Silly question, maybe or asked before for sure

Pardon me for asking...

I bought a used 2013 SV. I just plug it in for charging each evening, it’s fully charged in the morning, range shows 84-85. All the bars are full , 12 bars to the right ...

The charging seems to have stopped when it reaches 100%. Doing it this way, is it harmful? I read that some do it this way without any problems, others say it will hurt the battery...

Nissan indicates to try to keep the charge percentage between 20-80% as much as possible to minimize battery degradation. However, occasional charging to 100% helps balance the voltages of the individual cells.

Yes, some do regularly charge to 100% and are fine with that. Charging to 100% seems to be most damaging in high-temperatures.

Charging habits depend a lot on how the car is used. If your driving uses most of the range each day, you may need to charge to 100% each time. If you only use a portion of the range, you may extend the usable life of the pack by stopping charging early (the charge timer is very helpful for this), especially in the warmer months.

I try to avoid 100% charging, myself. Even though my drives are at least 20 miles each way, I use ~80% charging most of the time (I plug in at 10:30pm and have the timer stop it at 6 am), unless I am driving further than usual that day or drew the charge down lower than usual the last time.

In addition, when the car is at or close to 100% charge, it performs little or no regenerative braking until the charge level drops sufficiently. Not only is this a bit wasteful, but I find it uncomfortable not to have regeneration with the pedal all the way up. The first part of my drive is downhill, and it feels like the car is running away!

I use 100% charging in the winter and 80% charging in the summer. We do this because we lose a lot of range in the Winter, and this helps make up for it. I lost around 2% SOH last year doing this.

Later MY Leaf's don't even have the 80% option. Charging to 100% will not suddenly damage the battery. It may degrade slightly faster than charging to 80%, but the differences aren't huge.

The biggest impact to battery lifespan is heat. If you live somewhere hot, your battery will wear out faster than somewhere cold. If you live in the mountains of Colorado, you could probably charge to 100% and have 12 bars after 10 years. If you live in Phoenix, you'll likely lose a bar after 2-3 years. For that reason, I'd recommend only charging to 100% if you need it when it's hot outside.

zahmed1094: It would help if you put your location in your signature. Then we know instantly what your environmental conditions are.

2015 LeafS, 35k miles. I live in Fort Worth, with summer temps (May-Sept) well into the 90s f. I ALWAYS charge to 100%, if not every day, at least 3 times a week. The car is driven sporadically, now used only for errands, occasional 7 mile r/t commute, which was its previous life for 2 years. With 3 drivers, two of which are NOT very attentive to the whole "electric" car scene, I just figured the rule of ALWAYS plugging in at the end of the day would prevent range anxiety issues.

I'm at about 35k miles, lost my first bar around 28k miles.

Fully charged, the GOM shows 82-85 miles, depending on the previous drive/ambient temps.

I'm a single data point. YMMV!

The 2013 had an option to always charge to 80%, you can use that if you have concerns. Personally, I never used it and my battery degradation is about normal given how abusive I drive mine, at 60k miles and 10 bars. As others have stated, the temperature of where you drive has a bigger effect than worrying about charging over 80%.

As others have stated, the temperature of where you drive has a bigger effect than worrying about charging over 80%.

Click to expand...

More accurately, the ambient temperature matters when deciding whether or not to charge to 100%. 80% in Summer (unless a full charge is needed) and 100% in Winter (if needed) is a good idea.

You said it better! :mrgreen:

zahmed1094 said:

Pardon me for asking...

I bought a used 2013 SV. I just plug it in for charging each evening, it’s fully charged in the morning, range shows 84-85. All the bars are full , 12 bars to the right ...

The charging seems to have stopped when it reaches 100%. Doing it this way, is it harmful? I read that some do it this way without any problems, others say it will hurt the battery...

Click to expand...

Everything "hurts" the battery. Charge depth, cycles, driving, temperature, and time all play their role; none of these add life to the battery. Only subtract.

Charge to maximize the car's utility to you. It's up to you whether the benefit of shallower charging is worth the reduced range. 80% charging may give you a small fractional reduction in aging. You won't double the life or anything dramatic like that.

Nubo said:

Iirc, 2013 doesn't even have an 80% timer.

Click to expand...

Not correct. '13 Leaf (SV and SL) not only has the 80% limiter via charging timers, it also has another "long life mode" menu option that doesn't require using the timers.

The means to charge to 80% was removed from US market '14+ Leafs.

https://insideevs.com/news/317213/2013-nissan-leaf-rated-at-75-miles-but-84-miles-using-the-outgoing-2012-epa-ratings-system/
https://insideevs.com/news/320736/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/

cwerdna said:

Nubo said:

Iirc, 2013 doesn't even have an 80% timer.

Click to expand...

Not correct. '13 Leaf (SV and SL) not only has the 80% limiter via charging timers, it also has another "long life mode" menu option that doesn't require using the timers.

The means to charge to 80% was removed from US market '14+ Leafs.

https://insideevs.com/news/317213/2013-nissan-leaf-rated-at-75-miles-but-84-miles-using-the-outgoing-2012-epa-ratings-system/
https://insideevs.com/news/320736/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/

Click to expand...

Yup. There is a trick with the '13 timers that lets you charge to 80% by default, but to 100% with the press of one button (the Timer Override) as needed. IIRC, you set the car's charging limit to 100% in the car's menu (Long Life option off), then set a charge timer to start and stop at the same exact time every day - i.e. 6:00pm, although any time will work - so the timer is always active. Then set the limit on the Timer to 80%. The car will then charge to 80% whenever you plug it in, and to 100% if you plug it in and immediately press the Timer Override button on the left side of the dash.

^^^
Yep. That's right. I learned about the timer trick (I use midnight to midnight) via https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=336053#p336053.

My use case was to use that and then send charging start command via NissanConnect to finish the last 20% instead of going to my car to push the timer override button (which also works). At work, to walk from my desk to my car and back takes maybe 10 minutes.

There is one artifact of this timer setting that can be worrying if unprepared: the car will often if not always start charging for a few minutes at the Start time every day, even if it hasn't been used, shutting off again when the BMS decides that 80% has been re-achieved. Of course, that requires that the car be plugged in constantly (or coincidentally at the same time every day), and that isn't good for the 12 volt battery...

LeftieBiker said:

cwerdna said:

Nubo said:

Iirc, 2013 doesn't even have an 80% timer.

Click to expand...

Not correct. '13 Leaf (SV and SL) not only has the 80% limiter via charging timers, it also has another "long life mode" menu option that doesn't require using the timers.

The means to charge to 80% was removed from US market '14+ Leafs.

https://insideevs.com/news/317213/2013-nissan-leaf-rated-at-75-miles-but-84-miles-using-the-outgoing-2012-epa-ratings-system/
https://insideevs.com/news/320736/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/

Click to expand...

Yup. There is a trick with the '13 timers that lets you charge to 80% by default, but to 100% with the press of one button (the Timer Override) as needed. IIRC, you set the car's charging limit to 100% in the car's menu (Long Life option off), then set a charge timer to start and stop at the same exact time every day - i.e. 6:00pm, although any time will work - so the timer is always active. Then set the limit on the Timer to 80%. The car will then charge to 80% whenever you plug it in, and to 100% if you plug it in and immediately press the Timer Override button on the left side of the dash.

Click to expand...

I don't believe this is correct but not positive. You do need to do that trick on a '11 and '12(I have a '12 and use it somewhat often) but no trick is required for a '13S nor do I believe a '13SL and probably '13 SV. On those models the 80% setting is a global setting, it stops charging at 80% whether using timer or not. Now again I've never used a '13SV so I can't say on that model if it's like the other '13's or 12's where you need to use the timer trick to get 80% but I am positive on the '13S and '12SL and pretty sure on the '13SL.

zahmed1094 said:

Pardon me for asking...

I bought a used 2013 SV. I just plug it in for charging each evening, it’s fully charged in the morning, range shows 84-85. All the bars are full , 12 bars to the right ...

The charging seems to have stopped when it reaches 100%. Doing it this way, is it harmful? I read that some do it this way without any problems, others say it will hurt the battery...

Click to expand...

If you don't need that extra 20% of range, then go for it. If you need it, then I would worry about the 0.5%-1%/year of battery degradation that it might save you.

jjeff said:

I don't believe this is correct but not positive. You do need to do that trick on a '11 and '12(I have a '12 and use it somewhat often) but no trick is required for a '13S nor do I believe a '13SL and probably '13 SV. On those models the 80% setting is a global setting, it stops charging at 80% whether using timer or not. Now again I've never used a '13SV so I can't say on that model if it's like the other '13's or 12's where you need to use the timer trick to get 80% but I am positive on the '13S and '12SL and pretty sure on the '13SL.

Click to expand...

For '13 SV, the 80% midnight to midnight timer trick still works.

Yes, there's the global setting on '13 SV and '13 SL (not sure about S off the top of my head) called long-life mode. But, if you use that, pressing timer override or sending the charging start command via NissanConnect will not have the desired effect (for me). If the car's at 80%, it will try to charge up briefly to 80% and stop again at 80%. The only way to get it to 100% at that point is to turn the 80% setting off on the nav system, which means I have to go out to the car.

Almost every day that I drive the Leaf to work, I use the 80% midnight to midnight timer. I plug in sometime between 4 pm and 7 pm. On a normal day, I only need an hour of charging to reach 80%. If I need to go somewhere after work, I plug in earlier (say 4 or 5 pm), let it hit 80%. About 1 to 2 hours before I plan to leave, I send charging start via NissanConnect app to minimize the amount of time spent at 100%.

I used the timer trick on my '13 SV for 4 years. It works. Jjeff seems to have missed the point: by turning Long Life mode off but using the similar 80% mode on the charge timer, you allow both an 80% default charge limit, and a 100% charge limit if the timer is overridden.

LeftieBiker said:

I used the timer trick on my '13 SV for 4 years. It works. Jjeff seems to have missed the point: by turning Long Life mode off but using the similar 80% mode on the charge timer, you allow both an 80% default charge limit, and a 100% charge limit if the timer is overridden.

Click to expand...

Ahh, I get it and like I said I use the timer override trick on my '12 and it works good. The '12 lacks the global setting like on my '13S(which lacks the timer override trick option) I didn't realize the '13 SV/SL models had both the global and timer 80% options.
I agree, on my '12 it's easier to just push the timer override button compared to my '13S where I need to turn the car ON(if it was off) and push many buttons to change the global setting to 100%, only to have to push many buttons again to put it back to it's normal 80%.