Losing miles but not losing charging bars

My Leaf used to charge up to 90+ miles at full charge. I'm down to 76 miles at full charge. I'm not losing any bars but it definitely feels like I'm losing range. Of the 76 miles it feels like a solid 10 are ghost miles. It drops to 66 after a few miles. All figures above Eco Mode.

2012 Leaf.

Anybody else have this problem?

Your battery is losing capacity. Look at the little bars next to the larger charging bars on the dash. You had 12 of those when the car was new, and probably have about 10 now. You can count them anytime - they don't change with charging. There are many, many topics on this here. Unfortunately, capacity loss on 2011 through early 2013 Leafs is well known and unavoidable.

I should have clarified. I'm not losing capacity bars or charging bars. I'm at 11 bars and have lost significant mileage without losing capacity bars. I assumed the two would coincide. They don't seem to drop together proportionally.

Bjs210bjs said:

I should have clarified. I'm not losing capacity bars or charging bars. I'm at 11 bars and have lost significant mileage without losing capacity bars. I assumed the two would coincide. They don't seem to drop together proportionally.

Click to expand...

You're losing one or the other, which is it? The longer State of Charge bars (they're on the left) can always go to 12, which indicates that the battery is fully charged to whatever its current capacity is. If they don't you've got a problem you should take to the dealer.

The shorter capacity bars (on the right) show how much current capacity the battery has if it's fully charged, not how full it is (the SoC bars show that). The twelfth capacity bar drops after you've lost about 15% of the original capacity, and the eleventh and subsequent bars drop about every 6.25% of capacity after that.

To summarize, the actions of the State of Charge and Capacity bars are completely independent of each other. The capacity bars tell you how big the 'tank' currently is (with age and other factors it gets 'smaller'), and the State of Charge bars tell you much of its current capacity is filled, regardless of its actual size.
So, when the car's new, you have a 'tank' that held say 12 quarts, but now it only holds 11 quarts (11 capacity bars), but you'll still have 12 State of Charge bars showing anytime the 'tank' is full, zero bars when it's empty and about 6 when it's half full (I'm simplifying a bit).

Another way to think about it is that 11 bars could be 80% of original capacity (15% for the first bar, and then 6.25% for the 2nd bar). So you could show 11 bars but still only have 80% of your original capacity (technically 78.75%-85%).

Since you say you started (when new, I assume) at 90 miles for a full charge, 80% of that would be 72 miles. You're at 76 miles, which is pretty much in line with the calculation above. Even 66 would be close (78.75% would be 70 miles) but the GOM can be off. Sounds like you might drop that second capacity bar soon.

OP, you are mixing and matching the GOM, the SOC meter, and the capacity meter. Salad results
A photo showing you where each one is on the display would probably help ...

Just keep in mind:
The capacity meter is the SIZE of the tank, and it shrinks over time
The SOC meter shows how much of the tank is full
The GOM uses your recent miles/kWh driving experience and the SOC meter and capacity meter to estimate available range
-- miles/kWh is affected by braking, speed, weather, traffic, elevation, tyre pressure ... ... .... ...

Example:
Your recent driving has been at 3 miles a kWh
Your battery capacity is 80% of new, which was 20 kWh
The battery is currently charged up to 70% of capacity

The current range would show
20 * 0*8 * 0.7 * 3, equal to 33.6 miles
You might be inclined to say to yourself: only 33 miles of range at 70% SOC ... pretty bad.
And from one POV it is bad, but 20% of the loss of range is from battery aging. The remainder of the poor range is probably related to driving habits and/or road and weather conditions.