Best battery strategy for low mileage Leaf?

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Ekendahl

Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2017
Messages
24
Location
Somerville, MA
Hello. I'm new to Leaf ownership, in fact I'm not getting my used red 2015 SV for at least another week. I'm trading from a Hyundai Genesis V8. Quite some change (though I also have a 2006 Prius).

I no longer need the Genesis since I'm now working from home instead of a long distance commute.

The Leaf will be our second car though it will see most use. Our main car is a Ford Flex for when we need to bring our 2 kids and 2 German Shepherd at the same time.

Most days the Leaf will be used to drop and pick up the kids so total daily mileage will be around 12-15 miles with longer trips of 60 mile trips planned for 2-3 times per month.

What is the best strategy for keeping the battery healthy long term?

I'm planning of setting charge to 80% and only charge at night but still charge every night.

Would it be better to set threshold lower?

Would it be better to charge only once or twice per week?
 
You can't set a 2015 Leaf for 80% charge, I'm afraid. That ended in 2014. You have to just estimate when it will reach that point, and unplug it then.

The best strategy would probably be to charge to about 70% for the short trips, doing it every other day if that works out ok, and then charge to 100% right before the longer trips, letting the pack equalize but not letting it sit long at 100% indicated charge.
 
Oh! I didn't realize the 2015s stopped the lower charge range option.

So if it always charges full then I will simply let it drain a couple of days then charge it up again.

I appreciate the response.
 
No problem. It would be best if you timed the 100% charges to finish no more than a few hours before you use the car, especially in Summer. You can dedicate one of the charge timers to this. Then just drive it until you think you need to charge again, to keep it from falling much under 20%.
 
I've been thinking about this and I've decided to not baby the battery that much after all. It takes away from the fun and easy of use of owning an electric car!

I was going to charge just when I had hit 20% and then only up to 80%. Instead I will use it as the appliance it is. Plug it in all the time and charge it every night. My hope is that Nissan wasn't lying when they decided to remove the 80% charge option. I also hope that their new lizard battery actually keeps capacity a little longer.

So the car will most days go from 100% charge (well really 90+% of true capacity) to about 80% and then get charged up. Several times per month it will go for longer drives with a charge in the middle of the day.

Seem like a pretty easy electric use overall.
 
The loss of the 80% option was my biggest pet peeve on my 2015. I always tried to out smart the timer and I still lost 7% a year. It would be so much more enjoyable to own an ev that you can plug in every time you park it and never have to worry about leaving it too full. Nissan really dropped the ball on this.
 
Ekendahl said:
Oh! I didn't realize the 2015s stopped the lower charge range option.
It existed thru the 2013 model year for US models and was axed for model year 2014.

http://insideevs.com/2014-nissan-leaf-mostly-unchanged-as-range-technically-moves-up-to-84-miles/

Not sure about the rest of the world, but 2015 Leafs for Ireland apparently still have the charge to 80% choice: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=416013#p416013.
 
Argh.

Nissan truly doesn't offer a great user experience here. It would be great to always plug-in the car but have it only charge when "range is less then <my preferred minimum range> and then only until range is <my preferred maximum range>" (perhaps adding "oh! and have it charged and ready by 7am and make sure the cabin if comfy by 7.30am").
Perhaps even cooler have the car analyze driving patterns and come up with the pattern itself after a couple of weeks and then keep it adjusting - (Car: "I've noticed that you rarely drive the full range of my battery. You can prolong your battery life if you allow me to set my charge level around your predicted range. Do you want me to do that? - You can easily override charge levels by speaking to me through Alexa").

That way I could always leave it plugged in and not have to worry about keeping track of the stupid battery which would make my daily drive more enjoyable.

Instead I will have to really play with a fixed schedule setting provided if I want to maximize battery life (or only plug-in as needed and keep an eye on the charge and stop it once it reached "enough" range which feels like old-school).
I can probably figure out a schedule for my normal rides where I set a short charge window in the morning that would keep the car battery mostly in the 30-60% range which is still more then I need each day. I still run the risk that any fixed schedule would either keep charging the battery a little more each day or that it wouldn't fully charge the battery back so I end up with not enough range. The schedule would also have to change depending on season which I can't control.

I'm not sure that any other EV manufacturer offer a better interface for charging but then again it seems like at least Tesla doesn't suffer range loss to the same extend Leaf does (I might be wrong).

Any way. Rant mode off but it truly seems like there could be some rethinking around how the charge experience was handled
 
You can use a ChargePoint web-connected EVSE and a battery maintainer with a hardwired lead in the car that terminates in the charge port. Not fun or easy, but do-able.
 
Ekendahl said:
Argh.


Any way. Rant mode off but it truly seems like there could be some rethinking around how the charge experience was handled
I am also in your position of wanting to baby the battery, so we do the following:

1. Check the SoC frequently enough when we get home to know when the SoC is 30-40%. If so we connect to the EVSE, which charges the car in the early morning to 80%. End of story.

If I had a newer LEAF that did not have an 80% option, I would use my 6.6 kW EVSE charge rate of 2 minutes for each percent charge and set the timer to run for ~ 90 minutes. This would require some fiddling because the charge rate tapers off as the SoC nears 80% but once figured out it would be automatic.
 
I appreciate the advice. I will do something similar but plan to do L1 charging for now. I'm also not sure how my wife will feel about it. She's exited about going electric but I'm not sure she wants yet another thing to fiddle with. It just feels like something a piece of SW in an already connected car could easily deal with.

Having said all that I must confess I'm super exited about going electric and don't plan to go back. Even if the end goal is a stable consisting of a Tesla X and 3 instead of Ford Flex and Leaf. Just need my company to succeed first...
 
With L-1 it's pretty easy to charge to X %. Just assume 5% charge added per hour (a little more if the pack is down near 11 bars) and after a little very simple arithmetic, you or she can just unplug the car at the closest hour calculated. My housemate is as un-mechanical as they get (learned to drive later in life, too) but she has no trouble timing charges for her Prius PHEV, and could do it for my Leaf, too. I generally just ask her to unplug my car at the correct hour, though.
 
Thank you for the numbers. Our weekday schedule is very fixed. I think I can setup a daily or every other day schedule to charge the car to keep it in the 30-60% range. Perhaps modifying the schedule seasonally. Then we can play it by ear during the weekends.

Robert
 
my friend had a tesla model s and he told me last night that tesla recommends to leave it plugged in whenever possible if you're not driving it. has anyone heard similar? is it true? i was wondering if we could do the same w/ the leaf
 
mnl said:
my friend had a tesla model s and he told me last night that tesla recommends to leave it plugged in whenever possible if you're not driving it. has anyone heard similar? is it true? i was wondering if we could do the same w/ the leaf

I leave mine plugged in all the time, with no issues. I use the timer to charge in the middle of the night. Leaving it plugged in allows me to cool the car before driving using AC power. Apparently, with some Leafs, this is an issue as the car keeps checking to see if AC power is still connected and will run the 12v battery down if the car sits long enough without a charge cycle.
 
Does it even really matter if you keep it at 80%? Plenty of people religiously kept their early Leafs at 80% when charging, and it didn't do them a damn bit of good.
 
eatsleafsandshoots said:
Does it even really matter if you keep it at 80%? Plenty of people religiously kept their early Leafs at 80% when charging, and it didn't do them a damn bit of good.

Because the first version of the chemistry degraded quickly over time as well, unless kept very cool. Newer versions don't degrade very much just from age, so other approaches to preserving them are more likely to work.
 
LeftieBiker said:
eatsleafsandshoots said:
Does it even really matter if you keep it at 80%? Plenty of people religiously kept their early Leafs at 80% when charging, and it didn't do them a damn bit of good.

Because the first version of the chemistry degraded quickly over time as well, unless kept very cool. Newer versions don't degrade very much just from age, so other approaches to preserving them are more likely to work.

You've got data showing less degradation per year on Lizard packs? Most of the posts I've seen on these forums say Lizard/30kWh are degrading plenty fast.
 
mnl said:
my friend had a tesla model s and he told me last night that tesla recommends to leave it plugged in whenever possible if you're not driving it. has anyone heard similar? is it true? i was wondering if we could do the same w/ the leaf
No one at Tesla told me to leave it plugged in. I've not seen any such recommendation in writing. Where did your friend hear this?
 
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