used car leaf spy Ah question. This is strange

When to a car lot with 6 2012 lease return leafs. They were all auction cars from the SF Bay area which has a very mild climate. The all had 21000 to 25000 miles on them and were very clean with clean one owner carfaxes. After studying the plug in america web site, I found the following info,

http://www.pluginamerica.org/surveys//batteries/leaf/vehicles.php

Most cars with 20 to 25k miles had Ah capacity on the leaf spy of 55 Ah or better. I am looking at just the cool climate cars. My Idaho car has 58Ah at 36000 miles. When I check all 6 dealer cars with my leaf spy pro, every one of them has only 50Ah battery capacities. Why would these be so low??? 3 had QC ports and 3 did not. Any thoughts???
thanks

69800 said:

When to a car lot with 6 2012 lease return leafs. They were all auction cars from the SF Bay area which has a very mild climate...

I am looking at just the cool climate cars. My Idaho car has 58Ah at 36000 miles.

Click to expand...

There's a HUGE variance in "SF Bay Area" climate. Some/much of it is not so mild, esp. compared to say the Seattle area (lived up there for ~9 years).

See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=440473#p440473 and use the links at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=331394#p331394 to look at average summer month temps.

At last check, my used '13 Leaf SV lease return (has no CHAdeMO inlet) build 5/2013, first in service date near end of 6/2013 has this:
AHr: 59.21
SOH: 90%
Hx: 90.26%
odo: 32,844 miles

SOH and Hx having been hovering between 87 and 90 for awhile. I expect to lose a capacity bar by the end of this coming summer esp, since my home and work are in hotter parts of the Bay Area (not as bad as Concord and Walnut Creek but WAY hotter than city of SF.)

There are handful of folks in the SF Bay Area who have 2011s who have lost 4 capacity bars within 5 years/60K miles. One guy was at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=20725. Some have posted about theirs at https://www.facebook.com/groups/BayLeafs/. I don't know how many of those 4 BLs are on http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss.

69800 said:

When to a car lot with 6 2012 lease return leafs. They were all auction cars from the SF Bay area which has a very mild climate. The all had 21000 to 25000 miles on them and were very clean with clean one owner carfaxes. After studying the plug in america web site, I found the following info,

http://www.pluginamerica.org/surveys//batteries/leaf/vehicles.php

Most cars with 20 to 25k miles had Ah capacity on the leaf spy of 55 Ah or better. I am looking at just the cool climate cars. My Idaho car has 58Ah at 36000 miles. When I check all 6 dealer cars with my leaf spy pro, every one of them has only 50Ah battery capacities. Why would these be so low??? 3 had QC ports and 3 did not. Any thoughts???
thanks

Click to expand...

Some very hot cities in the Bay Area and most places very sunny so a dark car would degrade a little faster. It just does not get bitterly cold here often. Plus 2012 cars are the older battery not the Lizard, but that is another discussion.

69800 said:

When to a car lot with 6 2012 lease return leafs. They were all auction cars from the SF Bay area which has a very mild climate.

Most cars with 20 to 25k miles had Ah capacity on the leaf spy of 55 Ah or better. I am looking at just the cool climate cars. My Idaho car has 58Ah at 36000 miles. When I check all 6 dealer cars with my leaf spy pro, every one of them has only 50Ah battery capacities. Why would these be so low??? Any thoughts???
thanks

Click to expand...

Turns out California has these things they call north south interstates. Maybe the owner sold it in San Fransisco but lived further south or maybe the lived in San Fransisco but worked further south (San Mateo, Palo Alto, Cupertino, San Jose lots of jobs in that corridor)

It'd be easy for that one car to spend 90% of its life south of SF while the rest spent 90% of their time in SF or north of it. And that is just assuming all the cars you looked at really were basically SF cars that didn't transfer from another location.

Just no way of knowing where someone works or lives based on county of registration at the beginning of ownership or where it was sold at the end of ownership.

Besides the Bay Area huge difference in temps depending on microclimates I mentioned, it can make a big difference whether or not the car is garaged at night or left outside (where it's presumably cooler, like it is for me). I could pull into my garage that's between say 65 F but I know that at night, it could cool down to say 44 to 55 F, or so. Garage may never get that cold.

And, who knows where the car is parked while the person is at work or wherever? It could be parked outside in the baking sun or in a covered structure or underground parking. And, when is it being charged? It could be charging outside in the baking sun or say at night outside when it's cool out.

Battery has a lot of thermal mass and it takes quite awhile for it to cool down after being heated by ambient temps, sun, charging, etc.

I used to pull my leased Leaf into my garage at night. Also, at previous building, at some points, I had to use our EV valets (we no longer have them) and they might have to leave it outside (due to lack of spaces back then) and charging outside.

Now that I own a used one and given the build date (battery possibly improved) and my climate, I doubt that even if I beat the hell out of it, I'd become a 4 BL by 5 years/60K miles of original in service date. So, I now try to baby the battery a bit more. When I arrive home, I park it outside to cool down for at least a few hours and then only drive it in before I go to sleep. (I'd rather not leave it outside to some auto burglaries (smash and grabs) that have been happening my area, in addition to the home burglaries.)

I charge mostly at work though and almost never at home since charging is free at work and I live in the land of Pacific Gouge and Extort (expensive electricity).

So I take it most of you think it is a heat related issue. I forgot that the east and south bays get pretty warm.
thanks all