Battery behavior

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lvpatpatt

Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2018
Messages
11
I bought my leaf 3 days ago from Carvana. 2 bars missing. My first charge was 80 miles but after driving for aprox 10 miles the reading is 60. I charged all night, got 3 lights fully charged but the reading was 75 miles, I drove5 miles the reading is 55 miles.
Dashboard indicator says 3 hours of trickle charge to full. I may return the car to Carvana. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Bye, I live in Las Vegas.

Pat
 
The "Guess O Meter" on the dash that estimates range isn't accurate in most conditions. The car seems to have the range we'd expect from a 10 bar Leaf. Did you understand the capacity bars when you trial-bought it? Given your reaction I suggest you return the car, and get one with 12 bars showing, as this will soon likely be 11. What are your actual range needs?
 
The guess o meter charged to 80 yesterday, but dropped rapidly in two minutes.
After charging all night, full, the guess o meter read 72 after 10 minutes 55,
It fully charged to 72 again now.
Should the leaf be doing this? What do distance do u think a leaf 2015 should be 37000 mi should be getting.
Is this normal?
Thanks

Pat
 
lvpatpatt said:
The guess o meter charged to 80 yesterday, but dropped rapidly in two minutes.
After charging all night, full, the guess o meter read 72 after 10 minutes 55,
It fully charged to 72 again now.
Should the leaf be doing this? What do distance do u think a leaf 2015 should be 37000 mi should be getting.
Is this normal?
Thanks

Pat

Range is related to remaining battery capacity only - not to age or mileage. A 2015 Leaf with 10 capacity bars left (unless you are talking about charge bars, which change with state of charge) is unusual, and must have been kept in a Hot climate. Generally, 10 bar Leafs are good for (very) roughly 50 miles if the heater isn't needed. The range estimator bases its estimate on your last few minutes of driving, which usually involves slowly driving to where you park it, so the beginning estimate is usually higher than the actual range available. If the car is an SV or SL it has a more accurate range estimator in the Navigation system. Press the little blue energy button on the steering wheel, and look at the map with shaded circles that appears in the Nav display. The smaller circle and its estimate in miles is usually accurate. If the car is an S then you don't have that feature.
 
Thanks for the info. My Leaf is an S.
I still can’t decide wheather to send it back, I haven’t seen any 15s with all the bars, I paid $10,300.
You said 50 miles is a reasonable distance fully charged and I don’t drive far and it probably would be ok. I was just expecting more esp when the guessometer said 80. But it doesn’t charge that much when I charged it.

Pat
 
The 2015s you have been looking at must all be from hot climates if you are not finding any with 12 capacity bars. My 2015 still has 10 capacity bars at 65,000 miles. 50 miles on a full charge with normal A/C use in your climate (slightly cooler than mine) is about all you should expect from a 2015 missing 2 capacity bars unless you like pushing it to the limit.

I consider the sudden dropping of the guess-o-meter that you describe to be normal for a 2015. I was surprised how bad the GOM in the 2015 was when it was brand new compared to my 2011, which was fairly accurate after the software update in 2013. The GOM and state-of-charge (long bars) have become even more erratic as the miles have accumulated over the past 42 months.
 
lvpatpatt said:
Thanks for the info. My Leaf is an S.
I still can’t decide wheather to send it back, I haven’t seen any 15s with all the bars, I paid $10,300.
You said 50 miles is a reasonable distance fully charged and I don’t drive far and it probably would be ok. I was just expecting more esp when the guessometer said 80. But it doesn’t charge that much when I charged it.

Pat
We bought a 2018 Leaf S in June, so I just sold my 2015 S with 33,000 miles, 12 bars, 93% SOH. It was an off lease Oregon car when I bought it at a Portland Nissan dealer in September of 2017. I paid $9325, but sold it 10 months later for $10,750. The Northwest used Leaf market had gone up for some reason. It was a great car and I regularly got 90-95 miles (sometimes 100) around town at an average of 30-45 MPH. I always drove in B mode and my GOM usually showed in the mid to high 90's at full charge. Not sure how accurate this is, but to get my full charge range measurement I went from 100% charge down to 30%, then I would charge and go from 100% to 70%. My highway tests weren't as frequent and precise as my local drives, so my range measurements aren't as reliable. I estimate that my average highway (65 mph) full charge range was 80 miles, but of course I never went that far before charging. I typically would drive 50 miles to Portland, then charge at 30-40% remaining, before driving home.
 
GOM uses your most recent driving history to extrapolate the estimated (no it doesn't actually know) usable charge in the pack.

What this "almost" always means is the GOM will overestimate your range because the last few miles of driving to your house is generally slower, hence more efficient so your numbers will be inflated.

My recommendation; stop looking at it

If you can't stop looking at it; Then wait 20 minutes before looking at it
 
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