sgoyal said:
My apologies for the late reply, we were out of town on vacation with limited web access. Please see my replies inline.
No problem.
sgoyal said:
I'm getting my range numbers straight off the dashboard. Again, I feel that the average consumer isn't going to spend the time to figure out what the charging bars mean. Do they represent a linear or non-linear battery capacity etc. We can not dismiss the range on the dashboard as a guess-o-meter and let Nissan off the hook. Having said that I do pay attention to the bars, and on at least 3 occasions, I started out with 100% charge (all bars) and about 80 miles range showing, drove the car in conditions mentioned earlier and only had 5-6 bars left. Since I wrote my post, the dealer drove my car with 80% charge, drove the car 14 miles, and only had 5 bars left. Nissan still won't admit there is a problem.
The GOM sucks. As for the "average consumer", let's try to fix things in your case. We can't worry about everyone else who doesn't take the initiative and isn't an enthusiast while having a pre-'13 Leaf.
From http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=271853#p271853" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, re: the GOM:
Please consult the range chart at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Basically, for a new battery w/no degradation, if you drove 60 mph on level ground (see all the caveats), average 3.9 miles/kwh and had 100% charge, you should be able to do ~82 miles until you hit turtle. TonyWilliams has done a bunch of range tests to confirm this is about right as there are ~21 kWh usable in a new full battery.
If you driving say 47 miles or 40 miles and have 5 or 6 fuel bars left, you are leaving a LOT of capacity unused. You can't say that you only get x miles of range until driven that distance and are down to turtle. Or, you could run to VLBW and add a "fudge factor". If you told me you could only do 45 miles of city or stop and go in the Bay Area and were down to turtle from a 100% charge,
then you're talking.
On the '13+ Leafs, they finally added a % SoC indicator. That was a top request at a SF Bay Leafs meeting in December 2011 (Kadota-san (Chief Vehicle Engineer), Mark Perry and others were there, including engineers from Japan) and the source of a lot of drilling down from the Nissan quality guy about what was wrong w/the GOM. They made good on that. That meeting also happened to occur on approximately the Leaf's 1st birthday.
If you want to read about the meeting, start from http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6049&start=250" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I think there was another splinter thread which discussed that meeting (beyond Ingineer's turbine engine tow generator) but I can't find it right now.
My '13 Leaf shows 6 fuel bars right now and the % SoC reads 50%.
sgoyal said:
Are you charging to 100% or 80% or something else? Have you let the batteries balance?
I always charge my car 100% every night, no exceptions. I don't know what 'batteries balance' means.
Google for
site:mynissanleaf.com battery balancing. On pre-MY13, AFAIK, if you charge to 100%, and then leave it plugged in for a few hours in that state, that should cause a balance.
sgoyal said:
Hmm… not sure about that, the car has been at the dealer twice for the range problem, they've never detected any problems with the HVAC system. There is a clear on/off button, so I'm certain it was off, not sure why Nissan would need another button. Again, Nissan can't expect people to think twice before using the heater to defrost the windshield etc. if the range drops significantly with heater usage, these issues need to be clearly explained to the consumer at the time of purchase.
There is no heater on/off button on the '11-'12 Leafs. I believe there an auto on/off as well as a turn the whole climate control system on/off button.
'13 Leafs have the above + dedicated heater on/off button.
For the pre-'13 Leafs, there are quirks (in the video I pointed to w/how the those earlier Leafs) in terms of heater operation. You may be unknowingly running it, further hurting range as the heater's power hungry. You can tell by looking at the energy usage screen.
As for dealer education, well, it's unfortunate but there are many dealers that are clueless.
sgoyal said:
Not sure where you saw that, but I'm using original stock tires. I didn't go back and check all my older posts however, its possible I may have written something confusing to make it look like I changed my tires.
Whoops. My bad. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/search.php?author_id=7529&sr=posts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I didn't dig into the "Michelin MXM4 tires" post. Apparently that was from TonyWilliams' post.
sgoyal said:
As mentioned earlier, I'm looking at my range on the dash. I have not taken the time yet to use any other methods you mention. I find it surprising that we're putting bandaids on a bad design and covering it up for Nissan by inventing creative ways to measure the range.. If their range meter is crap, then shouldn't we get together and complain to Nissan? For the average non-tech user, this car does not deliver. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the helpful links, but I look at the Leaf as a half baked car that was pushed to consumers without any transparency or responsibility from Nissan, and they shouldn't get away with it. I've worked for Toyota for 6 years and a major Bay Area networking company for another 14, all on the New product development manufacturing groups, and can't imagine a product like this making it out the door.
You should, otherwise you'll will just continue to get needlessly frustrated. The Leaf pioneers already found the bandaid/proxy for % SoC LONG ago: gid-meters. As I said, Nissan did listen to our concerns (I was at that meeting) but unfortunately didn't release any update to provide % SoC to older Leafs. We've asked, many times.
As for Toyota, their 2nd gen Rav4 EV also has a GOM (which TonyWilliams says works a lot better) but also a non-granular "fuel gauge". Tony's range chart for that is at http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. It also has some other crazy quirks (e.g. http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=409" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false
and unfortunately, that Rav4 EV (aka "poor man's Tesla") is apparently very unreliable, which is unusual for a Toyota. Unfortunately, AFAIK, nobody's found an a equivalent of a gid value on the Rav4 EV's CAN bus/buses nor has Toyota added a % SoC indicator.
If you show up to a http://sfbayleafs.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; meeting, I'm sure some folks will be happy to show you their gid-meters or solutions involving Android phones and Bluetooth OBD2 dongles.
Off the to top of my head, if you're not going to do that above, at least forget the GOM. Charge to full, reset trip odometer, reset your miles/kwh gauge. And think of 20-21 kwh usable, but subtracting a few kwh as a buffer. Might help to bring a copy of Tony's range chart along too.
Also, get comfortable w/taking the car down to LBW (1st warning) and drive around near home (or L2 charging) until you hit VLBW (2nd warning). Head home/for charging for sure at VLBW at a low speed. I don't recommend you take it to turtle (I never have) as you won't be able to go far on that. You'll probably be surprised how far you can go.
Again, if you're driving 40 or 50 miles, leaving 5 bars, throwing up your hands saying "car has only 40 or 50 miles" of range, you're leaving a ton of capacity on the table.
As for your charging situation at work and contention there, can you at least get 1-2 hours at L2? Per Tony's range chart post, 16 amps @ 208 volts (common for commercial power, apparently) should had 11.1 miles per hour, assuming 4 miles/kwh consumption. That should help reduce range anxiety. Or, at 120 volts, you'd add 4 miles per hour.
At your work, is there some sort of internal list of EVs/PHEVs and contact info along w/some formal/informal etiquette? At my work, there are only 10 J1772 handles + a few 120 volt outlets, yet there are ~40 known EVs/PHEVs (+ a few mystery ones). We have such a list and people are pretty good about sharing, plugging in waiting cars, yielding to others in an emergency, swapping spaces, etc. Since I don't need much juice, have a 6 kW OBC (so I can replenish charge much quicker than you can), and leave late from work anyway, I just charge late in the day, after some folks have already left and/or most are done charging.