2012 / 2013 LEAF Range Test San Diego Mar 8, 2013

DougWantsALeaf said:

Graffi,

What were your results?

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Hello Doug, sorry for the delay, I posted results on the 100 mile club thread. I have copied it and posting it here.

WE DID IT!!!

From Late last night/early morning my wife and I finally did the distance challenge. I will post detailed results later but wanted to let you know that we are now Number 77 in the 100 mile club and Number 10 in the 200Km club.

We left the house at 2:46am 3/30/14 at 100% (265gids from LeafDD). The first test was at freeway speed (cruise control set to 65mph). We made it to 68.9 miles with both dash and console showing 3.1 m/kwhr. Once the car slowed us down we only had a couple of miles until it shut down with us calling Roadside Assistance to be taken by flatbed to Mossy Nissan Kearny Mesa, San Diego DCQC.

We charged there for 45 minutes to about 90%, then moved over to the L2. By the time it reached 99% it was only 262 gids but did not want to wait another hour to get more electricity (it was already 6:30am). This next run had the cruise control set to 30mph on a 35 mph speed limit street with lots of stop lights. We drove a 10 mile circuit that was fairly flat, but after several circuits were only experiencing 5.4 m/kwhr. We then starting driving through a nearby industrial area with better roads and less lights. There we had a 6.1 mile circuit. We finally finished at 12:30pm, 6 hours later (with a 45min stop for a McBreakfast). The interesting thing was that the last few gids gave us much more distance. Earlier we were getting about .6 miles per gid, but from gid 6 to 5 we got 3.1 miles.

After driving a mile or so on gid 5 we started heading back to the dealer as we had an incline to climb going over a freeway and did not want to die on the road. As it turned out we got over the hump and started coasting downhill the quarter mile to the dealer. When we were passing the dealer the car shifted into (N) so we rolled through a right turn at the traffic light (light was green), down behind the dealer, then another right and up a 5 foot climbing driveway and left turn into the L2 charging station. Without the downhill momentum we would have never made it. As it was I barely used the brakes at the end. Total miles was 126.0 with 4 gids remaining. Not sure how many more miles we would have gotten if we had stayed plugged in another hour or so before starting, but we were tired and sleepy and did not want to wait. As it turned out we got just over 200 km. Another couple of miles would not have given us much. By about noon I was thinking that it would be not so nice if we missed the 200 km club by that extra amount, but in the end we made it.

On the first run we got 68.9 miles at 3.1 m/kwhr = 22.2 kwhr

On the second distance run we got 126.0 miles at 5.8 m/kwhr = 21.7 kwhr

Awesome

Thank you for sharing.

Thanks for doing the back to back tests at different speeds. Some thoughts:

- Your efficiency of 3.1 m/kWh at 65 mph is pretty low. Perhaps you had some tough headwinds? I usually get close 3.9 m/kWh at 65, or I need to be driving close to 75+mph (which I do often heading to office in the morning) to get 3.1 m/kWh.

- at 265 Gids your capacity is less by about (284-266 =19 Gids) 19*.08 = 1.52 kWh. So if you had no degradation then you would have traveled another 5 miles or so at the same speed. But then we all now know that the Gids are not linear.

- The 22.2kWh in your first run, confuses me given that there is only 21kWh of useable capacity in a new Leaf (or so I was told) with no battery degradation.

mkjayakumar said:

Thanks for doing the back to back tests at different speeds. Some thoughts:

- Your efficiency of 3.1 m/kWh at 65 mph is pretty low. Perhaps you had some tough headwinds? I usually get close 3.9 m/kWh at 65, or I need to be driving close to 75+mph (which I do often heading to office in the morning) to get 3.1 m/kWh.

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its a one way trip which means any other comparison would be meaningless.

Any one have plans to do Tony's test in a 2014 leaf?

DougWantsALeaf said:

Any one have plans to do Tony's test in a 2014 leaf?

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Not much point... it has the same drive train.

TonyWilliams said:

DougWantsALeaf said:

Any one have plans to do Tony's test in a 2014 leaf?

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Not much point... it has the same drive train.

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I'll sure be interested to see how the battery in my '14 holds up compared with both the '11-'12s and the '13s, but it'll take a while for that/those data to start showing up.

DaveinOlyWA said:

mkjayakumar said:

Thanks for doing the back to back tests at different speeds. Some thoughts:

- Your efficiency of 3.1 m/kWh at 65 mph is pretty low. Perhaps you had some tough headwinds? I usually get close 3.9 m/kWh at 65, or I need to be driving close to 75+mph (which I do often heading to office in the morning) to get 3.1 m/kWh.

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its a one way trip which means any other comparison would be meaningless.

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Sorry it took so long to respond, DaveinOlyWA. I did a one-way down to the freeway, but then did two Round-Trips down to the border and back up the I-5 and I-905. There was a little gradual incline on the freeway, but for the most part it was the flattest I could find in our area. There was almost no wind and the road was dry.

The effeciency readings were those from the dash. feel free to calculate it using the 21kwh available numbers.

My wafer is that like the microchip industry, efficiencies in process over time can produce incremental improvements with same design and plant. My hypothesis is that battery degradation and efficiency over time will hold up better in the 14 then in the 13.

Graffi said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

mkjayakumar said:

Thanks for doing the back to back tests at different speeds. Some thoughts:

- Your efficiency of 3.1 m/kWh at 65 mph is pretty low. Perhaps you had some tough headwinds? I usually get close 3.9 m/kWh at 65, or I need to be driving close to 75+mph (which I do often heading to office in the morning) to get 3.1 m/kWh.

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its a one way trip which means any other comparison would be meaningless.

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Sorry it took so long to respond, DaveinOlyWA. I did a one-way down to the freeway, but then did two Round-Trips down to the border and back up the I-5 and I-905. There was a little gradual incline on the freeway, but for the most part it was the flattest I could find in our area. There was almost no wind and the road was dry.

The effeciency readings were those from the dash. feel free to calculate it using the 21kwh available numbers.

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you did the trips so you are the best source of evaluating how closely matched those round trips are. I personally don't subscribe to the "drive down the freeway, then turnaround and come back" being an even roundtrip experiment. conditions vary too much. when using a high efficiency vehicle, it matters. When driving a vehicle that uses only 25% of the available energy to get down the road, it matters less...by about 400%

DaveinOlyWA said:

I personally don't subscribe to the "drive down the freeway, then turnaround and come back" being an even roundtrip experiment. conditions vary too much. when using a high efficiency vehicle, it matters. When driving a vehicle that uses only 25% of the available energy to get down the road, it matters less...by about 400%

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Please explain what is a valid round trip that compensates for both elevation and wind.

TonyWilliams said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

I personally don't subscribe to the "drive down the freeway, then turnaround and come back" being an even roundtrip experiment. conditions vary too much. when using a high efficiency vehicle, it matters. When driving a vehicle that uses only 25% of the available energy to get down the road, it matters less...by about 400%

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Please explain what is a valid round trip that compensates for both elevation and wind.

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I think you would be better off to refer to the first sentence of my comment. you want a trip that takes into account the variance of such, get on a track

DaveinOlyWA said:

TonyWilliams said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

I personally don't subscribe to the "drive down the freeway, then turnaround and come back" being an even roundtrip experiment. conditions vary too much. when using a high efficiency vehicle, it matters. When driving a vehicle that uses only 25% of the available energy to get down the road, it matters less...by about 400%

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Please explain what is a valid round trip that compensates for both elevation and wind.

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I think you would be better off to refer to the first sentence of my comment. you want a trip that takes into account the variance of such, get on a track

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So, the wind and elevation are different on a track?

TonyWilliams said:

So, the wind and elevation are different on a track?

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if you are able to find an acceptable roundtrip, fine. for me; that is nearly impossible and that is due to changing weather conditions and freeways that are not "equal but opposite" slopes are different, exposure to wind is different, etc. the terrain around here simply does not allow it here.

a track simply minimizes the differences by allowing seeing similar or "less different" conditions on every lap in a much smaller time frame.

the other reason I am not a believer of these tests is that I dont have the luxury of jumping on the freeway, hitting my set speed and beebopping down the road. CA has the most extensive freeway network in the World. you have a lot of options for nearly every destination, I do not. So range tests mean nothing to me when I cannot correlate them to my personal situation.

as far as the argument that a range test still gives you a baseline to compare with, that is nonsensical. Compare to what? LEAF verses LEAF? ahhh, no does not even do that. It only tells me what the LEAF can do in a single scenario; a set speed freeway trip. One I would rarely if ever see.

You concluded that there is no difference in range between MY and your methodology is sound. I concluded that my 2013 has more range than my 2011 does but my methodology ONLY uses the thing that matters to me and that is how well my LEAF gets me to where I need to be.

o range tests mean nothing to me when I cannot correlate them to my personal situation

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How does going round and round and round on a track correlate to your personal situation ?

In fact I would think that going in circles on a track will skew numbers and you will be less efficient than in real world scenario.

mkjayakumar said:

o range tests mean nothing to me when I cannot correlate them to my personal situation

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How does going round and round and round on a track correlate to your personal situation ?

In fact I would think that going in circles on a track will skew numbers and you will be less efficient than in real world scenario.

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you missed my point COMPLETELY.

the answer is it doesn't. does anyone remember the press release by Nissan announcing the 2013? The range increase should not be a surprise to anyone who does.

Changes to the 2013 Nissan LEAF start with improved energy efficiency* due to refined aerodynamics, a wider range of regenerative braking, improved energy management....

...Due to efficiency improvements, the 2013 Nissan LEAF is expected to offer improved range, with testing on the EPA test cycle to be announced at a later date.

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But instead we chose to take the results of a single event testing a single scenario and somehow that became the definitive statement on LEAF progress. This test showed no improvement so we wrote off Nissan's statement as referring to a better heater (which applies to some of us) and the elimination of the 80% charging consideration.

But now we have dozens of people driving these cars on a daily basis who are making "outlandish" range claims. So should Tony's test be thrown out? lets face it. He has the initiative, resources and the opportunity to go out and do things we want to but dont or cant. His results are valid for the test he performed. making sweeping statements about Nissan's lack of concern, commitment or progress is not.

http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/presskits/us-2013-nissan-leaf-press-kit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In retrospect, I can attest that my 2014 definitely seems to have a solid 100+ mile range when driven at less than 50mph with no hypermiling, something that was difficult with my 2011. Maybe its an illusion.

On the other hand, as an engineer, nothing like performing a controlled test and doing some actual measurements and making educated inferences, like what Tony did. So I am a little flummoxed! (finally got an opportunity to use this word in a sentence )

mkjayakumar said:

In retrospect, I can attest that my 2014 definitely seems to have a solid 100+ mile range when driven at less than 50mph with no hypermiling, something that was difficult with my 2011. Maybe its an illusion.

On the other hand, as an engineer, nothing like performing a controlled test and doing some actual measurements and making educated inferences, like what Tony did. So I am a little flummoxed! (finally got an opportunity to use this word in a sentence )

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your statement confuses me. as an engineer you must realize that any single test ONLY tests a single set of circumstances.

I drive on the freeway a lot. In fact, nearly everywhere I go is on the freeway since I changed jobs. My office is in Tacoma 23 miles away. Despite all that, probably less than 50% of my driving is done at a steady speed despite more than 80-85% of my miles being on the freeway.

I think Nissan realizes this and chose to optimize the LEAF to do better in town.