Winter is hard on range!

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johnrhansen

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 12, 2013
Messages
1,100
Location
Seattle, WA
I'm sure I'm re posting the obvious, but here it goes anyway. Now that is is getting really cold here in Seattle, I can't stand not to have the heat on anymore. It is very expensive! My economy went down from 4.8 miles per KWH to 3.9. I'm charging my car every night now. I'd estimate I only have about 50 miles of usable range per 80 percent charge. It was 75 earlier this year. I think if I had to make my long commute to Everett in this weather, I would have to leave the leaf at home and take my ICE truck. I'd better get busy building my range extender! I'm not trying to troubleshoot anything. I think it's just the way it is. I tried doing the 100 percent charge to balance the battery, but it's still acting the same.
 
I'm in NY and although weather has been in the 40's this winter so far I feel your pain. When it gets to the 20's here I want to use my heater too but have to decide between making it sometimes or turning on the heater to feeling nice n warm and risk possibly not making it. What i've noticed is that when cold below 40f the regen is virtually gone :x , regen in city driving can make a big difference specially in nyc stop n go traffic. I hope nissan stops using that delicate lithium manganese chemistry that can't take high current regen when cold. I'm not sure by how much but from what I've read lithium Iron phosphate used in the spark ev can handle it.
 
I have yet to see battery temps below 4 bars, as I park in a garage. I haven't experienced any loss of regen. Maybe my battery isn't getting quite as cold as yours has.
 
I've seen a drop from ~5.2mkwh summer commutes to ~3.1 for the last couple of days. Any the winter cold plus snow resistance hasn't shown up yet.
 
I'm noticing that cold is definitely hard on range...

Question to the group... If one of the effects of a DC Quick Charge is to heat up the battery... would it make sense to take a car to a DC QC every morning on cold mornings when you need the range and do your charging there...

Would we save enough range because we didn't need the battery heaters?
How long would the pack stay warm from the DC QC...

One of the design dilemmas I'm sure... making the pack dissipate heat in Tucson AZ... and retain enough heat in Vancouver B.C. to keep most of its range.
 
johnrhansen said:
I have yet to see battery temps below 4 bars, as I park in a garage. I haven't experienced any loss of regen. Maybe my battery isn't getting quite as cold as yours has.
I'm also getting reduced regen at battery temperatures less than 12ºC. Down one bubble at slow speeds and down two bubbles at highway speeds. It is due to the P3227 software update. Perhaps elmobob has also had the update? The regen in cool weather problem doesn't seem to affect the 2013 models. As I've suggested in another thread, the lack of regen might just have been a software flub by Nissan.

Whatever the cause it is 1) very real and 2) quite annoying, given the lack of regen 2011/2012 models had to begin with.

At cold temperatures, below ~10ºF, regen was pretty much gone before the software update. I would guess that the threshold temperature for little to no regen is higher now, but I haven't had the chance to test it yet.
 
Funny, I was considering making a similar post here this morning. We're getting the same cold snap down here as you are up there (it got down to 25 last night which is quite cold for this area.) I do a 52 mile round trip drive every week on Wednesday evenings. Always charge it up to 100% beforehand. I usually get back with about 20% left, but last night the same trip drained the battery all the way down to 9%. It is a hilly drive mostly on 55mph roads.

Not sure if it's the cabin heat (I usually just leave it on and set to 70) or a cold battery, or both. Leaf Spy says the battery temps are in the mid 50s which are the lowest I've seen since I got the car.
 
To the original Poster: which model/year have you got? My SV's heatpump is keeping the car nice and warm, and by switching to mostly Eco mode and driving a little slower, I've only dropped from 4.4 to 4.3 MPK - with snow tires. That's driving in temps ranging from mid twenties (F) to about 50.
 
LeftieBiker said:
To the original Poster: which model/year have you got? My SV's heatpump is keeping the car nice and warn
Yes, for both johnrhansen and ObjetDart, we need to know which model you have. Please put that in your profile -> signature. Based on Leaf Number you both have 2013's but the heater in the S model is very different from, and much less efficient than, the heater in the SV and SL.

Ray
 
planet4ever said:
LeftieBiker said:
To the original Poster: which model/year have you got? My SV's heatpump is keeping the car nice and warn
Yes, for both johnrhansen and ObjetDart, we need to know which model you have. Please put that in your profile -> signature. Based on Leaf Number you both have 2013's but the heater in the S model is very different from, and much less efficient than, the heater in the SV and SL.

Ray
Done. Sorry I thought you guys had some way to magically figure that stuff out from my Leaf #!
 
I fixed my signature too. Just a footnote here. On the way home from work tonight I froze and left the heat off in the interest of science. It only brought my miles per kwh up to 4.1. I guess most of the drag comes from cold battery, stiff tires, etc.
 
Yep, winter range sucks (if you live in an area that gets cold), but after months of hoping for 3.9 miles/kWh we'll all rejoice in the spring when miles/kWh goes into the 5s and the range blooms :D
 
-30C I managed 65K =_3K with 20% to spare, and after 9H charging it was barely to 83% on the return trip same distance and speed I got home at 7% remaining and this is with no real heat in the car (I used a blanket dressed in full winter gear) my apple froze solid durring the drive!

Average speed was 80 till near the end I was crawling at 75 and down to make it home.

much after -10C the heat pump is playing a marginal role, -20 it is doing nothing at -30 itmay well not even be on the car!
 
Still no winter here, but from last one...

Range from "full" to "turtle" at about -10C outside with heater ON in ECO-mode: 114km (on snow tyres: Nokian Hakkapelitta)

Regen is "lazy" when it is under -10C only for first kilometers (1-2km) then it returns.
But I have "winter package" and din't have software update last winter (lets see how it will be now, but still quite OK with temps about 0-5C). Also I have garage now (didn't have it last winter) where I store my car at night with temp. +14C, so basically I'm still with 5 temp bars (sometimes dropping to 4).

Today evening I have time reserved for tires rotating to snow ones (Nokian Hakkapelitta) even it is still no snow at all, but by law we need to do it untill 1st of December. So will have some time to try snow tires without snow :) (Last winter it was snowing whole winter from first day to the last one).
 
with temperature dropping overnight into the 40-50s, i had a dramatic change in the number of bars that were needed to do my commute.
in addition to affecting regen, does the battery have less capacity in the cold?

i did not use the heat, as the car had greenhoused the early AM sun and i put on some warmies.
 
thankyouOB said:
with temperature dropping overnight into the 40-50s, i had a dramatic change in the number of bars that were needed to do my commute.
in addition to affecting regen, does the battery have less capacity in the cold?...
Yes, Tony estimates the battery capacity in his range chart as "Add 1% to range for each 8ºF/4ºC above 70ºF/20ºC, Subtract 1% to range for each 4ºF/2ºC below 70ºF/20ºC".

However, in my experience battery temperature can be quite different from ambient temperature when the car is being charged or driven; both will raise the battery temperature noticeably. And a battery warm from being driven will not get anywhere near to ambient temperature overnight IME. So, just assuming that the battery temperature is the same as ambient temperature is not valid.

Battery temperature and reduced capacity for a "100%" charge aside, the other factors that affect cold weather range are increased air density (drag), increased friction from cold tires and drive train (gear and bearing lube) and, perhaps, a bit of loss from reduced regen in very cold weather in stop-and-go traffic and long hill descents.

The colder it gets, the more these factors will decrease range, irrespective of road surface conditions or heater use.
 
jsongster said:
Question to the group... If one of the effects of a DC Quick Charge is to heat up the battery... would it make sense to take a car to a DC QC every morning on cold mornings when you need the range and do your charging there...
This seems like a great question to me, but probably one that creates many more questions in turn.

One thing to keep in mind is that as the charge nears completion - the last 20% or so in my understanding - the battery resistance greatly increases, and therefore the rise in battery temperature would presumably be somewhat proportional. So most of the heat gain - or a disproportional amount of it - would occur toward the end of the charge session.

I don't know if any of the more technically ambitious and investigative members of this forum have done empirical testing, but I'd like to see some measurements of this phenomenon reflecting battery SOC during QC and concurrent temperature rise. Perhaps there's a thread here with such data, but I'm too lazy to search for it. Anyone?
 
DNAinaGoodWay said:
Was just reading my manual, preparing for my first ever QC, and one thing it mentioned was that a QC will take longer when the pack is cold, up to 90 minutes!

That's true!
 
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