My Experiments With Turtle

[mwalsh]

Did you get the turtle? When does your turtle appear?

No, the closest I've gotten was into that last available bar and with 7 miles remaining showing. I'm not brave enough to take it much further than that, at least not without having no place in particular to be and a well thought out plan for rescue or recharge.

 

[waidy]

After Blue Moon (name of my LEAF) spent 5 hours at the dealer's service department, the service manager called and said there is nothing wrong with Blue Moon and everything checked ok. He said the turtle light indicator is like the "check engine light" where it only lights up when it needs service. I think he thinks I am a "normal" "ordinary" housewife.

After I told him my understanding of the turtle light, he still kept on and on insisting his finding. With the help from Nikolay, I forwarded the following information to the service manager:

http://victorcaballero.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Nissan-Leaf-2011-Owners-Guide-Quick.pdf

Or the booklet on page 5 under "POWER LIMITATION INDICATOR LIGHT" reads:
"This light illuminates in the following conditions:
• when the battery is close to empty"

The Nissan's Northwest regional technical support manager called me and said "We value your inputs and Nissan is currently looking into this problem"

Sadly, I picked up Blue Moon with the turtle light still broken and wasted 25 miles of fossil fuel by driving their gas loaner car :-(

 

[planet4ever]

The turtle didn't show up !! The "remaining milage" was 0, after driving 80 miles at 65 mph all freeway. I checked my Coulomb ChargePoint report and saw my LEAF took 23.899 kWh (The pack is 24kWh). Why am I not getting the turtle?

I think you may have overlooked something. Some energy is lost in the on-board charger. Some energy is lost in the battery during the charging process. If you had really been down 24kWh from max charge you would have seen considerably more than 24 kWh in your Coulomb report, probably somewhere between 26 and 27 kWh. It sounds like you may have actually had 2 to 3 kWh of usable energy still available in your battery.

My personal guess has been that the turtle light won't come on until you get below 1 kWh left. Mike Walsh has recently indicated his CAN tests show it is even less than that - about 2%, which would be around 1/2 kWh left.

By the way, all reports are that remaining mileage stops displaying when you get below 7, and just shows "---". Is that what you were interpreting as zero?

Ray

 

[GeekEV]

That must be it, because I can confirm the car never shows zero. The dash shows --- and the center console screen shows ****. I got about 3.2 more miles past that before turtle mode showed up. I haven't yet tried pushing how much further past that it will go before dying.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

remember on my "turtle adventure" i got that batt low indicator at 16 miles had 21 miles to go

went to ... at "around" 6-7 miles of range and drove over 4½ miles after that happened so "zero" is not calculable and the reason is that range estimates are based on recent driving history.

on my trip, i had just come off the freeway going south onto exit 111 (marvin/hawks prairie rd) which is uphill from the Nisqually Flats. when i exited the freeway, my range was 8 miles which is the same range i had at the top of the Nisqually hill on the north side.

as i drove off the freeway, got to street speeds, i increased to 9 miles of range briefly which is nearly 4 miles past the point that i had hit 8 miles remaining the first time.

so, the turtle mode (if it ever shows up) may only show up a mile before the car shuts down should not be used. the bars on the dash is probably a better way to go. now, i was not looking at the bars (because of the emphasis on range) so will have to wait until i get another chance to test this. that usually does not happen since my average driving runs from 20-60 miles a day which is well within the Leafs current range

 

[evnow]

The Nissan's Northwest regional technical support manager called me and said "We value your inputs and Nissan is currently looking into this problem"

Sadly, I picked up Blue Moon with the turtle light still broken and wasted 25 miles of fossil fuel by driving their gas loaner car :-(

So, turtle shows up even when everything is fine ?

I think he thinks I am a "normal" "ordinary" housewife.

Well, not just "ordinary housewifes" - the service guys will take everyone to be dumb until otherwise proven.

 

[waidy]

The turtle didn't show up !! The "remaining milage" was 0, after driving 80 miles at 65 mph all freeway. I checked my Coulomb ChargePoint report and saw my LEAF took 23.899 kWh (The pack is 24kWh). Why am I not getting the turtle?

I think you may have overlooked something. Some energy is lost in the on-board charger. Some energy is lost in the battery during the charging process. If you had really been down 24kWh from max charge you would have seen considerably more than 24 kWh in your Coulomb report, probably somewhere between 26 and 27 kWh. It sounds like you may have actually had 2 to 3 kWh of usable energy still available in your battery.

My personal guess has been that the turtle light won't come on until you get below 1 kWh left. Mike Walsh has recently indicated his CAN tests show it is even less than that - about 2%, which would be around 1/2 kWh left.

By the way, all reports are that remaining mileage stops displaying when you get below 7, and just shows "---". Is that what you were interpreting as zero?

Ray

I understand that there is energy lost from the wall to the battery pack. I wish the LEAF ould "automatically" start the power saving mode way before 1kWh or 2%. My recent LEAF driving record indicates our driving behavior of 4.0 DMPK.

I mis-spoke on the mileage left. It was "---" not "0"; and it was driven ~5 miles after "---" shows up. These 5 miles are all uphill because we live in the hill.

 

[waidy]

That must be it, because I can confirm the car never shows zero. The dash shows --- and the center console screen shows ****. I got about 3.2 more miles past that before turtle mode showed up. I haven't yet tried pushing how much further past that it will go before dying.

Thank you for the information. It tells me that I am not the only one The only difference is that you got the power saving via turtle mode and I didn't.

 

[waidy]

The Nissan's Northwest regional technical support manager called me and said "We value your inputs and Nissan is currently looking into this problem"

Sadly, I picked up Blue Moon with the turtle light still broken and wasted 25 miles of fossil fuel by driving their gas loaner car :-(

So, turtle shows up even when everything is fine ?

No. turtle never comes :-(

 

[waidy]

My turtle showed up!! BUT... I was out of juice.

The turtle showed up after driving 83.3 miles. I ran out of juice at 84.2 miles. My LEAF was only 30 feet away from the garage door (or 40 feet away from the charger) when it ran out of juice. I waited half an hour and restart the car. It lets me restart but it won't let me switch to "D" nor "ECO". It was displayed "N".

This is so sad that I only has less than 250Wh of warning. When it was in the turtle mode, my Leaf was really a turtle.. it only did 6 MPH until it stopped.

I am using two 30 feet extension cord and charging the car 40 feet away from the outlet in the charger with an 110/120V outlet.

 

[evnow]

The turtle showed up after driving 83.3 miles. I ran out of juice at 84.2 miles. My LEAF was only 30 feet away from the garage door (or 40 feet away from the charger) when it ran out of juice. I waited half an hour and restart the car. It lets me restart but it won't let me switch to "D" nor "ECO". It was displayed "N".

Did battery low show ? How many miles did you get on that ?

 

[Ready2plugin]

My turtle showed up!! BUT... I was out of juice.

The turtle showed up after driving 83.3 miles. I ran out of juice at 84.2 miles. My LEAF was only 30 feet away from the garage door (or 40 feet away from the charger) when it ran out of juice. I waited half an hour and restart the car. It lets me restart but it won't let me switch to "D" nor "ECO". It was displayed "N".

This is so sad that I only has less than 250Wh of warning. When it was in the turtle mode, my Leaf was really a turtle.. it only did 6 MPH until it stopped.

I am using two 30 feet extension cord and charging the car 40 feet away from the outlet in the charger with an 110/120V outlet.

I'm assuming you had it charged at 100% to get the 84.2 miles. Hopefully you didn't have to charge it too long at 120v before it let you start and move it back to the garage. Also, what was that last .9 miles like...flat or hills? I've been very careful so far when taking the LEAF out, I've never even seen the low battery warning yet (comes from being a pilot I guess...always have a reserve when arriving). So it's good to hear of others so when the time comes we can all take the appropriate steps not to get stranded. Thanks for sharing!!

 

[abasile]

This is so sad that I only has less than 250Wh of warning. When it was in the turtle mode, my Leaf was really a turtle.. it only did 6 MPH until it stopped.

Glad you made it home!!! Sounds like you got a very respectable range before running out of juice. Were you driving uphill while in turtle? Perhaps that would explain the slow speed.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

What wads terrain for that last mile? Any elevations to consider?

 

[kolmstead]

I know that Waidy wanted to see the turtle, and I admire her determination! But the best advice for anybody who wants to push the battery's limit is not to count on turtle mode to do anything but get you to the side of the road. Some folks have managed to squeeze a few miles out of the turtle; others as little as 100 yards. It really isn't the same as that gallon or two of gas you can count on when the fuel gauge in your gas powered car says "E".

-Karl

 

[DaveEV]

What wads terrain for that last mile? Any elevations to consider?

Based on previous posts and her location, I'm pretty sure it's uphill. Not sure what the grade is.

 

[TomT]

One of these days I plan to try turtle mode but I plan to time it to occur on the large circular turn around at the end of my culdesac. My house is a few down from that on a fairly steep grade so if it completely dies I can just roll down the hill and in to my driveway and garage on momentum!

I know that Waidy wanted to see the turtle, and I admire her determination! But the best advice for anybody who wants to push the battery's limit is not to count on turtle mode to do anything but get you to the side of the road. Some folks have managed to squeeze a few miles out of the turtle; others as little as 100 yards. It really isn't the same as that gallon or two of gas you can count on when the fuel gauge in your gas powered car says "E".

-Karl

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I think all this is my fault. I actully got over 2 mes in turtle mode but was already in my neighborhood which is flat and 25 mph. Hard to get better conditons than that.

 

[waidy]

It was uphill. I got some more data after a full charge. After 3.617kWh on 110/120V charging, I then drive the LEAF inside the garage (40 ft) and it finished with 22.742 kWh Level II charging. 3.617+22.742=26.359 AC kWh. If the Battery Pack is 24 DC kWh, then I have 3.617% lost in efficiency.

 

[TomT]

Actually, if that is all you lost, that is quite good. Neither the charger nor the battery are 100 percent efficient and I'd guess about 90 percent overall at best.

It was uphill. I got some more data after a full charge. After 3.617kWh on 110/120V charging, I then drive the LEAF inside the garage (40 ft) and it finished with 22.742 kWh Level II charging. 3.617+22.742=26.359 AC kWh. If the Battery Pack is 24 DC kWh, then I have 3.617% lost in efficiency.