New Owner, first EV, Looking for general suggestions

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TBL

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2020
Messages
2
Last month, I picked up a '19 SL plus. I changed jobs recently and the 60-70 mile commute daily was burning up a lot of gas. I live in southwest Tennessee so the summers will get really hot ~90-105 at the peak. Anyway, I bought the Leaf as I was looking for more affordable than Tesla (not to mention the complete lack of service options here) as well as something I could drive with minimal worry. I'm a techie by trade but I don't have any interest in having to focus on squeezing every drop of power out of the car to commute. Thus I upgraded to the plus. I also have a 240v 50A plug in my garage that I installed for my rarely-visiting sister's RV. All-in-all, I'm very happy over the last month. But...
1. Will charging from ~62% nightly be very bad for the battery pack?
2. I wish Nissan had sprung for water cooling the batteries, will this be a big issue in the southern heat?
3. Any other suggestions?
 
Welcome.

1. Charging to 100% is ok if you time it so that charging ends right before you leave. Don't leave the car sitting for long at 100%, especially if it's hot outside or the pack is hot (see below). Starting from 62% charge is ok, but a lower starting state of charge (SOC) would be better.

2. If you can park the car in shade, and avoid DC Fast Charging it when hot, that will help. L-2 charging at 240 volts doesn't heat the pack much, but it does add some heat. It's the temperature of the pack that matters most, so in Summer I suggest you bring up the battery temp gauge and leave it up. Try to keep the battery temp from reaching the rightmost third of the gauge, by not charging if it's marginal, and by going easier on the accelerator as well. The 62kwh battery in the Plus is less prone to getting hot, in part because of its greater mass, and also because it is stressed less by driving and charging.
 
Welcome to the club :) I'm hoping to own a Plus in a few more years...

You asked:

1. Will charging from ~62% nightly be very bad for the battery pack?
2. I wish Nissan had sprung for water cooling the batteries, will this be a big issue in the southern heat?
3. Any other suggestions?

I assume you are asking if charging from 62% SOC to 100% SOC will be bad for the battery. Any charging to 100% SOC, especially in heat, isn't good for the battery if you do it frequently. I would suggest instead that you try to keep the pack between 20% - 80% SOC most of the time, unless you need the extra range.

The jury is still out on the new 62 kWh packs, but I would guess it's highly unlikely that your LEAF will fair any better than older LEAFs in hot climates. The 2015 pack has so far been the best one Nissan ever produced,

One thing in your favor though, with a bigger pack, is that you will less often do deep discharges compared to owners of 24 kWh packs. If you avoid charging to 100% when it's hot and only charge overnight when it's cooler then that's about the best you can do.
 
Even on the highway, you should be able to keep your charge below 80% and still have plenty of range left in the summer. Set up your charge timer to be home aware, (optional checkbox), and to finish in the morning before you leave. In winter you may want to adjust a bit.

I would think you should be able to routinely stay between 20-80% without difficulty.

See if your local power company offers a time of use billing plan - ours offers rates as low as 8 cents a kWh overnight. Hard to beat that.

Basically, the middle of the battery charge percentage is where it's happiest. I should also note that I've never seen our battery pack temp range drift much above the middle bar, even on the hottest days, but we don't DCFC nor do many highway miles. In town even on hot day, pack stays cool in our climate (hot days, cool nights).

In town, we get 240 miles of range in the summer months without driving it like a baby carriage. It's a fun car. Enjoy.
 
Agreed with other comments.

1. Battery temp, even in hot weather rarely is an issue, unless you are doing back to back fast charging, or doing long distances above 80 mph.
2. There is some anecdotal evidence that the hot weather is less bad on the new packs vs. the previous generation packs.
3. Range gets better as temperature goes up, though not linearly. I have done over 240 miles on a charge at moderate highway speeds on warm summer days. 300 miles is doable on a charge in summer on <45mph streets if you can handle gentle acceleration and stopping. 240 is very doable.
4. Fast Charging on the Plus is significantly improved, and many of the Electrify America and new EVGO chargers will allow the plus to charge at speeds at or slightly above 75kW/hour for the first half of the charge.
 
So the upside is that I have DCFCed once, when I was transporting the car home when I bought it from the next city over. However, attempting to manage the battery charging to keep it <=80% seems like a chore. For instance, I'm writing this on a Sunday. The car is parked in a garage, plugged in. It charged Sat morning. I wasn't sure of the need Sat or today, so, unfortunately, it's just sitting, fully charged in my garage awaiting need. Does the EV app allow you to set a max charge?
I do want to preserve battery life, but at the same time, I just want a car that works when I need it to.
It's a bit frustrating to think that I cannot just get home, plug it in, and unplug to use the next morning.
I do have the charging set to start at midnight for no particular reason, and one morning, it wasn't fully charged, but plenty to get me through my next day. As I bought new, I figure I'll need a new battery pack before the 8yr warranty expires.
And where I live electricity costs between $0.072 and $0.073/kWh no matter what time, it only changes if you go over a certain kWh per month. I think it goes to the lower $0.072 at a certain usage, but I don't recall exactly as the variance was so low as not to matter.
 
TBL said:
I do want to preserve battery life, but at the same time, I just want a car that works when I need it to.
It's a bit frustrating to think that I cannot just get home, plug it in, and unplug to use the next morning.
You bought the wrong brand of EV to leave fully charged in the hot TN summer climate, because of the lack of thermal management in the LEAF's battery pack.
 
The car will show you how long to charge to 75%

the numbers are missing on my pic below...because it is fully charged...you can also set the rate of charge...6.6 kw etc so the displayed estimate is correct for the intended charge level.

iCcVxZEl.jpg


so if it show 5 hours needed to get to 75%....just set the timer for 12:00 am to 5:00 am and tweak as necessary.
 
jlv said:
TBL said:
I do want to preserve battery life, but at the same time, I just want a car that works when I need it to.
It's a bit frustrating to think that I cannot just get home, plug it in, and unplug to use the next morning.
You bought the wrong brand of EV to leave fully charged in the hot TN summer climate.

WOW! from a moderator?
 
TBL said:
So the upside is that I have DCFCed once, when I was transporting the car home when I bought it from the next city over. However, attempting to manage the battery charging to keep it <=80% seems like a chore. For instance, I'm writing this on a Sunday. The car is parked in a garage, plugged in. It charged Sat morning. I wasn't sure of the need Sat or today, so, unfortunately, it's just sitting, fully charged in my garage awaiting need. Does the EV app allow you to set a max charge?
I do want to preserve battery life, but at the same time, I just want a car that works when I need it to.
It's a bit frustrating to think that I cannot just get home, plug it in, and unplug to use the next morning.
I do have the charging set to start at midnight for no particular reason, and one morning, it wasn't fully charged, but plenty to get me through my next day. As I bought new, I figure I'll need a new battery pack before the 8yr warranty expires.
And where I live electricity costs between $0.072 and $0.073/kWh no matter what time, it only changes if you go over a certain kWh per month. I think it goes to the lower $0.072 at a certain usage, but I don't recall exactly as the variance was so low as not to matter.
One of the failings of the LEAF (after 2013) is the lack of a maximum charge level setting. The timer can often be used in place of this.

Batteries have two wear out modes, calendar life and cycle life. To slow calendar life loss, the charge level needs to be lower over long periods of time. Going above 80% is OK, as long as you don't stay there long. To minimize cycle loss, avoiding low charge levels (~30%) is key, and time below a given charge level doesn't matter much.

I used to commute in my 24kWh LEAF, and would charge to about 80% by having a timer set to charge for an hour. If the car was near or below 50%, I'd plug in when I got home and unplug the next day. You might do the same thing with a three hour window, assuming a 6kW charge rate and a 60kWh battery.
 
Learjet said:
WOW! from a moderator?
FWIW, my role as a moderator here is to just deal with spam and approving initial posts from new members. Any postings I make and the opinions I write are my own and do not reflect MNL at all.


(Also, I made that post and then thought I deleted it shortly thereafter. I realized I didn't add anything of value to the conversation. I find I delete about 20% of the postings I make lately. While I messed up initially deleting my comment, I'm going to leave it now as you've quoted it).
 
Learjet said:
jlv said:
TBL said:
I do want to preserve battery life, but at the same time, I just want a car that works when I need it to.
It's a bit frustrating to think that I cannot just get home, plug it in, and unplug to use the next morning.
You bought the wrong brand of EV to leave fully charged in the hot TN summer climate.

WOW! from a moderator?
JLV is a Tesla fanboy. Yes, still a moderator, and I can be appreciative of his service as a moderator.

Many of the early LEAF owners were looking for a wonder car, a sports car, which the LEAF isn't. Being disappointed, they moved on to Tesla. They still come here to rage against the LEAF. Tesla has it's own list of failings.

Nissan took a lot of risk bringing out the LEAF, some of which has proved foolish. The early batteries were very disappointing. They totally misunderstood who would buy the LEAF, and why. They totally messed up marketing and customer education. Yet the LEAF is a good car in many ways. The first volume production electric car since the 1930's.
 
WetEV said:
JLV is a Tesla owner.
FTFY.

Tesla let me go all EV. We have no ICE cars anymore (*). I tried to make it work with just the Model S and the LEAF, but my wife wasn't happy. Now we have 2 BEVs that permit us the same travel freedom as when we had 2 ICEVs.


(*) technically the CRV is still registered to us, but our daughter has it at college (which technically is now happening at home, but I digress)
 
jlv said:
Tesla let me go all EV. We have no ICE cars anymore (*). I tried to make it work with just the Model S and the LEAF, but my wife wasn't happy. Now we have 2 BEVs that permit us the same travel freedom as when we had 2 ICEVs.
I'm all EV as well, with the e-tron. Works for us, and doesn't have the flaming flaws of the Tesla X.
 
I actually agree with jlv about the Leaf being the wrong car (and since Nissan only sells one EV in the US, the wrong brand) to use in a hot climate. A Bolt would have been a better choice. As far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out on Tesla - especially the Model 3. In another year we should know if it's a good car in ways other than specs.
 
TBL said:
...I do want to preserve battery life, but at the same time, I just want a car that works when I need it to.
It's a bit frustrating to think that I cannot just get home, plug it in, and unplug to use the next morning....

Well of course you certainly can do that. Given the initial horrible battery results from the first few years' production, there's a lingering perception here that you will have a dreadful time if you do not jump through hoops to play nursemaid to the battery. While the suggestions do extend battery life to some degree the effect isn't nearly as profound as it initially was. It's up to you to find your desired balance between longevity and utility. For my 2015 I almost always charge to 100%. My one concession for the first couple of years was to set the end-timer to finish shortly before I need the car in the morning. But now quite often I'll override the timer just to have a full charge in case I need it. Purchased in Oct 2014 and still has 12 bars. Probably would have less degradation if I was more careful but I had enough of that with the 2012 that degraded markedly over the 3-year lease despite religious 80% charging.
 
The myopic conversation about the (2018 and up) Leaf as compared to other EVs, fails to address its exceptional value. I paid $16,350 for my 2018 Leaf S ($33,350 MSRP). A few months back I upgraded to a 2019 Leaf SV Plus. I paid $22,435 (MSRP $40,435). Right now, no other EV offers the value of a Leaf. Soon, I will sell my 2018 Leaf S for $18,500 - $19,500 which is $2-3,000 more than I paid . . . two years ago! Most of us don't keep cars for 20 years and with EV technology changing so rapidly, it's likely that the early adopters will be upgrading before long. Don't obsess about battery technology! As an early adopter, you will upgrade long before it is an issue.
 
Don't obsess about battery technology! As an early adopter, you will upgrade long before it is an issue.

Try to imagine saying that to the new owner of a new 2012 Leaf, and you may begin to understand the obsession with the Leaf batteries. There is something to be said about not worrying (much) in the case of the 2018+ Leaf, though. I pampered mine, and I'm still going to turn it in because the battery seems to be degrading too fast to make it worth buying.

Which reminds me: it's time for me to do my 6 month LeafSpy check.
 
mkwilkes said:
A few months back I upgraded to a 2019 Leaf SV Plus. I paid $22,435 (MSRP $40,435).

Can you break down the rebates, etc you got? I have a 2017 S and I'm tempted to get a SV Leaf + but I'm not much of a negotiator so I'm curious about how you achieved that price. I could probably sell my 2017 for a tad more than I paid for it but the new prices here in CO are so low that the used prices are being driven down as well.
 
I just grabbed the papers out of my file to refresh my memory. I paid slightly less than I said.

2019 Graphite SV Plus: MSRP $40,375
Manufacturer options:
Protection Package, kick plates, splash guards, carpeted floor mats and cargo area mat, cargo cover, cargo net.
Incentives and Discounts: $18,000
$5,500 Nissan discount
$7,500 Federal tax credit
$2,500 Oregon EV rebate
$2,500 Regional electric utility rebate (Portland General Electric)

Net price: $22,375

Of course, the net price doesn't include license and title which varies by region. Oregon has no sales tax. You will have to wait until you file your taxes to get the Federal tax credit. One last thing . . . Using dealer websites and confirming phone calls, know the car you want and the price you will pay BEFORE you arrive at the dealer. DO NOT trade in a car. That is the best way to lose an advertised deal. No negotiating is necessary!
 
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