How is my 2015 battery doing?

[truav8r]

Would like comments on how my battery is holding up? See numbers below. Hard for me to discern the trend, with Ahr/HX/SOH bouncing all over (not to mention some numbers conflict between LeafSpy and LeafStat, why is that?). Located in Albany, NY area.

2015 Leaf S w/ QC
Mfg: Sept. 2014
Purchased: Nov. 2014
Odo: 33,300

Daily charging habits:
- Wife commutes to work each day, 48 miles round trip. She usually gets home with about 45% remaining in the summer, closer to 25-30% remaining in the dead of winter.
- Almost always charge to 100%. But instead of using the car's own charging timer, I use the delay timer on the home L2 and work the math so that it starts charing around 4am or so, and is fully charged as close to my wife's departure time as possible. Most days it isn't at 100% for more than 30-45mins before she hops in and goes. Using the car's own timer would lessen the brain load but I notice it tends to overestimate the time needed to reach full charge, and so it sits in the garage at 100% for a longer time than necessary. Maybe that's splitting hairs, but I'll continue with my delay timer habit until it's too much of a bother.
- Almost never arrive home with less than 20%. If we do happen to get down in the 15% range, I immediately charge it up to around 30%, then let it sit for most of the night and begin it's normal charge at 4am.
- We're blessed with a garage, so that helps to keep the worst of the cold (and heat) at bay. My wife is a school counselor, and the parking lot is completely open with no shade, but since she's not parking there in the hottest weeks of the summer, that extra heat strain is lessened as well.
http://s811.photobucket.com/user/sreidy/media/2015 Leaf Stats Jan2017.jpg.html

 

[truav8r]

Making the chart a bit clearer by removing some unnecessary columns...

 

[SageBrush]

Thanks for posting -- interesting data and details.
I think your battery is doing pretty well, although I don't know how to explain the discrepancies

I approach battery preservation much as you do, although in your shoes I would shoot for an 80-90% charge in the summer. Our LEAF is new to us but about 3 years old. I was pleasantly surprised to see the GOM report 110 miles of range after charging up to 100% this week in snowy Colorado. Of course all the usual caveats apply to the GOM, but I think it means that a combination of starting with a battery with good genes and then taking care of it can lead to a long and happy LEAF life.

 

[Valdemar]

Better than mine 11 months/18,000 miles since replacement (see sig).

 

[VitaminJ]

I would shoot for an 80-90% charge in the summer.

I wouldn't. He's owned the car for over 2 years and still has good numbers in the dead of winter. "Charge to 80%" is repeated ad nauseum on this forum day after day but if you look at threads like this one, all of the different battery degradation threads, etc; charging to 100% doesn't correlate with damage.

Better than mine 11 months/18,000 miles since replacement (see sig).

Valdemar, do you charge to 80% or 100% daily?

 

[Stanton]

Looks pretty darn good...but it's all about the heat (or lack of it).
I'd say your location/climate has a lot to do with your excellent battery performance.

 

[SageBrush]

"Charge to 80%" is repeated ad nauseum on this forum day after day

And for good reason: ALL the major *EV car manufacturers either outright avoid or recommend that their car owners avoid high SoC charging to extend battery life.

Do what you want with your car, but best to drive with your eyes open, and I really do not want to hear your whining in the future if your battery has early accelerated degradation.

 

[VitaminJ]

And for good reason: ALL the major *EV car manufacturers either outright avoid or recommend that their car owners avoid high SoC charging to extend battery life.

Do what you want, but best to drive with your eyes open

Yep and like you said because of software 100% on the dashboard of a Leaf is not actually "100%" of the battery and it is also when the Leaf does the best cell balancing. Nissan used to recommend it (at a time when they had a class action lawsuit and were forced to re-engineered the batteries) but no longer does. Interesting.

Who has their eyes shut?

 

[SageBrush]

Yep and like you said because of software 100% on the dashboard of a Leaf is not actually "100%" of the battery

Correct, but it is considerably higher than the other manufacturers who have a considerably better record when it comes to battery longevity.

 

[VitaminJ]

Correct, but it is considerably higher than the other manufacturers who have a considerably better record when it comes to battery longevity.

And? Results typed up in black and white like the OP are better than this type of battery mythology. There are easily over a hundred pages on this forum just of people posting Leaf Spy results, their mileage, and charging habits.

On top of that there is the proven fact that the Leaf battery will heat up considerably more during the bottom 30% of it's charge cycle than at any other time. So if heat is the #1 enemy then it would be better to charge to 100% than have to dip below 20%, especially in summer time when it's the hottest.

 

[SageBrush]

Correct, but it is considerably higher than the other manufacturers who have a considerably better record when it comes to battery longevity.

And? Results typed up in black and white

You like anecdotes that support your behavior, and ignore a large body of experimental data and recommendations of very smart and experienced *EV manufacturers.

Carry on

 

[VitaminJ]

I know when people start editing my quotes and cut out 75% of it that I'm right :mrgreen:

You heard it here first folks, tracking your battery stats for over 2 years once a month is anecdotal.

 

[VitaminJ]

You like anecdotes that support your behavior, and ignore a large body of experimental data and recommendations of very smart and experienced *EV manufacturers.

Carry on

Responding to your later edit: I am following Nissan's current recommended charging procedure, charging to 100%. You are referencing Nissan's recommendations from 6 years ago for different battery chemistry. You are the one who isn't following the manufacturer's recommendations, not me.

My behavior changes to suit information I receive. I began reading this forum months before I purchased a Leaf, I already knew what my charging habits would be because I read this forum, read hundreds of posts, looked at tons of Leaf Spy results, and decided I would follow in the foot steps of the people with the best battery stats.

 

[SageBrush]

I am following Nissan's current recommended charging procedure, charging to 100%.

Which was forced by an unintended consequence of EPA Monroney labelling requirement, and informed at Nissan's corporate level of not owing you anything on your warranty if you knock off up to ~ 34% of new battery capacity within 8yrs/100k miles for the new models, or 5 yr/60k miles for the older models.

 

[VitaminJ]

Which was forced by an unintended consequence of EPA Monroney labelling requirement, and informed at Nissan's corporate level of not owing you anything on your warranty if you knock off up to ~ 34% of new battery capacity within 8yrs/100k miles for the new models, or 5 yr/60k miles for the older models.

There you go again, clipping my posts. Maybe our disagreement stems from you only reading my first sentence? You should try reading the whole thing, understanding all of the different sentences as part of one complete thought, and then respond in kind.

Here are a few things you should revisit:
-The fact that proper cell balancing only happens at 100% charge
-The fact that under 30% SoC the battery creates much more heat in normal driving than above 30%, and heat is what we all agree hurts the batteries the most. So charging to 100% is a better trade off than driving under 30% if there is a choice because it will keep the battery at a lower temperature longer.
-There is a huge amount of data contained on this forum that you dismiss as "anecdotal." While it's not laboratory testing it is about as good as the average enthusiast like you or me has access to.

Since you said you don't want to hear my whining about my battery in the future, let's put your money where your mouth is. What is the year of your Leaf, SoH %, Hx %, and Ahr capacity? How many miles?

And now that you've avoided responding directly to the 3 points I highlighted above, you have wiggled your way from talking about strictly following EV manufacturer's best recommendations to saying how Nissan's recommendations are corrupt. Pick one. Coming off the heals of a class-action lawsuit, I think Nissan would prefer the recommended charge scheme resulted in BOTH increased EPA numbers and better longevity. Based on owners reporting in this thread, it seems they accomplished that goal starting April of 2013 as warranty replacements are extremely rare. Battery capacity degradation is also at an all-time low in the 4/13 and newer cars and it's completely normal to buy a 4-year old Leaf with 30-40k miles and all 12 capacity bars remaining.

Looking forward to you quoting and responding to only one sentence.

 

[Valdemar]

Better than mine 11 months/18,000 miles since replacement (see sig).

Valdemar, do you charge to 80% or 100% daily?

Mostly 100% these days on the end of charge timer, but the car rarely sits fully charged for more than an hour. It is climate-related more than anything else.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

:roll: c'mon you guys, give it a rest

truav8r, at 33k your numbers look as good as new, you don't need our opinions, keep doing what your doing.

The discrepancy on LeafSpy's third page is due to an old formula the developer left in there to accommodate users of an early GID meter, IIRR, the explanation is buried deep in the LeafSpy thread.

 

[SageBrush]

There you go again, clipping my posts. Maybe our disagreement stems from you only reading my first sentence?.

I choose my responses, not you. Some of your statements are too silly to bother with, and others are relatively un-controversial. Central to your arguments though is reliance on anecdotes you cherry pick. That makes your stance, IMHO, less than worthless.

Here is the point though: I don't care what you do to your car, but I would like new owners to realize that you are voicing a minority opinion that is not supported in the literature or by mainstream manufacturers with excellent battery reliability records. In case you have not noticed, that excludes Nissan.

Here is a Dec/2016 LeafSpy of my 3 year old car. It doesn't mean ANYTHING -- just another anecdote.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5KuQk2b_F-VX3JHZXpQSkdJUHp1VXl5UGJkaEFTTzg2YlFF


You are welcome to a last comment.

 

[VitaminJ]

I choose ... to ... cherry pick. That makes ... MHO, less than worthless.

Well said.

 

[SageBrush]

Here is a summary of battery aging research:
http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery_Capacity_Loss#Factors_Affecting_Battery_Capacity_Loss

Here is a snippet that is worth not ignoring:

In order to prolong battery life, GM uses just 65% of the Volts battery capacity, setting the limits at about 22% SOC on the low end and 87% SOC on the high end.

The Volt battery chemistry is quite similar to the LEAF, albeit with a presumed higher quality anode. IIRC GM has expanded the SoC range in newer models but that car also has active liquid cooling and it remains WELL below 100%

IIRC Toyota uses a different Li chemistry, and also limits the SoC excursion to well below allowed by Nissan

Lastly, Tesla explicitly tells owners that the less charging to 100%, the longer the battery will last.