Winter is hard on range!

[TomT]

I was so told by an engineer at Nissan... Of course, that doesn't mean that it is an active investigation and/or we will ever see anything come of it...
Perhaps the LAB could bring some pressure to bear here...

How do you know that Nissan is looking at it? Anything we should do if we're annoyed by it?

 

[DaveEV]

How do you know that Nissan is looking at it? Anything we should do if we're annoyed by it?

I was so told by an engineer at Nissan... Of course, that doesn't mean that it is an active investigation and/or we will ever see anything come of it...
Perhaps the LAB could bring some pressure to bear here...

I can't imagine how something like this made it through QA. I wonder if calling the EV hotline or making the dealer look at it would help.

It's annoying seeing '13 owners getting full regen down to freezing temps when we're losing significant regen at 65F!

 

[Pipcecil]

Offically my Leaf has become a Volt without all the fancy backup systems. Yesterday my wife's volt in ~30 degree weather achived 44 miles on her battery, my Leaf? 42. Battery degridation hits really hard. I guess I had forgotten how bad the cold weather hits - I was getting 55-60 in warmer temperatures. The lack of regen doesn't help either. I rarely get over 1 bubble available anymore.

 

[DaveEV]

Offically my Leaf has become a Volt without all the fancy backup systems. Yesterday my wife's volt in ~30 degree weather achived 44 miles on her battery, my Leaf? 42. Battery degridation hits really hard.

Was that all the way down to turtle, or VLBW or LBW or ? You're down 3 bars or at least 27%, so sounds about right for that capacity loss in the cold. Sucks!

 

[TomT]

No argument with your first point! However, I believe that the dealer and/or hotline would be an absolute waste of time!

I can't imagine how something like this made it through QA. I wonder if calling the EV hotline or making the dealer look at it would help. It's annoying seeing '13 owners getting full regen down to freezing temps when we're losing significant regen at 65F!

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Sounds like I should skip the P3227 update.

Thanks for the reports.

I can still get 5 bubbles of regen, even in the cold. Don't want to mess with that.

 

[TomT]

If I had it to do over again, I too would skip it...

Sounds like I should skip the P3227 update.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I was so told by an engineer at Nissan... Of course, that doesn't mean that it is an active investigation and/or we will ever see anything come of it...
Perhaps the LAB could bring some pressure to bear here...

Chelsea said she would ask Nissan about it.

 

[johnrhansen]

can't the dealer undo the update and flash the old software back in?

 

[XeonPony]

regen at this temp [-20°C] is dead on normal

Is your LEAF garaged at night? I normally charge to 80%. If the battery temp is below roughly -2°C I lose one regen bubble. At -5.5°C three of four are gone, which is annoying because I can no longer drive with one pedal and have to get used to a different feel of the brake pedal.

My LEAF is kept outside, so a night-time low of -8°C is enough to for the battery to be -2°C and -12°C got it down to -5.5°C. Also, I only have level one, so charging warms the battery less than if I had L2.

If you have an insulated garage, your battery temp might never break zero.

gerage? Whats that? I don't even have a house, I live in a small trailer and the car lives out side with nothing, just the ice cold air (Got to watch out for the pudles of the nitrogen that condenses out there!)

 

[Berlino]

the car lives out side with nothing, just the ice cold air

Interesting.

Judging by the VIN, your car was manufactured only two or three weeks after mine, yet they the vehicles' regen systems react differently to cold.

 

[donald]

Might be worth bearing in mind that an ICE rejects TWICE as much energy into the cooling system as it actually uses pushing the vehicle along. It should come as no surprise at all that energy consumption fully doubles if it is being run to generate as much heat as an ICE can put out.

Less than double your traction energy usage, which is quite possible in practice without getting too cold, and you should count yourself lucky!

Also to note that li tech doesn't like charging under 0 C. Automotive cells have an improved operating range by virtue of their chemistry and engineering, but the range of temps for charging are still limited. However, when it comes to drawing current, li can be safely used up to a much wider range of temps. So you may well find no imposed limitiations to drawing power at a given temp, but that there are for charging (which might include regen function, as that is also charging, of course). Might also, therefore, be worth charging up as soon as you get home, if you live in a real cold place, while the battery is still warm.

In my opinion, EVs should be fitted with (at least offered with) fuel-burning heaters so as to maintain range during winter. Makes no sense to me whatsoever to burn fuel at a power station, converting only a part of its thermal energy to electricity, send it down power lines, then into a charger with various efficiency losses, same again into the battery, and only THEN use what's left to generate heat! Doh! Renault Kangoo ZE in Europe is offered with a diesel heater, I believe, which some might find a bit smelly but is OK for a delivery vehicle.

Probably best option would be a catalytic heater using LPG. Ultimately, if your winter range is 50 miles which could be extended to 80 with $200 worth of heater, then $200 sounds like a much much cheaper way of improving range than adding $5k of extra batteries! If fuel is used for catalytic heating, it's almost 100% efficient, whereas burn it in a power station and it is probably worse than 25% of its calorific energy gets into the EV battery as useable power, so resistive heaters would be less than 25% and heat pumps are probably around the 50% level. .. Just burn it in the EV instead, at 100% efficiency!!!

 

[Den]

It was -6... -2 C yesterday, still no snow, but already with snow tires :/ . Regen was working quite OK (@50-80% SOC). Temperature at garage was +12C when I left at morning (5 temp. bars) then car was whole day outside (temp. bars dropped to 4).

 

[Den]

can't the dealer undo the update and flash the old software back in?

No! They say it will lead to warranty loss.

 

[Pipcecil]

Was that all the way down to turtle, or VLBW or LBW or ? You're down 3 bars or at least 27%, so sounds about right for that capacity loss in the cold. Sucks!

It was down to between LBW and VLBW and the I extrapolated based on the estimated range - I know rely on the GOM, but its usually accurate around the low end anyways. I had gone 37 miles and had 5 left on the range, ahd not hit VLBW yet. You could even argue that was a padded result since the end of the drive is through a neighborhood. But 37 miles plus the 5 miles remaining was the 42. Its probably give or take a mile or so, but at that point its pretty darn close. My wife on the other hand drives about 50 miles to work, so she knows exactly how long her battery goes before it switches.

Sad to see range so low. Hopefully I will get a replacement battery thats new because even 3 bars down is bad. I will hit the upper mile limit (60k) of the warranty early next summer. I will be quite upset if I don't loose that last capacity bar by then. I told myself I would drive my leaf until I can't make a round trip to work without charging. Based upon my original range and what Nissan had said our capacity loss would be, I thought I would last maybe 8 years. It looks like I only lasted 2 1/2 years, since 42 miles cannot get me to work and back again. Unfortunately, I can't sell my car, I would still be upside down.

 

[KJD]

Offically my Leaf has become a Volt without all the fancy backup systems. Yesterday my wife's volt in ~30 degree weather achived 44 miles on her battery, my Leaf? 42. Battery degridation hits really hard. I guess I had forgotten how bad the cold weather hits - I was getting 55-60 in warmer temperatures. The lack of regen doesn't help either. I rarely get over 1 bubble available anymore.

Did you charge to 80% or 100% ?

 

[TomT]

No, there is no process in place for this at the dealer level...

can't the dealer undo the update and flash the old software back in?

 

[Pipcecil]

Did you charge to 80% or 100% ?

I had to give up on 80% a long time ago. That is at 100% charge.

 

[KJD]

Did you charge to 80% or 100% ?

I had to give up on 80% a long time ago. That is at 100% charge.

That is really odd, I have done over 60 miles on a single charge and it was much colder than that.

 

[Klayfish]

My car is still fairly new - '13 SL with about 4300 miles on it. Coldest I've driven it in my normal commute (so that I can eliminate other possible variables) is in about 20 degrees F. I definitely notice a decrease in range. In the summer, I'd return home with about 48-50% charge, based on the car's reading. In that cold, I had 34-36% left...I forget the exact number. My commute is 50 miles round trip, and I start with 100% charge. I noticed it takes longer to get all my regen bubbles too. My average efficiency, as measured by the dash readout has dropped from 4.6 to 4.3...and that's a lifetime average. My winter average seems to be in the upper 3's.

My lease is 2 years at 15k per year, so I'm optomistic that I won't have any issues making my 50 mile round trip before my lease expires as the car will have less than 30k miles at that point.