MY2014 no more 80% charge option?

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Stanton

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
Messages
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Location
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drees said:
Very interesting:
"That number seems like a significant improvement, but in fact the only change made to the car is the elimination of a software option that let owners set battery charging to stop at 80 percent."

Reading through the owner's manual from here: 2014 Owner's Manual is available online

I couldn't find any reference to "long life" or storage mode for the car.

That makes NO sense: why would they eliminate the 80% charge option (especially if it's a software/programmable option). I could see them adding MORE charging options (e.g. 50% or 90%), not LESS :?:

MOD NOTE:
Merged posts from the Lease now or wait for 2014s? thread regarding 80% charging option removal.
 
drees said:
"That number seems like a significant improvement, but in fact the only change made to the car is the elimination of a software option that let owners set battery charging to stop at 80 percent."

Reading through the owner's manual from here: 2014 Owner's Manual is available online

I couldn't find any reference to "long life" or storage mode for the car.

Weird. Could this just be because having the 80% charge mode lowered the EPA range?
 
Berlino said:
Weird. Could this just be because having the 80% charge mode lowered the EPA range?
Likely. It could also be because the "Long Life Mode" didn't make much difference. None of the numbers I've seen here suggest it helps all that much.
 
Green Car Reports:

Rated range rises to 84 miles

Most importantly to new buyers, the range of the 2014 Leaf is now listed as 84 miles, up from last year's 76 miles

That number seems like a significant improvement, but in fact the only change made to the car is the elimination of a software option that let owners set battery charging to stop at 80 percent.

In other words, the 2014 car has exactly the same battery, drivetrain, and real-world range as the 2013--only its EPA range rating has changed.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1089545_2014-nissan-leaf-electric-car-84-mile-range-aroundview-standard" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm wondering how folks here will react to this. I also wonder if it's true? The same article says AroundView is standard on the 2014's, yet the 2014 specs clearly show it as optional.
 
Bicster said:
Green Car Reports:

Rated range rises to 84 miles

Most importantly to new buyers, the range of the 2014 Leaf is now listed as 84 miles, up from last year's 76 miles

That number seems like a significant improvement, but in fact the only change made to the car is the elimination of a software option that let owners set battery charging to stop at 80 percent.

In other words, the 2014 car has exactly the same battery, drivetrain, and real-world range as the 2013--only its EPA range rating has changed.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1089545_2014-nissan-leaf-electric-car-84-mile-range-aroundview-standard" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The same article says AroundView is standard on the 2014's, yet the 2014 specs clearly show it as optional.

Maybe the article has been edited since you read it but it now clearly says rearview and not aroundview is standard.

Concerning the mileage, if the EPA wants to make stupid rules for determining EPA mileage then all the manufactures will play by their stupid rules. It doesn't make the claim less legitimate, I easily average over 84 miles to a 100% charge. However, I have no speed limit above 60 and most of it is speed limit 45 and level for my daily 50 mile RT commute.
 
I would hope they would not deliver cars with no 80% charge option unless they fix their battery issues first (hot battery)... How inconvenient to have to play with charge timers if you want to baby your battery.
 
Sure, let's kill off the batteries even faster just to get a few-mile increase in EPA rating. Why not? Shows exactly where the priorities are.
 
I don't think 100% charge has had nearly the effect on degradation that was initially thought.
Maybe the new hot battery has even less effect for 100% charge.
Of course if there is any way to expand the exaggeration on range.... Nissan is ALL IN.
Now if Nissan improves the GOM so we can consistantly use 3 of the last 5 miles we would have a real improvement.
 
My suggestion would be to simply have a screen where the driver can set an arbitrary charge amount. So if I wanted 75% charge, I could set that. If I wanted 80%, I could set that. But if you don't call it a long-life mode, or give a specific charge setting, then the EPA won't really be able to do call it a long-life battery mode.
 
They needed to drop the 80% thing

Not using the whole pack is just nonsense

Charge to 100% then drive promptly

Loitering at high soc is bad, charging to 100% then promptly driving is not.......

Man if the packs were 40 or 50kwh , then yeah great partial charge or whatever
With only a 24kwh pack and not all that avail anyway ,,, charge charge charge!
 
davewill said:
Berlino said:
Weird. Could this just be because having the 80% charge mode lowered the EPA range?
Likely. It could also be because the "Long Life Mode" didn't make much difference. None of the numbers I've seen here suggest it helps all that much.
That may be, but at least at 80% one can have some regen working right from the start. No 80% set point seems like a major step backward to me.
 
kmp647 said:
They needed to drop the 80% thing

Not using the whole pack is just nonsense

Charge to 100% then drive promptly

Loitering at high soc is bad, charging to 100% then promptly driving is not.......

Man if the packs were 40 or 50kwh , then yeah great partial charge or whatever
With only a 24kwh pack and not all that avail anyway ,,, charge charge charge!

It's often more convenient to charge the car days before you need it, and for that a lower charge limit is important. I work three days a week, and after my last shift I charge it to 80%, use some of that to run errands during the week, then charge from 60% or so back to 100% for work.
 
There's a couple possibilities here:

1. They are rolling out the "hot" battery with the 2014 LEAF, so storage at 100% SOC is not as bad as it used to be.
2. They are rolling out a higher capacity battery with the 2014 LEAF, so 100% is not actually 95%+ SOC any more.
3. 95% SOC (100%) vs 80% does not actually make that much of a difference in rate of capacity loss.
4. Battery automatically discharges to 80% after sitting an extended period of time.

I have a hard time believing any of these are actually true except for perhaps #1 which seems most likely given what Nissan's already leaked out, but the "hot" battery wasn't supposed to be available until spring. It would be a welcome surprise, though.

I did search the 2014 owners manual and the only reference I can find with regards to high state of charge and battery life is to avoid repeated charging of the battery with high battery state of charge and to avoid leaving the battery stored for more than 14 days with a near zero or lower state of charge (see page EV-24):

Compare this to the 2013 owners manual and there are multiple references regarding high SOC:
1. Avoid repeated charging to 100% and/or leaving above 80% SOC for long periods of time.
2. If the vehicle will not be used for a long period of time, charge in long-life mode every 3 months. (2014 manual says simply charge every 3 months, so car will be sitting at 100% for extended periods of time).
 
Great find on the 2014 manual....

See pdf page number 71 and look at the timer screens....There no longer appears to be an 80% or 100% setting....
 
Not surprising - how many times have we seen people claiming Spark EV has a longer EPA range than Leaf ? Nissan had to do something .... wish they had gone the route of variable %.
 
adric22 said:
My suggestion would be to simply have a screen where the driver can set an arbitrary charge amount. So if I wanted 75% charge, I could set that. If I wanted 80%, I could set that. But if you don't call it a long-life mode, or give a specific charge setting, then the EPA won't really be able to do call it a long-life battery mode.

+1
 
Stanton said:
adric22 said:
My suggestion would be to simply have a screen where the driver can set an arbitrary charge amount. So if I wanted 75% charge, I could set that. If I wanted 80%, I could set that. But if you don't call it a long-life mode, or give a specific charge setting, then the EPA won't really be able to do call it a long-life battery mode.
+1
Yep, that's what Tesla did (50-100% in 10% increments). And it works awesomely and should satisfy nearly everyone. There's been a bunch of people who wished for a 90% charge setting along with people who wished for a 60-70% charge setting.
 
I on the other hand find the whole thing confusing. Where is the cutoff of the 'safe/not safe' level? Is it exactly 80%? 83%? 92%? As an average driver I don't want to know. I want to plug in, charge whenever I want and how much I want and not think about that. To me the fact that they get rid of the 80% charge suggests that they figured it out so the battery does not degrade when fully charged (however they achieved it) and that is very positive thing.
 
not surprised, the option named long life caused caused a lot of unneccessary user angst, became a legal liability (see settlement objection) and caused an methodolgy discrimination for EPA range reporting. I still don't think the Nissan LEAF community understood the intent of the 80% mode. (its primarily for dealing with having a SOC range only in the top 80% to 100% (think Japanese users, 100 mile real world range in city use, 20 mile daily use))

but it was a good option for owners and will be missed. now they'll expect short range users to skip charging every second day etc.
 
I have never understood how cell equalization takes place at less then a 100% charge. It seems to start at about 98% and then continues at a lower charge current until 100% is reached. I don't think running to 80% charge ever gets the equalization process started. Maybe this is part of the reasoning.
 
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