA, and I know how few drivers (percentage-wise) would say the same.

Moreover, 1/2 of EV owners are in CA where home electricity along the coast is some 3x more expensive than yours. Even the USA average was 12¢ a kWh as of a couple years ago.

And while 27 mpg sounds about right for fleet average fuel economy, it ain't that hard to pick a LEAF equivalent ICE that does quite a bit better.

This is one of those 'ymmv ... definitely !' things, and it does not take much to flip the conclusions. E.g.,
A 3 miles/kWh EV paying 20¢ a kWh pays close to 7¢ a mile;
While a 40 MPG hybrid paying $3.6 a gallon pays 9¢ a mile
Presume 12k miles per year on the vehicle, and $240 fuel savings a year will not pay the EV price premium by end of life, let alone the opportunity cost.

 

[user 24513]

That's why I included an estimate of "paying" for it all instead

I still do not see the cost, estimated or actual, for the DCFCs. Even if you get them covered for free, that is a private perc that most do not have access to so a realistic overall cost estimate for most others in this country would assume that you paid the going rate of approximately $.35/kWh for that electricity. About what percentage of the overall electrical use was DCFC? Just seems like something is missing here....

 

[GerryAZ]

Here is my real-world cost for fuel for the 2019 LEAF SL Plus:
19,548.98 kWh actual measured energy from the wall (includes kWh from DCQC charging as indicated by account statements/applications)
55,272 miles on odometer (actual mileage is a bit higher)
8.4 cents/kWh including taxes from latest electricity bill (APS rates have gone up several times since I purchased the 2019 so I am using the highest summer off-peak rate for this calculation). This rate was calculated from my October 2022 bill (summer rates are for May through October). Latest published winter off-peak rate for my residential plan is 5.267 cents/kWh (not including taxes).
Total energy cost=19,548.98 kWh X 8.4 cents/kWh=$1,634.55
$1,634.55 / 55,272 miles = 2.96 cents/mile

Gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles of similar size would certainly not make more than 35 miles/gallon under my driving conditions so that translates to 10 cents/mile with fuel cost of $3.50/gallon.

 

[SageBrush]

Gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles of similar size would certainly not make more than 35 miles/gallon under my driving conditions so that translates to 10 cents/mile with fuel cost of $3.50/gallon.

I'll guess that many (most ?) people would say that if you are willing to put up with a LEAF, you are willing to put up with a Prius. :lol:
I've owned a LEAF, a Prius, and a Prius Prime
My LEAF consumption not including charging losses was 5 miles/kWh, so about 4.4 miles/kWh from the meter;
Prius was 60 mpg;
And Prius Prime was 90 miles per one gallon of fossil + ~ 6 kWh of electricity

REAL WORLD, residential electricity for PNM in NM is 15¢ per kWh after taxes, etc so LEAF is 3.4¢ a mile
Prius today would be 6¢ a mile;
And Prime today would be 4.5¢ a mile all included

Of course a Prius Prime would last the better part of 20 years while LEAF owners are jumping to a new car every 3 - 5 years to get some more range. The money argument ... is not convincing.

 

[knightmb]

Is LEAF ownership a gentle form of masochism ? That is probably an exaggeration since price is the main draw for LEAF ownership, but there is something not psychologically healthy going on here amongst some of the people who put up monthly blood letting figures.

Not at all actually. The Nissan Leaf is the only EV that I'm aware of that has this level of hacking to see what is really going on. Even then, at least Nissan gives you a "bar" system to kind of gauge battery capacity, though we all learn it's not very linear, but better than nothing.

If Nissan did what other EV manufacturers did with their complete lack of battery info, then maybe you are correct that none of us would be here comparing battery health stats. I'm certain that if Tesla or Chevy had a "dash" screen to watch your battery health tick down 0.01% every week, then their forums would be full of data screenshots just like ours.

I would rather have this battery info about the Leaf over the Tesla version and the others. :lol:

Tesla Battery Health Stats

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

To keep it simple, I just say driving an ev (the car sized ones, not the new trucks) is like paying a dollar a gallon for gas. Your math above does roughly equate to that for a 30-40 mph car/SUV.


Sadly, my wife has jumped back into an ice in the form of a new Rogue. The dealers here have them 1-2K below msrp again, and she really wanted 4wd with more cargo (for very rare needs) and did not want to pay the 20K premium for a MY or a Ionic5 over the cost of the Rogue.. the 3 cylinder 1.5 turbo is an interesting engine with cvt is quite an interesting set up for an SUV....but not for this forum. We still have both Leafs and will be sending one of them with one of our young Adults to Kansas.

 

[user 24513]

the 3 cylinder 1.5 turbo is an interesting engine with cvt is quite an interesting set up for an SUV

I know that you specified "not for this forum" but I can not help mentioning that we have a 2013 Juke with the 1.5 turbo with CVT (although I think it is a 4 cylinder, should know but we use it so seldom that I can't remember). I think that almost any other method of transferring energy to the wheels is more efficient than the CVT- does the new Rogue actually get decent mileage? the Juke reads out, on the dash, mileage in the low 20s, and the transmission can't even be used to slow down by downshifting. We drive it maybe 2-3000 miles per year, when there is deep snow or ice, so....

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

The Rogue is fairly peppy, not quite as instant as the Leaf, but not too far off. What I find ridiculous is the paddle shifters which do "simulated" gear changes...because it's a cvt.

My wife does a lot of idle time waiting for my daughter, so gets those low 20s for many trips (a couple trips touched the 27epa city). I will report back in a couple weeks post a short road trip, as I very short run suggests 30s is very doable in the highway (34 epa, so lets see). My wife never runs in the eco mode, so not sure how much that helps.

 

[SageBrush]

The Nissan Leaf is the only EV that I'm aware of that has this level of hacking to see what is really going on.

The opposite is correct. Every EV I can think of can show LeafSpy level detail (or more) via the OBD2 port and a variety of phone Apps available at low cost. I currently use 'Torque Pro' to monitor our Chevy Bolt, and
below is a screenshot of a small subset of my Tesla Model 3 sensors and values, read with the 'scanMyTesla' app.

If Nissan did what other EV manufacturers did with their complete lack of battery info

This is a common misunderstanding among non-Tesla owners. The Tesla screen shows front and center 'rated miles remaining.' It is equal to usable capacity (in kWh) divided by the constant EPA combined city/highway Wh/mile value. Anytime a battery is charged to full, the rated miles is a linear proportion of the full pack capacity. Easy peasy to follow degradation, and in fact a very involved discussion on the Tesla forum has been going on for years discussing loss of calibration affecting usable capacity accuracy over time for some owners dependent on their charging routines. This was mis-reported here (naturally) as loss of range.

Discussion about Chevy Bolt OBD2 data is just a google search away, but you'll find that people are as likely (or more) to talk about pack temperature or other things as pack capacity. There is just not enough pack degradation going on to make it an interesting inquiry. And of those that do monitor pack capacity, I cannot think of anyone who bothers monthly. Moreover, typically they do not even bother to post the data unless someone asks for it.

This forum is different. Way different. And it is not because of accessibility or technical bent.

 

[knightmb]

I put my reply up here since it was a lot to quote.
Thanks for sharing, I guess I didn't think about using those for search terms, so it's actually interesting to see some real data on the other EV. I also have Torque Pro, but I ever only used for the ICE related diagnostics, didn't know that kind of data was available on the EV other than Tesla through TM-Spy for example, but even that didn't give the kind of detail you are showing in this screen-shot.

So even Tesla has what the vehicle thinks as battery health (or battery degradation is what I saw in your screen-shot) and since I don't visit those other forums for Tesla or Bolt, they don't have their own topics that keep track of battery degradation?

The Nissan Leaf is the only EV that I'm aware of that has this level of hacking to see what is really going on.

The opposite is correct. Every EV I can think of can show LeafSpy level detail (or more) via the OBD2 port and a variety of phone Apps available at low cost. I currently use 'Torque Pro' to monitor our Chevy Bolt, and
below is a screenshot of a small subset of my Tesla Model 3 sensors and values, read with the 'scanMyTesla' app.

If Nissan did what other EV manufacturers did with their complete lack of battery info

This is a common misunderstanding among non-Tesla owners. The Tesla screen shows front and center 'rated miles remaining.' It is equal to usable capacity (in kWh) divided by the constant EPA combined city/highway Wh/mile value. Anytime a battery is charged to full, the rated miles is a linear proportion of the full pack capacity. Easy peasy to follow degradation, and in fact a very involved discussion on the Tesla forum has been going on for years discussing loss of calibration affecting usable capacity accuracy over time for some owners dependent on their charging routines. This was mis-reported here (naturally) as loss of range.

Discussion about Chevy Bolt OBD2 data is just a google search away, but you'll find that people are as likely (or more) to talk about pack temperature or other things as pack capacity. There is just not enough pack degradation going on to make it an interesting inquiry. And of those that do monitor pack capacity, I cannot think of anyone who bothers monthly. Moreover, typically they do not even bother to post the data unless someone asks for it.

This forum is different. Way different. And it is not because of accessibility or technical bent.

 

[SageBrush]

they don't have their own topics that keep track of battery degradation?

The Tesla forum has a long going thread (the one I mentioned above) but it turned out to be mostly loss of calibration rather than real degradation.

So far as I remember, there has not been an active thread discussing Bolt pack degradation for quite a while, although data is shared by those who monitor their packs if the question comes up in a discussion about something else.

Paul Gipe posts here sometimes. He has a blog post on this website about degradation of his Bolt pack if you are interested. It is very typical and low, so his similar post about his car at https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/battery-degradation-2020-bolt-relative-to-2017-bolt-ev.41915/ in the Bolt forum generated discussion from all of 4 people.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

News Coulumb also has done a couple videos on degradation.

GM batteries, minus a few fire, have been pretty good.


https://youtu.be/lxby4MirUY8


Bjorn's degradation was about 8% after 2 years on his M3. He drives a lot though. A quick YouTube search will give you 100s of results, mostly in the 4-12% loss space for the first 100k/3 years.
Lots of examples:
https://youtu.be/DzgNPmKjKUM
https://youtu.be/rYkS9AUIYjY


Cleanerwatt and a few other sites suggest that the. TESLA LFP lose their first 10% faster than the earlier chemistry.

 

[SageBrush]

GM batteries, minus a few fire, have been pretty good.

There is ZERO connection between fires and degradation. The fire risk was dealt with by a total recall that resulted in pack replacement. Stop the FUD

Cleanerwatt and a few other sites suggest that the. TESLA LFP lose their first 10% faster than the earlier chemistry.

More ignorance and FUD. LFP has more mis-calibration, depending on charging routine

 

[LeftieBiker]

Nissan also claimed 'mis-calibration' (although not using that specific word for it) with the 30kwh Canary Packs - while also replacing so many of them that they ran out of replacement packs. Let's see how this plays out before shouting "FUD".

 

[SageBrush]

^^ FUD for sure, as documented by range increases* after a few charging cycles from low to 100% SoC.
The more clued-in owners trend pack capacity with a charging episode, but that this as unusual in this forum as it is in other EV forums.

*Note that complaints of decreased range in the Tesla thread are based on the rated miles shown on the screen