Power loss at high speeds (momentary), accelerator input stopped working

Had my first weird Leaf experience today while driving down the highway. I have a 2013 with 22K+ miles.

Was about 4 miles into a 12mile highway stint, driving between 90mph and 95mph. Slightly downhill, slightly wet surface, using about half the power to maintain speed. I pulled out of the middle lane to pass a car in the left lane so I put my foot down (all power bubbles) and it went to almost 100mph. Then the car started decelerating as if I let my foot off the go pedal. When I looked down I could see the bubbles slowly reducing down to the net-zero bubbles and then the 4 bubbles lit up for regen braking (was in B mode). I had at this point my foot pedal to the metal for 100% acceleration and it was like I had 0% throttle. I took my foot off, and put it back on, and voila full power, back to 100mph. No further issues.

This is the first and only anomaly I've seen so far. Curious if anyone had experienced it before.

When I saw it dropping in speed my first thoughts were overheated battery or traction control. Battery was at 4 temperature bars, ambient temperatures were mild around 50F. No traction control lights on or flashing.

Your Leaf is electronically limited to about 94MPH. I assume the limiter kicked in a bit late. Your common sense was apparently not engaged at all.

LeftieBiker said:

Your Leaf is electronically limited to about 94MPH. I assume the limiter kicked in a bit late. Your common sense was apparently not engaged at all.

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I've had the leaf at triple digit speeds many times. I guess I was just going more down-hill...

No idea what you mean about common sense. Speed limits here are set to 75mph, traffic nominally flows between 80mph and 90mph. Like I said I was in the middle lane with people passing me on the left, and then I moved left to pass a vehicle. I realize if you live somewhere where the speed limit is 55mph, you rarely get to those speeds. But this is super common here.

I've also had track and road race experience in half-million dollar cars going in excess of 180mph in full control.

Doing 90+MPH in a Leaf on a wet road, in traffic, isn't a good idea. Multiple people doing it doesn't somehow change the physics of the situation. Your reality may vary. Feel free to do that on a track. I've gone very fast on public roads as well, although usually on empty roads. I survived, but don't consider that to be justification.

When there is a near white out blizzard, the speed drops to about 65mph. We know how to drive around here. 75mph is SLOW here and will get you rear ended. The only vehicles going that slowly are tractor trailers and they are usually cruise controlled to 82mph.

A little wet on the road, or even a couple inches of slush doesn't even register.

I guess the answer is that a combination of the speed limiter along with a max power request shut it down.

You guys just made my night. I can't stop laughing. Please switch to another vehicle when you feel the need to exceed 95 mph. Oh, and remind me where you are so I can stay the 'ell away from there

I am surprised that you can get that much speed out of it. Both 2015 and 2011 will (would) easily get up to the governed speed even going up hill. The electronics would not let the 2011 exceed 94 mi/hr on the speedometer (93 according to GPS). The 2015 will get to 94 according to GPS with speedometer indicating either 94 or 95. LEAF is quiet and stable at governed speed and power draw is moderate--it just won't accelerate any more.

2k1Toaster said:

Had my first weird Leaf experience today while driving down the highway. I have a 2013 with 22K+ miles.

Was about 4 miles into a 12mile highway stint, driving between 90mph and 95mph. Slightly downhill, slightly wet surface, using about half the power to maintain speed. I pulled out of the middle lane to pass a car in the left lane so I put my foot down (all power bubbles) and it went to almost 100mph.

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Umm, your dad wouldn't be former Vice President Al Gore, would he?

2k1Toaster said:

LeftieBiker said:

Your Leaf is electronically limited to about 94MPH. I assume the limiter kicked in a bit late. Your common sense was apparently not engaged at all.

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I've had the leaf at triple digit speeds many times. I guess I was just going more down-hill...

No idea what you mean about common sense. Speed limits here are set to 75mph, traffic nominally flows between 80mph and 90mph. Like I said I was in the middle lane with people passing me on the left, and then I moved left to pass a vehicle. I realize if you live somewhere where the speed limit is 55mph, you rarely get to those speeds. But this is super common here.

I've also had track and road race experience in half-million dollar cars going in excess of 180mph in full control.

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and

2k1Toaster said:

When there is a near white out blizzard, the speed drops to about 65mph. We know how to drive around here. 75mph is SLOW here and will get you rear ended. The only vehicles going that slowly are tractor trailers and they are usually cruise controlled to 82mph.

A little wet on the road, or even a couple inches of slush doesn't even register.

I guess the answer is that a combination of the speed limiter along with a max power request shut it down.

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OK, interesting it was on a track or in a road race. On a public road, in "near white out blizzard" 2k1Toaster is willing to "drop" the speed to 65 mph. How polite!! But yes, I'm sure he's a better driver than Dale Earnhardt Sr. or Jr. and most of the other drivers on the NASCAR or Indy circuit, so people don't need to worry. Now, the one who should be worried is the crazy insurance company that wrote the policy for him.

In the last couple of months, there have been two fatal accidents, one where a lady who must have been going about 100mph rolled her SUV several times, crossed the median, was ejected, and subsequently run over by a driver headed in the opposite direction. How she didn't kill anybody else is truly a miracle. http://www.dailyridge.com/en/2017/02/01/polk-county-sheriffs-office-working-fatal-crash-on-98/
"Excessive speed and reckless driving on the part of Ms. Robinson appear to be factors in this crash." Who would have thought.

The other was the usual crash with a fatality, but I hope people will note the sarcasm. In a third crash, somebody ran off the road, over a walking trail, through a fence, all without wrapping the car around a tree or killing a bicycle rider or walker!!

Here is a memorable one too: http://jalopnik.com/5981770/police-say-deadly-nissan-gt-rlamborghini-crash-was-not-racing-related, where the fatal crash was not "racing related." And from the local paper: http://www.theledger.com/article/LK/20130204/News/608072028/LL/ "Officials Unsure on Fatal Crash Cause" It just happened purely by chance that about a dozen of the fastest cars on earth, I'm sure many in the $500K+ range, gathered on a deserted stretch of pristine, newly paved road near the ongoing construction for Florida Polytech University, I always loved the quote from the guy who survived, "We were cruising and I saw the green Lamborghini coming from the opposite lane,” Phan said. “In the blink of an eye, we crashed — that’s how fast it was.” Ummm, but it wasn't "racing related," but the police did "suspect that excess speed may have been involved." :shock: (bold added) Phan said no one was racing, and that he and Chan were going about 50 mph, but he wasn’t sure just how fast the Lamborghini was going. “Fast, that’s all I can say.“

And finally, if that isn't enough, there's always the story of the M5 crash at an Ocala airport, complete with months of ominous comments from the teenage driver at other places on the BMW forum: http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e6...n/111545-airstrip-crash-florida-5-killed.html I checked a year or so ago and the lawsuits were still going on about it.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the two college girls, coming home late at night, cruising along fine on the interstate, maybe even at "the speed of traffic", at about 90 mph. BUT, one of the tires blew out, the car went out of control, smashed into a tree and killed both of them. Once again, lawsuits everywhere, the girls were best friends but afterwards the parents of the passenger were suing the parents of the driver, it was so traumatic that the mom of the driver essentially gave up on life, stopped eating, and eventually died.

So, if the lives 21kToaster may save by slowing down don't matter, maybe he'll remember, while that lady just about got to the "Smith Lane" sign before everybody else, I'm left driving past the massive memorial from her heartbroken family every day.

My i-MiEV was limited to around 82MPH, which the manual stated was to limit RPMs for the motor. I thought the same thing was for the LEAF's 93MPH speed limiter. It might be a safety issue not going that fast, not for the speed of the vehicle, but the RPMs of the motor. :shock:

2k1Toaster said:

When there is a near white out blizzard, the speed drops to about 65mph. We know how to drive around here. 75mph is SLOW here and will get you rear ended. The only vehicles going that slowly are tractor trailers and they are usually cruise controlled to 82mph.

A little wet on the road, or even a couple inches of slush doesn't even register.

I guess the answer is that a combination of the speed limiter along with a max power request shut it down.

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I hope the odds don't catch up to you and I hope I never drive when you or the "others" are on the road. FYI , speed limits are for dry clear conditions.

aarond12 said:

My i-MiEV was limited to around 82MPH, which the manual stated was to limit RPMs for the motor. I thought the same thing was for the LEAF's 93MPH speed limiter. It might be a safety issue not going that fast, not for the speed of the vehicle, but the RPMs of the motor. :shock:

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This is what I'm curious about. Apparently the NISMO Leaf in Japan and the Leaf RC racecar they made use the same motor but have a top speed well over 100mph. I am wondering if it is simply gearing or if the motor is capable of more RPM.

EVDRIVER said:

I hope the odds don't catch up to you and I hope I never drive when you or the "others" are on the road. FYI , speed limits are for dry clear conditions.

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Actually, speed limits in the US are federally mandated so that any vehicle that is approved to be sold and driven within the US can navigate that roadway at the posted speed safely, day or night and in moderate weather conditions. Basically the lowest common denominator. Speed limits are set for 1970's 18-wheelers not for 21st century cars. Contrast that with other countries where it's almost the opposite; like in the UK where the national speed limit is 70mph and trucks are limited to 55mph. On a road here in the US with a 30mph speedlimit, in the UK that same road is 70mph maximum and up to the driver's discretion to choose the speed they feel comfortable driving at.

LeftieBiker said:

Your Leaf is electronically limited to about 94MPH. I assume the limiter kicked in a bit late. Your common sense was apparently not engaged at all.

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Yes, I agree that the OP did not have common sense engaged when he drove AND when he wrote this topic. His matter of fact question of "why don't the Leaf like to go more than 95?" Is actually rather funny, especially when he later defends the normality of this actions..... Your mileage may vary at 100MPH...

Just don't buy a used Leaf from this guy...

Wow, no idea how clueless you guys can be. Different parts of the country and world have different driving styles. Like I said, the legal speed limit as posted on signs is 75mph. On two lane mountain roads with cliffs, no guardrail, and no center divide, the speed limit is still in the 65mph to 70mph range. Just like when you are in LA and the speed limit is 55mph and everyone goes 80mph, here. Speed limit is 75mph and everyone uses that as the lower limit and usually up to 25mph more than that.

Read this carefully... I was in the right lanes, the drive slowly lanes. I was with many many other vehicles. People were passing me in the left lane frequently. I came up to a vehicle that I needed to pass, so I moved left to pass and back over. This was not being dangerous and weaving in and out of traffic. It was absolutely normal traffic flow for the area.

Speed deltas are what cause accidents.

As to the racing, yes I have driven on the track and on a closed road course. I've driven and maintain speeds where your eyes can't physically process the sensory inputs in your peripheral and it looks like Star Trek before they go to warp speed with the periphery blending together and getting tunnel vision. I've driven ice courses and rallied on frozen lakes as well as dusty corn fields. I even took classes for recovery where you forcibly spin out and correct, or driving on skid planes before I even got my license. But none of that matters because even the little grandma who can barely see over the wheel, is going in excess of 80mph.

Usually when I go fast, is to pass. And in the Leaf, until now it has been on steeper sections of road where I could increase the speed without flooring it. I think it only cuts you off if you have it floored and it goes past the governor. In the Prius, it will get up to past 110mph and then just throttle back so it never accelerates more. Different feel.

2k1Toaster said:

We know how to drive around here. 75mph is SLOW here and will get you rear ended.

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This cracked me up. You know how to drive fast out there. If you really knew how to drive, you wouldn't be rear-ending cars going the speed limit.

GetOffYourGas said:

2k1Toaster said:

We know how to drive around here. 75mph is SLOW here and will get you rear ended.

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This cracked me up. You know how to drive fast out there. If you really knew how to drive, you wouldn't be rear-ending cars going the speed limit.

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At the very least, breaking down the stereotype that electrics are slow...

Humans like to think of ourselves as rational, but we are mostly a mass of instincts and emotional responses. People who drive faster than a typical vehicle's maximum ability to protect them from dying in a multi-vehicle crash (roughly 65MPH) have developed a "group think" that rationalizes their preference for speed over safety. ("It isn't speed that kills people, it's differences in speed!") Because this kind of meme usually propagates among people with more aggressive social characteristics, it usually dominates in situations like freeway driving. IOW, people who just want to get there safely don't loudly argue for their goal the way that people who want to go as fast as they can usually do. They usually get out of the way and let the speeders dominate the roads. Law enforcement people tend to have views closer to those of the speeders than to the non-speeders, so they don't aggressively enforce speed limits. Until speeders get publicly shamed enough to make their little "sport" very unpopular, the situation will remain.

I'm one of the non-speeders who resists by driving in the right lane, no more than 5MPH over the limit (usually at the limit), to try to form a "seed" for a slower-moving group of vehicles that offers an alternative to to the insanity. It often, but not always, works. However, I wouldn't want to live in regions where people actually think that driving at 80+MPH on curving roads is anything but crazy.

LeftieBiker said:

Humans like to think of ourselves as rational, but we are mostly a mass of instincts and emotional responses. People who drive faster than a typical vehicle's maximum ability to protect them from dying in a multi-vehicle crash (roughly 65MPH) have developed a "group think" that rationalizes their preference for speed over safety. ("It isn't speed that kills people, it's differences in speed!") Because this kind of meme usually propagates among people with more aggressive social characteristics, it usually dominates in situations like freeway driving. IOW, people who just want to get there safely don't loudly argue for their goal the way that people who want to go as fast as they can usually do. They usually get out of the way and let the speeders dominate the roads. Law enforcement people tend to have views closer to those of the speeders than to the non-speeders, so they don't aggressively enforce speed limits. Until speeders get publicly shamed enough to make their little "sport" very unpopular, the situation will remain.

I'm one of the non-speeders who resists by driving in the right lane, no more than 5MPH over the limit (usually at the limit), to try to form a "seed" for a slower-moving group of vehicles that offers an alternative to to the insanity. It often, but not always, works. However, I wouldn't want to live in regions where people actually think that driving at 80+MPH on curving roads is anything but crazy.

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As you say, you drive speed plus 5mph. Around here even you would be going 80mph. Let that sink in. You as a slow-poke non-speeder is 80mph.

Driving 80mph in upstate NY is very different than driving 80mph in Colorado or even driving 40mph in St. Lucia. Ever done that? I have. It's like a deathwish, 40mph is way too fast for those roads. But I bet if you did that on the highway in NY, you'd be going way too slowly for the terrain and area.

Just because you don't live in a place where it is normal, doesn't make it abnormal. Driving is extremely local and there are always local implementations of national laws. Around here, if you are doing the speed limit in the left lane and there are 5 cars behind you that's a ticket for impeding traffic flow. Driving on a single lane road going the speed limit? Going 10mph over the speed limit? Doesn't matter, that's a ticket for impeding traffic. You are required by law to move over and let them pass. This is not true in most other places. In NY if you wish to drive 45mph on a 65mph road and cause a 10 mile backup, you are free to do so and it is legal. In Colorado, you would be pulled over and ticketed by the police.

Not only do I have lots of driving experience and skill, I drive all over the place. Almost every week I am in a different geographic location, some all over the world and I am driving. I have driven all over the USA, Canada, Mexico, Panama, St. Lucia, St. Thomas, etc. And that's just North America area. Driven on the left side of the road, right side of the road, driven on the right side of the road with a left hand drive vehicle in some countries. Been in India where most Americans would just pass out and die from terror. In India, the sidewalk is considered a valid lane, so you better lookout. Roads are obstructed by people, cows, and whatever else. Everything is localized. If you don't travel much and see the world as only your little spot, then you won't ever understand. Colorado has high speed driving. That does not inherently make it unsafe. It makes it fast.

Something that is inherantly unsafe? How about a 4 lane highway intersecting another 4 lane highway at a level crossing with a roughly 65mph speed limit... Oh, and there are no traffic signals... Of any kind. No ramps, no stop lights, no stop signs. Just 8 lanes of traffic entering an intersection at highway speeds and leaving 8 lanes of traffic at highway speeds. Yeah, that's how Panama works. Terrifying if you are not a local driving in a little rental vehicle. But completely normal to them.

When you don't need to invent strawman arguments like driving 65MPH in the left lane to try to "win" an argument, then you'll have a little more credibility. Until then I'll just note that the laws of physics don't change by state. Long straight highways can support 80MPH travel - until someone runs into a stalled vehicle, or loses control on a wet road. You confuse what is typical with what is safe.

LeftieBiker said:

When you don't need to invent strawman arguments

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Love it!

LeftieBiker said:

Humans like to think of ourselves as rational, but we are mostly a mass of instincts and emotional responses.

Because this kind of meme usually propagates among people with more aggressive social characteristics

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However, I wouldn't want to live in regions where people actually think that driving at 80+MPH on curving roads is anything but crazy.

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It can be lots of things other than crazy. For instance it can be a damn good time! :twisted:

It can be lots of things other than crazy. For instance it can be a damn good time! :twisted:

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Yes, and I've done it. Driving like that in traffic, though, is forcing other people to risk their lives for your amusement.