Will the battery degrade faster if I park and charge a 2015 Leaf outside in the Sun?

[SunilS]

I am considering buying a used 2015 Nissan Leaf SV. I plan to park it and to charge it outside. I live in coastal California where it is sunny most of the time and where the daytime high in summer can be in the 90s for long stretches of days. I understand that this vehicle does not have a fan to cool the battery. It relies upon passive radiation to dissipate heat that is generated when the battery is charged. Can parking the vehicle outside and charging the vehicle when it is exposed to the Sun on hot summer days degrade the battery sooner?

 

[WetEV]

I am considering buying a used 2015 Nissan Leaf SV. I plan to park it and to charge it outside. I live in coastal California where it is sunny most of the time and where the daytime high in summer can be in the 90s for long stretches of days. I understand that this vehicle does not have a fan to cool the battery. It relies upon passive radiation to dissipate heat that is generated when the battery is charged. Can parking the vehicle outside and charging the vehicle when it is exposed to the Sun on hot summer days degrade the battery sooner?

Messy question.

Short answer is maybe, but probably not by much.

Battery has a lot of thermal inertia, so better cooling at night will counter some of the solar warming during the day. Color of the car, if windows are left cracked open, how breezy, all probably matter. A complex problem.

2015 battery is one of the better life batteries Nissan has made to date.

 

[cwerdna]

Yes, probably. When I had '13 Leaf, I'd park in a sunken down area or underground parking (example mention at https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=528331#p528331) that was cooler than outside ground level. I've mentioned it many other times if you visit https://www.mynissanleaf.com/search.php?keywords=underground&terms=all&author=cwerdna&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search. I monitored battery temps via Leaf Spy too.

I bet if a car was treated that way and left outside when it was cool at night vs. inside a hotter garage, it'd degrade less over than span of a few years than one that was always baking outside.

And yeah, the battery has a lot of thermal mass so it cooling to a cooler ambient temp will take a very long time.

Fan won't help that much as the battery will never be able to get below ambient temp w/only a fan.

 

[GerryAZ]

I park and charge in my driveway and don't worry about it. The battery is underneath and has a lot of thermal mass so sun shining on the body has little impact to battery temperature. Level 1 or 2 charging will not cause significant heating when charging overnight. If possible, parking on light-colored concrete is better than parking on black asphalt that has been heated by the sun because the battery will absorb some heat radiating from the pavement.

Your costal California climate should be easier on the battery than my hot desert location.