Anyone ever run out of juice?

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vger105

Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2011
Messages
7
My wife came home with barely any juice left in our Leaf, maybe 5% Had she run out and called Nissan Roadside Assistance, what would they have done to help her? Do they carry around a portable quick charger? Has that ever happened to anyone?9
 
I've never ran out but did just get 2 wheels in my garage(where the EVSE was) once when I was trying to run the car very low to do a 0-100% charge. I was able to keep the car on and in neutral and with the help of a neighbor, push the car in the garage to charge it.
My daughter got even closer to total discharge, she only made it 5' short of the garage and the car totally died. Wouldn't even go into neutral to push it the final 15'. As my garage EVSE wouldn't reach I had to resort to the 120v EVSE and an extension cord. After a couple hours on 120v I tried starting the car to get it in the garage and plugged into my L2 EVSE, but it was still too low to go into gear :x I was able to shift into neutral though and with help was able to push it into the garage where it sat for the next 6hrs charging on L2.
I really doubt a tow truck would carry around a L3 EVSE and my experience tells me even a L2 EVSE may require several hours to get the vehicle to move very far, no I'm guessing they'd probably just tow it.
This also kind of shots my original idea of carrying around a 12a 120v portable Honda generator, if the Leaf got that low it would literally take hours and hours to do any sort of charging, no you'd need a 30a 240v model and they weigh hundreds of pounds and would fill up the whole back(and back seats) of a Leaf. Best to just plan your trip as to not run out of power or have several backup plans if your charge starts getting low.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I think that someone posted that it takes two hours of L-1 charging to get a turtled Leaf moving, with about 8 miles of range.
I've turtled my Leaf three times. And yes, 2-3 hours of L1 charging sounds about right.
 
garsh said:
LeftieBiker said:
I think that someone posted that it takes two hours of L-1 charging to get a turtled Leaf moving, with about 8 miles of range.
I've turtled my Leaf three times. And yes, 2-3 hours of L1 charging sounds about right.

+1

I have even rescued my dead Leaf with my second Leaf and it's 2000 watt built on inverter.
 
I never ran out but I did come damn close a few times, particularly in the very early days... I did turtle it once on purpose and coasted downhill and in to my garage!
 
5% left is not all that low. I got to 1 mile left a couple of times, and then later the range estimate disappeared at about 7-9 miles left. I never even got to a turtle mode, despite having about a dozen drives over 100 miles (on a '15 LEAF S 24kWh).
 
I guess I will be the first one to admit that I ran out once in the fall of 2012. The 2011 was down to 10 capacity bars and I knew what the range was under normal conditions, but did not yet have aftermarket instrumentation. The ambient temperature dropped suddenly overnight which also dropped the battery temperature. The dash display indicated the battery was at about 1/2 charge (5 or 6 bars) so the round trip for the errand I wanted to run should have been well within range. My route was on surface streets in stop/go conditions with public charging not readily available. The charge bars dropped suddenly when I started the car for my return trip and I became concerned so I drove as slowly and efficiently as I could without creating traffic issues. VLBW occurred when I was still several miles from home so I suspected I would not make it, but had no choice except to keep going. Turtle happened followed almost immediately by shutdown and I coasted into a school parking lot about 1 mile from home. The car was still under warranty and I believed there was something wrong that caused the significant reduction in range so I called Roadside Assistance.

A towing company driver arrived with a small pickup towing a trailer-mounted generator that had a Level 2 EVSE attached. I thought that was great because there would be no danger of damaging the car from towing. Unfortunately, the generator would not start. The driver said they had received the unit for rescuing EVs in the spring and tested it. He said they had not used it until now and that it was sitting in their lot with an extension cord plugged in to its onboard charger for the starting battery. I did some troubleshooting and discovered the main microprocessor-based control module was dead so there was no way to start or run the generator. I suspect the module was a victim of power surges during the summer lightning storms (long extension cord running across the ground with no shielding). A tow truck was dispatched and my car was towed home. The driver was able to park the car in the driveway close enough for my L2 EVSE cable to reach.

The dealer found no error codes or other issues when I took the car in the next day. Since I was concerned about the sudden change, I offered to work with them if they wanted to install some type of data logger. Unfortunately, it took a while before Nissan could ship a suitable data recorder to the dealer so the weather had warmed and I was traveling on extended assignment. Therefore, we were never able to use the recorder. I now know that high internal resistance of the cold (for Phoenix) deteriorated battery caused the lack of regeneration (and likely contributed to the inaccuracies of the dashboard instrumentation) and reduced range.

This situation was enough to convince me to immediately order a "GID Meter" kit so I would have a bit more information besides what the dash displays.

Roadside Assistance was helpful and had no concerns about towing my car home without any cost to me.

Edited to add: It takes enough charging to get the battery above VLBW before you can get into Ready mode (so probably about 2 hours with 120-volt charging).
 
Evoforce said:
garsh said:
LeftieBiker said:
I think that someone posted that it takes two hours of L-1 charging to get a turtled Leaf moving, with about 8 miles of range.
I've turtled my Leaf three times. And yes, 2-3 hours of L1 charging sounds about right.

+1

I have even rescued my dead Leaf with my second Leaf and it's 2000 watt built on inverter.
Did you use the OEM EVSE to do the charging and if so how did it do using an inverter for the power source? Did you have to bond or use a resistor from neutral to ground?
I wonder how big of an inverter one could use without depleting the 12v battery? I have several EVSEs that would more than double the OEM EVSE speed, even on 120v but not sure how large inverters go or what gauge wires one would need to run such a large inverter....
 
I wonder how big of an inverter one could use without depleting the 12v battery?

The Leaf has to be in Ready mode (yellow-green car icon lit) so the DC-DC converter is supplying the power rather than the little 12 volt battery. The converter can provide 1800 watts, although the more cautious limit it to 1500. I don't believe the grounding issue is much of a problem with L-1 charging, only with L-2. You probably have to ground the inverter to the car, but I'd verify that first.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I wonder how big of an inverter one could use without depleting the 12v battery?

....The converter can provide 1800 watts, although the more cautious limit it to 1500. I don't believe the grounding issue is much of a problem with L-1 charging, only with L-2. You probably have to ground the inverter to the car, but I'd verify that first.
So are you saying the Leaf HV to 12V charger can supply 1800w @ 12v(which would be ~150 amps) or are you saying evforce's 2000w 120v inverter should only output 1800-1500w continuous?
 
The LEAF's DC-DC converter should handle the load of the Nissan L1 charger continuously through an efficient inverter (12 amperes at 120 volts requires a little over120 amperes at 12 volts because there is some loss in the inverter and wiring). There must be a connection between neutral and ground on the output of the inverter (either resistor or solid bond) for the Nissan EVSE to function. Both of my portable generators are inverter type so I know from testing that the EVSE will not charge unless there is a connection between the neutral and ground terminals of the receptacle. It does not require an actual ground connection such as a ground rod to function, but safety could be a concern if left unattended without a suitable ground.
 
Nubo said:
In 6 years I have never run out. "Range anxiety" is an overplayed meme of FUDsters.
I guess when you never venture more than 10 miles from home, what's there to be anxious about.
 
garsh said:
Nubo said:
In 6 years I have never run out. "Range anxiety" is an overplayed meme of FUDsters.
I guess when you never venture more than 10 miles from home, what's there to be anxious about.


FUD thrives on unsubstantiated claims parading as "guesses".
FYI I've taken a 24kWH LEAF on a 1200-mile road trip and I've made unrecharged drives over 100 miles. Reason, facts, and simple maths beat guessing every time.
 
vger105 said:
My wife came home with barely any juice left in our Leaf, maybe 5% Had she run out and called Nissan Roadside Assistance, what would they have done to help her? Do they carry around a portable quick charger? Has that ever happened to anyone?9
I don't know about Nissan, but in Southern California AAA has trucks that can come and give a charge, most are Level 2, but there are a few DC Quick charge trucks. The other alternative is that they can tow you (on a flatbed tow truck of course) to the nearest charging station.
 
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