L1/L2 counter increases by 2 to 4 each charge

Hello I am a newbie here.

Located in Netherlands I drive a leaf bought new in January 2015. ( 24 KWH battery)
Dealer did 1 QC at delivery, Leaf Spy confirms still 1 QC as I never do QC.

I drive 5 times a week around 22 miles a day and charge at night using standard EVSE cable on a 240 Volt 16 Amp outlet in my garage.
I use the timer to start charge after midnight ( not in the weekend) and use the 80% option to extend battery life. Charging is stopped at 7 am and I have always had normal range after a charge.
Only used 100 % charge a couple of times to handle a longer journey.
In a year I have now 5900 miles on my Odo and all looks fine.

But I have been monitoring using LeafSpy and I see over 715 L1/L2 charges. I am sure that I have not charged it more than 300 times !
Last week I recorded the L1/L2 counter and see it step up from 702 to 706 to 709 to 711 to 715.
I am not aware of power failures at night and the cable, box and wall outlet do not heat up during charging.

Why does this counter increment 2 to 4 steps during one night ? Could this be cause by cell balancing ?
Or is the Android app Leaf spy (tried both lite and pro versions) counting wrong ?

Another thing is the SOH readout, it is at 88% after just one year and 5900 miles.
Temperature in Netherlands in summer rarely gets above 80 F and winters are mild, not below 23 F .
I have heard that SOH lowers faster in the first year but I had not expected this rapid decrease.
I have a yearly check-up at my dealer scheduled next week, should I raise this issue ? A "normal" user ( without OBDII dongle and Leafspy) would not notice anything unusual !

I plan to do a 100% charge cycle on Sunday morning so I can monitor things more closely and see if I still have 12 bars. I can read out battery SOC and temp with Leafspy but I think ODBII only works when I power up and this may interrupt charging.

Is there a way to record or plot a charge graph showing voltage and temperatures during a charge session ?

Greetings !

I recall seeing a report that if you use the charging timers, the counter will increment by 2 (maybe it was even more?). One will be for when you plug in and another will be for when charging actually starts.

I haven't bothered to check but I usually use the 12 am to 12 am 80% trick to limit the charge to 80%, and so that I can remotely via Carwings/NissanConnect get it to charge from 80% to 100% before I leave from work, on days where I want 100%.

Yep, if you have the charge timer set it immediately checks for voltage which increments the counter. Then later when it starts charging this increments the counter.

I've heard of it balancing and starting another charge session but haven't seen that my self.

You can use LEAFSpy while charging as long as your ODBII dongle is powered up. Can even turn you car on while charging wishing interrupting it.

12% loss in that short of time and miles is no fun but not much you are going to get Nissan to do.

I am suffering the same losses in Arizona USA with my 2011 Leaf with lizard installed late December 2014. You will probably lose your first bar in April-May.

Orbiter2006 said:

Located in Netherlands I drive a leaf bought new in January 2015. ( 24 KWH battery)
...
I drive 5 times a week around 22 miles a day and charge at night using standard EVSE cable on a 240 Volt 16 Amp outlet in my garage.
...
I use the timer to start charge after midnight ( not in the weekend) and use the 80% option to extend battery life. Charging is stopped at 7 am and I have always had normal range after a charge.
Only used 100 % charge a couple of times to handle a longer journey.
In a year I have now 5900 miles on my Odo and all looks fine.
...
Another thing is the SOH readout, it is at 88% after just one year and 5900 miles.
Temperature in Netherlands in summer rarely gets above 80 F and winters are mild, not below 23 F .
I have heard that SOH lowers faster in the first year but I had not expected this rapid decrease.
I have a yearly check-up at my dealer scheduled next week, should I raise this issue ? A "normal" user ( without OBDII dongle and Leafspy) would not notice anything unusual !!

Click to expand...

Your SOH values might be artificially low due short drives and charging only to 80% most of the time. What about Hx?

I can't speak to your climate at all as I've only been the the Netherlands once, during December 2010.

Here are some semi-recent stats from my 2013 Leaf (built 5/2013) that's resided in the SF Bay Area:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=449846#p449846

I don't follow my stats that closely, but yesterday (2/6/16) they worse than I remember seeing before.
Miles: 29,943
Ahr=58.13
SOH=88%
Hx=87.93%

Except for the final charge on Friday, all my charges earlier in the week were only to 80%.

Thanks to all who replied !

So the high number of L1/L2 counter is explained and can't be used to blame me for loss of capacity.

At delivery in January 2015 my SOH was 99% ( Hx 99.54% Ahr 65.05) and currently Leafspy shows Hx 87.77% and Ahr 58.05 after only 1 year and 5900 miles.
I have the "9 bars left after 5 years or 100.000 km (62.000 miles) warranty" and it looks like I will need it !
I read somewhere that this warranty limit equals to 70 % Hx but other sites mention 75 % capacity.

I have reduced electricity tariff from 23:00 - 07:00 and at weekends from Friday 23:00 until 07:00 Monday.
My 2 KWp solar panel feeds in at full tariff during the day ! I have a good old electromechanical KWh meter running backwards at sunny days.
So I will continue to use the charge timer and charge only at night. This also ensures that charging is done at the lowest battery temperature !

I switched logging on in leaf spy pro and will try to capture data during a 100% charge by pressing timer override button.

cwerdna said:

Your SOH values might be artificially low due short drives and charging only to 80% most of the time.

Click to expand...

Re: this, see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=449455#p449455. I believe NegativeCarbon's stats are more in line w/reality now. I believe I'd seen another post somewhere else where both SOH and Hx are now down to the high 80s. His '13 was purchased in December 2013 and built (IIRC) a few weeks before he bought it.

There's been a lot of discussion, which I haven't followed re: some weird phenomena. AFAIK, Nissan has never documented any of these values, the conditions in which they're accurate/not accurate/can be trusted, what they mean, etc. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=450860#p450860 had what seem like reasonable explanations.

Welcome Orbiter2006: I too can confirm that L1/L2 count can be more than double your actual charge cycles from using the timer to charge. Turn the car back on to check a climate timer or whatever and the cycle starts again and another charge is added to the count. It can get way high fast.

cwerdna said:

I believe NegativeCarbon's stats are more in line w/reality now. I believe I'd seen another post somewhere else where both SOH and Hx are now down to the high 80s. His '13 was purchased in December 2013 and built (IIRC) a few weeks before he bought it.

Click to expand...

I've not seen a thread (maybe its on FakeBook) showing updated values for NegativeCarbon's stats (would like to, however) but there are plenty of threads on MNL that suggest that more use (including the letting battery run down to LBW and charging to 100%) with more miles driven per day in temperate climates results in longer life for the battery. Members like Evoforce in hot climates seem to have very fast battery deterioration.

ya, one (and only) mark against LEAF Spy is its inability to only record charging sessions and ignore circuit checks.

As for me? I have a rarity; a LEAF that averages 40 miles per charge. over 32,000 miles with just over 800 charging events combining L1, L2 and L3 but then again; don't use timers... its all or nothing for me!

DaveinOlyWA said:

ya, one (and only) mark against LEAF Spy is its inability to only record charging sessions and ignore circuit checks.

Click to expand...

That's not a mark against LEAFSpy it's a mark against Nissan as LEAFSpy is just displaying what Nissan stores.

QueenBee said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

ya, one (and only) mark against LEAF Spy is its inability to only record charging sessions and ignore circuit checks.

Click to expand...

That's not a mark against LEAFSpy it's a mark against Nissan as LEAFSpy is just displaying what Nissan stores.

Click to expand...

Ok, I can go that way.

yep and the one thing I wish LEAF Spy could do is "some" thinking on its own... which it does so I guess I wish it would expand its thinking...

cwerdna said:

Orbiter2006 said:

Located in Netherlands I drive a leaf bought new in January 2015. ( 24 KWH battery)
...
I drive 5 times a week around 22 miles a day and charge at night using standard EVSE cable on a 240 Volt 16 Amp outlet in my garage.
...
I use the timer to start charge after midnight ( not in the weekend) and use the 80% option to extend battery life. Charging is stopped at 7 am and I have always had normal range after a charge.
Only used 100 % charge a couple of times to handle a longer journey.
In a year I have now 5900 miles on my Odo and all looks fine.
...
Another thing is the SOH readout, it is at 88% after just one year and 5900 miles.
Temperature in Netherlands in summer rarely gets above 80 F and winters are mild, not below 23 F .
I have heard that SOH lowers faster in the first year but I had not expected this rapid decrease.
I have a yearly check-up at my dealer scheduled next week, should I raise this issue ? A "normal" user ( without OBDII dongle and Leafspy) would not notice anything unusual !!

Click to expand...

Your SOH values might be artificially low due short drives and charging only to 80% most of the time. What about Hx?

I can't speak to your climate at all as I've only been the the Netherlands once, during December 2010.

Here are some semi-recent stats from my 2013 Leaf (built 5/2013) that's resided in the SF Bay Area:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=449846#p449846

I don't follow my stats that closely, but yesterday (2/6/16) they worse than I remember seeing before.
Miles: 29,943
Ahr=58.13
SOH=88%
Hx=87.93%

Except for the final charge on Friday, all my charges earlier in the week were only to 80%.

Click to expand...

"SOH values artificially low due short drives and charging only to 80% ?"

This is a very old post, but is this for real?
Does that mean that you can "artificially" lose capacity bars because of frequent partial charges rather than charging to 100% ?

So if you charge to 100% you lose SOH because you charge too high, and if you do partial charges and short drives you lose SOH because you do partial charges ?

Wait what ?

valem said:

"SOH values artificially low due short drives and charging only to 80% ?"

This is a very old post, but is this for real?
Does that mean that you can "artificially" lose capacity bars because of frequent partial charges rather than charging to 100% ?

So if you charge to 100% you lose SOH because you charge too high, and if you do partial charges and short drives you lose SOH because you do partial charges ?

Wait what ?

Click to expand...

No. I'm talking about the behavior of the value SOH that Leaf Spy can render if charged only to 80% or less and run down partially vs. charging to 100% and doing deeper discharge cycles. To me, the deflation vs. inflation is just an instrumentation quirk.

Please see https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=516611#p516611 for background about SOH and Hx.

AFAIK, Nissan has never acknowledged nor released any documentation on anything that Leaf Spy can render along with its caveats (e.g. precision, what conditions it's accurate/more or less accurate in, etc.)

Does SOH corresponding with battery capacity? Maybe... probably? We know it starts out high and tends to go down over the long term as the battery degrades. We know there's some rough correspondence between a given SOH value (or other values like AHr) vs. capacity bars but it is unknown exactly what criteria are used for a capacity bar to go away.

How accurate is SOH (or AHr or Hx)? How much of a fluctuation should we be concerned about? What about the above quirk? Who knows? Nissan hasn't told us. For all we know, they might have some internal procedure that says battery must be between x and y temps, must be charged to 100% and discharged to x% y # of times, etc. and that the accuracy is +/- n%.

I think that the 80% charging regime SOH drop is just the result of cells being unbalanced, making the overall capacity of the pack a bit less - temporarily.

valem said:

cwerdna said:

Orbiter2006 said:

Located in Netherlands I drive a leaf bought new in January 2015. ( 24 KWH battery)
...
I drive 5 times a week around 22 miles a day and charge at night using standard EVSE cable on a 240 Volt 16 Amp outlet in my garage.
...
I use the timer to start charge after midnight ( not in the weekend) and use the 80% option to extend battery life. Charging is stopped at 7 am and I have always had normal range after a charge.
Only used 100 % charge a couple of times to handle a longer journey.
In a year I have now 5900 miles on my Odo and all looks fine.
...
Another thing is the SOH readout, it is at 88% after just one year and 5900 miles.
Temperature in Netherlands in summer rarely gets above 80 F and winters are mild, not below 23 F .
I have heard that SOH lowers faster in the first year but I had not expected this rapid decrease.
I have a yearly check-up at my dealer scheduled next week, should I raise this issue ? A "normal" user ( without OBDII dongle and Leafspy) would not notice anything unusual !!

Click to expand...

Your SOH values might be artificially low due short drives and charging only to 80% most of the time. What about Hx?

I can't speak to your climate at all as I've only been the the Netherlands once, during December 2010.

Here are some semi-recent stats from my 2013 Leaf (built 5/2013) that's resided in the SF Bay Area:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=449846#p449846

I don't follow my stats that closely, but yesterday (2/6/16) they worse than I remember seeing before.
Miles: 29,943
Ahr=58.13
SOH=88%
Hx=87.93%

Except for the final charge on Friday, all my charges earlier in the week were only to 80%.

Click to expand...

"SOH values artificially low due short drives and charging only to 80% ?"

This is a very old post, but is this for real?
Does that mean that you can "artificially" lose capacity bars because of frequent partial charges rather than charging to 100% ?

So if you charge to 100% you lose SOH because you charge too high, and if you do partial charges and short drives you lose SOH because you do partial charges ?

Wait what ?

Click to expand...

This is true but its a limitation of Nissan's system. Personally I think its just simply a poor calculation of capacity but this is a challenge facing all automakers and the reason Nissan did not make this public info. Realize LEAF Spy shows us stuff Nissan did not want us to see. No automaker provides this level of detail

The other thing to consider is top end balancing. The charge/discharge is voltage controlled. So charging to "full" stops when the first cell hits the "full" voltage. In a "perfectly" balanced pack you actually end up with "100%" usable capacity but your pack is not perfectly balanced so you will have cells at 98%, 99%, etc. This is normal and NOTHING TO BE CONCERNED WITH

You are much better off continuing to charge to 80% ALL the time if the resulting range is sufficient. the cells balance all the time so you are not in any real danger of a cell "wandering" away from the pack. Now cell failure does happen but that is pretty rare and is not caused by unbalanced packs.

The SOH is just an estimate from the firmware, much like the GOM is an estimate. The only true measure of battery capacity is to charge it to 100% and then drain it to 0% while monitoring and integrating the power (voltage * current) coming out of it during that process. That would be a direct measurement of the battery's capacity under those conditions (temperature, discharge rate, etc).

Since this usually isn't possible, the BMS has to calculate capacity based on a more limited data set, eg the power consumed between x and y volts and then extrapolate from that data to calculate capacity (SOH). Repeatedly doing this extrapolation could result in errors that accumulate over time yielding an inaccurate assessment of capacity/SOH. It is not true degradation but just accumulated measurement error.

What is a known fact is that Li batteries degrade faster at high SOC, high temperature or very low SOC. Hence the advice to charge to only 80% unless the extra range is needed. Lower SOC's will reduce degradation regardless of whether the car measures it correctly or not.

goldbrick said:

The SOH is just an estimate from the firmware, much like the GOM is an estimate. The only true measure of battery capacity is to charge it to 100% and then drain it to 0% while monitoring and integrating the power (voltage * current) coming out of it during that process. That would be a direct measurement of the battery's capacity under those conditions (temperature, discharge rate, etc).

Since this usually isn't possible, the BMS has to calculate capacity based on a more limited data set, eg the power consumed between x and y volts and then extrapolate from that data to calculate capacity (SOH). Repeatedly doing this extrapolation could result in errors that accumulate over time yielding an inaccurate assessment of capacity/SOH. It is not true degradation but just accumulated measurement error.

What is a known fact is that Li batteries degrade faster at high SOC, high temperature or very low SOC. Hence the advice to charge to only 80% unless the extra range is needed. Lower SOC's will reduce degradation regardless of whether the car measures it correctly or not.

Click to expand...

"Lower SOC's will reduce degradation regardless of whether the car measures it correctly or not."

I agree, however less capacity bars will reduce resale value, whether it is real or not.