How to Check Battery Capacity, Degradation and Range

[axehandler]

Hi, I finally got around to connecting my OBD2 dongle with Leafspy. I have a 2015 Nissan Leaf and figured I would ask you guys if the battery is in good shape or not. When we bought it 2 years ago, the GOM used to report 108 miles of range (ha!) but really only gets about 85 miles with normal driving - and that is close to what the GOM will typically report these days.

We live in Pacific NW and have fast charged the car twice, it only gets driven about 20 miles a day 5x a week. I don't know if I've ever balanced the batteries... or at least it's probably been awhile since we left it at 100%. I try to keep the battery between 30 and 80% charged.

The car is reporting 12 bars, 43,294 miles and was sitting at 94% charge on the dash when I took this - what does this info tell me?

[DougWantsALeaf]

Plus owners

What does your GOM usually read when fully charged. My car is about 4 months old, but the GOM still shows 280 at full Charge. I had expected the number to settle down a bit more this far into the car (4K miles). September average efficiency was 4.3, dragged down by some higher speed and rainy freeway runs. 4.3X59kW = 253 miles. I did. Track my last “tank” and after 180 miles (local with small stints of highway)I had about 70 remaining on the GOM (+the reserve), which is a ballpark 270 to empty.

Are others continuing to see the GOM

I have 500 miles to drive tomorrow, so will give it a good work out and will report back on the drive. If I can leave Sturgeon bay with a full charge, I may try to do the 90km/h test that Bjorn does on the cars to compare, just with higher inflated tires and minimal pro pilot.

[frontrangeleaf]

We almost never fully charge. That said, we’re seeing about 250 implied.

I probably drive in a more spirited manner than many here. The Leaf plus is a lively, fun car. No reason not to.

Avg 4.1 mi/kWh. Give or take.

[Lothsahn]

The car is reporting 12 bars, 43,294 miles and was sitting at 94% charge on the dash when I took this - what does this info tell me?

The SOH is 86.84%, which means you're about to lose your first bar (~85% SOH). Overall, your battery appears healthy, as the cells are within 20mv of each other. If you want to do a full analysis, you could run the car to the Very Low Battery Warning (--- on dash) and get that same screenshot. That will show you which cells are the weakest. However, unless you're planning on opening up the battery pack and replacing them, there's not really a good reason to do that.

Anytime you do a charge to 100%, the on board charger in the Leaf will automatically balance out the battery cells. It's not something you need to do.

Because your SOH is 86.84%, this means that you've lost 14.16% of the battery capacity. Given you're in the Pacific NW with a cool climate, I suspect the car's previous owner lived somewhere hotter to cause that range loss. You could continue to track your SOH on a monthly basis to see how your battery is degrading. Keep in mind, however, that SOH varies with temperature and seasonal fluctuations, so really, you can only compare SOH on a yearly basis. Do not start freaking out if the SOH drops or rises by a few percent as it gets cold, as that trend may reverse in the spring.

In short, your car is healthy and doing well, with roughly a 15% range lost from when it was new. Drive and enjoy the car, and expect with a 20 mile commute to get at least another 8 good years out of it (probably much longer). I was able to make a 20 mile commute in the winter with the heat blasting with a 55% SOH battery pack.

[alozzy]

@axehandler FYI, I looked up your LEAF's original sales sticker, using the trick with the CPO website:

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AjONM_UrXWS8gadzgyH ... A?e=ufcVKk

Looks like it was first sold in Portland, OR by Rustom Nissan of Portland. I'm surprised that it's already almost down a capacity bar as it seems likely that it spent it's entire life so far in the PNW.

[Nekton]

Hey, I'm new here and new to EVs.

I recently bought a 2017 Leaf and today I checked the battery's health.

Leafspy states my SOH is 92,52%. That's nice and all, but the weird thing is my Leaf's missing the last battery health bar.

From what I've read on this forum and elsewhere is that the last bar represents 15%. So... Somethings not right here. If my SOH is over 92%, I should have all bars visible, right?

I might have misunderstood something, appreciate any guidance from you guys

[GaleHawkins]

The car is reporting 12 bars, 43,294 miles and was sitting at 94% charge on the dash when I took this - what does this info tell me?

The SOH is 86.84%, which means you're about to lose your first bar (~85% SOH). Overall, your battery appears healthy, as the cells are within 20mv of each other. If you want to do a full analysis, you could run the car to the Very Low Battery Warning (--- on dash) and get that same screenshot. That will show you which cells are the weakest. However, unless you're planning on opening up the battery pack and replacing them, there's not really a good reason to do that.

Anytime you do a charge to 100%, the on board charger in the Leaf will automatically balance out the battery cells. It's not something you need to do.

Because your SOH is 86.84%, this means that you've lost 14.16% of the battery capacity. Given you're in the Pacific NW with a cool climate, I suspect the car's previous owner lived somewhere hotter to cause that range loss. You could continue to track your SOH on a monthly basis to see how your battery is degrading. Keep in mind, however, that SOH varies with temperature and seasonal fluctuations, so really, you can only compare SOH on a yearly basis. Do not start freaking out if the SOH drops or rises by a few percent as it gets cold, as that trend may reverse in the spring.

In short, your car is healthy and doing well, with roughly a 15% range lost from when it was new. Drive and enjoy the car, and expect with a 20 mile commute to get at least another 8 good years out of it (probably much longer). I was able to make a 20 mile commute in the winter with the heat blasting with a 55% SOH battery pack.

Thanks. Your reply was very to me as a new owner of a 2016 Leaf SL with LSP reporting a SOH of 64.85% In 22K miles it was charged 752 times with L1/L2 and only once with DC. It may have only been recharged using the OEM L1 by the wear on it and on average being recharged every 30 miles of driving. I bought the car showing 9/12 SOH bars last month and it still is showing 9/12. I do not think the 2016-2017 30 wKh software update has been applied yet.

[Lothsahn]

The car is reporting 12 bars, 43,294 miles and was sitting at 94% charge on the dash when I took this - what does this info tell me?

The SOH is 86.84%, which means you're about to lose your first bar (~85% SOH). Overall, your battery appears healthy, as the cells are within 20mv of each other. If you want to do a full analysis, you could run the car to the Very Low Battery Warning (--- on dash) and get that same screenshot. That will show you which cells are the weakest. However, unless you're planning on opening up the battery pack and replacing them, there's not really a good reason to do that.

Anytime you do a charge to 100%, the on board charger in the Leaf will automatically balance out the battery cells. It's not something you need to do.

Because your SOH is 86.84%, this means that you've lost 14.16% of the battery capacity. Given you're in the Pacific NW with a cool climate, I suspect the car's previous owner lived somewhere hotter to cause that range loss. You could continue to track your SOH on a monthly basis to see how your battery is degrading. Keep in mind, however, that SOH varies with temperature and seasonal fluctuations, so really, you can only compare SOH on a yearly basis. Do not start freaking out if the SOH drops or rises by a few percent as it gets cold, as that trend may reverse in the spring.

In short, your car is healthy and doing well, with roughly a 15% range lost from when it was new. Drive and enjoy the car, and expect with a 20 mile commute to get at least another 8 good years out of it (probably much longer). I was able to make a 20 mile commute in the winter with the heat blasting with a 55% SOH battery pack.

Thanks. Your reply was very to me as a new owner of a 2016 Leaf SL with LSP reporting a SOH of 64.85%

Thanks for the kind words!

Three things:
1) You have the 30 kWh battery. This has an 8 year, 100k mile capacity warranty
2) Get the 30 kWh battery firmware update, if your car hasn't had it, IMMEDIATELY. There is an issue with the 30 kWh batteries where some of them misreport lower capacity and provide less range than they should. A firmware update should resolve that. The firmware is also required if making a battery warranty claim, so get it installed ASAP.
3) Your battery is quite degraded (65% health). Once your car has the firmware update and loses the 9th capacity bar (has 8 bars), take it to a Nissan Dealership for a warranty battery replacement. Make sure you take it BEFORE the warranty expires. If you take the car in even one day or 1 mile late, Nissan will refuse to warranty replace the battery. A 30 kWh battery runs around $10-12k, so you absolutely want to make sure you have it done under warranty.

Good news. Unless your car is really high mileage, you're on track to get a warranty replaced battery. You should lose the 9th capacity bar around 62.5% SOH.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/peFNBoDhHLI/hqdefault.jpg

[GaleHawkins]

I did add more details to my last post. For some reason I keep deleting what i type accidentally.

The Nissan dealership indicated that since the car only had 22K miles that a new battery should be in my future. Right now I am trying to get a handle on what the update actually does and why some need the update and others do not. As a software developer these kinds of bugs attract me to try and learn the root causes.

[Lothsahn]

I did add more details to my last post. For some reason I keep deleting what i type accidentally.

The Nissan dealership indicated that since the car only had 22K miles that a new battery should be in my future. Right now I am trying to get a handle on what the update actually does and why some need the update and others do not. As a software developer these kinds of bugs attract me to try and learn the root causes.

FlipTheFleet is an excellent resource for many things EV. They describe it well, so I'll just link it here:
https://flipthefleet.org/2018/30-kwh-ni ... reporting/

That said, the firmware update, when applied, increases the reported health of the battery pack. Sometimes, that's because it's accurate. Sometimes, it appears that's a false increase, and the increase drops off over the next few months.

That's why it's so important to do the update ASAP. If you wait until 5 days before the warranty ends, then bring your car in, they'll do the update, have it increase the health, and claim you're not valid under the warranty. Even if the health drops quickly over the next 2 months, you'll be out of warranty by the time you lose the 9th bar again.

Not to mention, you'll be artificially limiting your range until you get the FW update applied.