Another question: Battery Degradation

Hello, my name is Nick. Bought a 2015 Leaf with 22,000 mi in Panama City Beach, FL. We have had the car for little over a year and have put about 6,000 mi on it.
As of yesterday (Dec 14), when the battery is fully charged, top white capacity bar has disappeared. One of ten white bars gone. I guess this would be 10% degradation after 4 years (from new) and 28k mi (not counting the red bars). Is this normal degradation?

Info: we charge the battery overnight on a 110 v charger. We usually make short trips (10 mi round trip) with 2 or 3 40-50 mi trips per week. The temperature here has been between 40 and 60F the last few days. Car lives in garage.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
-Nick

There are 12 capacity bars. So do mean you have 11 of 12 or 9 or 12?

jlv said:

There are 12 capacity bars. So do mean you have 11 of 12 or 9 or 12?

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He said 1 of the top 10 white bars. The bottom 2 of the 12 capacity bars are red. So he's got an 11/12 bar car now.

To the OP: The first bar is worth 15% of the battery capacity. The remaining bars (including the 2 red) are each worth 7.5% of the battery capacity. So your 11/12 bar car is at approximately 85% battery health (SOH).

If you get Leafspy, you can get the raw number, but it's safe to say that you're getting approximately 85% of the range when new.

As to whether it's expected degradation, degradation varies greatly dependent on a variety of factors, primarily temperature. Nothing about this battery seems obviously bad, and since you just bought the car, you might find that your degradation differs greatly from the previous owner. Also, degradation seems to be slightly faster in the first year and slow down afterwords.

Your trip distances sounds approximately like mine. Sounds like you have a great car.

Lothsahn said:

He said 1 of the top 10 white bars. The bottom 2 of the 12 capacity bars are red. So he's got an 11/12 bar car now.

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Thanks -- I missed the "white" when I read his post.

Thank you Lothsahn for the info.

We have almost the same situation, with our 2015 Leaf and similar miles/km driven. We are about to loose the 1st SOH Bar (LeafSpy App reports 85.1%), and we get about 110miles (180km) range. But like others have said, that depends on driving conditions.

From what I've heard, that's normal and not bad degradation for that age. It'd be nice if it was less, but it sounds like your Leaf was treated well by the previous owner.

fastelgin said:

Hello, my name is Nick. Bought a 2015 Leaf with 22,000 mi in Panama City Beach, FL. We have had the car for little over a year and have put about 6,000 mi on it.
As of yesterday (Dec 14), when the battery is fully charged, top white capacity bar has disappeared. One of ten white bars gone. I guess this would be 10% degradation after 4 years (from new) and 28k mi (not counting the red bars). Is this normal degradation?

Info: we charge the battery overnight on a 110 v charger. We usually make short trips (10 mi round trip) with 2 or 3 40-50 mi trips per week. The temperature here has been between 40 and 60F the last few days. Car lives in garage.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
-Nick

Click to expand...

Sounds like you got a good battery that may last you for years to come.

fastelgin said:

Hello, my name is Nick. Bought a 2015 Leaf with 22,000 mi in Panama City Beach, FL. We have had the car for little over a year and have put about 6,000 mi on it.
As of yesterday (Dec 14), when the battery is fully charged, top white capacity bar has disappeared. One of ten white bars gone. I guess this would be 10% degradation after 4 years (from new) and 28k mi (not counting the red bars). Is this normal degradation?

Info: we charge the battery overnight on a 110 v charger. We usually make short trips (10 mi round trip) with 2 or 3 40-50 mi trips per week. The temperature here has been between 40 and 60F the last few days. Car lives in garage.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
-Nick

Click to expand...

Charging to full then driving 10 miles the next day is not a good way to go. You should only charge to what you need plus a comfort buffer.

https://pushevs.com/2018/04/27/battery-charging-full-versus-partial/

A lot of comments are from Leaf owners.

Sweet spot came out to be: Cycling from 80 % down to 0 % we get 3.000 cycles.

Test of Samsung ICR18650-26F battery cell by BMZ 2/2

The best duty cycle for a Leaf or other EV battery is considered to be 20% or 25% to 60%, with occasional brief numbers outside that range being ok. 80% is considered a decent compromise between range and battery life. The two Golden Rules are:

* Don't let the car sit with a full or nearly full charge for more than a brief time*, especially in Hot weather.

* Don't let the car sit with less than a 20% charge. (If you run it below that and the battery is hot, you can charge it to 20% or a bit more, and then wait for the battery to cool before fully recharging.


* "Brief" would be a few minutes to maybe an hour if the battery is cold in Summer, to maybe 12 hours in Winter if the battery is cold. I've let it sit at 90% indicated (actual charge is lower than what the car displays) charge for a couple of days in Winter, but then my current Leaf battery isn't doing especially well...

Being charged up to or near 100% when above 77 degrees F degrades the battery while it's just sitting there.

Oilpan4 said:

Being charged up to or near 100% when above 77 degrees F degrades the battery while it's just sitting there.

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That is a good point. When I get my new battery I am going to watch charging to 100% or a real 95% or what ever. I think mine was charging up to 97% per Leaf Spy Pro so I expect the 2018 BMS software update let is charge to a higher percentage to help out the range.

Per the article above the sweet spot is to not charge over 80% but it is OK to discharge down to 0%.

but it is OK to discharge down to 0%.

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As long as it's recharged as soon as the trip ends. I'd also avoid doing that often. 10% maybe, near 0%, not so much.

It appears to be less bad to charge to 100% as long as you don't leave it sitting and run it down to say 20 or 30% then it is to charge to 80% and run it down to single digit%.