Battery melt down?

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cfl

Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2011
Messages
10
Yesterday, while waiting at a red light, all warning lights came on (low battery, turtle mode, red and orange !), I couldn't drive anymore, nor turn the leaf on or off (emergency shutdown, as in pushing the power switch for 2 sec or three times had no effect). After about 15 sec it finally turned off, and after turning it on a few times it worked again like normal (4 battery bars, all green). Same problem again a bit later, except that it recovered faster. According to the dealer the voltage on the battery suddenly dropped very low (he claimed it might be because of the temperature outside (100 Farenheit) and because the battery was too low (at 4 bars....). Still waiting for a call back from Nissan Japan. It also looks like the car now only charges to 11 bars according to the emails I get from Car wings, so my guess is that at least one battery module has problems (the high temperature and low charge of the battery does not make sense to me). The car has about 4500 miles, this is the first time there is anything wrong.

Anyone else had a similar problem?

Thanks, Claudio
 
cfl said:
I couldn't drive anymore, nor turn the leaf on or off (emergency shutdown, as in pushing the power switch for 2 sec or three times had no effect). .... the temperature outside (100 Farenheit) and because the battery was too low (at 4 bars....)

Not good. Please keep us updated what they find with the battery. What part of the world are you in, Phoenix or Texas? Have you been charging to 100% in that heat?

The battery at 4 bars is a red herring. The temperature of a battery pack that doesn't have any cooling... maybe GM will eventually have the last laugh here.
 
cfl said:
(he claimed it might be because of the temperature outside (100 Farenheit) and because the battery was too low (at 4 bars....).

100F is a cool day here in PHX. I typically get home with 1 or 2 bars left and have driven many days above 115F. Never encountered anything like what you described.
 
Sorry to hear that.
Your assumption could be right; if a module suddenly failed, the system may have decided to go into emergency mode. I hope you get it fixed soon.

Certainly, when the Smyrna, TN plant is operational, the battery modules diagnostics and replacement could happen a lot faster. That can only be good.
 
this is San Jose, CA (we had a three day heat wave where we got temperatures in the high 90, almost unbearable :).
Battery temperature was 6 bars (its always either 5 or 6, I have never seen it higher or lower), and some guy at the dealer ship claimed that the battery was cooled.... (fortunately this was not the local Leaf expert).
 
cfl said:
this is San Jose, CA (we had a three day heat wave where we got temperatures in the high 90, almost unbearable :).
Battery temperature was 6 bars (its always either 5 or 6, I have never seen it higher or lower), and some guy at the dealer ship claimed that the battery was cooled.... (fortunately this was not the local Leaf expert).

The switch point for 5 to 6 bars is about 25C/75 degrees F, if I recall correctly.

From Service Manual, April 2011, page EVB-140:

Code:
Battery temperature    Terminals   C (F)   Resistance (Ohms)
sensor

Rear RH & Front RH      1 and 2   -20  (-4)   Approx. 27.5
Rear center & Front LH  3 and 4   -10  (14)   Approx. 18.0
                                    0  (32)   Approx. 12.0
                                   10  (50)   Approx. 7.4
                                   25  (77)   Approx. 4.0
                                   40 (104)   Approx. 2.3
                           Limit   55 (131)
 
this what you may consider hot but it was reported that Leaf was doing very good in such temp
scaled.php
 
It is imaginable, that somehow, somewhere in the world, at some time, a battery cell will go bad. You may be the first to see this. If so, the good news is, they find it, they replace it, and you're back on the road. Which is quite a bit better than some sensor with a loose connection driving you and the mechanics crazy for the next two or three years.

The drawback is that it is such a rare event that they will probably fly engineers in from Japan just to see it, and you'll be like, "Stop playing with it! I just want my LEAF back!"

The revealing thing about the temperature gauge is that if you look at the bars vs temperature chart, you can see that they don't allocate many bars to the normal expected temperatures. So you have to push the temperature way up (or down) into the "area of concern" before you see any significant change in the number of bars.
 
Sounds like a software glitch. If it was the battery, it would have gone straight into shutdown mode to protect itself. We have seen shutdowns for minor AC problems that had nothing to do with the battery much less something as major as a failed cell. But if not, you would be the very first to have a battery failure and warranty repair. Keep us updated.

IMHO, if it was a battery problem you would also see a mob of just off the plane Japanese techs impounding your car. When I was at Acura (Parts Dept) and the Legend was brand new, we had a customer with a car fire in the main wiring harness. Japanese Honda techs dropped in like a scene from Minority Report. They roped off two full bays of the Service department and took that car apart. The harness was separated into every single wire, every wire and connection was tagged in Japanese and photographed. I guess they got the data they needed because then they just left without putting the car back together. :shock: The customer got a new legend from Sales.

If a LEAF driver has a story like this Acura driver then you will know something is up.
 
cfl said:
battery suddenly dropped very low (he claimed it might be because of the temperature outside (100 Farenheit) and because the battery was too low (at 4 bars....). Still waiting for a call back

Central Texas, just finished up a summer with 84 days above 100 deg. Many days above 105. Leaf was driven most days 60-90 miles to near the bottom of the pack; we NEVER get home with two bars. Car has performed flawlessly.
 
can someone post the full battery temp to gauge chart that shows at what point the temp segments are illuminated?

seen it before but cant find it
 
mckemie said:
cfl said:
battery suddenly dropped very low (he claimed it might be because of the temperature outside (100 Farenheit) and because the battery was too low (at 4 bars....). Still waiting for a call back

Central Texas, just finished up a summer with 84 days above 100 deg. Many days above 105. Leaf was driven most days 60-90 miles to near the bottom of the pack; we NEVER get home with two bars. Car has performed flawlessly.

Same hear in Austin, no issues with battery due to external (or internal) heat. Never paid very close attention to battery temp, other than a quick glance that showed it was well within operating range.

While I am not a perpetual lead foot, I like to have fun with the spunky acceleration, and like it nice and cool inside (range be damned). My current display show 3.9 MPKW. I usually charge to 80% with a rare 100% charge when I anticipate a busy day. I have only gone into the red bars a couple of times, but have been down to 4 bars on many occasions.

A few of the recent Austin summer days were into the 110's which is NOT normal for central Texas (yet?).
 
cfl said:
According to the dealer the voltage on the battery suddenly dropped very low (he claimed it might be because of the temperature outside (100 Farenheit) and because the battery was too low (at 4 bars....).


LOL- Dealers are so funny with their theories. Low voltage at 4 bars, classic :roll:
 
EVDRIVER said:
cfl said:
According to the dealer the voltage on the battery suddenly dropped very low (he claimed it might be because of the temperature outside (100 Farenheit) and because the battery was too low (at 4 bars....).


LOL- Dealers are so funny with their theories. Low voltage at 4 bars, classic :roll:

I hope the guy at that dealer who made that statement wasn't the "Leaf Specialist". :( :( :( :( :( :(
 
Sounds like the Battery Pack voltage sensor could be flakey.

With our SOC-Meter (ver F1.08), you could have seen (what we believe is)
the LEAF's internal (EV-CAN bus) Battery Pack Voltage.
 
This may be the first real Leaf battery incident in the US.. document everything and please dont tell us you have a Blink EVSE!

If they condemn the car try to snag a battery module as a souvenir of your first Leaf. We can test it :)
 
Update: some engineers with an Asian accent interviewed me yesterday by phone for about 10 min to get more details of what happened, looked at the Leaf and drove around for about 50% charge, but could not reproduce the problem and they are not sure what is going on. So for now they put a data recorder in the car (see image) and want me do drive around for a week with the recorder to see if it happens again

leafrecorder.jpg
 
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