First day with my Leaf, first low battery warning

[madbrain]

I got my blue 2012 SL on saturday. Trickled charged it to 100% .

I had a number of errands to run on sunday.

I started the day around 1:30pm from 12 bars and 100% charge.

I reset the trip meter. The GOM was showing 74 miles. I put the car in eco mode, it showed about 88.

1) My first errand one was for a haircut. I drove the car downhill from the very steep road near my home, half a mile down and about 600ft elevation. At the bottom the GOM was up from 88 to 91, which is was nice.
On my way back home, that same half mile drive uphill caused the GOM to go from 88 to 71. I did not put the car to charge again, since the battery was still mostly full and I had only driven about 4 miles from full charge.

2) Next errand was a medical appointment in Cupertino. 17 miles away, 80% of it freeway. I was quite late. I drove downhill in ECO mode again and on city streets as well, but on the freeway was driving a little past the speed limit, between 65 and 80. By the time I arrived the GOM was at 45 (ECO mode stat).

3) After that I did not go back home, but made two grocery trips at Costco in Santa Clara and Trader Joe's nearby on Coleman. I was driving the speed limit on the freeway, probably about 10 miles. Then I went back to east SJ, another 10 miles or so. The GOM (ECO mode) was at 18 miles. I put the car to trickle charge again.

4) After about 1h30 of trickle charging, the car was showing about 27 miles, I went to pick up a friend in downtown San Jose and to have dinner at a restaurant also in downtown.

5) After dinner we drove to my home in east SJ to play the piano. Don't remember the exact GOM. I put the car to trickle charge again.

6) Once we were done playing, after about 2 hours of trickle charging, I drove my friend back to his home in downtown. The GOM was showing 29 miles in ECO at this point. His home is about 5 miles away from mine, so 10 miles roundtrip. It was starting to rain, and a bit cold on the way back, so I turned up the heater for a few minutes. The GOM went down very rapidly from 19 to 12.
By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, the GOM was at 10. 0.5 mile later, on top of the hill, and safe at home around midnight, the car was displaying the first low battery warning, and I had one bar left, and 5 miles blinking. I put the car to trickle charge again.

Stats for the day from the car :

- According to the trip meter, I drove it 76.9 miles today.
- Average speed 15.9 mph
- I don't quite understand yet why I get a different display for miles per kWh on the dashboard and on the screen.
I think perhaps the one on the dashboard is lifetime and the one on the screen is for the trip. The former says 3.4, and the later 3.6 .

Again this was from 100% charge and 12 bars, plus about 3 to 4 hours of trickle charge.

I drove very conservatively in ECO mode the entire time for all the trips above, except for the second errand as I was late, where I may have driven perhaps 10 miles between 75 and 80mph on the freeway.
AC was on most of the day on low setting.

It is a little bit scary to me to think what would have happened if I charged the car to 80% only, or if I didn't plug it back in to trickle charges throughout the day at almost every occasion I had (except after the first errand).

Given that I had 5 miles and 1 bar at the end, how much did the car really have left in it ?
I fear that in the not too distant future, I will be stuck very close to home in the middle of that very steep uphill road on the way home given how much the car seems to hate it - that half mile has taken between 5 and 17 miles off the estimate between the 4 times I drove it today.

I should probably program the Nissan road assistance number into my cell phone ASAP, as I foresee having to ask them to tow me home in the future on more than one occasion.

I will apply to get the L2 charger with Ecotality as soon as possible.

I will be doing L2 charging at work also from tomorrow on.

I knew the limitations of the car in terms of range when I bought it so the above doesn't entirely surprise me, but still can't say this is going to alleviate any range anxiety I thought I might encounter.
Range awareness is more like it, at this point.

I only wish Ecotality could put a CHAdeMO while they are at it instead of an L2. There is triphase power at the pole that serves my house due to the city water tank right behind my home, I guess their pumps need a lot of juice. I don't know if it runs on 440V.

 

[cwerdna]

I don't know where you're trickle charging, but you might want to get http://evseupgrade.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; done anyway and get a bunch of adapters. If the stops you make have 240 volt dryer outlets, you could get a few more miles/hour of charging.

As for heat, I recall some folks here on MNL have bought http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-rubberized-heater-with-fan-96144.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to help w/the slow heating. (Don't buy it until someone who owns one chimes in.) You should probably use the heated seats as that should be more efficient than heating the cabin.

If you're going to cut it so close, you might end up being in the market for something that will display "gids". The guy who makes http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=8527" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; lives near me. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=230923#p230923" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; shows one of the things it can display. Surfingslovak and myself got a brief demo at his house.

You'll probably learn that if you need to stretch your range, you'll need to keep your speed way down on the highway. Your range will likely be crap if you're doing 80 mph.

Re: them installing CHAdeMO at home... you wish. Those chargers (in this case, the charger is in the fixed unit, not in the car) don't come cheap. Nissan bragged about developing one and getting its price down to $10K. Well, the $10K unit at http://nissanqc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; disappeared recently, for some reason. :/

Tony Williams should be able to tell you how much for a home CHAdeMO charger.

 

[grommet]

See Tony's LEAF Range Charts:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, there are many, many previous threads. Search away for more info. FYI: Speed, as well as the (inefficient) cabin heater, kills your miles/kWh

 

[madbrain]

I don't know where you're trickle charging, but you might want to get http://evseupgrade.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; done anyway and get a bunch of adapters. If the stops you make have 240 volt dryer outlets, you could get a few more miles/hour of charging.

I have been trickle charging in my own garage so far with the EVSE that came with the car, this is the only way I have to charge at home until I get the L2 installed (or the CHAdeMO, lol ).

My garage doesn't have a dryer outlet. I have a separate laundry area which is on a completely different side of the house on the second floor. It has both a dryer outlet and gas hookup, as it happens I'm using a natural gas dryer. I don't think I will be getting a 240V dryer outlet in my garage, the installation cost would be the same as for installing L2, except the dryer outlet would not be subsidized.

As for heat, I recall some folks here on MNL have bought http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-rubberized-heater-with-fan-96144.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to help w/the slow heating. (Don't buy it until someone who owns one chimes in.) You should probably use the heated seats as that should be more efficient than heating the cabin.

Good point, I forgot about the heated seats, will think of it next time.

If you're going to cut it so close, you might end up being in the market for something that will display "gids". The guy who makes http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=8527" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; lives near me. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=230923#p230923" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; shows one of the things it can display. Surfingslovak and myself got a brief demo at his house.

Thanks. Seems a little bit too technical for me, though.

How close was I cutting it in actuality ? Is there any zombie life hidden in the Leaf once the GOM goes down to 0 ?

You'll probably learn that if you need to stretch your range, you'll need to keep your speed way down on the highway. Your range will likely be crap if you're doing 80 mph.

Well, my average m/kWh was 3.4 - 3.6 depending on where I read it, that is still much better than the 3.04 that the EPA test averages to (73 miles / 24 kWh battery). Obviously the full battery is not usable. I don't know how much is. But if it was, at 3.4 miles/kWh and a full 24 kWh battery, I should have been able to drive 81.6 miles. I drove only 76.9 miles but trickle charged 3.5 hours. I don't think I would have made it without any trickle charge.

Re: them installing CHAdeMO at home... you wish. Those chargers (in this case, the charger is in the fixed unit, not in the car) don't come cheap. Nissan bragged about developing one and getting its price down to $10K. Well, the $10K unit at http://nissanqc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; disappeared recently, for some reason. :/

It says $15.5k right now on that page but also "request a quote". I guess one has to haggle for the price of the charger just like the price of the car ;-) I'm sure the labor will not be cheap, either.

If CHAdeMO was going to become the standard for chargers, I might just be crazy enough to do it when the price comes down a bit. Very sadly it seems the industry is intent on fragmenting the protocol, sigh. This is really not good for anyone.

With my 39 months lease, it would not be very reasonable to invest more than twice the cost of the lease into installing my own fast charger.

Tony Williams should be able to tell you how much for a home CHAdeMO charger.

Did he actually look into getting one for himself ?
I wonder if the daily DC charging would void the car warranty .

 

[cwerdna]

I have been trickle charging in my own garage so far with the EVSE that came with the car, this is the only way I have to charge at home until I get the L2 installed (or the CHAdeMO, lol ).

Oh! I thought you were trickle charging elsewhere/on the go. Never mind.

Thanks. Seems a little bit too technical for me, though.

Well, the point of his display is that you can see an estimate of miles depending until events (LBW, VLBW, turtle) if you drove at a certain efficiency. In that picture, it estimates that, if you drove at 4 miles/kwh, you could go 62 miles before turtle. If you did 4.5 miles/kwh, you could do 70 miles and so on. Essentially, if tells you what you efficiency you need to target to achieve a given range.

The problem I hear is that since the GOM is crappy that the 12 "fuel" bars on the right aren't linear enough. You don't know if you're at the top, middle or bottom of a bar. "Gids" (281, supposedly being full on a new car) are more granular.

Turbo3's gauge has a lot more functionality than the original gid meter at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=111786#p111786" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I've seen physically seen both of these.

I know many folks want Phil's LEAFSCAN (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=8251" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false.

BTW, Turbo3's gauge also has a similar graph for power/regen. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=215389#p215389" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; shows what else it can display.

If CHAdeMO was going to become the standard for chargers, I might just be crazy enough to do it when the price comes down a bit. Very sadly it seems the industry is intent on fragmenting the protocol, sigh. This is really not good for anyone.

With my 39 months lease, it would not be very reasonable to invest more than twice the cost of the lease into installing my own fast charger.

Tony Williams should be able to tell you how much for a home CHAdeMO charger.

Did he actually look into getting one for himself ?
I wonder if the daily DC charging would void the car warranty .

CHAdeMO is a standard for DC fast charging. I highly doubt it'll replace industry standard J1772 for L1 and L2 charging, esp. since Leaf SVs don't have the port and it was optional on the '12 SL. It's also optional on the Mitsu i.

AFAIK, he's installing some QC at home, but I don't think it's Nissan's/Sumitomo's unit.

 

[jon]

I got my blue 2012 SL on saturday. Trickled charged it to 100% .

I had a number of errands to run on sunday.

I started the day around 1:30pm from 12 bars and 100% charge.

I reset the trip meter. The GOM was showing 74 miles. I put the car in eco mode, it showed about 88.

[ ... ]

Stats for the day from the car :

- According to the trip meter, I drove it 76.9 miles today.

Again this was from 100% charge and 12 bars, plus about 3 to 4 hours of trickle charge.

[ ... ]

OMG, that was your first day! I was planning on leasing my first LEAF next week. Maybe I should wait for the 2013 model. I too live on top of very long and steep hill and I am used to running the A/C and heating 100% of the time.

Let's hope the range of this class of EVs can double in 3-5 years. Otherwise this industry will not go anywhere.

Any dealers offering 12 months lease so I could test drive this thing? Can I rent a Leaf for a week or a month from somewhere?

 

[surfingslovak]

Stats for the day from the car :

- According to the trip meter, I drove it 76.9 miles today.
- Average speed 15.9 mph
- I don't quite understand yet why I get a different display for miles per kWh on the dashboard and on the screen.
I think perhaps the one on the dashboard is lifetime and the one on the screen is for the trip. The former says 3.4, and the later 3.6 .

Again this was from 100% charge and 12 bars, plus about 3 to 4 hours of trickle charge.

I drove very conservatively in ECO mode the entire time for all the trips above, except for the second errand as I was late, where I may have driven perhaps 10 miles between 75 and 80mph on the freeway.
AC was on most of the day on low setting.

It is a little bit scary to me to think what would have happened if I charged the car to 80% only, or if I didn't plug it back in to trickle charges throughout the day at almost every occasion I had (except after the first errand).

Given that I had 5 miles and 1 bar at the end, how much did the car really have left in it ?
I fear that in the not too distant future, I will be stuck very close to home in the middle of that very steep uphill road on the way home given how much the car seems to hate it - that half mile has taken between 5 and 17 miles off the estimate between the 4 times I drove it today.

Congrats on getting trough your first day. One thing you learn quickly is that the GOM cannot be trusted, and the second thing is that speed kills range.

Realizing that you mentioned high freeway speeds earlier, I would still advise against going over 65 mph in the Leaf, unless you absolutely had to. I grew up in Germany, and slow freeway driving is something I had to learn to tolerate here. Believe me, I can empathize. With the Leaf, there is an additional and significant penalty for going too fast. Take your trip to Cupertino for example. Only few minutes are gained when you go 10 miles at 80 mph, but this exercise could cost you between 2 to 4 kWh in additional energy expended due to aerodynamic drag. Considering that you put about 1 kWh per hour of trickle charging net into the battery, I think the implications are clear.

Slowing down is easy, and much is gained from it. The second thing, learning to live without dependable gauges, is more difficult and will take some time and effort.

I would recommend resetting the energy economy meter every day. Or at least after each full charge. A new battery has about 21 kWh usable energy. With your energy economy du jour, that would result in approximately 73 miles of range from a 100% charge all the way to turtle. You were able to avoid that experience by trickle charging throughout the day, and that's about the amount of energy you had left at the end: ~ 3 kWh usable. All things being equal, this would have given you about 10 miles of range, not the 5 that were displayed on the GOM.

CHAdeMO is great, but unless you had three-phase power, you likely won't be able to install a standard unit. The Nissan QC is still vaporware, at least from what I've heard. I wouldn't know of anyone who was able to purchase it. Tony is using a unit from Andromeda Power, a small and innovative company. Their QC can run on one-phase power, but the cost is roughly double of the Nissan QC.

If you really needed faster charging, it would be cheaper to get Phil's 6 kW onboard charger kit once it's available. This will cut down recharge time on level 2 down to about 3 hours. It will still cost thousands. The stock onboard 3 kW charger will get the job done most of the time however. As annoyingly slow as it is, it's still about three times faster than trickle-charging.

Have a look at Tony's range chart. Get a Gid meter. In the meantime, I created something that works with the built-in charging time display, and will perhaps help figure out you remaining capacity until you are properly instrumented. Unfortunately this display has its own set of idiosyncrasies. I tried to document them all. If nothing else, this gauge can provide an additional data point.

Welcome, and have fun! It's a brave new world, give yourself some time to adjust.

 

[mkjayakumar]

Your driving efficiency of 3.2 miles/kWh in now way can be termed as conservative. That is almost equivalent to driving an ICE as if you stole it - in my books. It is obvious that the highway part of your trip would have been in the 2s. Leaf can easily beat most of the ICEs out there reaching and cruising at 80 mph, but you ended up consuming 4 times the power at 40 mph, or twice (approx) as much at 60 mph .

IMHO, unless you are running heat anything less than 4 miles/kWh is driving inefficiently for no apparent gain in time. Drop your ICE habits and you will be see you can go much farther. You could have done this trip even without all those in between trickle charges, if you had maintained a 4+ and that is not too difficult.

 

[OrientExpress]

Congratulations on your new LEAF. 76 miles is not too bad. I live in the San Jose, and have been driving our LEAF on average 60-75 miles a day for the last year and a half with no problems. That is both surface and freeway driving. Just remember that when you get down to the last bar (or no bars) there is still about 20 miles of range left. Getting the low battery warning just means you have should get to where you are going in the next 20 miles.

It will take you a while to get used to this, but the bottom line is that the range estimations are only a rough guide line. And the chance of getting stranded is very small.

 

[surfingslovak]

Just remember that when you get down to the last bar (or no bars) there is still about 20 miles of range left. Getting the low battery warning just means you have should get to where you are going in the next 20 miles.

Well, there should be exactly 3.3 kWh of usable energy left at the time of the low battery warning. You can get 20 miles with an energy economy of 6 miles/kWh, but 15 miles might be a more realistic number.

It will take you a while to get used to this, but the bottom line is that the range estimations are only a rough guide line.

While that's true, I would not recommend using the guessometer at all when the car is fully charged or close to empty. The estimates can be widely inaccurate then. Hills can be problematic as well.

 

[ksnogas2112]

What you saw on the GOM going up your hill is expected. There's a 55 mph hill here that will knock 10 miles off the GOM if you're already at 55. If you catch the light red and accelerate up the hill then I loose 15 miles. And that's why I take the service road that goes around it. Takes an extra couple minutes and I have to dodge deer but worth the effort in exchange for mileage.

 

[Nubo]

I turned up the heater for a few minutes. The GOM went down very rapidly from 19 to 12.

...

By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, the GOM was at 10. 0.5 mile later, on top of the hill, and safe at home around midnight, the car was displaying the first low battery warning, and I had one bar left, and 5 miles blinking.

...

I fear that in the not too distant future, I will be stuck very close to home in the middle of that very steep uphill road on the way home given how much the car seems to hate it - that half mile has taken between 5 and 17 miles off the estimate between the 4 times I drove it today.

The "Distance to Empty" (affectionately known as the "Guess-o-Meter") has a short attention-span. It puts a lot of emphasis on how you've been driving "lately". What it is saying, in a nutshell, is "if you keep driving like this, your range will be...."

For example, I drove up a local mountain from about sea level to 3800' elevation. At the top, the GOM told me I had 13 miles remaining. I was probably about 25 miles from home, but not to worry. The meter was really telling me "If you keep driving up a mountain, you've got another 13 miles". After descending back down, the GOM thought I had 60+ miles remaining. Neither estimate had anything to do with reality, but the GOM doesn't know what's about to come next, only what you've been recently doing.

Likewise, when you first turn on the heater there is an initial surge, as the heater element has to heat up a volume of coolant. After that's reached temperature the load from the heater decreases. The GOM doesn't take that into account, and thinks "OMG! If you keep drawing 3 kW for heat, your range is only....."

If you stay well-within the range of the vehicle none of this is much of a concern. If you are driving closer to the limits then you need to understand how all of this fits together and that knowledge will tame your range-anxiety and you can choose your speeds and roads to fit your situation. When extending range, driving a bit slower is a LOT faster than charging. When you've got more than enough range, have a blast.

You did a lot for a new owner and saw a lot of the car's behavior so you're well on your way.

 

[WetEV]

Any dealers offering 12 months lease so I could test drive this thing? Can I rent a Leaf for a week or a month from somewhere?

I rented a Leaf from Enterprise for a few days before buying one.

 

[davewill]

... - I don't quite understand yet why I get a different display for miles per kWh on the dashboard and on the screen.
I think perhaps the one on the dashboard is lifetime and the one on the screen is for the trip. The former says 3.4, and the later 3.6 . ...

There are two theories about why the numbers for these two are slightly off. One is that the center console may use the GPS for distance, which tends to underestimate the actual distance traveled, which would give a higher mpk number. My personal theory is that it's because the dash display truncates results. If you watch carefully it becomes apparent the dash display truncates values above 8mpk while the center display will happily display double digit mpk values. Reset them both, then go down a hill to see what I mean. The dash will show 8mpk, while the center console might show 15mpk or so. Anyway, the upshot is that the center console usually shows 0.1 mpk higher than the dash. Most people here report the number from the dash. I personally like to reset the center console each morning since it gives me a running history display so that I can compare today to each of the last several days. I let the dash display be my "llifetime" display.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Any dealers offering 12 months lease so I could test drive this thing? Can I rent a Leaf for a week or a month from somewhere?

I rented a Leaf from Enterprise for a few days before buying one.

Jon; sounds like your commute is pretty long. LEAF is probably not your best bet unless there is charging options on the other end

 

[padamson1]

I will apply to get the L2 charger with Ecotality as soon as possible.

If its cost you're worried about there are other alternatives to get home L2 charging.

Is your breaker panel in your garage? If there are open slots in your panel you can get an electrician to install a 240v outlet in your garage for not too much money (or do it yourself for $50). This gives you lots of options for L2 charging: (1) Ecotality, (2) buy your own plug-in EVSE at Lowe's or Home Depot and plug it in, or (3) get an EVSE Upgrade for portable L2 charging (http://evseupgrade.com/).

I bought a meter on-line and then installed my own outlet for $75. So combined with the EVSE Upgrade from Phil I got L2 charging for less than $400.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Lots of good responses so far.

I recommend just covering the GOM until you get comfortable with the car. Put a sticker over it, and use the miles/kWh from the dash and the Range Chart to get an idea of range.

At relatively low economy, like 3.0 miles/kWh (that is likely from heater and high speed over 65mph), you will only have about 10 miles of real range left at the first Low Battery Warning (LBW). There is also a second warning, Very Low Battery (VLB), the makes the GOM go to "---".

Try driving with no heater (air conditioning in the summer is fine) and use just the seat and steering wheel heaters. Defrost for just a few minutes for each use. That will substantially increase your economy in cold weather.

 

[TonyWilliams]

If you watch carefully it becomes apparent the dash display truncates values above 8mpk while the center display will happily display double digit mpk values. Reset them both, then go down a hill to see what I mean. The dash will show 8mpk, while the center console might show 15mpk or so.

My new 2012 (April 2012 manufacture, no firmware updates) does not have this limitation.

I showed 18.1 miles per kWh on the dash (going down a hill) !!

 

[madbrain]

jon,

OMG, that was your first day! I was planning on leasing my first LEAF next week. Maybe I should wait for the 2013 model. I too live on top of very long and steep hill and I am used to running the A/C and heating 100% of the time.

Let's hope the range of this class of EVs can double in 3-5 years. Otherwise this industry will not go anywhere.

Any dealers offering 12 months lease so I could test drive this thing? Can I rent a Leaf for a week or a month from somewhere?

This is why I leased and did not buy, I know the cars will improve. Having 3.5 hour L2 charge on the 2013 model would definitely be a help.
Hopefully I can live with the L2 7 hour charge when I get my L2 . It will be very tough with the L1 in the meantime.

 

[madbrain]

Realizing that you mentioned high freeway speeds earlier, I would still advise against going over 65 mph in the Leaf, unless you absolutely had to. I grew up in Germany, and slow freeway driving is something I had to learn to tolerate here. Believe me, I can empathize. With the Leaf, there is an additional and significant penalty for going too fast. Take your trip to Cupertino for example. Only few minutes are gained when you go 10 miles at 80 mph, but this exercise could cost you between 2 to 4 kWh in additional energy expended due to aerodynamic drag. Considering that you put about 1 kWh per hour of trickle charging net into the battery, I think the implications are clear.

Yes, I understand the implications, however the medical appointment I was going to costs $2.77/minute, and the electricity at home is close to free with solar, so I thought it was worth speeding.

All things being equal, this would have given you about 10 miles of range, not the 5 that were displayed on the GOM.

Thanks, it's good to know that there were an extra 5 miles left.

CHAdeMO is great, but unless you had three-phase power, you likely won't be able to install a standard unit.

As I mentioned in my first post, there is 3 phase power at the pole that serves my home. I don't know the logistics and how much I would have to pay to get it hooked up, but I believe it's in the realms of possibilities.

If you really needed faster charging, it would be cheaper to get Phil's 6 kW onboard charger kit once it's available. This will cut down recharge time on level 2 down to about 3 hours. It will still cost thousands. The stock onboard 3 kW charger will get the job done most of the time however. As annoyingly slow as it is, it's still about three times faster than trickle-charging.

I am not going to invest a lot of money into modifying a car I know I will return at 39 months, though.
I know the speed of the 3 kW charger, but can't wait to get one.

Welcome, and have fun! It's a brave new world, give yourself some time to adjust.

Yes, it will take some.