80% Charge only 9 bars?

[smkettner]

^^^^ Makes me want to keep charging to 100%

I have been charging to 100% all winter. Switched to 80% a couple weeks ago and always nine bars.
Back to 100% this week as my brick is in for V2 upgrade. Maybe I will stick with 100% :?

Was hoping second capacity bar loss would not come until the heat of late summer. I will be even more dissapointed if lost sooner.

 

[TomT]

I was hoping so too... It didn't happen. Now I just hope I make it through this summer without losing a third bar! Since my work location has moved and I now park indoors during the workweek, where hopefully the battery will stay a little cooler, I'm hoping my chances might be a little better... It also reduces my range requirement a bit which is also good since I'm down about 15 miles on a full charge...

Was hoping second capacity bar loss would not come until the heat of late summer. I will be even more dissapointed if lost sooner.

 

[Valdemar]

Started to see 9 bars again as the weather is warming up. Was getting solid 10/80% all winter. 28k miles, have all capacity bars so far, but the car has been through one summer only (delivered 9/9/11). Bar loss is coming, no doubt

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Hi all -

So suddenly and just in the past couple of days when I charge the LEAF to 80%, it stops charging with only 9 bars.

We've had the car since 8/2011. We charge to 100% maybe once every other month and have only QC'd once. We have a Blink EVSE and that timer is off. We have the LEAF timer set to charge at off peak hours only and always to 80%.

Any ideas as to what might be going on? Up until now, we would always gets 10 bars when charging to 80%.

a top end balance might be in order. charge it to 100% for like 3 days in a row. try to drive at least 30 miles or so per day. see if that helps

 

[JPWhite]

Started to see 9 bars again as the weather is warming up. Was getting solid 10/80% all winter. 28k miles, have all capacity bars so far, but the car has been through one summer only (delivered 9/9/11). Bar loss is coming, no doubt

Snap.

Today is the first 80% 9-bar charge of the season. I kept records last year when I got 9 bar charges. Started on June 9th last year, so it's right on schedule. Previous to today the last 9 bar 80% charge was Sept 27th. So I can expect this to continue on and off until then at least. It got more and more often last year.

I have the LEAF Battery app this year. It showed an SOC of 79.8% on start-up, up till now it's been 80.0% on the nose. Here's my record of 80% 9 bar charges so far.

Date	Gap (days)
6/9/2012	
6/24/2012	15
6/29/2012	5
7/7/2012	8
7/13/2012	6
7/15/2012	2
7/17/2012	2
7/20/2012	3
7/25/2012	5
7/27/2012	2
7/28/2012	1
8/1/2012	4
8/2/2012	1
8/6/2012	4
8/9/2012	3
8/10/2012	1
8/15/2012	5
8/26/2012	11
8/28/2012	2
8/29/2012	1
9/3/2012	5
9/4/2012	1
9/4/2012	0
9/13/2012	9
9/20/2012	7
9/27/2012	7
6/1/2013	247

 

[DaveEV]

I have the LEAF Battery app this year. It showed an SOC of 79.8% on start-up, up till now it's been 80.0% on the nose.

Hmm, quite normal for me to see 79.X% when I start up in the morning about 3-5 hours after the 80% charge completes. I also notice that the SOC drops quite rapidly the first mile or two, despite my first mile or two resulting in efficiency ranging from 6-8+ mi/kWh. Near the end of last summer I also saw 9 bar charging during a hot spell, but haven't seen it yet this year - still mid 70s - low 80s here.

 

[ttweed]

Started to see 9 bars again as the weather is warming up. Was getting solid 10/80% all winter.

+1 here. First 9 bar/80% charge this year happened two days ago for me, and it hasn't even gotten that warm here yet. I still have not seen 6 temp bars showing yet. Last summer, this didn't happen until the battery was at 6 temp bars consistently for weeks. I charged to 100% yesterday and left it on the charger for several hours, but the 80% charge today was 9 bars again, and it was mid-60F overnight. Car has 31,8xx miles and is starting its third summer in use without losing a capacity bar. It probably won't be long now... ...Wonder if I'll get the 11 bar/80% charge notice just before the first capacity bar goes?

I'm sure our particularly cool micro-climate here (3 blocks from the Pacific and often enveloped in fog) has kept capacity from dropping sooner, seeing what has happened to people living further inland in lo-Cal.

TT

 

[TomT]

Yeah, I've never shown 80% ever either.. But then, I didn't have a Gid Meter until about a year after I got the car... I'm seeing fairly regular 9 bar charges now but my Gid readings don't indicate that another bar loss is yet imminent... Who knows for sure though!

I have the LEAF Battery app this year. It showed an SOC of 79.8% on start-up, up till now it's been 80.0% on the nose.

Hmm, quite normal for me to see 79.X% when I start up in the morning about 3-5 hours after the 80% charge completes. I also notice that the SOC drops quite rapidly the first mile or two, despite my first mile or two resulting in efficiency ranging from 6-8+ mi/kWh. Near the end of last summer I also saw 9 bar charging during a hot spell, but haven't seen it yet this year - still mid 70s - low 80s here.

 

[planet4ever]

I still think that a significant part of this 9-bar summer phenomenon is the simple fact that a warmer battery can hold more electricity. If you charge the battery to 80% in the middle of the night, and then the battery warms up, it will now be less than 80% full. I'm not claiming that there is no correlation with long-term capacity loss, and indeed a 9-bar charge might be an early indicator that you will be losing a capacity bar before long. But I don't think it is a reliable indicator of that; it could just be a temporary temperature-related capacity change.

Ray

 

[ttweed]

I still think that a significant part of this 9-bar summer phenomenon is the simple fact that a warmer battery can hold more electricity. If you charge the battery to 80% in the middle of the night, and then the battery warms up, it will now be less than 80% full.

I don't think that theory holds water, Ray. My charging nearly always takes place at night, for sure, starting after midnight and ending between 4:00 and 5:00AM, but the email from Carwings reporting the state of charge is sent immediately after the charge ends. There is no difference in temperature between then and when the charge ends--the report happens nearly simultaneously with the end of the charging event! The report is either 9 or 10 bars for the 80% charge, and it is never any different when I get in the car, even if that is hours later. If what you say is true, then wouldn't I have seen an email that the car was at 10 of 12 bars when the charge ends, and then when I started the car later it would show 9 bars? That has never happened. In addition, over the last few days, when I alternately received 9 and 10-bar/80% charge messages, there has been less than 2 degrees variance in temperature here between the time the charge ended at 4-5:00AM and 7:00AM when I started the car and pulled out of the garage. In fact, yesterday there was only a 4 degree difference between the high and low temps in the entire 24hr. day here (low was 62F at 7:00AM and high was 66F at 5:00PM). It was actually 1 degree colder at 7:00AM than it was at 4:00AM.

I'm not claiming that there is no correlation with long-term capacity loss, and indeed a 9-bar charge might be an early indicator that you will be losing a capacity bar before long. But I don't think it is a reliable indicator of that; it could just be a temporary temperature-related capacity change.

I am pretty well convinced that the 9-bar/80% charge phenomena is related to battery pack degradation, and that degradation is related to temperature exposure and aging. I don't think we know enough about the SOC instrumentation implemented by Nissan to be sure how and why the changes in the "charge bar" reports happen when charging to 80%, but since I lost my first capacity bar this morning, and it came only a few days after the first 9-bar/80% reports I received after entering the third summer of service, I am pretty sure they are an early indicator of capacity loss. It took almost a year since the first 9-bar/80% report came in for our car to show a 1-bar capacity loss, but that's probably attributable to the mild climate we experience here. The 9-bar reports last year were restricted to the hot summer weather, when the temp bars were at 6 for months, but then they stopped over the winter, and started again this week when temps were still low and the car has shown only 5-bars on the temp gauge.

TT

 

[dvlax40]

im sorry but ray makes a very cogent argument based on known facts about batteries. im sure even the slightest change in ambiant temperature can effect a battery pack of this size/scale. Im sure there is battery degradation but even on my 15 day old leaf i have the SOC sayin 79 one day, 78 the next, only to wake up and be at 81 this morning!

the bottom line is i dont think we know enough about how the gauges calculate to do anything more the speculate.

 

[TomT]

Nissan has also admitted that their instrumentation is less than completely accurate, particularly for Coulomb counting, so I expect some variations...

im sorry but ray makes a very cogent argument based on known facts about batteries. im sure even the slightest change in ambiant temperature can effect a battery pack of this size/scale. Im sure there is battery degradation but even on my 15 day old leaf i have the SOC sayin 79 one day, 78 the next, only to wake up and be at 81 this morning! the bottom line is i dont think we know enough about how the gauges calculate to do anything more the speculate.

 

[dvlax40]

so GiDs are our only real way to know whats going on....

 

[edatoakrun]

...I am pretty well convinced that the 9-bar/80% charge phenomena is related to battery pack degradation, and that degradation is related to temperature exposure and aging. I don't think we know enough about the SOC instrumentation implemented by Nissan to be sure how and why the changes in the "charge bar" reports happen when charging to 80%, but since I lost my first capacity bar this morning, and it came only a few days after the first 9-bar/80% reports I received after entering the third summer of service, I am pretty sure they are an early indicator of capacity loss. It took almost a year since the first 9-bar/80% report came in for our car to show a 1-bar capacity loss, but that's probably attributable to the mild climate we experience here. The 9-bar reports last year were restricted to the hot summer weather, when the temp bars were at 6 for months, but then they stopped over the winter, and started again this week when temps were still low and the car has shown only 5-bars on the temp gauge.

TT

The real question is, now that you have lost a bar, have you determined what your actual loss of capacity is?

How?

I have seen the tenth charge bar both appear and disappear at "80%" with no charging or significant discharge, corresponding to changes in battery temperature.

From P 26 of this thread:

edatoakrun Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:02 pm

The overnight temps were a bit higher the last few nights, mid to high 40's, and sure enough, after only 17 minutes of charging to get to "80%" at 3:17 AM, the capacity bars were at 9, by the CW email.

So I figured they'd stay at 9 all day, but it got colder as the day went on.

I noticed it was about 42 f outside, so I just went down to check, and its back up to 10 bars capacity, at 4 bars temp!

That's the first time I've ever seen it go from 9 to 10, rather than the usual 10 to 9, during the daytime.

CW now correctly shows the same 10 bars, BTW. CW always accurately reflects my current dash capacity bars, after I refresh.

And, as I reported on p 25 of this thread:

edatoakrun Post subject: Re: 80% Charge only 9 bars? Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:55 pm

I had 9 bars showing after "80%" charging twice last week, for the first time since last September, coinciding with some temperature in the higher range of "4 bars".

Two nights ago it cooled down again and ten bars came back on a subsequent 80% charge, and even with slightly higher ambient temps today, I did not lose the tenth bar.

Contrast with my experience last Fall, on p 21 of this thread:

"...On the afternoon of 9/6 my 6th temp bar appeared, but for the first time in a few weeks, the 10th charge bar did not disappear. And I have had 10 bars when charging to 80% and they all stayed there, even after the 6th temp bar came on (every day I checked) ever since..."

So the set-point of my 9/10 charge bar seems to have dropped from ~75 F to ~45 F, since last Fall.

I expect the next time I see 9 bars at "80%" it may well stay there for the season, until I lose the first capacity bar, or (maybe) until Nissan "fixes" the "gauge problem".

I was wrong.

I have had 10 bars at "80%" every time since mid April, even with much higher (> 60 F) battery temperatures.

Interestingly, this corresponds to a variation of my app-reported battery capacity approaching 1% (87.29% to 88.26%, IIRC), as measured buy the LEAF app, generally increasing over the same period of time.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=12789" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The app is presently picking up reports of 87.93% capacity, but both my range tests and recharge capacity tests indicate a much smaller loss of capacity than that from new.

With only ~19,000 miles, but with (perhaps) more adverse climate and driving conditions than your LEAFs', I was pretty sure that I would lose a capacity bar this Spring or Summer. But seeing the recent erratic behavior of my LEAF's capacity reports from all sources, I'm not nearly so sure.

When it does lose a capacity bar, this year Summer or next, I should be able to come to a fairly good estimate of my actual capacity loss, and of course, it presently looks likely that that percentage may be far less than "15%".

 

[dvlax40]

...I am pretty well convinced that the 9-bar/80% charge phenomena is related to battery pack degradation, and that degradation is related to temperature exposure and aging. I don't think we know enough about the SOC instrumentation implemented by Nissan to be sure how and why the changes in the "charge bar" reports happen when charging to 80%, but since I lost my first capacity bar this morning, and it came only a few days after the first 9-bar/80% reports I received after entering the third summer of service, I am pretty sure they are an early indicator of capacity loss. It took almost a year since the first 9-bar/80% report came in for our car to show a 1-bar capacity loss, but that's probably attributable to the mild climate we experience here. The 9-bar reports last year were restricted to the hot summer weather, when the temp bars were at 6 for months, but then they stopped over the winter, and started again this week when temps were still low and the car has shown only 5-bars on the temp gauge.

TT

The real question is, now that you have lost a bar, have you determined what your actual loss of capacity is?

How?

I have seen the tenth charge bar both appear and disappear at "80%" with no charging or significant discharge, corresponding to changes in battery temperature.

From P 26 of this thread:

edatoakrun Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:02 pm

The overnight temps were a bit higher the last few nights, mid to high 40's, and sure enough, after only 17 minutes of charging to get to "80%" at 3:17 AM, the capacity bars were at 9, by the CW email.

So I figured they'd stay at 9 all day, but it got colder as the day went on.

I noticed it was about 42 f outside, so I just went down to check, and its back up to 10 bars capacity, at 4 bars temp!

That's the first time I've ever seen it go from 9 to 10, rather than the usual 10 to 9, during the daytime.

CW now correctly shows the same 10 bars, BTW. CW always accurately reflects my current dash capacity bars, after I refresh.

And, as I reported on p 25 of this thread:

edatoakrun Post subject: Re: 80% Charge only 9 bars? Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:55 pm

I had 9 bars showing after "80%" charging twice last week, for the first time since last September, coinciding with some temperature in the higher range of "4 bars".

Two nights ago it cooled down again and ten bars came back on a subsequent 80% charge, and even with slightly higher ambient temps today, I did not lose the tenth bar.

Contrast with my experience last Fall, on p 21 of this thread:

"...On the afternoon of 9/6 my 6th temp bar appeared, but for the first time in a few weeks, the 10th charge bar did not disappear. And I have had 10 bars when charging to 80% and they all stayed there, even after the 6th temp bar came on (every day I checked) ever since..."

So the set-point of my 9/10 charge bar seems to have dropped from ~75 F to ~45 F, since last Fall.

I expect the next time I see 9 bars at "80%" it may well stay there for the season, until I lose the first capacity bar, or (maybe) until Nissan "fixes" the "gauge problem".

I was wrong.

I have had 10 bars at "80%" every time since mid April, even with much higher (> 60 F) battery temperatures.

Interestingly, this corresponds to a variation of my app-reported battery capacity approaching 1% (87.29% to 88.26%, IIRC), as measured buy the LEAF app, generally increasing over the same period of time.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=12789" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The app is presently picking up reports of 87.93% capacity, but both my range tests and recharge capacity tests indicate a much smaller loss of capacity than that from new.

With only ~19,000 miles, but with (perhaps) more adverse climate and driving conditions than your LEAFs', I was pretty sure that I would lose a capacity bar this Spring or Summer. But seeing the recent erratic behavior of my LEAF's capacity reports from all sources, I'm not nearly so sure.

When it does lose a capacity bar, this year Summer or next, I should be able to come to a fairly good estimate of my actual capacity loss, and of course, it presently looks likely that that percentage may be far less than "15%".

great post man... I know i may be new, but referencing bar loss as a way to measure battery capacity loss seems to be setting us down the wrong path (maybe nissan wants us thinking that???)

 

[ttweed]

The real question is, now that you have lost a bar, have you determined what your actual loss of capacity is?

Nope. I have no instruments other than the Leaf gauges and the effective range of the car to judge capacity loss, and I'm not sure there are any accurate methods for determining it, or any pressing reasons to find out. All I really care about is that I can still go 70+ miles on a 100% charge. I'm not going to spend a lot of time worrying and wringing my hands about what exactly is happening with the battery because there's not much I can do about it, and it's still meeting our needs. At this rate of degradation, if the overall curve is actually similar to what Nissan has said it will be (slowing over time), the car will work well for us for the 7-8 years we planned to keep it, and pay for itself in the end.

TT

 

[Valdemar]

I was getting solid 9 bars last 2 weeks. Anyone wants to guess how much longer do I have before 1st capacity bar loss?

 

[davewill]

I was getting solid 9 bars last 2 weeks. Anyone wants to guess how much longer do I have before 1st capacity bar loss?

I did almost two months last summer and fall that way without losing the bar. It went back to 10 bars all winter, then 9 bars again about 3 weeks this spring before I lost the first capacity bar. I may have accelerated the loss because I spent time out of town (about 1.5 hours away in an inland location) and did 7 or 8 DCQCs going back and forth, and using the QC as my sole fuel while I was staying there.

I live in a coastal climate.

 

[Valdemar]

I was getting solid 9 bars last 2 weeks. Anyone wants to guess how much longer do I have before 1st capacity bar loss?

I did almost two months last summer and fall that way without losing the bar. It went back to 10 bars all winter, then 9 bars again about 3 weeks this spring before I lost the first capacity bar. I may have accelerated the loss because I spent time out of town (about 1.5 hours away in an inland location) and did 7 or 8 DCQCs going back and forth, and using the QC as my sole fuel while I was staying there.

I live in a coastal climate.

Interesting, I may then enjoy the view of the 12th bar a bit longer than originally thought. I live more inland and it's fairly normal to see 100-ish temps around August/September here, with that it sounds like I should expect the bar disappear around Christmas

 

[edatoakrun]

I had 9 charge bars at "80%" for the first time in ~2 months Sunday morning, with my battery @ ~80 f.

It took ~ 1 minute charging on L2 to show the tenth bar.

This morning, it showed 10 bars @ "80%" on CarWings, and it is still at ten bars @ 75.3 Av temp using the battery app, so it looks like my 10th bar is showing up at about the same temperature it was a year ago, whatever that means...

The app-reported capacity dropped to 87.00 % following the very high recent temps (~113 in Redding on Saturday) and my battery high temps ~98 F, which occurred on a ~154 mile trip with over 12,000 ft of total ascent and descent, to Lassen Peak and back on Saturday, and it is showing the same 87% now, despite the large battery temp drop.

The trip itself, compared to the last time I drove my LEAF all the way up to the pass almost two years ago:


http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=5022" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Tends to confirm every other range and recharge capacity result on My LEAF, loss of capacity still too small to measure accurately, and far less than the 13% the app is now showing.

I'll try to post a more complete report on the Lassen trip when time allows.

from my 6/2/13 post above:

edatoakrun Post subject: Re: 80% Charge only 9 bars? Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:55 pm

I had 9 bars showing after "80%" charging twice last week, for the first time since last September, coinciding with some temperature in the higher range of "4 bars".

Two nights ago it cooled down again and ten bars came back on a subsequent 80% charge, and even with slightly higher ambient temps today, I did not lose the tenth bar.

Contrast with my experience last Fall, on p 21 of this thread:

"...On the afternoon of 9/6 my 6th temp bar appeared, but for the first time in a few weeks, the 10th charge bar did not disappear. And I have had 10 bars when charging to 80% and they all stayed there, even after the 6th temp bar came on (every day I checked) ever since..."

So the set-point of my 9/10 charge bar seems to have dropped from ~75 F to ~45 F, since last Fall.

I expect the next time I see 9 bars at "80%" it may well stay there for the season, until I lose the first capacity bar, or (maybe) until Nissan "fixes" the "gauge problem".

I was wrong.

I have had 10 bars at "80%" every time since mid April, even with much higher (> 60 F) battery temperatures.

Interestingly, this corresponds to a variation of my app-reported battery capacity approaching 1% (87.29% to 88.26%, IIRC), as measured buy the LEAF app, generally increasing over the same period of time.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=12789" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The app is presently picking up reports of 87.93% capacity, but both my range tests and recharge capacity tests indicate a much smaller loss of capacity than that from new.

With only ~19,000 miles, but with (perhaps) more adverse climate and driving conditions than your LEAFs', I was pretty sure that I would lose a capacity bar this Spring or Summer. But seeing the recent erratic behavior of my LEAF's capacity reports from all sources, I'm not nearly so sure.

When it does lose a capacity bar, this year Summer or next, I should be able to come to a fairly good estimate of my actual capacity loss, and of course, it presently looks likely that that percentage may be far less than "15%".