Conditioning Your Battery / Keeping as Healthy as Possible

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eddiebo924

Active member
Joined
Aug 14, 2014
Messages
44
Location
Firestone, CO
How do you do it?

I've been on this forum for a while now but I don't think I've ever seen a thread (I did search but didn't see one) that has all the best ways to keep your battery in tip top shape.

I've heard that if every once and awhile you take a longer drive and then charge up with a Quick Charger it will help out. What else do you guys have?

Thanks!
 
I don't think that there are ways to "condition" or improve your battery..... Batteries are like living.... The less you abuse, the longer you will live….
 
In general try to keep the charge between 20-80%.
Do not charge to 100% and let it sit a long time (days), particularly if it's hot.
Try to never go all the way to [Turtle], and if you get the battery really low try to charge it up > 20% soon unless it's hot. Over discharge can be a killer.
Try to keep the battery temps down. Heat is a significant enemy. Charge when cool if you can. (110v is so slow that part probably doesn't matter)
Once in awhile do charge to 100% if you are going to immediately use it enough to pull the battery down a fair amount. Helps balance the cells.
You have to charge until all the dash lights go out to balance the cells. Occasional balance is good.

FWIW, I see no reason that quick charging all by itself is ever a benefit for the battery, though it certainly can be a benefit for you. Quick charge will heat a battery. If the battery is already hot from outside temps and use it just adds to the heat problem. Certainly QC if you need to but don't think that's going to help out your pack.

As [powersurge] said, you can't really 'condition' it (it's not a NiCad). You try to not abuse it. Use is different from abuse.
 
flydiver said:
FWIW, I see no reason that quick charging all by itself is ever a benefit for the battery,

DCQC can increase the REPORTED by LeafSpy available Ahrs and SOH, in pre-2018 LEAFs but there is no good reason to suggest that a DC quick charge actually increases the available Ahr or increases the State Of Health(SOH).
 
Occasional full cycles can help; i.e., running quite low and then full charge. It doesn't physically improve the battery at all, but it does help better calibrate the control unit to the battery's actual state. Personally I wouldn't deliberately "turtle" the car for this, but I think VLBW is reasonable.

If you're one to normally under-charge the battery then it does help to occasionally let the charge run to completion, and continue to sit on the plug for some time (hours) to allow a full cell-balancing. Applies mostly to older LEAFs that allow 80% charging, or to people who habitually take pains to avoid full charges.
 
eddiebo924 said:
How do you do it?

I've been on this forum for a while now but I don't think I've ever seen a thread (I did search but didn't see one) that has all the best ways to keep your battery in tip top shape.

I've heard that if every once and awhile you take a longer drive and then charge up with a Quick Charger it will help out. What else do you guys have?

Thanks!

The only real rule is charge no more than you need. If you drive a lot, then charge to full. If you don't, then charge to whatever level fits your needs and covers your comfort zone.

The rest is basically beyond your control. Batteries want to live in the middle. That is not practical. Batteries like to be at just below room temperature. That is also not practical.

Now we can morph this into "what Nissan should have done was..." or not. We already have more than enough of those conversations going on and I see little reason to add another.
 
If heating up the battery is what we try to avoid, trickle charging to 80%ish would be the best.
But i am still amazed how Tesla owners data show hardly any degradation of their batteries after 100k miles.
 
tesleaf said:
If heating up the battery is what we try to avoid, trickle charging to 80%ish would be the best.
But i am still amazed how Tesla owners data show hardly any degradation of their batteries after 100k miles.

I think 10% is the medium for them. Realize its hard to notice that small a difference when you have 250+ miles AND customizable charging options.
 
tesleaf said:
If heating up the battery is what we try to avoid, trickle charging to 80%ish would be the best.
But i am still amazed how Tesla owners data show hardly any degradation of their batteries after 100k miles.

That's because Tesla's have a TMS...which reduces temperature extremes.
 
Stanton said:
tesleaf said:
If heating up the battery is what we try to avoid, trickle charging to 80%ish would be the best.
But i am still amazed how Tesla owners data show hardly any degradation of their batteries after 100k miles.

That's because Tesla's have a TMS...which reduces temperature extremes.

Doesn't matter for many people. If your battery rarely gets hot enough for a TMS to cool the battery, the TMS will do you little or no good.

Of course, Texas is hot enough it matters to you.
 
I set the charging timer to 12:30 pm. I went out to leave the house at 11:00 am and the battery was at 100%.
My Juicebox pro 40 will arrive next Thursday. I cannot wait.
 
I am quite new to this (have a 2016 Leaf I bought used and love it) but remain confused about the "charge to 80%' recommendation, since the Leaf has removed the Long Life mode option from its software. I called the official Leaf site today and was told, quite officially, that charging to 80% no longer applies because of battery technology improvement. She said that charging to 100% is fine. Not sure I believe this, but I assume you all in this foru,k know much more. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Rich
 
richw said:
I am quite new to this (have a 2016 Leaf I bought used and love it) but remain confused about the "charge to 80%' recommendation, since the Leaf has removed the Long Life mode option from its software. I called the official Leaf site today and was told, quite officially, that charging to 80% no longer applies because of battery technology improvement. She said that charging to 100% is fine. Not sure I believe this, but I assume you all in this foru,k know much more. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Rich

Use the car's timers. I use less than 30% most days. So I have a timer set to charge for an hour, which gives me about 30%. If at 50% or below, plug in. Otherwise don't.
 
This is out of this (rather long) article on Battery Capacity Loss. It's worth spending some study time on.
http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/wiki/battery-capacity-loss/

For those that already own a Leaf, there are a few things you can do to minimize battery capacity loss:

Keep the state of charge in the 30-40% range (on the Gid meter) as much of the time as reasonably possible. This roughly corresponds to 3-4 fuel bars for a new Leaf. Charge to 80% or 100% right before you need to make a longer drive.
Shallower cycling (DOD) of the battery pack when possible. For example, two cycles of 60% to 30% SOC rather than one cycle of 90% to 30% should be better for the battery pack.
Avoid parking in the sun when possible. Solar loading may increase the yearly average battery temperature by 1.3-3.1 degrees Celsius for a vehicle always parked in the sun (based on studies of the Prius, )
Drive and accelerate more slowly and more efficiently. This will have two effects:
Minimizing waste heat (estimated to be 1% at 10 KW power draw, 3% at 30 KW power draw)
Reduced cycling of the battery for the same number of miles driven, which will reduce cycling losses

To monitor the temperature of your battery pack, you can use the Leaf Battery Application.
Here are some useful tips from Ingineer on MNL forum
 
I consciously avoid high battery temps and high SOC as much as possible and I have a 2017 Leaf. The article referenced was written about the 24kWh battery pack and it is possible that Nissan's battery chemistry or battery management software has changed significantly. From Nissan's point of view, if you charge to 100% every day you may no longer trigger a battery replacement warranty so that is 'OK'.

However, virtually every legitimate study I have seen says that high temperatures and high SOC negatively affect Li battery life. If/when someone invents a Li battery that can maintain a high SOC at any temperature or charge/discharge rate with no negative effect it will be a very big deal and everyone will know about it. Till then, it is best to limit high SOC, high battery temps, high charge/discharge rate as much as possible, especially in combination.
 
richw said:
I am quite new to this (have a 2016 Leaf I bought used and love it) but remain confused about the "charge to 80%' recommendation, since the Leaf has removed the Long Life mode option from its software. I called the official Leaf site today and was told, quite officially, that charging to 80% no longer applies because of battery technology improvement. She said that charging to 100% is fine. Not sure I believe this, but I assume you all in this foru,k know much more. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Rich

Charging to 80% instead of 100% will give longer life for any Li-ion battery; this is known. Nissan's mistake was in making their guide read as if regular use of 100% was tantamount to abuse, and so the EPA seemed to decide if the customer was expected to use the 80% level so frequently then the EPA mileage results would have to reflect that. This of course lowered the already-low range estimate for the car, which you can imagine was very bad for marketing and the car was already getting bad press for battery problems by that time. Subsequently the 80% setting was removed.

That being said, the chemistry did improve, though the real improvement came later than the 80% removal.

Again, using the lower level will extend the life of the battery. An 80% setting would be helpful, but Nissan can't or won't come up with owner language that will pass EPA scrutiny as a "convenience" instead of a "requirement" and not incur an EPA economy penalty. Other manufacturers have certainly managed this.

Some folks here can probably give you a better idea of how much 80% would benefit you. If the timer allowed 80% I might use it occasionally. I used it regularly on my 2012. Absent that function, I can't be bothered to jump through the hoops it would require. As Nissan indicate, the 2015 battery is far superior to the early version. My 2012 (often charged to 80%) lost its first "battery bar" shortly before the 3-year lease was up. My 2015 is nearing 5 years in service and has yet to lose a bar, despite always being charged to 100%.

tl;dr - Don't worry about it.
 
And when charging to 80% or below, should this be according to the dash SOC or according to the Leaf Spy SOC? When my dash SOC says 80%, Leaf Spy says my SOC is 88%. So if Leaf Spy is the actual SOC, but I trust the dash and charge to what it says is 80% every single day, I'm actually overcharging the battery on a daily basis. Same question on the bottom threshold by the way - is it OK to regularly discharge down to below 20% on the dash, as long as I'm above 20% according to Leaf Spy? Thanks.
 
Kieran973 said:
And when charging to 80% or below, should this be according to the dash SOC or according to the Leaf Spy SOC? When my dash SOC says 80%, Leaf Spy says my SOC is 88%. So if Leaf Spy is the actual SOC, but I trust the dash and charge to what it says is 80% every single day, I'm actually overcharging the battery on a daily basis. Same question on the bottom threshold by the way - is it OK to regularly discharge down to below 20% on the dash, as long as I'm above 20% according to Leaf Spy? Thanks.

there is no line crossed at 81%. Only charge to what you need which includes a buffer. 20% is fine. 19% is fine. 21% is fine.
 
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