mad about averaging only 67 miles per charge in last 27trips

davewill said:

scottf200 said:

An often forgotten fact ... dare I say ... is that the Volt ...

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OK, I've just about had it. I defended you were posting this stuff in the Volt threads, but now it seems like you post huge Volt crap in any and all threads. I couldn't care less that your ICE car can go farther than my EV in the cold. If I'd wanted a gas car, I'd have bought one.

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Wow. I think you are exaggerating a huge amount. "Any and all" is a hyperbole. I use incredible restraint typically as many issues affect all our cars.

We are talking about EVs and range and what affects it. A couple people talked about where the current EVs are and MANY of the forum members. It will be an interesting next several months.

The normal driver in most mid/north states will surely balk at being cold just to extend their mileage by comparison to their current full time gas car "living room temp" environment. This is a huge deal breaker for EVs in general IMHO. This issue is way understated it would seem. The media will eat this stuff up ... and I'm sad about that BTW!

I worked very late last night and came home on a basically empty freeway. I set the cruise control to 75 and, with a 1,200 foot elevation gain, used 6 bars for my 26 mile run. Climate control was on fan only and outside air since it was cool out and I didn't need AC or heat. I didn't happen to reset the energy meter so I don't know my Miles/KwH for that run...

SanDust said:

His experience with range doesn't seem extraordinary for the type of driving many people do. I suspect I could get a range of 40 miles by going 75 MPH. I've never thought to try it but the range really drops if you go above 60 MPH.

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surfingslovak said:

Good for you! Would you entertain a few question from the curious? How many freeway miles does your daily routine include? How often have you seen the low or the very low battery warning? And finally, what does the guess-o-meter say at the end of the day, assuming your drove on one charge?

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You can see my blog to see what kind of driving I need to do - but your ealier statements didn't have any of these disclaimers.

What I find is - the hilly Seattle terrain is a bigger problem than freeways.

Reddy said:

Packet said:

daggad said:

I think the users of this forum is mainly from the dry and hot states in US that are perfect for EV's. Local terrain and temperatures is a very important factor in milage.

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Not all of us! I'm in a state that's full of mountains and cold rain.

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Funny, I'm from the same State, but it's 3/4 dry and desert-like

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C'mmon - east of the Cascade isn't really WA

SanDust said:

Obviously Nissan dug around until they found an obscure drive cycle that allowed them to stretch the range to 100 miles.

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Nonsense. As usual you present your anti-EV, anti-Nissan FUD as the truth.

SanDust said:

cwerdna said:

I haven't followed this thread closely but it seems to have drifted a lot and the OP's last post was on 10/15 at 8:23 pm Pacific. I suspect a # of questions folks here have posed for the OP haven't been answered, such as the above...

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I thought he answered it by saying he multiplied the number of miles driven by the number of total bars divided by the number of bars used. For example, if you went 50 miles using six bars on the SOC meter you'd assume 100 miles on 12 bars. (50 X 12/6 = 100).

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Nope. He made references to his methods of guessing early on and so on but TonyWilliams asked "Where EXACTLY are you getting this percentage number?" on Oct 15, 2011 7:08 pm. The only reply from gartaylor that followed was at Oct 15, 2011 8:23 pm to which he didn't answer Tony's question.

Off topic public service announcement. AKA OT PSA. User Control Panel->Friends & Foes->Manage foes->Add new foes:

Foes are users which will be ignored by default. Posts by these users will not be fully visible.

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cwerdna said:

SanDust said:

cwerdna said:

I suspect a # of questions folks here have posed for the OP haven't been answered, such as the above...

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I thought he answered it by saying he multiplied the number of miles driven by the number of total bars divided by the number of bars used.

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Nope. He made references to his methods of guessing early on and so on but TonyWilliams asked "Where EXACTLY are you getting this percentage number?" on Oct 15, 2011 7:08 pm. The only reply from gartaylor that followed was at Oct 15, 2011 8:23 pm to which he didn't answer Tony's question.

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Correct, but I did post here what I believed he was using, and showed that due to lack of knowledge he was underestimating by a significant amount. Without seeing his numbers I can't say exactly how much, but using my theoretical sample he might have been as much as 11 miles low.

evnow said:

Nonsense. As usual you present your anti-EV, anti-Nissan FUD as the truth.

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If you think the obvious explanation is nonsense, then why exactly did Nissan eschew the existing standard drive cycle and reach back into the past to pick a partial and obsolete drive cycle for estimating the EV range?

It's true that I called out Nissan for the 100 mile claim from day one, but that wasn't because of any bias. That was just because of the numbers. We know for a fact that a standard mid-sized vehicle uses 220 wh/mile on the Urban Cycle, 280 wh/mile on the Highway Cycle, and 395 wh/mile on US06. Given that the Leaf is probably heavier than average but also slightly more aerodynamic, these are pretty solid numbers for what we can expect from the Leaf. So tell me how you can get 100 miles of range out of a 24 kWh battery (estimated 19 kWh usable) using 220 to 395 wh/mile? The fact is you can't. Numbers don't lie.

So we're left with two choices. We can conclude that Nissan engineers are incompetent and don't know about vehicle efficiency. Or we can decide that Nissan marketing "cooked the books" and found some drive cycle which allowed them to make the 100 mile claim. You can reach your own decision but door #2 is the obvious choice.

SanDust said:

It's true that I called out Nissan for the 100 mile claim from day one, but that wasn't because of any bias. That was just because of the numbers. We know for a fact that a standard mid-sized vehicle uses 220 wh/mile on the Urban Cycle, 280 wh/mile on the Highway Cycle, and 395 wh/mile on US06. Given that the Leaf is probably heavier than average but also slightly more aerodynamic, these are pretty solid numbers for what we can expect from the Leaf. So tell me how you can get 100 miles of range out of a 24 kWh battery (estimated 19 kWh usable) using 220 to 395 wh/mile? The fact is you can't. Numbers don't lie.

So we're left with two choices. We can conclude that Nissan engineers are incompetent and don't know about vehicle efficiency. Or we can decide that Nissan marketing "cooked the books" and found some drive cycle which allowed them to make the 100 mile claim. You can reach your own decision but door #2 is the obvious choice.

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OK now we're talking. What are the measured Wh/mile for the LEAF? I have observed efficiency reports on MNL of 3.2 to 5 mi/kWh (which is 312 to 200 Wh/mi in above units). Most agree that the usable range of the battery is 21 kWh to turtle mode (the 19 kWh is if I only use the white fuel gauge bars post firmware upgrade). That puts the MNL participant range between 67.5 and 105. I would agree that 5mi/kWh is ambitious and requires some hypermilesque behavior, but its not total fiction, but also not realistic for most drivers.

Personally given the firmware upgrade and clear limitations on battery range I think Nissan should reduce the range expectation to 80mi in summer and 65mi in winter, b/c that's what I think most (but not all) people will get (e.g. closer to the center of the bell curve).

Note some posts on the http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=6325&start=21 thread has some owners finding that weekly 100% charges (with 80% on other days) is helping performance. This hints to me that there could be a firmware bug that is keeping cell balancing from occurring when one charges to 100% every day, which is keeping the battery from fully charging all cells.

"SanDust"

It's true that I called out Nissan for the 100 mile claim from day one, but that wasn't because of any bias. That was just because of the numbers. We know for a fact that a standard mid-sized vehicle uses 220 wh/mile on the Urban Cycle... So tell me how you can get 100 miles of range out of a 24 kWh battery (estimated 19 kWh usable) using 220 to 395 wh/mile? The fact is you can't. Numbers don't lie...

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The LEAF battery pack has about 20.5 kWh usable.

BEVs utilize regenerative braking. ICEVs waste this energy by converting it to heat, so of course they use more wh/mile, comparing vehicles of identical weight and drag.

To get 100 mile range in a LEAF, you must average about 4.9 m/kWh. Not possible at freeway speeds, but often achieved in a variety of urban (and rural) driving conditions.

scottf200 said:

We are talking about EVs and range and what affects it.

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Exactly! EVs/BEVs, not hybrids. A Volt is a hybrid, not an EV. Enjoy your Hybrid Forum!

SanDust said:

So tell me how you can get 100 miles of range out of a 24 kWh battery (estimated 19 kWh usable) using 220 to 395 wh/mile? The fact is you can't. Numbers don't lie.

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The estimated usable is 21, not 19. The 17 (80%) and 21 (100%) numbers have been pretty spot on for me. It's much more accurate to X these by your dash m/kW h than any other method. I don't feel that Nissan has been mistaken about their 100 mile range. They said you could get anywhere from 62 (@75mph) to 138 (@35-38mph) depending on how you drive and the conditions, use of HVAC, etc. I don't even need 100% charging to get 100 miles. It's a piece of cake for me at 80% charging. So if someone were to drive a littleconservatively, it isn't really that hard to get 5.0m/kW h or better. We drove over 85 miles today and when we arrived home I had 6.7m/kWh on the dash from one charge. At 80% that is 114 miles! Now, I don't expect many drivers to match that, but I can't believe they can't hit at least 5.0 on a 100% charge unless they use the freeways exclusively.

gartaylor,
I live in PDX as well and my commute takes me from SE to N Portland -300 ft and back up 150 ft, 10 miles (opposite for return trip). I manage better efficiency than my wife who insists on driving "normal." I assume this means ICE style. During the summer I was averaging 4.8 ~ 5.0 m/kWh. Not sure what the wife gets but the aggregate ave was 4.3 m/kWh. Now that the temp is dropping our aggregate is 3.8 ~ 4.0 m/kWh having to use some heat and defrost. If you look through some threads you will see postings by me trying to make sense of the GOM and other gauge metrics. If you are trying to calculate total range by counting Battery bars in the middle of the GOM and extrapolating, your numbers will be skewed. My GOM consistently figures only 1.2 kWh / battery bar on bars 6 to 10. The top bars are "bigger" and the lower bars are "bigger yet" with that invisible reserve when all bars are gone. I posted pictures of my dash in exactly the state you spoke of. I lose 4 battery bars commuting round trip then find when charging I only used 4.8 kWh of power so it looks much worse than it is. I was experiencing variable GOM metrics before my charger was replaced.

I keep detailed records of my driving and power usage if you would like to meet sometime and discuss what's going on.

Don