Relation between Capacity bars and Range

My 2018 Leaf is now 4.5 years old. Pretty low mileage, we put on about 6,000/yr (at ~28,000 now). Capacity is still reported as 12 bars. But Mileage (at least as displayed) with a full charge is down to about 152-153, whereas when it was new and we put full charge on it, it was at 162-164 miles. So, appears to have dropped ~10 miles in 4.5 years (I'm not complaining) but yet Capacity display still says 12 bars.

Does drop from 12 bars usually depend on miles driven or years old? Any prediction as to when it will drop to 11 bars?

Since there is apparently some drop in capacity now, how much miles range drop does it take to drop to 11 bars in battery capacity?

Is a drop of ~10 miles capacity pretty much "average" for a Leaf with this amount of time/miles on it?

Thanks!

10 miles or 6-7% of your guessed range is pretty good for 4.5 years. Most EVs are down closer to 10% by now. The miles driven don't matter very much, battery age matters more.

The capacity bars represent a chunk of the battery's capacity, not a snippet. The 12th (first to drop) bar represents approximately 15% of the battery's capacity, so you can lose 14+% and it won't drop. That is what you are seeing.

Thanks all for the responses. Very nice to get some information/guidelines/explanation!

The guess-o-meter (silly number that says miles) is not a measure of battery capacity nor condition.

tomcon said:

Since there is apparently some drop in capacity now, how much miles range drop does it take to drop to 11 bars in battery capacity?

Click to expand...

There's no way to know. There isn't a set # of miles. It depends on many factors such as age, state of charge it's kept at, esp. at high temps and to some extent, cycles. If your car has always been in the PNW, the climate isn't killing it. You're in an ideal climate vs. say blazing hot AZ, Vegas or Texas.

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/66708.pdf slide 8 suggest that a lower average SoC is better from a degradation POV, which is inline w/li-ion battery science.

As already mentioned, the capacity display isn't granular. To see how close you might get getting to dropping a bar, you'll need Leaf Spy + compatible OBD2 dongle for your phone OS.

You can use Google Translate or Chrome to translate the page that https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=628909#p628909 points to into English. Notice the SOH values depending on how the battery is treated.