Poll : Number of miles before losing the first bar

[cwerdna]

Just lost my first bar today.

Leafspy Stats:
AHr 56.34
SOH: 86%
GIDs 245
Hx: 84.04%
odo: 44,698 mi
QC: 29
L1/L2: 1,129

What year of car and build month?

[annabel398]

Leaf SV plus QC package

Mfr: Dec 2013
First in-service: Apr 2014
Miles when first bar dropped: 30,310 +/- 10

I bought the car used, and feel pretty happy about making it past 30K with 12 bars. I usually trickle charge to 80% on weekdays, 100% on weekends (when I do longer drives). Rarely do a QC, since the only one close to me is frequently down. The Leaf is my "city car"--mostly used for commutes of less than 10 miles.

I took the survey at http://survey.pluginamerica.org/leaf/survey.php.

[jamesh]

I recently lost my first bar at 28, 301 miles on the odometer (2013 SV). Most of the time, I charge each night to 100% and probably a quick charged up to 15 times over the last two years. Emotions were a bit mixed, but I still have no issue with my 42 mile round trip commute, but it does limit any side trips or extra excursions. I will likely no longer take the leaf to the Bay Area (from Sierra Foothills) as I use to be stop half way to charge, but now I am not so sure it will make the entire trip. We still love the car (so much better than our 2002 CRV), yet will look forward to catching a Bolt off a 2 year lease for our next ev.

[cwerdna]

I recently lost my first bar at 28, 301 miles on the odometer (2013 SV). Most of the time, I charge each night to 100% and probably a quick charged up to 15 times over the last two years.

What was its build month? It's on a driver's side door sticker.

[taloyd]

Just saw this morning that I lost my first bar at 59,860 miles.

The way I maintained battery health is by:

Nearly never charging to 100%. I set the car to charge to 80% when I get home, then charge for a further half hour in the morning before I leave for work, so there's minimal time spent at the more-charged state.

I nearly never quick charge/DCQC/CHAdeMO - and when I do, it's at most to 80%, and usually to 50 or 60 or whatever I need to get home.

After a few more bars I'll drop my manual-override-charge-timer-scheme and just begin charging to 100% like a normal human being. Hopefully that's not anytime soon though.

Cheers,
Tal

[arnis]

Just saw this morning that I lost my first bar at 59,860 miles.

The way I maintained battery health is by:

Nearly never charging to 100%. I set the car to charge to 80% when I get home, then charge for a further half hour in the morning before I leave for work, so there's minimal time spent at the more-charged state.

I nearly never quick charge/DCQC/CHAdeMO - and when I do, it's at most to 80%, and usually to 50 or 60 or whatever I need to get home.

After a few more bars I'll drop my manual-override-charge-timer-scheme and just begin charging to 100% like a normal human being. Hopefully that's not anytime soon though.

Cheers,
Tal

All good. You should not be afraid to DC charge - it does almost nothing bad, especially up to 20 minutes per day (heat buildup).

You should start charging more than 80% as soon as you start hitting Low Battery Warning often. VeryLBW should be avoided.
It's better to keep pack 100% charged for few hours than discharging down to dashes (this deep discharge heats pack a LOT).

[drees]

this deep discharge heats pack a LOT.

What's your definition of a LOT? Certainly not much compared to QC. And as long as you drive gently, you can avoid any significant heating.

[arnis]

this deep discharge heats pack a LOT.

What's your definition of a LOT? Certainly not much compared to QC. And as long as you drive gently, you can avoid any significant heating.

If it is 10C out, you drive from 100% down to 25% pack will heat (normal driving style) to about 18C.
You can do a 100% charge on LVL2 and do another 100% to 25% drive and it will still stay around 19C.
If you drive it down to turtle, it will jump to around 25C during that very short period from 25% and down.

True, if you charge from turtle to 95% on QC, this will add another 10C to whatever was before.
And true, if power is always kept at 1-3 bubbles both ways there will be significantly less heat generation.

[DaveinOlyWA]

considering the HUGE anecdotal evidence of cell improvement, this poll should be split for later LEAFs to better judge improvements in various areas of the country

[tomsax]

Plug In America's LEAF Owner Survey charts the 24 and 30 kWh battery packs in different colors so it's easy to see how each type is faring by capacity bars and percent.

https://survey.pluginamerica.org/leaf/charts.php

Add your data there to help everyone understand the whole picture. We could definitely use more data from 30 kWh LEAF owners, and want to see data from everyone, not just those who have lost bars.

https://survey.pluginamerica.org/leaf/survey.php

The data set is open and available to anyone who wants to dive into the details.