Capacity bar disappears, then reappears

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philaphonic

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 14, 2010
Messages
131
Location
Houston, Texas
FYI, I searched on "capacity reappear" and got nothing so I will assume no one has had this happen yet (life is too short to read through 300+ posts on the early capacity loss issue).

Yesterday morning, after charging to 100% overnight, with odometer at about 9450 miles and < 15 months of ownership, I saw what several others in hot climates have been seeing: the top capacity bar on the battery gauge was unlit. Yet after driving for a few miles, I looked down at the dash and saw it was back on! And it has stayed on, so far. :) Am I on the cusp? When I took the Leaf in for its 1 year service/battery check back in May, the battery got 5 stars and from then on I noticed the estimated max range on the guessometer was less optimistic than before,which I assumed was due to a software update. E.g., last August a 100% charge would result in a guess of about 115 mile range, and now it's guessing 98 miles. That's about right for a capacity bar loss, but not if the software is making a less wild guess.

I mostly charge using level 2, 5 nights a week at 80%, 2 nights a week to 100%.

Reporting from Houston,
Phil A. Phonic
 
I believe there was one similar report, but I am not able to find it (yet). Probably means you are about to lose a capacity bar. Let us know when it happens, report to Nissan and get a case number, and provide info for the Wiki:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Edit: Found it: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802&p=221281&hilit=+capacity+bar#p221281" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Reported by leiko49 on 8/16/12.

SierraQ said:
EdmondLeaf said:
leiko49 said:
I observed two days ago, while I was driving, during my first mile on my journey to work, I lost a bar (first one), was down to 11 bars, and then it returned about a mile later, and I currently have 12 bars.

Is this common?

I have 9K miles on my Leaf.
This happened to RickS from Phoenix he got back 12 battery capacity bar for short time, but after few weeks bar gone for good. Can you provide more details where you located and where car is parked day and night. Thank you

Interesting. I wonder how the capacity gauge makes its calculations?
  • It seems to be based on readings from some set of sensors which may not be consistently calibrated--one of the Leafs taken for testing in Arizona was re-calibrated and bars came back.
  • Possibly can be reset although reports of such may just be due to calibration corrections.
  • Bars can come and go as reported above. So it is not based on some aging algorithm that decays but rather live analysis.

There has been speculation that bars may come back when the weather cools in a month or two. However, the capacity meter seems to offset for cold temperatures otherwise some of us would have seen temporary drops in winter. So I don't think the meter measures absolute, instantaneous capacity. Perhaps then it projects capacity in ideal conditions, which means it is making some estimates. (A Leaf gauge that makes estimates? How shocking!) If that is true then likely we will not see any bars come back when the weather cools.
 
Stoaty said:
I believe there was one similar report, but I am not able to find it (yet). Probably means you are about to lose a capacity bar. Let us know when it happens, report to Nissan and get a case number, and provide info for the Wiki:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The only report I am aware of of bars coming back, and staying for some time, is By TickTock, who's LEAF came back from testing with two bars "restored".

For discussion of what this may mean, see:

1 gid *mostly* equals 80Wh

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9689" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TickTock's spreadsheet of his battery history is here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An7gtcYL2Oy0dHNwVmRkNkFnaEVOQTVENW5mOTZlb0E&pli=1#gid=3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
Stoaty said:
Edit: Found it: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8802&p=221281&hilit=+capacity+bar#p221281" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks Stoaty! And the graph you did on that page is very interesting, too. I would fall near the lower end in terms of miles driven per month, and it seems I will soon be able to put a data point on it that fits the trend nicely. Sigh.
 
philaphonic said:
Thanks Stoaty! And the graph you did on that page is very interesting, too. I would fall near the lower end in terms of miles driven per month, and it seems I will soon be able to put a data point on it that fits the trend nicely. Sigh.
Sorry to hear the news, and sorry to have to break the additional news that you won't even be able to put a data point on that graph--the analysis is confined to Phoenix metro area to make sure that cars were exposed to very similar temperatures. :(
 
philaphonic said:
FYI, I searched on "capacity reappear" and got nothing so I will assume no one has had this happen yet (life is too short to read through 300+ posts on the early capacity loss issue).

Yesterday morning, after charging to 100% overnight, with odometer at about 9450 miles and < 15 months of ownership, I saw what several others in hot climates have been seeing: the top capacity bar on the battery gauge was unlit. Yet after driving for a few miles, I looked down at the dash and saw it was back on! And it has stayed on, so far. :) Am I on the cusp? When I took the Leaf in for its 1 year service/battery check back in May, the battery got 5 stars and from then on I noticed the estimated max range on the guessometer was less optimistic than before,which I assumed was due to a software update. E.g., last August a 100% charge would result in a guess of about 115 mile range, and now it's guessing 98 miles. That's about right for a capacity bar loss, but not if the software is making a less wild guess.

I mostly charge using level 2, 5 nights a week at 80%, 2 nights a week to 100%.

Reporting from Houston,
Phil A. Phonic

Am I on the cusp?

you might be. how hot has it been? what is your normal charging habits? parked inside or out? did you have any regen circles available when you first started out?

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/blog.php?u=291&b=171" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
philaphonic said:
Am I on the cusp?
you might be. how hot has it been? what is your normal charging habits? parked inside or out? did you have any regen circles available when you first started out?

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/blog.php?u=291&b=171" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

how hot has it been?
Highs lately in mid 90s.

what is your normal charging habits?
Usually: @240V, Midnight to 6 AM. 80% for 5 days/week, 100% for 2 days/week.

parked inside or out?
Outside, but covered.

did you have any regen circles available when you first started out?
Did not notice.
 
Over several weeks my capacity bars went from 12 to 11 back to 12 back to 11 back to 12. Then I brought in for my year service two days ago at 12, when I got it back from Nissan dealer back to 11 for a day (more then before). Nissan report stated it was 11 during their battery check. The main issue is the top range at 100 percent is not wavering whether 11 or 12, so the fluctuation signifies about 15 percent loss, period. I called the hot line when it was 11 (reflected in official battery report).
 
My capacity bar loss appears to be permanent now. I'll be reporting this as suggested in the wiki soon and making an entry in the spreadsheet.

Also, on Friday, I managed to drive 64 miles with remaining miles on the GOM of 7. Dash reported efficiency of 4.5 m/kwh.
 
philaphonic said:
My capacity bar loss appears to be permanent now. I'll be reporting this as suggested in the wiki soon and making an entry in the spreadsheet.

Also, on Friday, I managed to drive 64 miles with remaining miles on the GOM of 7. Dash reported efficiency of 4.5 m/kwh.
I went ahead and added you to the Wiki. Feel free to make any corrections or updates, or post them here and I will update your entry.
 
philaphonic said:
My capacity bar loss appears to be permanent now. I'll be reporting this as suggested in the wiki soon and making an entry in the spreadsheet.

Also, on Friday, I managed to drive 64 miles with remaining miles on the GOM of 7. Dash reported efficiency of 4.5 m/kwh.
Sorry about the loss of a bar.

Assuming you started from 100% and also assuming you were right at LBW since you saw 7 on the GOM, I calculate about 14.2 kWh consumed between 100% and LBW. Adding 3.4 kWh available after LBW gives usable capacity of 17.6 kWh. That is about 84% of the 21 kWH usable many have seen with new LEAFs. While my calculation is very approximate due to the assumptions made, the result comes out pretty close to the 15% capacity drop Nissan assigns to the first bar.
 
I was going to start a thread if it was wasn't already started. I bought my 2015 Leaf SL October of 2017 with 12 bars.

A few months later it went to 11 bars bummer. Today I aftet full charge from about 14% I'm now showing 12 bars, first timeme in 6 months.

It's middle of summer and it's high 80s. So the cold temperature theory might be true.

I haven't used my Leaf Spy App in a long time, but the numbers work consistent with something about 11 bars. I'm going to have to plug in Leaf Spy and see what it's saying now.
 
My average SOH increased about 2% (from 92.5% to 94.5%) between the winter and summer. This is a 2017S FWIW. The temperature of the battery certainly affects capacity and while one would hope the BMS accounts for that in its SOH guestimate, perhaps the firmware is less accurate than that. Or maybe there are other reasons. Now after my 'firmware update' the SOH shows 97.5%.

Bottom line is no one has the source code so we're all just guessing about what's in the black box that is ithe BMS. I've learned to not fret over it and just drive the car. Que sera, sera.
 
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