The Most Accurate Way to Estimate Range?

Help me figure this out -- which is more accurate in determining range? The GOM is all over the place and often doesn't make sense to me. However, what do you all think of this calculation:

1. My display says I am averaging 4 miles per kWh.
2. I have a 30 kWh battery in the car at 11 bars, so that would mean it's down to 25.5 kWh (just lost the bar, so I'm assuming 15%).
3. The car "holds back" 2.5 kWh, so I really have 23 usable kWh.
4. Multiply that by 4 and I get 92 miles of range. Does that make more sense than relying on the GOM?

Almost any other method would make more sense than relying on the GOM. If you subtract a 10% safety buffer from the above, then it should work fairly well.

This looks pretty complete as a back-of-the-envelope way to guess. Your first assumption, that the 4 m/kWh is accurate, is one suspect part of your equation. Is the Leaf actually good at monitoring this? And each trip is going to vary from your average. Then as Leftie says (and as your equation also includes), the 10% that the Leaf itself will be hiding from you as the GOM gets closer to telling you you need to charge, that number is suspect as well because as far as I can tell the Leaf only starts to hide that percentage as the battery gets lower- between full charge and 50% or so you are zooming along doing fine then the battery goes from 50% to 0 much faster, similar to a gas gauge that doesn't read accurately. And of course your trip will never be symmetrical unless you live on the flats- leaving and returning don't take the same amount of energy so make sure you get home!

LarryKaplan said:

Help me figure this out -- which is more accurate in determining range? The GOM is all over the place and often doesn't make sense to me. However, what do you all think of this calculation:

1. My display says I am averaging 4 miles per kWh.
2. I have a 30 kWh battery in the car at 11 bars, so that would mean it's down to 25.5 kWh (just lost the bar, so I'm assuming 15%).
3. The car "holds back" 2.5 kWh, so I really have 23 usable kWh.
4. Multiply that by 4 and I get 92 miles of range. Does that make more sense than relying on the GOM?

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Sure. and then you can watch the SoC meter and estimate 1 mile per one percent.

The weakness of your approach is that the miles/kWh is an average that may not apply for the remainder of your trip.
You are better off just remembering that in your car (for now, until further degradation occurs), each 10% SoC remaining is 2.3 kWh of energy. How far that energy will take you is a YMMV

How far is your daily commute--do you need to use the whole pack to make your route? if so then you will need to sharpen your pencil such as you have proposed. In addition try to get your average up so you can have a bit of margin. Is there alternative routes that use side roads rather than high speed highways, etc.

Do you use D or Eco mode, do you accelerate toward stops, or use the brakes, or coast and regen?

How much energy is the Climate Control drawing from the pack? Preheat or precool while on the EVSE before departure.

Take a look at the Energy Info screen on the center display to see more accurate real-time data.

If you knew that you could drive to get ~ 5 miles per kWh if necessary, then using 4 to calculate estimated range is a good approach, and it might help you get home if have to make an unexpected side trip.

Thanks everyone for your comments. So here are the results of a test drive I did today, city driving in light traffic --

--Distance Driven: 10 miles on level terrain
--GOM Mileage Indicator: dropped 10 miles from 55 - 45, so that seems to be consistent
--GOM SOC Bars: dropped 2 bars
--Charging Time Indicator (as in how long to recharge back up to the 80% I started at using trickle charge): 4 hours -- at approximately 4 miles per hour, that says I used 16 miles.

Some background: it's a 2012, so no "SOC% remaining" indicator. It had a 30 kWh refurbished battery installed, which now has 11 bars SOH (had 12 and lost 1 this past week) -- so theoretically, my range should be higher and I should only have lost 1 bar SOC.

Not sure where that leaves my calculation of 4 miles/kWh on a battery with 23 usable kWh SOH equalling a maximum range of 92 miles (if that was the case, I should only have dropped 1 SOC bar today).

Thoughts? BTW, to answer nlspace: I use ECO mode always, I rarely use climate control and working from home, the car is not used for a daily commute.

LarryKaplan said:

Some background: it's a 2012, so no "SOC% remaining" indicator.

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Solved with the LEAFspy app and a $20 OBD2 adapter

^^ That is the way to go

It had a 30 kWh refurbished battery installed, which now has 11 bars SOH (had 12 and lost 1 this past week)

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Have you ever run it down below 2 bars into like 1 bar blinking, and then charged it fully? that is supposed to help the car get itself calibrated.

Also has there been any test to prove the refurbished pack was actually at 30kWh? Maybe the LBC was reset to show 12 bars SOH.

The leafspy app will let you see the voltage of each cell to tell if there might be one or more laggards.

Not sure I have the nerve to drive it down that low! Seriously, I am thinking of taking the car to a Nissan dealer to have a full diagnostic on the software systems. After 10 years, why not. I wouldn't know what the hell I was looking at with LeafSpy.

Leaf Spy can give you confidence once you get down to the point where the GOM becomes --- miles. You'd be able to see battery gids and cell voltages.

Turbo3 (author of LeafSpy) made a comment to me that I posted at https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=516652#p516652. IIRC, he has (had?) an '11. He once borrowed my '13 overnight to do some development/testing work as he lives a few miles from me.

IMHO, Leaf Spy or some other way of display battery gids is a must have for any '11 or '12 Leaf driver who plans to/may need to run the battery pretty low since the 1% increment SoC display didn't come until model year '13.

LarryKaplan said:

Not sure I have the nerve to drive it down that low!

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Just drive it down to 2 or 3, then park in your driveway and leave the car in READY mode with the Heat or A/C running full blast--that will take the pack down the rest of the way and not leave you stranded. That is what the dealer will do if they take your car in for service.