Disappointing results!

[cheapride]

So new here and would like to point out I am a very friendly guy so not trying to pick a fight!
I am new to the forum and my low mile 2012 Leaf but not new to the EV world and thought that this little bundle of batteries would be a great step up in distance per charge over my other EV but I have to say I have no idea where the numbers come from!
I am a very good EV driver we live in a cooler but not cold climate, climate control with a mind of its own is needed in a modest form just to keep the chill off and steam from the windshield and always drive in econo mode. Yike what the heck? this car charges fine provides full bars and at the end of the 100% charge it will provide the estimated 125KM based on our cooler climate driving I guess but lucky and I mean lucky to get 65KM of real world driving out of it!. I do a lot of driving with kids and seriously there are not enough charging hours in a day! The driving habits vary from a few shorts kms on the highway at 85-90 KM but mostly 50-60 km per hour in town and back roads.
So I have come to the conclusion that several things are coming into play here, the estimated 130 KM per charge is on a perfect day down hill zero climate control at 30 km per hour or the fact that 130 km in the real world is just a plain sales line or my leaf is a serious load of junk! I could live with 90-100km per charge but still not the perfect world I was hoping for, I am finding the only way to keep this car on the road and meeting the family demands per day is to camp out at a fast charge because the 3.3KW charger on board simple suits no one I know!
I thought that giving up the luxury of my Focus and 85 km per charge cool weather driving was a good trade for that little extra the leaf promised but remorse is setting in fast! What am I doing that is giving this car purchase a second thought? It must be better than this, or is it just not designed for this 7 to 8 degree celsius weather like my focus was?
I have been reading trying to find answers and have found so much conflicting information that I am having trouble believing anything anymore, people boasting miles per charge tesla would be proud of to miles per charge that makes mine look good! I find it hard to believe Nissan would make a car for a world market that has such range anxiety built in, I really want to like this car but man it's being hard on me, is this just how it is?
Help please!

 

[RonDawg]

A lot of the reason behind your high power consumption is the use of the heater for the heat/defrosting. All Leafs before model year 2013, and base model Leafs from the 2013 on (depending on country, it will be called "Leaf S" or "Leaf Visia" or whatever) use a resistive-style heater which uses a lot of power. 65 km of range is not unheard of for older Leafs in colder climates. Higher-spec Leafs starting in 2013 use a more power efficient heat pump system.

Also, keep in mind that a "12 bar" car can have up to 15% capacity loss.

As far as the 125 km estimate on the instrument panel: IGNORE IT! It's called the "Guess-o-Meter" or "GoM" on this forum for a reason. It's notoriously inaccurate. 2013+ models had an actual "fuel gauge" in which percentage of battery capacity is displayed. Many folks here, especially those with 2011/2012 models, use tools like an OBDII reader and a smartphone app like LeafSpy to tell them just how much juice is left in the battery. If you're the type who tends to run the battery fairly close to empty before charging up again, tools like these are a must-have.

 

[cheapride]

Thank you for the reply,
Would it be your best guess that major improvements are to be made in warm weather? Perhaps closer to the 130km? 65 km seems really poor, It just seems so temperamental! The focus just seemed so much better for range at least in the cool days of winter.

 

[Roostre]

At those temperatures and speeds our 2012 seems to get a max of about 80-85 km. This works for us, but we no longer have little ones putting extra humidity into the equation. My guess is that your battery is close to losing the first bar and thus about 14% degraded.

 

[cwerdna]

Re: 130 km, that's 80.8 miles. 125 km is 77.7 miles. 95 km is 59 miles. 65 km is 40.39 miles. And yes, forget the stupid GOM.

I haven't read your entire post carefully, but if you want range help, please answer http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=275421#p275421 in this thread.

Before the beginning of the trip, you should reset your miles/kWh err... probably km/kWh gauge. Then, download the range charts further down at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293 and look at the metric versions.

I have no idea how many capacity bars you've lost. Let's assume you've lost one (or ~15% capacity). See https://www.dropbox.com/s/sfufez3dcdvrvu9/LEAFrangeChartVersion7G82.pdf?dl=0. On an 11 capacity bar battery w/full charge at 20 C w/NO HVAC usage (not using the power pig crap heater in your car), if you went121 kph (or averaged 4.8 km/kWh), you could get ~82 km in a charge to battery exhaustion (dead on side of road). If you went 56 kph (or averaged 10.1 km/kWh), you could go 174 km.

If you're going to ride around near the bottom, you should get something like Leaf Spy (and the appropriate OBD2 dongle): http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=14285. Otherwise, you could be leaving a LOT of unused charge on the table, unnecessarily, due to the crap instrumentation in the '11 and '12 Leaf. You may be calling it quits WAY too early.

You should also pre-heat the car via "shore power" (while plugged in) so that the cabin of the car is warm without using precious charge. Also, use the seat and steering wheel heaters to reduce heater use.

 

[LeftieBiker]

A lesser but not insignificant factor is tire pressure. If you are inflating to the equivalent of 36psi as listed on the door label, then the tires are seriously underinflated, and 40-42psi equivalent would add about two or three kilometers to the range.

 

[cheapride]

All good tips thank you.
So when you say that I may be down a bar do you mean the 12 bars that show when full charge complete?
it does have 12 when full if that helps but only stays there for about 10km or so then drops to 11.
the car did sit for some time before I got it and it was dead all power was off high voltage and low, would this have an effect on the range. I had to plug in and allowed to charge to full as well installed a new 12v battery. I have a level 2 at home so used that.

 

[cwerdna]

So when you say that I may be down a bar do you mean the 12 bars that show when full charge complete?
it does have 12 when full if that helps but only stays there for about 10km or so then drops to 11.

No. We're not talking about the wide "fuel bars". We're talking about the thin bars all to the right. http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/File:Scott_3_bars_s.jpg is a 3 capacity bar loser. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=17218 has another 3 BL.

How many capacity bars has yours lost?

the car did sit for some time before I got it and it was dead all power was off high voltage and low, would this have an effect on the range.

Yes. If the HV battery is totally dead and remains that way for a long time, that could've caused extra degradation.

 

[cheapride]

I think I understand the bars as being the fuel gauge sort of speak with the miles in it. Yes it has 12 lines when charged indicating full I would think.
the batteries we dead for about 4 days, I think it was left on in run position.

 

[cwerdna]

I think I understand the bars as being the fuel gauge sort of speak with the miles in it. Yes it has 12 lines when charged indicating full I would think.

Sigh...

There are 12 fuel bars that will go up to 12 regardless at full charge of how degraded the battery is. These disappear as the car is driven or left on in READY mode.

The bars to its right are the capacity bars that do NOT go up/down as the car is charged or drained/driven/depleted. We're asking about these bars. See earlier posts for 2 example pictures of cars w/3 capacity bars lost (and full charges).

 

[GerryAZ]

If the car sat for a few days with the traction battery dead, it may take a few charge/discharge cycles to get back up to its true capacity. Count the small bars at the far right side of the display in front of the steering wheel. There are 10 white and 2 red bars for a total of 12 (same as the adjacent long bars that show state of charge). When the battery deteriorates enough to lose about 15% of capacity, the top bar will be dark. Each bar going dark after that represents about 6.25% capacity loss. As others have noted, Leaf Spy with a suitable OBDII adapter provides a lot of information. Also, there is quite a bit of range left after you get the first low battery warning and a few miles left after getting the very low battery warning. I run 44 psi in the tires for best range, handling, and traction (both wet and dry).

There is someone in Norway selling a plug and play add on to allow the driver to better manage the power consumption of the heater in 2011 and 2012 models. I would buy the kit if I were still driving the 2011.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=20446

Gerry

 

[cwerdna]

From my '13 Leaf manual. The capacity bars we're talking about are the ones labeled "Li-ion battery capacity level gauge". How many are left on yours, including the red ones? Doesn't matter if your car is charged or not.

We're NOT asking about the wider fuel bars to the left ("Li-ion battery available charge gauge").

 

[cheapride]

Had no idea those were anything more than a measurement showing empty or full, my focus was lacking these complications!
Ok so the bar count on this mystery gauge is at 11 missing one bar I would expect.

So perhaps I will see an improvement with some driving and charging if it needs to re learn it's charging abilities from being dead.

 

[LeftieBiker]

To put it another way: the big fuel bars are like the gas gauge on a regular vehicle. The little white capacity bars are like a gauge telling you how big your "gas tank" is at the time. Unlike fossil-fueled vehicles, the amount of energy that an EV can hold in its battery pack decreases over time. I'm guessing that you have 11 bars showing, with one lost, meaning your capacity is down over 16%. That is only a guess, so you'll have to look at the gauge. Since the capacity reads the same regardless of charge, you don't have to recharge the car to look at the capacity.

While I was writing that, the next post appeared. I guessed right... the bad news is that when the battery monitoring system gets reset, it almost always reads too high, so improvement isn't very likely.

 

[cwerdna]

So perhaps I will see an improvement with some driving and charging if it needs to re learn it's charging abilities from being dead.

Probably not. In fact, I expect it to get worse as it gets colder. And, your range (efficiency) will be reduced with rain, slush or snow on the road, besides the power pig heater.

It will improve again as the weather warms up and is drier, but battery capacity degradation will continue. Next winter, things will be worse and so on.

 

[cheapride]

Seems a bit tempermental, I think I really miss my focus!

 

[cwerdna]

Seems a bit tempermental, I think I really miss my focus!

This is part of why I ask anyone here considering a Leaf the below:

Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

What are your daily driving needs in terms of miles? How much city vs. highway? Will you have the ability to charge at your work/destinations?

 

[cheapride]

Again I thought it a good move from my electric focus since all the hopla about how far the leaf can go on a charge! I just gave up a focus ev that gave me 85-90km per day doing the same thing every day with the leaf at maybe 65km , not what I was expecting .
The thought that a leaf is a disposable car in 5 years seems a bit unrealistic, I am sure a new battery isn't going to be a cheap. I think Nissan has underestimated the people that drive these cars and what they expect from them!

 

[2k1Toaster]

Again I thought it a good move from my electric focus since all the hopla about how far the leaf can go on a charge! I just gave up a focus ev that gave me 85-90km per day doing the same thing every day with the leaf at maybe 65km , not what I was expecting .
The thought that a leaf is a disposable car in 5 years seems a bit unrealistic, I am sure a new battery isn't going to be a cheap. I think Nissan has underestimated the people that drive these cars and what they expect from them!

Well you bought the wrong tool for the job, why complain? If you're in BC you really need something with the heat pump. You bought a car that was degraded by more than 15% and not designed for that climate.

Also have you actually driven the car to "empty"? The range drops fast but there is a LOT of capacity in the bottom bars compared to the top bars.

 

[LeftieBiker]

There is a topic here that talks about one of the consumer organizations (Consumer Reports?) posting a piece recommending that people buy used Leafs because they are such a great deal, with such good range. No real mention of battery degradation, especially on the 2011-2012 model years. Two camps formed here in response: those like me, who thought the piece was a terrible disservice to car buyers, and those who thought it was fine, that any reasonable consumer would thoroughly research the cars and buy one that suited them, only if it suited them. This topic weighs heavily in favor of the "disservice" argument...