Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

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allenthompson said:
It was only within the last week that the car started showing ~80 available miles after an overnight charge. This was a significant and sudden change since, for the last year, the car consistently showed ~100+ after an overnight charge.

Of note:
Put in service 05Jul11 in Bakersfield California.
The car will soon have 12K miles on the odometer.
We typically use the car daily ~60 miles.
We charge nightly, on a timer that activates charging around 2am.
Previously, the car would "use" miles rather quickly - seemingly more than actually being driven - for the first 20-30 miles. Now, the car drives a number of miles before it seems to "use" any. Yesterday, I left the house with 83 on the meter (ECO), drove about 15 miles, and had 85 on the meter (ECO) when I got home. I believe the actual difference in "available miles" is insignificant but, for some reason, my car has suddenly started evaluating battery condition differently.

My car is behaving the exact same way, and has more or less the same usage pattern (61 miles a day for me, and I start charging at 2:10am). It's a bit disconcerting, after seeing it behave one way for 15 months and now behave entirely differently (or with a "new normal") for the past 3 months, but I'm trying to keep an open mind. However, I'm watching each charging event and my daily consumption with a new kind of "anxiety".
 
If you are Nissan, you have to also take into account -- as was mentioned briefly above somewhere -- what the demands for equal treatment will be from folks who lose a bar in less incredibly hot climates.
If AZ owners get made "whole" -- whatever that means or turns out to be (knock on wood, may the goddess bless us) -- after a year of use, what about other owners who see some fall off but arent in the YIKES!, 2-to-3-bar category, nor are members of the the squeaky-wheel contingent in AZ?
What if you are just joe shmoe in AZ and never visit MNL.com?

This is not a simple issue. As someone mentioned above, maybe Nissan greases the squeakers and, as part of the deal, the owners agree to keep quiet or sign a non-disclosure agreement?

There are also resale issues with regard to cars with various levels of degraded batteries; even normal-use degradation.
 
FairwoodRed said:
Before, Nissan had a huge vacuum. No official comments by senior staff on this at all. Now, they are saying that they don’t know what’s going on, but they are looking into it. Sure, it could be new excuses and runarounds, but I take these two comments as encouraging:

we pledge to provide an update to our customers as soon as possible.
we will ensure that owners experience many years of enjoyable driving as EV pioneers.
I think the most important aspect of this open letter is not the content, but the fact that it was sent. It is a step forward. I wouldn't expect a quick response, but hopefully we will hear something definitive in the next month or two.
 
I'm not really a pioneer. Two of the guys at our meeting last week had built their own EV's. Those guys are pioneers. Same with EV-1 drivers. Me, I drive a production car that I bought from a dealer.
 
jspearman said:
I'm not really a pioneer. Two of the guys at our meeting last week had built their own EV's. Those guys are pioneers. Same with EV-1 drivers. Me, I drive a production car that I bought from a dealer.
Production car is a production car, same rules should apply everywhere car is sold and used.
 
Stoaty said:
FairwoodRed said:
Before, Nissan had a huge vacuum. No official comments by senior staff on this at all. Now, they are saying that they don’t know what’s going on, but they are looking into it. Sure, it could be new excuses and runarounds, but I take these two comments as encouraging:

we pledge to provide an update to our customers as soon as possible.
we will ensure that owners experience many years of enjoyable driving as EV pioneers.
I think the most important aspect of this open letter is not the content, but the fact that it was sent. It is a step forward. I wouldn't expect a quick response, but hopefully we will hear something definitive in the next month or two.

where is the open letter posted? please.

thanks to the below.
if you google, you can also find it... here and the facebook
 
If you have a Facebook account, you might want to share your thoughts on the open letter on the Nissan LEAF Facebook page as well:


Click to open
1
 
If you have a Facebook account, you might want to share your thoughts on the open letter on the Nissan LEAF Facebook page as well:

I agree, I already put a note out there. Not to whine, but to let other Arizonans considering a purchase make an informed choice.
 
From the FB page. Does this count as another lost bar and addition to the Wiki? Not sure if that poster is on these boards.

Vin# 870, lost first status bar ~18k miles , took car in twice complaining I only get 55 mile per charge when I used to get mid 70s. Was told that was normal and acceptable. Dealer told Nissan they could not duplicate the rapid loss , don't know how they tried to duplicate it since they did not drive or drain one mile off. I told them to drive it , they say they don't do that. So took it home unresolved then next day took it for drive taking a pic after every bar was lost then got the --- at 55 miles. Now I have pics to prove but see no point to it. I told them I lose 6 bars after 24-25 miles yet range estimate says 48 remaining, like I will believe that. I still love the car but this range loss is making me wish I leased instead of buy. FYI located near Houston Texas
 
HXGuy said:
I think the figure of 0.3% is actually pretty insulting...I mean there are around 39 reported cases here on the forum of at least 1 bar lost, is Nissan telling us that somehow, all affected owners also happen to be on this forum? Anyone not on this forum has not lost any capacity bars? Hell, maybe that's the problem! It's not the battery/Nissan...it's this forum that is causing the lost capacity bars! :shock: :lol:
+1.

Also, while I agree with what others said that this open letter is at least a first step and is better than nothing, this letter is way overdue and should have been sent at least a month or two ago already. So Nissan doesn't deserve a pat in the back for this letter, but at best only a D for being late in sending out this letter.

But for Nissan to harp on the 0.3% is insulting like HXGuy said. Why? Because they have battery reports from all 1-year-old LEAFs already, and I'm sure most of 1-year-old LEAFs in hot states have already lost a bar or very close to it. If I'm wrong, I'm still very sure it's way more than 39.

I wouldn't be critical if they hadn't brought up any numbers. But to make it a point to bring out the numbers, but then only choosing to use half-truth numbers instead of sharing their own real numbers, they're insulting our intelligence. How are we going to be able to trust that their future updates are going to be truthful anymore if they can't even be truthful about this?
 
thankyouOB said:
If you are Nissan, you have to also take into account -- as was mentioned briefly above somewhere -- what the demands for equal treatment will be from folks who lose a bar in less incredibly hot climates.
If AZ owners get made "whole" -- whatever that means or turns out to be (knock on wood, may the goddess bless us) -- after a year of use, what about other owners who see some fall off but arent in the YIKES!, 2-to-3-bar category, nor are members of the the squeaky-wheel contingent in AZ?
What if you are just joe shmoe in AZ and never visit MNL.com?

This is not a simple issue. As someone mentioned above, maybe Nissan greases the squeakers and, as part of the deal, the owners agree to keep quiet or sign a non-disclosure agreement?

There are also resale issues with regard to cars with various levels of degraded batteries; even normal-use degradation.

As I've said in the past, for long-term success of this car there simply must be a battery capacity warranty of some form. If you leave this undefined, then anything and everything can be construed as "normal". This is not a recipe for happy customers and any largesse that stems from this round of study and/or remedies is not a substitute for a warranty that protects all owners.
 
opossum said:
Nissan has informed us that they want to take 5 or 6 of our cars (we were a little fuzzy on which it was) down to their test facility in Casa Grande, AZ and run some tests.
It is 6. I just got back from vacation with a couple of voice mails inviting me to participate in their study. Looks like I got back just in time and was told I would make the total 6. Looks like they do pay attention, BTW, to this forum. My car had 11 bars last time I had it in and only reported my 2nd bar loss here. I never even filed a formal complaint. However, was told my car was selected because it had lost two bars. I supposed they could have been snooping over CarWings, but given my license plate avatar and published VIN it's not too hard to connect the dots. :) I'm happy to provide as much information as they want to help make a great car even better.
 
I'm sorry, but I am getting hung up on this statement by a "Senior Vice President of Research & Development, Nissan Americas":
Carla Bailo said:
Battery capacity loss of the levels reported may be considered normal depending on the method and frequency of charging, the operating environment, the amount of electricity consumed during daily usage and a vehicle's mileage and age.
I'm sorry, Nissan, but if you believe that a 30% drop in the LEAF's battery capacity after 15 months and 25,000 miles is NORMAL under ANY circumstances, then you should NOT be selling LEAFs in climates where that could be remotely true. Why do I say that? Because an EV whose battery gets ruined that fast is an environmental disaster. It is also a financial disaster to anyone who buys the car.

That rate of loss is well OVER 4 TIMES the rate of battery capacity degradation that Nissan told prospective owners to expect from the LEAF. Sure, you warned that higher temperatures could make things worse, but I don't think ANYONE imagined you meant that it could be OVER 4 TIMES worse than what you stated. I know I didn't. Maybe twice as bad, in the worst case, is what I thought. In addition, the warnings about capacity loss implied that the owner could affect the rate of capacity loss by their habits, but it seems that in some climates the actions of the owner have only a secondary effect.

Simply put, you will find very few people who want to purchase an EV which loses 30% of its capacity after 15 months and 25,000 miles. It simply makes no sense to buy such a car. Most of the people who bought LEAFs in Phoenix likely only did so because they believed misleading statements by Nissan that implied capacity loss in AZ was thoroughly tested and that it would be OK.

You should stop selling these cars in Phoenix immediately. Or, at the very least, you should tell prospective buyers what some customers are experiencing as their ACTUAL capacity loss in the area where they are making the purchase. Then they will have an opportunity to make an informed decision about how they spend their hard-earned money.
 
allenthompson said:
It was only within the last week that the car started showing ~80 available miles after an overnight charge. This was a significant and sudden change since, for the last year, the car consistently showed ~100+ after an overnight charge.

Of note:
Put in service 05Jul11 in Bakersfield California. The car will soon have 12K miles on the odometer.
... Previously, the car would "use" miles rather quickly - seemingly more than actually being driven - for the first 20-30 miles. Now, the car drives a number of miles before it seems to "use" any. Yesterday, I left the house with 83 on the meter (ECO), drove about 15 miles, and had 85 on the meter (ECO) when I got home. I believe the actual difference in "available miles" is insignificant but, for some reason, my car has suddenly started evaluating battery condition differently.
You didn't just take it in for your first annual service, did you?
Updating the car's firmware could result in this new guessometer behavior...
 
One thing that would have been nice in the letter would be a sentence that said. "Nissan stands behind it's products and will take care of customers should there be any cases of excessive capacity loss." But that's not going to happen....
 
so "about" 40 of 400 vehicles affected (and probably more than that) so that is a minimal 10% affected and that was not found on testing??

ok, dont believe it for a second. the letter, nice as it was, told us nothing. emphasized that more time is needed (waiting for replacement modules from TN) to "investigate" the specific vehicles involved. should give them another few weeks of time. Battery plant start up for Sept? wondering if that date wont be moved up.

let me guess. cars dissected for a week to 10 days cars return first week of August. next statement; "we have gathered the data and are analyzing our findings. add another 7-10 days. (middle of August) determination; capacity loss is beyond what they had expected. process started to procure replacement parts. another week passes (end of August) letters sent to affected persons to start scheduling maintenance. its now Sept. first battery modules from TN plant arrive. parts replaced.
 
RegGuheert said:
I'm sorry, Nissan, but if you believe that a 30% drop in the LEAF's battery capacity after 15 months and 25,000 miles is NORMAL under ANY circumstances, then you should NOT be selling LEAFs in climates where that could be remotely true.

If the first capacity bar is indeed 15%, I found it unacceptable that I lost that much capacity after 10-1/2 months and 10,200 miles; and found it even more frustrating Nissan called this "normal." Sorry to keep posting this, but here is hard evidence of that position:

LEAFBatteryInspection6-22-2012-1.jpg


That said, I am pleased with Nissan's letter. Yes, it's corporate speak, but necessary corporate speak. They are simultaneously trying to acknowledge the issue while continuing to express confidence in the car, which seems to be doing well in other areas.

I'm still upset it took a lot of time and effort on the part of a lot of worried owners to get this acknowledgment, but finally getting a corporate response is encouraging. It is a great they are studying some of the cars. Continuing to say losing capacity bars after about a year is "normal" was maddening.

I will reserve final judgment pending the findings of the study. It seems like they are trying to do the right thing. I had my doubts, but let's see what happens.
 
+1!! Well said!!

RegGuheert said:
I'm sorry, but I am getting hung up on this statement by a "Senior Vice President of Research & Development, Nissan Americas":
Carla Bailo said:
Battery capacity loss of the levels reported may be considered normal depending on the method and frequency of charging, the operating environment, the amount of electricity consumed during daily usage and a vehicle's mileage and age.
I'm sorry, Nissan, but if you believe that a 30% drop in the LEAF's battery capacity after 15 months and 25,000 miles is NORMAL under ANY circumstances, then you should NOT be selling LEAFs in climates where that could be remotely true. Why do I say that? Because an EV whose battery gets ruined that fast is an environmental disaster. It is also a financial disaster to anyone who buys the car.

That rate of loss is well OVER 4 TIMES the rate of battery capacity degradation that Nissan told prospective owners to expect from the LEAF. Sure, you warned that higher temperatures could make things worse, but I don't think ANYONE imagined you meant that it could be OVER 4 TIMES worse than what you stated. I know I didn't. Maybe twice as bad, in the worst case, is what I thought. In addition, the warnings about capacity loss implied that the owner could affect the rate of capacity loss by their habits, but it seems that in some climates the actions of the owner have only a secondary effect.

Simply put, you will find very few people who want to purchase an EV which loses 30% of its capacity after 15 months and 25,000 miles. It simply makes no sense to buy such a car. Most of the people who bought LEAFs in Phoenix likely only did so because they believed misleading statements by Nissan that implied capacity loss in AZ was thoroughly tested and that it would be OK.

You should stop selling these cars in Phoenix immediately. Or, at the very least, you should tell prospective buyers what some customers are experiencing as their ACTUAL capacity loss in the area where they are making the purchase. Then they will have an opportunity to make an informed decision about how they spend their hard-earned money.
 
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