RapidGate Torture Test of Late 2020 Leaf SV

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hmbay

Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2021
Messages
14
Location
Half Moon Bay
I just leased an SV Tech on Christmas eve 2020 and knew what I was getting into for 2 years - but also wanted to see exactly how bad things could get in my area - Northern California. I did a triangle between Half Moon Bay, Hollister EVgo, Seaside EVgo, Santa Cruz EVgo, and then back to HMB. Used the EVgo DC charge systems at each stop. I was either driving fast or connected to an EVgo DC system for the whole time which was about 7 hours total. Ambient temperature was around 57F the whole trip. I didn't have Leaf Spy at the time so I don't have specific pack temperatures but the back-to-back DC plus fast highway driving (60-75) is your worst case for overheating.

Location, ODO, Charge Level, Charge rate
Left Half Moon Bay, 1445, 100% @ 11am
- mostly highway at 50-65mph (via Highway 1, not 101)
Hollister, 1534, 30% => 60%, DC 44kW charge rate for 17 minutes = 13.2kWh
- slow country road 30-40mph & highway 50-60mph
Seaside, 1589, 13% => 76%, DC 31kW charge rate for 42 minutes = 20.15kWh
- mostly freeway at 70-75mph
- on the 70mph climb of the steep grade near La Selva, the turtle appeared with the high temp warning to slow down, assume pack temp was in the red
Santa Cruz, 1626, 41% => 57%, DC 15kW charge rate for 20 minutes = 4.84kWh
Santa Cruz, 1629, 57% => 60%, Level 2 6.6kW charge rate for 20 minutes = 1.2kWh
Half Moon Bay, 1676, 15% @ 6pm
- the pack temperature was at the top tick just at the red boundary from La Selva to Half Moon Bay

Works out to 231 miles using 73.4kWh.

Lessons learned... I was too impatient at Hollister - should have waited a few more minutes for 80%, and then the second DC would have been less painful, and the 3rd DC may not have been necessary. I'm going to redo the trip with a smarter charging approach and see what I end up with.

I'm posting to let people know what a worst case trip is like where you are literally either driving fast or doing a DC charge for 7 hours. Not complaining so the Leaf police don't need to write me a ticket. Figures are approximate - I didn't recalculate for additional accuracy.
 
Try again in 90F+ OAT, or 100F+ to capture typical summer in much of the USA. You know ... when over-heating is the topic of the day.
Your post is not a 'torture test' in the least; it does however point out that the LEAF overheats even in the winter. Bjorn Nyland found the same ... in winter Norway.

By the way, your post would make sense if you learn the difference between kW and kWh
 
Sage: OP lists his location as Half Moon Bay. It doesn't get warm over there. See https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=533224#p533224.
hmbay said:
Hollister, 1534, 30% => 60%, DC 44kWh for 17 minutes = 13.2kW

...
Santa Cruz, 1629, 57% => 60%, Level 2 6.6kWh for 20 minutes = 1.2kW
Half Moon Bay, 1676, 15% @ 6pm
...
Works out to 231 miles using 73.4kW.
Huh.... do you have your units mixed up?

You said you have a '20 SV. How could you put in 44 kWh within 17 minutes? Non-Plus Leafs of that generation only have 40 kWh of battery capacity, not of all that is user accessible.

If one charges at a steady 44 kW for 17 minutes, 12.47 kWh should have come out of the "wall". 44 kW * 17 minutes/60 minutes per hour = 12.47 kWh

If you watched an EVgo DC FC's display, you should've seen the power level vary (probably ramping up as the voltage rose and down as the car throttled) and the kWh counter (which is of energy) rise as time elapsed.

What do you mean by "Level 2 6.6kWh for 20 minutes = 1.2kW"? Do you mean 6.6 kW for 20 minutes --> 1.2 kWh? That math doesn't make sense either. If you had a 6.6 kW charge rate for 20 minutes/60 minutes per hour --> 2.2 kWh should've come out of the "wall". Or, did you get throttled? If it was at public AC charging, most L2 workplace and public charging I've seen is only at 208 volts, so you typically only get about 6 kW...

If you look at Charge history within your EVgo app, it will list the duration and "power" (they actually should be using the word energy). For "power" after cost, they list how many kWh were dispensed in that session.

kW is a unit of power. kWh is a unit of energy.

No idea what "Works out to 231 miles using 73.4kW" means.
 
SageBrush said:
Try again in 90F+ OAT, or 100F+ to capture typical summer in much of the USA. You know ... when over-heating is the topic of the day.
Your post is not a 'torture test' in the least; it does however point out that the LEAF overheats even in the winter. Bjorn Nyland found the same ... in winter Norway.

By the way, your post would make sense if you learn the difference between kW and kWh

I agree, the scenario was not even close to worst case. For me, worst case means summer temperatures. Which in my area is 110F to 115F, day in and day out.
 
I have corrected the op as I got the units backwards - kW vs kWh. And as was pointed out, it rarely hits 90-100 in coastal Northern California here but I still managed to get it to overheat in 57F ambient after only 2 DC charges. The moral is that this can happen anywhere from Norway to Phoenix.
 
Thank you, hmbay, for your detailed post. This seems like the best topic for me to post about our recent road trip. However, knowing how particular some members can be regarding data, I’m going to be on the general side. I think that some new readers and those looking to go electric might be helped by narratives that are easily accessible (but thanks to you who have so much knowledge!)

We have a 2020 Leaf SV plus that we leased new in April 2021. My wife drives a lot for work, so that is the primary purpose of the vehicle. However, this last weekend, mid August, we decided to try our first long trip from southern Idaho to northern Idaho, through eastern Oregon and Washington. One way this trip is 440 miles.

We started from home with 100% soc with outside temps in the 70s. This route is mostly expressway, with a long stretch of 70mph state highway. There is quite a bit of elevation change (about 3000ft through one section), and there is always a great deal of wind. For the first 60+ miles we drove at about 70mph and did a DC charge at an Electrify America in Huntington, OR. The reason we stopped so soon is that the next charger would have been 150 miles from our home, and we weren’t comfortable with that distance, mostly uphill.

Our next stop was another EA charger in LaGrande, OR, 88 miles away. Though we had to wait almost an hour for the station with a CHAdeMO to be available (it was being used by a CCS vehicle), the charging went fine. We stopped so early because the next leg of the trip was through Oregon’s Blue Mountains, with almost a 3000 ft elevation gain, and we weren’t sure how that would go. Obviously the Leaf performed well as far as power and handling curves. At this point we started driving between 60 and 65mph, as we did through the rest of the trip.

At this point the temperatures were going to range between 90 and 100 degrees for the rest of the drive. Our next stop was a Greenlots station in Pasco, WA, 115 miles from our last charge. It was free (Shell station), and that’s a good thing, since the highest charge we could get was now 21kW. We were there for quite awhile and the battery pack temperature was very close to the first red line.

Our final charging stop was in Ritzville, WA, another 86 miles away, since I could not make the rest of the way on that last charge. We charged on an EVGo station for 52 minutes for a total of 17.5 kWh, and a ridiculous $15 (since the rate was by time). Now the battery pack heat was well into the red zone, past the first line, and the ambient temp was 95. However, the Leaf performed well on the final 93 miles of the journey. But what normally takes us about 7.5 hours in an ICE (including one meal, refueling, and one or two rest stops) took almost 12 hours.

The return trip was much better, however. The journey started at 100% soc (trickle charging at our destination) and 60 ambient temp. We drove almost the entire way between 60 and 65mph, and the temperature never exceeded 80 degrees (for most of the drive it was around 70). The first stop was after 134 miles I’m Connell, WA, at a Greenlots station. We were there for 46 minutes and 32kWh (43kWh rate). Again, expensive, since the charge is based on time.

Though it was a very windy next stage, mostly against us, we had a pleasant drive to Pendleton, OR, at a ChargePoint station, after 95 miles. We might have been able to make it to the next stop, but that would have been 150 miles and a 3000ft elevation gain. So in Pendleton we had to wait for a CCS car for about twenty minutes and then we charged for 46 minutes, the first half at 46kW, then the Leaf throttling the charge down to 19. 27kWh added, $11.50. The battery pack temp was about 2/3rds of the way to the first red line.

And now we got lucky. Despite the Blue Mountains, the Leaf did great with a tail wind most of the way home. We drove through the Blues and stopped in LaGrande after 55 miles. From the beginning of the charge at the Electrify America station, the Leaf would only charge at about 19kWh. We were there for 67 minutes and 23kWh, taking the Leaf to 96%soc. The battery pack temp stayed below the red, however.

Our last leg was 156 miles, 75-80 degrees, and a tailwind. I followed (safely) behind semis at 65mph for much of the last leg, until we hit the Idaho border where the speed limit is 80mph. At that point the soc was still over 50% and the stated mileage left was something like 150 miles (after having driven 117 miles). So with plenty of charge left, I drove the rest of the freeway journey home between 70 and 80mph (speeding up downhills) and arrived home with 28% soc. Our efficiency overall was about 3.5.

The moral of the story, to me, is that the 2020 Leaf SV is capable of long road trips, but the trips would be best if they needed no more than three quick charges. Two would be ideal. Here in the inland Northwest dealing with CHAdeMO is a significant limitation, also, but the biggest problem really is the throttling on the third charge. My spouse probably won’t do a road trip in the Leaf again (we have a 700 mile round trip journey in a few days, so we’ll see), and when our lease is up in three years, we will get something like the Nissan Ariya, or another Leaf, if they add active cooling and change to CCS.

I hope this helps someone, and I look forward to your replies.
 
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