Our 2012 Leaf is in a carport, not a garage, so it's not much warmer than being on the street. Is it safe to plug car into the trickle charger and keep the car on and heater going all night? Trying to counteract frigid temps. The socket is standard 110/120. Generally the car gets charged fully over a matter of hours and then turns the charger off. I guess that keeping the car on, esp. with the heater going, would mean it's being charged the whole time. I could set the thermostat at like 65º so it wouldn't be overheated inside when we want to drive it. I'm just wondering if this increases fire danger, or damages the charging system, or whatever.
keeping the car warm all night
- Thread starter WBYeats
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knightmb
Well-known member
Just so I understand, you want to keep the cabin warm, not the batteries?
Well, everything I read about keeping the LI battery warm talks only about doing that by warming up the cabin. Like there's no external heater that will do that if you don't have a heated garage. I also read that starting the car on cold days while keeping it plugged into the trickle charger and with the heater going for 5 to 20 minutes before you want to drive it is another way to "condition" the battery to stretch the miles you can expect out of it. I have no idea whether any of that stuff I read is effective or smart -- it's just the only things I've read. So I kind of extrapolated that 5-20 minute thing to all night because that's what I do in life -- I'm a more is better guy, like with cookies and pie. Doesn't mean I know what I'm doing at all. ;-)
I don't think that will work. IIRC the '12 used heater strip that draw around 3KW, the 120 volt cord can supply 1200 watts total. It would take all of the 3.3Kw charger just to feed the heater strip.
As I recall, it requires 16 amps at 240 volts to 'keep even' with the heater, so a 16A L-2 EVSE plugged into a fully or nearly full Leaf might do the trick. More likely the car would eventually manage to fully charge and shut off.
I wish we had a 240v line, but we didn't bother with it in this house -- it was great in our previous house, but we drove the car a lot more there (Los Angeles). If it would help keep the car warm and preserve miles we might go the 240v route -- the car has a maximum 50-mile range in winter here (western Oregon) and much of the time less than that. Obviously it's much colder in the winters here than in LA. But then it's just a city car anyway, traffic is nothing compared to LA and the distances aren't that great. The battery is already down 2 bars (or maybe 3, I forget), so it's not like we can boost it very much anyway.
knightmb
Well-known member
The 2012 has a automatic battery heater, so as long as you don't need to QC somewhere quickly, you'll be fine with your L1 setup as long as it has the range you need and can charge fast enough for you. Unfortunately, since the 2G service died so long ago, you can't remotely wake-up the Leaf to use your outlet power to warm it up before a trip. If you want to keep the cabin warm-ish, you could always put a space heater with an adjustable thermostat inside and just let it run all the time to keep the cabin temperature above freezing, 60F, or whatever you want. The only other way to save power would be to unplug the Leaf, wait a few seconds, plug it back in again to start another balance cycle and then switch on the heat inside so it uses your outlet power to warm it up before a trip for example. You won't have to worry about anyone trying to steal your Leaf in this mode either.
I didn't know there was a battery heater. So if there wasn't one, I'd be looking at a lot less than the 40 miles it's showing me on a 20º day? (And I know 20º can seem almost balmy to somebody who has to endure 0º or less.)
I'm just wondering if there's any validity to the claim that warming up the cabin before you start driving really has any effect on the miles you can expect on a cold day. I mean, they're saying that the cabin heat somehow penetrates into the battery compartment and warms it up despite whatever shielding the battery might have -- and that brief warming on a 20º day is enough to improve the miles. But then would the same work with really hot temps, and you should run the AC for a while before you drive when it's 95-110º? And would this only work on older Leafs that don't have battery cooling/heating?
knightmb
Well-known member
The battery heater only protects from physical damage due to extreme cold. It kicks in when the battery itself (not the outdoors) has reached a temperature around -4F (-20C) to warm it up to around 14F (-10C) before shutting off. Provided that the Leaf is either plugged into power for charging, or if sitting alone, has at least 30% SOC or higher. This by itself won't give you more mileage, actually less in extreme cold since it is using power to stay warm (relative to the battery, not human related) if it is not plugged in to power, charging or not. The only models I'm aware of without the battery heater were the very first 2011 models. There has been discussions for years about creating a hack to activate the battery warmer earlier to aid in charging for example, but the heaters in the battery are designed to warm it up to avoid damage, not to be used as full time battery heaters to aid charging/driving in cold weather for example.
There is a valid reason to warm up the cabin in the Leaf when connected to power, mainly in range saving. The savings are the more useful when dealing with the Gen 1 Leaf (2011-2015) that uses the 24 kWh battery because they have the smallest "reserve" of power to work with. When you get into the Gen 2 models that use the 40 and 62 kWh battery, the range savings have a smaller effect, but still useful. It is true in the technical sense that warming the cabin up will migrate some of that heat down into the battery, but the effect would be so little as to be not useful. The cabin and battery pack are technically air gaped, so in extreme cold, the cabin heat won't make much of a difference.
Now, on the flip side, hot days, running the AC in the cabin will have little effect on a warm battery underneath as well. The Leaf is designed to be air cooled (by moving air) in the warmer climates. In cold climates, the Leaf is designed to heat the battery with waste heat produced either by charging or driving. If you live in a cold climate but you charge and drive your Leaf everyday, then the battery will stay warm and give you good charging speed and mileage. If you live in a cold climate and only drive or charge your Leaf with long breaks into between (days), then the battery has time to cool down to the outdoor temperature and if the outdoor temperature is below freezing, the battery follows that naturally.
Finally, why does warming up or cooling down the cabin (with power) save range? When the cabin is freezing, the Leaf uses maximum power to warm it up as fast as possible. This is why you can go from freezing to hot melting air coming out of the vents in less than a minute on most any EV. Once the cabin temperature has been stabilized to what you want, the amount of power to maintain the temperature drops a lot. On the Leaf for example, it can use 6,000 watts of power to warm up the cabin, but once the air temperature is stable, it might only take 500 watts, 750 watts, or 1000 watts to maintain the temperature, relative to the outside temperature. That initial load of energy is what saps range out of the Leaf, but when connected to power, it can slowly gain it back.
This works well on most L2 connections, but on a L1 connection (120V AC) connection that you are using, it can only contribute 1,440 watts of power at max. That just means the battery has to make up the rest of the missing power until the cabin temperature stabilizes and the power usage to keep that temperature drops below the max power your outlet can put out. The range saving effects of pre-warming the cabin are thus limited more when using a L1 connection (120V AC) versus using a L2 connection (240V AC) due to just plain ole' physics.
"It kicks in when the battery itself (not the outdoors) has reached a temperature around -4F (-20C) to warm it up to around 14F (-10C) before shutting off."
With my 2013, it kicked in (and I witnessed this) at about +8F. I don't know if the Gen 1.0 Leafs are different that way.
With my 2013, it kicked in (and I witnessed this) at about +8F. I don't know if the Gen 1.0 Leafs are different that way.
Jerther
Well-known member
Excerpt from the owner manual
Stanton
Well-known member
This thread makes me smile...when I think about the (literally) hundreds of threads (going back 10 years) along the lines of "keeping my Leaf cool all night"! Folks did everything they could (and I was guilty of this) to keep from charging "hot". I have never lived in a climate as cold as what the OP is describing...which is probably good since I have one of the early Leafs without a built-in battery warmer.
ride12myplug
2017 Nissan Leaf S w/ 30 kWh
I'm retired and live in mid-Maine with a 2017 Leaf S. As I understand my car there is zero traction battery heating or cooling - nothing to help in any situation. Two decades ago I could not have owned an EV like the Leaf because the weather was too frigid - cold spells that lasted 10 or 12 days with night time temps at minus 20 F and daytime warming to minus 5 F. However due to climate change that is no longer a serious problem. I got my Leaf over 3 years ago, and the 1st winter there were 4 separate nights of minus 15 to 20 F. I had made a piece of (4 x 8 ft.) 2" thick blue foam into a crude heater by modifying the shape to fit the battery and wrapping the foam with an electric blanket covered with a sheet of plastic drop "cloth". Propped up under the car (a real PITA) it will maintain the traction battery at 3 bars on the temp gauge. Winter two had one night that dropped from plus 5 F to minus 14 F and I had to go at 7 AM. It had not been forecast to go that low so no need to prep the car. Much to my surprise the car drove fine and made the 54 mile trip despite the cold and mileage loss. I use the seat heater and very sparingly use the cabin heater. JohnP.
I thought I had posted this but I can't find it here: I bought a Duralast AGM battery at AutoZone for $240; exact same size as original; installation was a snap; and everything returned to normal instantly, no resets needed. It'll be interesting to see if the headlights are any brighter at night -- they'd seemed to be getting very dim to me but I never connected that to the battery. And that was the original battery, lasted 12 years, in keeping with the quality of build of this car.
Toby
Well-known member
We lived up north in a mountain town with very cold winters. We had a carport. We used a small space heater, suitable for cars, which we ran an extension cord for. It kept the cabin warm.
knightmb
Well-known member
Your Leaf should have the battery heater if it is the North American model. As far as cooling, yup, just air cooling like the rest.
2017 Leaf Owners Manual
https://www.nissan-techinfo.com/refgh0v/og/Leaf/2017-Nissan-LEAF.pdfPage 24 for the Battery Warmer
ride12myplug
2017 Nissan Leaf S w/ 30 kWh
KnightMB, you are generally correct but my Leaf came from So. California (via Carvana) and the original window sticker does not show a battery heater in the options. If you read the manual closely it always says "if so equipped" when talking about the heater. I have never seen any sign of mileage loss over a bitter cold night as if a battery heater was in operation. It appears that Nissan decided to ship Leafs to Cal. without battery heaters and steering wheel warmers because the car's occupants would never need them. But then Carvana arrived...... It might be that the steering wheel and other wiring for the warmer is present in the wiring loom but just not a switch to activate it ?? How complex is Nissan's inventory to have two types of steering wheels and other components that are considered Options? Anyone have knowledge of this. I could actually use the steering wheel warmer. JohnP.
knightmb
Well-known member
If the Leaf is a 2012 or later model, the "cold weather package" became standard across all of them. The 2013 SV & SL (but not S) models were the first year to get the "heat pump". As far as I know, nothing has changed since then. If you have a Leaf without the battery heater, then it's either a 2011 model or a Leaf from a region not meant to be sold in the USA or Canada.
ride12myplug
2017 Nissan Leaf S w/ 30 kWh
Well I can only tell you what I was told by a Nissan USA tech and the tech people at the Nissan dealer in Topsham, Maine. They said "If the original window sticker does not show a battery heater in the Options then the car doesn't have it." My leaf is a 2017 S with 30 kWh pack and went to a dealer in San Jose, Cal. where it went out on a 3 year lease. After the lease the car was put up for auction with 16k miles and down 2 battery bars, where Carvana bought it. This was at the beginning of Covid and dealerships nationwide were in panic mode so I got a good deal on trade-in and the car. For some reason the fix on the BMS programming was never done until I brought it to the dealer in 2021. Maybe as a base model "S" car they treat them differently? JohnP.
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