Emergency charging

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LDB415

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 8, 2019
Messages
53
Location
Houston suburb
I suspect I know the answer but is there some method of emergency charging? In the old days we'd carry a gas can in the back of the truck and if we ran out we'd dump it in and be good to go straight to the pumps. I have a nice multi-function light that will also charge my phone. Is there any sort of larger whatever gizmo that can emergency charge a car to get a few extra miles just in case?
 
It's built into the car. When the range estimator displays "---" you still have 10-20 miles of range, depending on battery size and driving conditions. You can use LeafSpy to show you how much charge you have left at that point.
 
LDB415 said:
I suspect I know the answer but is there some method of emergency charging? In the old days we'd carry a gas can in the back of the truck and if we ran out we'd dump it in and be good to go straight to the pumps. I have a nice multi-function light that will also charge my phone. Is there any sort of larger whatever gizmo that can emergency charge a car to get a few extra miles just in case?

Carry around a portable L1 charger in the hidden section in the back, that's what my wife and I do for those types of situations. I've never had to do this, but some reason, in an area surrounded by L2 and L3 chargers *everywhere*, my wife still manages to run her Leaf completely out of charge and have to do an L1 at a plug somewhere (like a business or a friend's home) until she gets about 4 or 5 miles of range to make it somewhere else. :roll: :roll: :roll:
 
knightmb said:
[for] some reason, in an area surrounded by L2 and L3 chargers *everywhere*, my wife still manages to run her Leaf completely out of charge and have to do an L1 at a plug somewhere (like a business or a friend's home) until she gets about 4 or 5 miles of range to make it somewhere else. :roll: :roll: :roll:
How does that work ? Do you tow the car ? Or does your wife get out and push ? ;)
 
SageBrush said:
knightmb said:
[for] some reason, in an area surrounded by L2 and L3 chargers *everywhere*, my wife still manages to run her Leaf completely out of charge and have to do an L1 at a plug somewhere (like a business or a friend's home) until she gets about 4 or 5 miles of range to make it somewhere else. :roll: :roll: :roll:
How does that work ? Do you tow the car ? Or does your wife get out and push ? ;)

She hits 0% and then panics (like all the low battery warnings before were ignored?) and then uses her remaining hidden reserve to find an outside outlet at a business or nearby friends place. After about an hour of that, she has enough to make it a QC station or just come straight home sometimes. I told her if she is going to do that, then just drive it slow to the QC station if it's within 10 miles (which, where we live, QC stations are everywhere around us). She is too scared to test that hidden reserve. :lol:
 
SageBrush said:
LeftieBiker said:
You can use LeafSpy to show you how much charge you have left at that point.
Does the 'kWh remaining' in LSpy go to zero ?
The lowest I've ever gotten it was 0.4 kWH remaining, but that was right at battery shutdown. Usually once it gets below 1.0 kWH remaining, you are at the mercy of the cell with the lowest voltage. :?
 
AAA has trucks that offer mobile EV charging as roadside assistance. I am not sure if they offer it in every state, but you can check with your state branches.

Aside from a typical L1/L2 portable EVSE, mentioned above, the only other portable device I know of is a unit sold by Sparkcharge.
 
knightmb said:
The lowest I've ever gotten it was 0.4 kWH remaining, but that was right at battery shutdown. Usually once it gets below 1.0 kWH remaining, you are at the mercy of the cell with the lowest voltage. :?

Good to know -- thanks.
My single experience going really low was last month. I had driven into the city and parked at a chargepoint, but forgot to turn off the timer. Normally I would just correct my error and take on some kWh but I had two other car poolers with me that day so I dropped them off first and then drove slowly to an EVSE. Driving home was out of the question because it is uphill.
 
LDB415 said:
I suspect I know the answer but is there some method of emergency charging? In the old days we'd carry a gas can in the back of the truck and if we ran out we'd dump it in and be good to go straight to the pumps. I have a nice multi-function light that will also charge my phone. Is there any sort of larger whatever gizmo that can emergency charge a car to get a few extra miles just in case?

Draining an auto 12v battery from full to empty (and in the process killing the 12v) would get you about a mile of range
 
SageBrush said:
LDB415 said:
I suspect I know the answer but is there some method of emergency charging? In the old days we'd carry a gas can in the back of the truck and if we ran out we'd dump it in and be good to go straight to the pumps. I have a nice multi-function light that will also charge my phone. Is there any sort of larger whatever gizmo that can emergency charge a car to get a few extra miles just in case?

Draining an auto 12v battery from full to empty (and in the process killing the 12v) would get you about a mile of range

Well that obviously wouldn't be a workable solution. I guess what I need to find is some sort of Jetson's magic energy pill thing.
 
To clear up some misconceptions:

1. If you run the car completely dead (to Shutdown), you must charge the traction battery enough to get above the Very Low Battery Warning level (2% SOC on the dashboard display) before it will go into Run mode. This will probably take about an hour of L1 charging.

2. Shutdown happens at about 8 or 9 "Gids" if the battery pack is well balanced so that most of the energy is used before the lowest cell reaches the minimum allowable voltage level (and if the car is being driven very gently at that point). Shutdown will happen prematurely if the battery pack is not well balanced or if power demand is higher.

3. The two 24 kWh LEAF's I had (2011 SL and 2015 SL) were very consistent. Low Battery Warning would happen at 49 "Gids", Very Low Battery Warning would happen at 24 "Gids", and Shutdown would happen at 8 "Gids". Turtle mode would give maybe 0.25 to 0.5 mile of very gentle driving before Shutdown. The 2019 SL+ is less consistent, but there is usually about 20 miles of driving available after the first Low Battery Warning. Shutdown usually happens at about 8 "Gids" but could be as high as 12 "Gids" if battery is not really well balanced or has not been deeply discharged and fully charged recently. I do a full discharge/charge test every 3 months by running climate control to Shutdown in my driveway--you can see my statistics in the 62 kWh battery thread.
 
Newbies always seek out these types of solutions and often ask if solar charging will let them add useful range too...

In short, there's no inexpensive way to get emergency range from a portable power bank. If you are willing to spend a few thousand dollars, then you can get all-in-one inverter/MPPT controller/battery bank solutions with 2 - 5 kWh capacity, depending on your budget. With those, you can use the stock EVSE at 120V to trickle charge the pack. Painfully slow though, as you will be adding about 1.2 kWh of energy after losses (approx 5 miles of range) every hour.

I've personally never run out of battery before, although I have triggered turtle mode a couple of times. It's pretty hard to do though, as the car throws an annoying level of warnings :)
 
What are Gids? I usually fill my car in the 1/4-1/3 tank range. I can't see doing much differently if I get a Leaf, as far as lowest level before recharging. With a L2 home system I might pretty much never be outside 60%-70% charge level. Other than conditioning which I guess is something else I need to learn about for how/when/how often to do it.
 
You are overthinking a lot of this, which is understandable right now. For any 24 kWh LEAF, you will soon realize that you'll need more range more frequently than you expect, so limiting the car to between 60% and 70% state of charge (SOC) is impractical and tedious, not to mention completely unnecessary...

I try to keep the SOC between 10% and 90% and go up to 100% when I need more range for a longer trip.

The main longevity related "bad habit" is keeping the pack at a high state of charge during hot weather and, less so, frequently dropping the pack down to a very low SOC without charging shortly thereafter.

Understand also that any EV pack, if treated well, will still degrade over time. There's no magic charging habits that will prevent that.
 
What are Gids?

When the developer of LeafSpy and others were trying to decode the information that the battery management system (BMS, or as Nissan calls it, "LBC" for lithium battery controller) sends to the rest of the car, a value was discovered that appears to report how much energy is in the battery at any given time. The units are fairly small (8 watt-hours or so, IIRC) and don't correspond to any known energy units. So they were named after their 'discoverer', Gary Gid. They should perhaps be named after the Nissan engineer(s) who programmed the LBC, but that information is unavailable. ;) Anyway, since Gids are small increments, they offer a relatively precise way of monitor the charge level as you drive. There once was a meter sold here that measured Gids specifically, but anyone can still watch them with LeafSpy Pro.
 
alozzy said:
You are overthinking a lot of this, which is understandable right now. For any 24 kWh LEAF, you will soon realize that you'll need more range more frequently than you expect, so limiting the car to between 60% and 70% state of charge (SOC) is impractical and tedious, not to mention completely unnecessary...

I try to keep the SOC between 10% and 90% and go up to 100% when I need more range for a longer trip.

The main longevity related "bad habit" is keeping the pack at a high state of charge during hot weather and, less so, frequently dropping the pack down to a very low SOC without charging shortly thereafter.

Understand also that any EV pack, if treated well, will still degrade over time. There's no magic charging habits that will prevent that.

I'm not looking at a 24kWh car. I'm looking at new 2022 SV/Tech 40kW or if I can figure out how, to stretch to an SV+ 62kW. My normal day has 8-10 miles total driving maybe 4 or 5 days a week and zero the others. Eventually I'll get back to having lunch with my family, about a 90 mile round trip every other month or so. Then back to my short drives around home. My current car will be 10 months old in 13 days and likely be right at 2200 miles then.
 
Normally, I'd say that the OP doesn't need a Plus, but given the better heat resistance of the larger pack, if he wants to keep the car a long time, then a Plus might be the better choice. If this is a case of driving a Leaf for 3 years, though, the SV40 should be fine.
 
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