Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[TomT]

15%. Subsequent bars are 6.25%

I seem to recall in order for that first bar of the battery status indicator to disappear a sizable chunk of battery capacity would need to be lost. I can't seem to find at the moment what the first bar lost equates to. Anyone recall?

 

[JPWhite]

There is the aging model he compiled as well; it's the best information currently available.

Agreed. That model put my mind at rest regarding where I live, add to that the supplemental capacity warranty we've been *promised* and my mental alarm bells have subsided since last summer.

 

[Weatherman]

plus typical $40-$80 doc fee,

That's low!!

Dealers in TN like to tack on $199 doc fee. It is one reason why it can take me 3-4 hours to buy a car at the dealer, trying to get them to come off crazy fees and such.

That's low JP! Ours is $399! And it's not negotiable.

That's nothing. I think Florida is the worst in the nation when it comes to this. Dealers down here call it a "dealer service fee", and it ranges anywhere from $600 to $1,000.

 

[RegGuheert]

That's nothing. I think Florida is the worst in the nation when it comes to this. Dealers down here call it a "dealer service fee", and it ranges anywhere from $600 to $1,000.

I'm betting you feel "serviced" after paying that fee! :shock:

 

[Deleted member 3147]

probably anecdotal at this point but Tom your LEAF has same mileage as mine and only slightly warmer climate in Summer than mine and up until about Summer of last year, i rarely did full charges either (too time consuming on fast charge!)

The table Stoaty compiled on the Wiki has San Diego at a relative aging factor of 0.97 and Seatte at 0.69. That's a difference of 40%, and there are the effects of solar loading too. It's more than slightly warmer. While I can certainly understand that not everyone here is analytically or technically inclined, and there is a plethora of diverging opinions, it would be good if we refrained from seat-of-the-pants estimates. Several posters performed fairly extensive climatic modeling last year, which Stoaty documented in great detail on the Wiki. There is the aging model he compiled as well; it's the best information currently available.

As a comparison, my 2011 lives in San Jose, CA (aging factor 0.90, although I'm south of downtown and it's typically 5F hotter in the summer, so the actual factor is probably higher). After ~17 months and 20K miles, my latest 100% charge GID reading is 265 for only 6% lost (no bars lost, of course). No special servicing by Nissan or anyone else.

It appears that there are more factors involved. The near-coastal California Leafs with lost bars may well be outliers.

 

[surfingslovak]

As a comparison, my 2011 lives in San Jose, CA (aging factor 0.90, although I'm south of downtown and it's typically 5F hotter in the summer, so the actual factor is probably higher). After ~17 months and 20K miles, my latest 100% charge GID reading is 265 for only 6% lost (no bars lost, of course). No special servicing by Nissan or anyone else.

It appears that there are more factors involved. The near-coastal California Leafs with lost bars may well be outliers.

Thanks for that datapoint. The second largest contributing factor is believed to be solar loading. This would be consistent with a larger number of LEAFs south of the 34th parallel being affected. The climatic data used in the model assumed that the car will be parked outside and away from the sun. If that's not the case, then the model would have to be adjusted to reflect your particular situation.

While the effects of microclimates are not to be underestimated, I don't believe that a few miles distance from San Jose are going to have a large impact. However, storage conditions, both overnight and during the day, will likely make themselves noticeable.

There is one known bar loser in the SF Bay Area: Fabio. He commutes from the Peninsula to San Jose and parks the LEAF in an open lot during the day. I don't believe that we had a recent Gid count for his vehicle. Then there is GeekEV in the vicinity of Sacramento, which is supposed to have an aging factor of 0.96.

Please have a look at this research report from NEC, Nissan's partner in the AESC joint venture. Note that on page 62 the following factors are considered:

- battery SOC cycle over a 24-hour period
- temperature
- climate based on ambient temperatures in three cities

The format and the overall approach is strikingly similar to the aging model Stoaty compiled based on the available data last year. How accurate this model will prove to be, we don't really know. It was an educated guess created to fill a void. It would be great if Nissan and AESC would help owners understand these effects with the help of their extensive collection of data, but there has been little movement in this regard.

In some sense, the capacity warranty did implicitly validate some of these assumptions, just like JP said upthread. It's the best information we have, and hopefully it will get better over time.

 

[Stoaty]

Please have a look at this research report from NEC, Nissan's partner in the AESC joint venture. Note that on page 62 the following factors are considered:

- battery SOC cycle over a 24-hour period
- temperature
- climate based on ambient temperatures in three cities

Any chance that new electrolyte made it into the battery pack for the 2013 Leaf? I recall there was some kind of "electrolyte tweak" mentioned for the 2013 Leaf a couple of months ago.

 

[LEAFfan]

Please have a look at this research report from NEC, Nissan's partner in the AESC joint venture. Note that on page 62 the following factors are considered:

- battery SOC cycle over a 24-hour period
- temperature
- climate based on ambient temperatures in three cities

Any chance that new electrolyte made it into the battery pack for the 2013 Leaf? I recall there was some kind of "electrolyte tweak" mentioned for the 2013 Leaf a couple of months ago.[/quot

I believe so. It seems to QC and L2 faster. I was down to 6% left and the QC took less than 20 mins. to 80%. When the other one was new, it took 30 mins. At home I was down to 15%/1 bar, and it only took a few minutes past 2 hours to 80%. The other one took over four hours, and four and a half five hours to 100%. It shouldn't be twice as fast. Nissan gives 4 with 6.0 and 7 with 3.3.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

probably anecdotal at this point but Tom your LEAF has same mileage as mine and only slightly warmer climate in Summer than mine and up until about Summer of last year, i rarely did full charges either (too time consuming on fast charge!)

The table Stoaty compiled on the Wiki has San Diego at a relative aging factor of 0.97 and Seatte at 0.69. That's a difference of 40%, and there are the effects of solar loading too. It's more than slightly warmer. While I can certainly understand that not everyone here is analytically or technically inclined, and there is a plethora of diverging opinions, it would be good if we refrained from seat-of-the-pants estimates. Several posters performed fairly extensive climatic modeling last year, which Stoaty documented in great detail on the Wiki. There is the aging model he compiled as well; it's the best information currently available.

As a comparison, my 2011 lives in San Jose, CA (aging factor 0.90, although I'm south of downtown and it's typically 5F hotter in the summer, so the actual factor is probably higher). After ~17 months and 20K miles, my latest 100% charge GID reading is 265 for only 6% lost (no bars lost, of course). No special servicing by Nissan or anyone else.

It appears that there are more factors involved. The near-coastal California Leafs with lost bars may well be outliers.

I GREATLY value Sloaty and his work and it really does shed a lot of light on the subject but having lived in both San Diego (80's) and San Jose (90's) near border of Milpitas (which would be probably the "hotter" corner of town...) it would be difficult for me to believe that San Jose weather was better. I can see the average temps being lower because of cooler winter but it got pretty hot there in Summer. 90's was very common. San Diego as I remember it rarely got above the mid 80's.

this only makes the effect of mirco climates more essential to evaluate. i am not disputing any data collected but the specific circumstances may play a much larger role than we expected. parking at work in full Sun even on a mild Spring day can create a lot of radiant heat.

just a quick comment, when in San Jose, I had my 1974 Toyota Corona ($300 car...) parked in the carport nose out (had unloaded groceries or something and left it that way) at home and the afternoon Sun shined in. It was a very hot day so we were BBQ'ing just on other side of fence when I heard a loud crack. Went out and found the dash on the car cracked. never seen anything like it before but the dash had a big crack just right of center that created a gap of about an inch...

 

[TomT]

So I did my first 100% charge controlled-conditions range tests in a while this last weekend. I'll skip the details and cut to the chase:

I've lost approximately 14 miles of range (19%) compared to when the car was new.

 

[Stoaty]

Any chance that new electrolyte made it into the battery pack for the 2013 Leaf? I recall there was some kind of "electrolyte tweak" mentioned for the 2013 Leaf a couple of months ago.

I believe so. It seems to QC and L2 faster. I was down to 6% left and the QC took less than 20 mins. to 80%. When the other one was new, it took 30 mins. At home I was down to 15%/1 bar, and it only took a few minutes past 2 hours to 80%. The other one took over four hours, and four and a half five hours to 100%. It shouldn't be twice as fast. Nissan gives 4 with 6.0 and 7 with 3.3.

What does the speed of charging have to do with whether a new electrolyte prevents capacity degradation? I can't see any correlation.

 

[RegGuheert]

Any chance that new electrolyte made it into the battery pack for the 2013 Leaf? I recall there was some kind of "electrolyte tweak" mentioned for the 2013 Leaf a couple of months ago.

The 2013 apparently has revised anode (cathode?) material from Sony(IIRC). AESC claims it is designed to be cheaper than the previous material. They said they plan to make continuous minor adjustments to the chemistry of the battery as time goes on, with the electrolyte being the easiest thing to change. They indicated that they could change the chemistry as often as once every six months.

That said, they did not feel that we should expect to see big improvements in life in the 2013 chemistry.

 

[Deleted member 3147]

My low-GID-loss 2011 is parked outside 100% of the time, although work is in Mountain View, CA and a bit cooler.

 

[DaveEV]

What does the speed of charging have to do with whether a new electrolyte prevents capacity degradation? I can't see any correlation.

There's a couple possible conclusions one might draw:

1. Chemistry tweaks result in more durable battery or perhaps with lower internal resistance, thus allowing for high charge rates with similar or better capacity retention.
2. Nothing else has changed, but they are pushing the battery harder which will reduce battery life somewhat.

 

[TomT]

A third is that the data is faulty and there is actually no change... I believe the latter.

There's a couple possible conclusions one might draw.

 

[Joeviocoe]

Well, lost my second capacity bar yesterday. Just 6 1/2 months after the first. So, here we are 21 months out with 27k miles in moderate weather San Diego. I was going to update the Wiki database but someone did it for me last time and not sure how to do it...

I added you to the wiki page...
It is somewhat convoluted to edit charts on a wiki. Mostly just find an entry for someone else, cut and paste, then edit. The "|" pipe symbol is the start of a new column.

 

[Joeviocoe]

Hehe..

I haven't checked the status of Leaf owners losing bars in a while, but during the winter it seems to have slowed down to a crawl.

Also, I just now noticed that the main Wikipedia page for the Nissan Leaf has added another column for FY 2013 sales figures... which is where I pull sales data for my own dynamic Google Spreadsheet that is tracking the Leaf battery capacity loss.

So it has been reporting 8.67% of all Leafs sold, have had a loss of battery capacity. But that was calculating falsely from the 1,303 Leafs sold in the last 2 months (all of 2013).
With the number of Leafs sold now over 20,800... that percentage is more accurately at 0.54% [reported so far].
Fixing the spreadsheet now.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

not to get anyone alarmed but a Seattleite mentioned that they knew someone who lost a bar after 3 months, 3 winter months. all very preliminary and 2nd hand so we shall see. pretty sure its something else but...

 

[EdmondLeaf]

According to cars.com it appears that used Leaf with missing capacity bars from AZ, are now for sale in relatively big number in TX. Not a great choice place to slow capacity loss.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

According to cars.com it appears that used Leaf with missing capacity bars from AZ, are now for sale in relatively big number in TX. Not a great choice place to slow capacity loss.

same battery?