2023 40 kWh Leaf Optimal Charge Level

Hi all, I just purchased a 2023 Leaf S. What should be the optimal charge level to maximize battery life?

The Leaf S (unlike the SV) does not offer an option to limit the charge level to 80% the way my wife's ID4 does. Is this because it has a lithium iron phosphate battery which like to be charged to 100%? Like the Austin built Teslas?

Or did they just neglect to include the feature, and we should just try to manually charge to 80%?

Or something else?

Thanks in advance!

Congratulations on your new car! I have a 2023 SV+ (purchased new in Nov) and a 2019 SL+ (purchased gently used in March). My son as a 2020 SL+, purchased in May (technically used but it had only 28 miles so like brand new).

All of us just plug in and charge and really don't think about the 80%/100% thing too much. My son has a 120 mi/RT commute, so he charges everyday. My husband drives around 40-50 mi/day and he charges maybe 3x/week. I am the one who doesn't drive much so I charge about once per week.

You can read nine zillion posts and articles on pros/cons of charging to 100% and frankly, make yourself a little crazy with all the contradictory information. I think you need to read a few dozen posts/articles and come to your own conclusions. That's what we did. Some of the key points that I considered:

• The car is meant to be used. Figure out what you need to do for daily driving and charge accordingly.

• Newer Leaf batteries are (more rugged, more robust, better designed--choose your adjective) than older ones, so lots of the charging "wisdom" you read may be out of date.

• There is a timer you can set in the car. Most people use it to start charging at a certain time, usually when electric rates are lower (ie, charge between 11 pm and 5 am). However, you can do the math and have it stop charging at ~80%, if that is what you decide is important. It's not automatic, you have to do some figuring, but you can make it work.

One thing I have seen pretty consistently: it's not good to charge to 100% and then let the car sit "for an extended period of time." What's an extended period of time? Who knows. Some say a few hours. Others say a few days, or even weeks. My car is at 42% right now and I know I am not driving tomorrow and probably not Monday (holiday) so I am not charging tonight. Depending on where I need to go to next week, I will charge accordingly.

The other thing I have seen written quite a bit is to consider where you live. If you are somewhere hot, you want to be more mindful of "hot" batteries. But I have seen plenty of comments from people who live in Arizona who charge to 100% regularly and they don't seem to be worried.

Quick charging (CHAdeMO) seems to be more of an issue for battery degradation, long-term, than charging to 100%.

Everything in this post is my opinion based on reading about Leafs non-stop since last February. YMMV. Meanwhile, enjoy the car!

One thing I have seen pretty consistently: it's not good to charge to 100% and then let the car sit "for an extended period of time." What's an extended period of time? Who knows. Some say a few hours. Others say a few days, or even weeks.

Click to expand...

It isn't so much a lack of rough agreement on how long - it's the fact that temperature plays a big role here as well. I've left my Leafs sitting for a day or more, at or close to an indicated 100% SOC, in Winter. I don't do that in the Summer. In Summer I'd consider 12 hours too long to let a Leaf sit with a Hot (more than 6 temp bars on the old gauge, or more than 3/5 of the way to the Hot side on the newer gauge) battery. In more typical mild weather, with the battery not hot, I'd be willing to let it sit maybe 6 hours fully charged.

ckhripin said:

Hi all, I just purchased a 2023 Leaf S. What should be the optimal charge level to maximize battery life?

The Leaf S (unlike the SV) does not offer an option to limit the charge level to 80% the way my wife's ID4 does. Is this because it has a lithium iron phosphate battery which like to be charged to 100%? Like the Austin built Teslas?

Or did they just neglect to include the feature, and we should just try to manually charge to 80%?

Click to expand...

You should've received paperwork like https://www.facebook.com/groups/NissanLeafOwners/posts/5546523188778958/ (see bottom third) stating that sustained high state of charge will hasten battery capacity loss including frequently charging to 100% or leaving it above 80% SoC for long periods of time. That guy had a new '22 Leaf. https://www.facebook.com/groups/NissanLeafOwners/posts/5850038691760738/?comment_id=5850774598353814&reply_comment_id=5853912444706696 confirms that '23 Leafs ship with a paper with that verbiage.

Nissan in their "infinite" wisdom decided to remove the 80% limiter for US model year '14 (https://web.archive.org/web/20210323000511/https://insideevs.com/news/320736/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/) likely due to https://www.autoblog.com/2013/02/21/2013-nissan-leaf-revealed-gets-75-mile-range-actually-84-in-n/. Back in that day, 84 miles looked at lot better than 75 miles for sub-100 mile EVs. I bet that 95%+ of people shopping for such EVs back in 2013 and 2014 wouldn't know about that backstory. It stuck around longer in Leafs outside the US until it was finally removed too.

Many other BEVs also have limiters. Tesla has had one for ages.

Since ID.4 is mentioned, the ID.4 manual I've seen has very explicit warnings about not leaving above 80% for very long at all. See https://www.vwidtalk.com/attachments/owners-manual-id-4-10_2020-pdf.10912/ (e.g. 12 hours, per page 276 (278 of the PDF)).

The people that let their cars sit at 100% SoC for much of the night in the summer to save a little money in electricity are penny wise and pound foolish. Check out the cost of battery or car replacement to see just how foolish.

Lefty has the right approach: Baby the car in the summer, and don't worry too much in cooler weather. COLD weather is another concern in the LEAF. For that, read the threads on Lithium plating.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! for the time being I will charge to 80%. I rarely drive more than 50 miles in a day so it makes no sense for me to charge above 80%. We have the ID4 for longer trips anyway.

@cwerdna I am pretty ADHD and I have not read everything yet. But I went through the dealer paper packet and the charging section of the manual and I can find nothing about 80% being the optimal state of charge. I don't see any paper like the guy on Facebook had.

This makes me suspect that Nissan has gone to a LiFeP04 type battery. They are cheaper, lower capacity - this is what the 40 kWh is. Green car reports said Nissan was talking about chemistry changes. If indeed they went to LiFePO4, then I should be charging all the way.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1138065_battery-change-boosts-2023-nissan-leaf-efficiency-slightly

This article says Nissan uses NMC which would need to be charged to 80%, but its from 2019: https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/INNOVATION/TECHNOLOGY/ARCHIVE/LI_ION_EV/

So, for now I will just assume that my leaf has NMC batteries and will continue to charge to 80% unless for some reason we need to go far.

Nissan doesn't change chemistries while keeping it a secret. It's very likely still the same chemistry as the '22.

ckhripin said:

This makes me suspect that Nissan has gone to a LiFeP04 type battery.

Click to expand...

Impossible

LFP is some 30% larger volume and greater weight for the same kWh. The LEAF pack dimensions have not changed

SageBrush said:

ckhripin said:

This makes me suspect that Nissan has gone to a LiFeP04 type battery.

Click to expand...

Impossible

LFP is some 30% larger volume and greater weight for the same kWh. The LEAF pack dimensions have not changed

Click to expand...

OK, I think that proves they are NMC then. Thank you!

After looking at the numbers on three 2018 LEAFs with the 40 kWh packs (cool climate), one might conclude that babying the pack (targeting 50% charge, no QC, no excessive heat) will give you a 2 - 4 % improvement in battery life after 5 years. That's looking at three cars, two local and another reporting here so by no means a large data set.

I know that my L2 charger (16 amps @ 240 V) adds 10% to the pack per hour so I just take a look at the remaining charge on the dash and go from there. I normally set the the in-car timer to finish at 80%, The timer always ends at 7 am (time of use rates increase at 7 AM) so I just change the start time for a 3 hour charge, adding 30%, 4 hours for 40%, etc.

Driving above 100km/hr in summer for extended periods definitely heats the battery as does quick charging. So does max acceleration...that adds heat very quickly! Excessive heat with no BTM system is the number one cause of degradation as you go over data.

Regarding cold temps, parking in even an unheated garage definitely helps over winter. We see temps in the -35 C range, but my battery heaters have never been used. -17 C (measured internally to the pack) is the temp at which they fire up. If you're driving and charging the car will increase pack temps, and it takes quite a lot of time for them to drop due to the mass of the pack. I have seen -10 C in the pack, and it does not seem to have any relation to SOH.

Soooo...on the main driver's display, the 2023 LEAF S will give you an estimate of the time required to get to 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% charge. You could set the charge timer to stop charging after the number of hours the display states to reach 75% charge, or maybe add another 30 minutes to get it up to 80% or so, right?

The easiest work-around for the LEAF's lack of a charging limit below 100% for people with a fairly consistent first drive of the day schedule is to schedule the car to finish charging about an hour LATER than they first use the car.

This will put the SoC at about 90% in the 60 kWh cars when charged at 6 kW, and it will bring the time spent at a high SoC down to a minimum

JoeFabulouz said:

Soooo...on the main driver's display, the 2023 LEAF S will give you an estimate of the time required to get to 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% charge. You could set the charge timer to stop charging after the number of hours the display states to reach 75% charge, or maybe add another 30 minutes to get it up to 80% or so, right?

Click to expand...

that is what I do... use the charge timer... or set the timer on my phone and go unplug when done using the estimated time from the car.

SageBrush said:

The easiest work-around for the LEAF's lack of a charging limit below 100% for people with a fairly consistent first drive of the day schedule is to schedule the car to finish charging about an hour LATER than they first use the car.

This will put the SoC at about 90% in the 60 kWh cars when charged at 6 kW, and it will bring the time spent at a high SoC down to a minimum

Click to expand...

This confused me. Does this mean that if I set the charge timer for LONGER than it would take to achieve a full charge that the car will adjust the charging rate for that time period (i.e., slow down the charge rate)? I just assumed that it would charge at the maximum rate until it reached 100% then just stop charging, even if there is more time left on the charge timer. Again, I'm new with this.

Unless you have 'full charge priority' (or words to that effect) set, the car will fall short of a full charge when the charge timer is set to end later than the car is actually charging.

JoeFabulouz said:

SageBrush said:

The easiest work-around for the LEAF's lack of a charging limit below 100% for people with a fairly consistent first drive of the day schedule is to schedule the car to finish charging about an hour LATER than they first use the car.

This will put the SoC at about 90% in the 60 kWh cars when charged at 6 kW, and it will bring the time spent at a high SoC down to a minimum

Click to expand...

Does this mean that if I set the charge timer for LONGER than it would take to achieve a full charge that the car will adjust the charging rate for that time period (i.e., slow down the charge rate)?

Click to expand...

An example might help ...

Say the car calculates that it needs 6 hours to charge to full, and you tell the car your want it to ready at 6 am. It will start charging at midnight. If you unplug at 5am, an hour of charging to full has not been completed.

JoeFabulouz said:

SageBrush said:

The easiest work-around for the LEAF's lack of a charging limit below 100% for people with a fairly consistent first drive of the day schedule is to schedule the car to finish charging about an hour LATER than they first use the car.

This will put the SoC at about 90% in the 60 kWh cars when charged at 6 kW, and it will bring the time spent at a high SoC down to a minimum

Click to expand...

This confused me. Does this mean that if I set the charge timer for LONGER than it would take to achieve a full charge that the car will adjust the charging rate for that time period (i.e., slow down the charge rate)? I just assumed that it would charge at the maximum rate until it reached 100% then just stop charging, even if there is more time left on the charge timer. Again, I'm new with this.

Click to expand...

NO!

SageBrush said:

JoeFabulouz said:

SageBrush said:

The easiest work-around for the LEAF's lack of a charging limit below 100% for people with a fairly consistent first drive of the day schedule is to schedule the car to finish charging about an hour LATER than they first use the car.

This will put the SoC at about 90% in the 60 kWh cars when charged at 6 kW, and it will bring the time spent at a high SoC down to a minimum

Click to expand...

Does this mean that if I set the charge timer for LONGER than it would take to achieve a full charge that the car will adjust the charging rate for that time period (i.e., slow down the charge rate)?

Click to expand...

An example might help ...

Say the car calculates that it needs 6 hours to charge to full, and you tell the car your want it to ready at 6 am. It will start charging at midnight. If you unplug at 5am, an hour of charging to full has not been completed.

Click to expand...

I was under the impression that I had to tell the car the time of day to both start and stop charging via the charge timer, not what time I want it "ready" (assuming you mean at 100% charge by that term). I could be wrong, as I haven't used the charge timer yet. Remember...2023 LEAF S here (charge timer might be different than an SV PLUS).

To the best of my recollection, all of the Leaf trim levels will use an end time only to time a charge if that is all they get. The Gen II models (possibly excepting the S) also let you set a default rule of whether or not to start charging to ensure a full charge regardless of the times entered.

^^ Yep
It is an easy solution for people with a predictable car use schedule.

I came across an EV (VW maybe ?) that has a 2 stage algo: it charges to ~ 50% SoC immediately, and then charges to the charge limit at a later set time. That kind of approach makes so much sense because it addresses two issues: 1, the car has enough charge to cover most unexpected drives; and 2, battery health is preserved by minimizing the time the pack is at high SoC

Our Chevy Bolt can somewhat mimic that functionality by setting peak and off-peak time periods and only charging during off-peak. I use it to avoid charging between 5pm - 10pm when our utility grid demand is high and our PV is not producing. It also lets my wife at least charge part way during the day which relieves her anxiety, and it lets us plug immediately when the car is home for best case pack temperature control.

It's curious how many conflicting priorities go into EV charging