Deliberately ran out of power

[surfingslovak]

There should be about 1.3 kWh of usable energy available at the onset of the very low battery warning.

 

[powercat]

Did you get any of these indications? Turtle mode is only about 25mph / 40kph on level terrain:

Only owned the car about three weeks and I'm still getting familiar with the display, was expecting an audio warning of turtle, so I must have missed the yellow light coming on, I hope no one thinks I don't like this car, I think it's a lot of fun and the saving on fuel bills are fantastic, the only thing I hate about the car is the range which is why I felt BMW had the right idea with the optional on board generator.

Somebody was asking the year, the car is from 2012 and is the European/UK addition, was bought secondhand through an auction, so I have no intention of going to the dealership with any issues, unless there is a battery problem and as all 12 bars are showing I don't think there is.

 

[stjohnh]

i have gone 4 to 5 miles past VLB at least 20 times or so. (lately its become VERY common) i have only been to turtle twice and both were on intentional range tests. seeing turtle in normal driving situations would be scary

Hmm, I have been below VLB more than twenty times, and probably 10 of those have been 10+ miles after VLB, and I have 2013 bought in June. Only at turtle once, during range testing. For others reading this, 2013 Leafs made in May or later have more miles between VLB and Turtle than earlier Leafs. I have about 16 miles between VLB and Turtle. While I usually set an end charge timer for early morning, if I have gone below VLB, I start charging immediately, as there is lots of data from non-Leaf Lithium batteries indicating that leaving a battery at very low charge is bad. If the battery is warm (6 bars) when I get home and I'm below VLB (only twice if my memory is correct), I very gently charge w trickle to avoid warming the battery more.

 

[garygid]

unless there is a battery problem...

The point is, that you might indeed have a battery "problem".
If one cell is low, badly out of balance with the others,
it could cause the symptoms that you experienced.

The free LEAF Spy Lite Android App will show you
the cell-pair voltages for all 96 "cells", and also indicate
which cells are being shunted to bleed them down
to "balance" with the lowest "cell".

For anybody considering driving under VLBW,
extra instrumentation is extremely useful.

Sometimes even the car itself does not anticipate
the future sufficiently well to outguess the driver.

Welcome to driving an EV "over" the edge.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i have gone 4 to 5 miles past VLB at least 20 times or so. (lately its become VERY common) i have only been to turtle twice and both were on intentional range tests. seeing turtle in normal driving situations would be scary

Hmm, I have been below VLB more than twenty times, and probably 10 of those have been 10+ miles after VLB, and I have 2013 bought in June. Only at turtle once, during range testing. For others reading this, 2013 Leafs made in May or later have more miles between VLB and Turtle than earlier Leafs. I have about 16 miles between VLB and Turtle. While I usually set an end charge timer for early morning, if I have gone below VLB, I start charging immediately, as there is lots of data from non-Leaf Lithium batteries indicating that leaving a battery at very low charge is bad. If the battery is warm (6 bars) when I get home and I'm below VLB (only twice if my memory is correct), I very gently charge w trickle to avoid warming the battery more.

need to clarify you mean VLB (very low battery; the 2nd warning)

and not LBW (low battery warning; the first warning)

because 10 miles after VLB suggests you are making better than 8 miles per Kwh.

we have already verified (at least someone did. if its been changed, do tell!) that both LBW and VLB happen at the same GID count (48/24) more or less so you only have roughly 16-18 GID to use after VLB

at 200 wh per mile (which is not all that great and easy to obtain) that is roughly 2.5 GIDS per mile so you have to really be hypermiling that last bit to get those numbers

 

[TonyWilliams]

... Only at turtle once, during range testing. For others reading this, 2013 Leafs made in May or later have more miles between VLB and Turtle than earlier Leafs.

It's not specific to the 2013 LEAF. We had some of the 2011 LEAFs in our Phoenix range test (Sept 15, 2012) also exhibit this behavior.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Picture from today. Really shows that the leaves Spy is worth its weight in gold. It allowed me to adjust my driving habits 20 miles before this point.this was about 5 miles after VLB. but this is also from highway 18 To Fife which is downhill

edit; ooops no picture. uploaded from phone, took a while...would be nice to get error msg or something?

FYI; using tires rated max pressure of 50/44 so set to 48/42 @ temps in upper 30's. it was near 50º at the time

 

[stjohnh]

i have gone 4 to 5 miles past VLB at least 20 times or so. (lately its become VERY common) i have only been to turtle twice and both were on intentional range tests. seeing turtle in normal driving situations would be scary

Hmm, I have been below VLB more than twenty times, and probably 10 of those have been 10+ miles after VLB, and I have 2013 bought in June. Only at turtle once, during range testing. For others reading this, 2013 Leafs made in May or later have more miles between VLB and Turtle than earlier Leafs. I have about 16 miles between VLB and Turtle. While I usually set an end charge timer for early morning, if I have gone below VLB, I start charging immediately, as there is lots of data from non-Leaf Lithium batteries indicating that leaving a battery at very low charge is bad. If the battery is warm (6 bars) when I get home and I'm below VLB (only twice if my memory is correct), I very gently charge w trickle to avoid warming the battery more.

need to clarify you mean VLB (very low battery; the 2nd warning)

and not LBW (low battery warning; the first warning)

because 10 miles after VLB suggests you are making better than 8 miles per Kwh.

we have already verified (at least someone did. if its been changed, do tell!) that both LBW and VLB happen at the same GID count (48/24) more or less so you only have roughly 16-18 GID to use after VLB

at 200 wh per mile (which is not all that great and easy to obtain) that is roughly 2.5 GIDS per mile so you have to really be hypermiling that last bit to get those numbers

Well, Boomer23 first made the observation that 2013s in the range below VLB have different behavior than most other Leafs:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=13343" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And with considerably more detail here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=14142" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Where he documents 11 miles between VLB and Turtle at 4.0 mi/kwh

My (one time) test to Turtle at 4.5mi/kwh from VLB got 16 miles. There aren't many reports from other 2013 Leaf owners detailing what happens between VLB and Turtle, it appears to me that:

1)Nissan has programmed the car differently. A simple reason may be to make it less likely that the usual Leaf driver without any additional instrumentation is less likely to hit Turtle in a 2013 than in a 2011 or 2012 Leaf if there are "more miles in reserve."
2) "not all gids are equal" (and by extension "not all kwh are equal") and this ESPECIALLY pertains to 2013 Leafs in the charge range between VLB and Turtle, where a gid can represent MUCH more energy than a gid in the range above VLB.

My cars hit LBW and VLBW at the usual 49/24 gids.

 

[Nuitari]

I have a 2012 Leaf and recently went to VLBW.
One thing I noticed is that when I turn off the turn by turn audio navigation is that the LBW is also muted, there is only the beep.

For VLBW it came on as the --- on the GOM after turning the car back on after the LBW. Thankfully I reached the charging station quickly afterwards.

It also happenned to be once that I had no bar of charge left, but the GOM still showed 20km of range :lol: