Hello. I just registered in the forum because three days ago I got myself a used Leaf, 2013 model, 12-bars, 32k km on the odometer.
This is one of the less-than-ten Leafs in Greece. Upon getting the vehicle from a private seller, I took it to Nissan for an all-around check, which resulted in an excellent score, battery-wise.
I already know lots about lithium batteries, since I’m well into solar and DIY battery building for home storage, mobile storage and e-bikes. Have been building my own batteries -complete with BMSs and stuff- for a couple of years, both from new or used cells.
Anyway, I did a 650km run in almost 12hrs to get the Leaf home. Upon starting the trip, I thought it would be a good idea if I could target on a mean consumption number. Unfortunately, it turned out that I could not rely on the calculated mean consumption, it seemed way off.
On one leg, mean consumption insisted on 9.2kWh/100km, but I took the battery down from 83% to 56% in 50km. If you do the math, this means that the usable capacity is only 17.04kWh.
On a rapid charging session (on CHAdeMO) I saw 9.605kWh getting into the car from 12% to 62%. This calculates to a usable capacity of 19.21kWh, but rapid charging definitely has lots of losses.
On the final leg, I was able to drive 143km from 100% to VLBW. I was going max 70km/h and had a +800m and then a -600m elevation change. That looks OK to me. Is it?
I then put the car to charge on 2.2kWh (which should not have too much loss), but did not have the chance to charge completely. Meter registered 9.23kWh until 60%. That adds up to 15.38kWh, not taking losses into account.
So, what’s the actually usable capacity? One thing is for sure: I definitely shouldn’t use 24kWh or even 21kWh for my estimates.
I will definitely be doing a turtle-to-balanced test soon and report back.