MY2014 no more 80% charge option?

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Nubo said:
Valdemar said:
In some situations you can work around the missing mode by setting the end of charge timer sufficiently later than your departure time. Not ideal, but can work.

Definitely not ideal. Not only does the timer fail to accurately predict end of charge (finishing early), it fails by different amounts depending on the beginning SOC.

True, but you can get close.
 
reeler said:
dm33 said:
"Hot" battery being released this year is claimed to have a good degradation curve even in hot climates. If true, maybe they can get away with not having a battery cooling system.

I will take simplicity over complexity any day. By avoiding a TMS, Nissan's design is simpler, more reliable and doesn't have the thermal run away issues. No Nissan LEAF fires yet like Tesla.

If the new battery is what they say, it is a home run for Nissan. The old battery was suitable for all climates, but desert ones. To have a chemistry that works across all climates, we will all be winners.

they are saying the exact same thing about this "new" hot battery as they were about the original. I was told, emphatically when I bought the 2011 that the testing facility was in Arizona, that Nissan had plowed $5 billion into this technology and made it rock solid, even in the most extreme heat on earth. turns out the original battery can't even take relatively moderately high ambient temps, the further south you go, the faster the battery dies. I won't buy that there is a significant improvement until it starts bearing out in real world user feedback this time around, and I'm not terribly interested in being one of the guinea pigs this time either. once you've been lied to once, you don't readily believe the same thing the second time, I want proof.
 
reeler said:
If the new battery is what they say, it is a home run for Nissan. The old battery was suitable for all climates, but desert ones. To have a chemistry that works across all climates, we will all be winners.
Sure the old battery is suitable for moderate climates... if you are content with a life of just over 5 years/60,000 miles.
 
reeler said:
dm33 said:
"Hot" battery being released this year is claimed to have a good degradation curve even in hot climates. If true, maybe they can get away with not having a battery cooling system.

I will take simplicity over complexity any day. By avoiding a TMS, Nissan's design is simpler, more reliable and doesn't have the thermal run away issues. No Nissan LEAF fires yet like Tesla. ,,,

Also more efficient, no vampire load, less Brodering.
 
Nubo said:
Definitely not ideal. Not only does the timer fail to accurately predict end of charge (finishing early), it fails by different amounts depending on the beginning SOC.
Not to mention that end-time-only charging finishes even earlier if a preheat timer is set. Still, setting an end-time for later than my planned departure would work adequately for me, it is just a rather awkward workaround to allow regen when going downhill, when a full charge isn't required.

GaslessInSeattle said:
they are saying the exact same thing about this "new" hot battery as they were about the original. I was told, emphatically when I bought the 2011 that the testing facility was in Arizona, that Nissan had plowed $5 billion into this technology and made it rock solid, even in the most extreme heat on earth. turns out the original battery can't even take relatively moderately high ambient temps, the further south you go, the faster the battery dies. I won't buy that there is a significant improvement until it starts bearing out in real world user feedback this time around, and I'm not terribly interested in being one of the guinea pigs this time either. once you've been lied to once, you don't readily believe the same thing the second time, I want proof.
Exactly. Fool me once, shame on Nissan. Fool me twice, shame on me.

reeler said:
If the new battery is what they say, it is a home run for Nissan. The old battery was suitable for all climates, but desert ones. To have a chemistry that works across all climates, we will all be winners.
"The old battery was suitable for all climates, but desert ones"? I would switch that around: the current battery is fine for the coastal Pacific Northwest, Norway, and much of Canada. And has unacceptably rapid capacity degradation almost everywhere else.
 
Rant:

Good riddance to the BS about long life 80% charging. Heat and storing your car at a high soc are the real battery killers. For all we know not charging the car to 100% and going to vlbw frequently could be a huge battery degrader.

So many leafers on this forum and out in the wild have stressed themselves needlessly and regularly not wanting to charge to 100% and suffered range anxiety. People have even sold their leafs because 80% charging didn't give them the range they needed, rather than charge to 100% which they thought would ruin the battery, sigh. I charged to 80% for the first month and decided the range anxiety it caused was BS and made the car useless for my driving needs. So I charge to 100% 2x a day and I'm 40k miles in. I still have 12 bars, so suck it Nissan and your 80% charge hysteria. Sounds like they are admitting to causing unnecessary charging hysteria and that they were wrong on 80% charging for long life.

To all the haters of Nissan's g1 battery, yes they blew it in hot climates, get over it, we all knew there where risks going in and we bought anyway. At least no leaf has caught on fire by hitting road debris.

And yes, I do agree that there should be a variable charge dial that is easy to set just in case one is not going to drive the car for a few weeks so it doesn't sit at a high soc.

Apologies for the snarky tone but I got riled up by the temperate climate even driver complaining about the battery wilting in the heat. I'm not sad for you. Sell your leaf if you don't like it (oh wait you did and so will I when a better ev that is affordable comes out). AZ, SoCal, TX etc leafers have a legitimate gripe. Seattle, lol, nope. I don't think Nissan knew there would be hot climate problems, they were testing with a real world roll out. Better than testing forever and never delivering anything like the other major car companies wher. For the last century. Now we have choices thanks to Nissan and Tesla proving ev's were ready now, not perfect, but good enough.

Rant over.
 
EVDrive said:
Rant:
Good riddance to the BS about long life 80% charging. Heat and storing your car at a high soc are the real battery killers. For all we know not charging the car to 100% and going to vlbw frequently could be a huge battery degrader.
So many leafers on this forum and out in the wild have stressed themselves needlessly and regularly not wanting to charge to 100% and suffered range anxiety. People have even sold their leafs because 80% charging didn't give them the range they needed, rather than charge to 100% which they thought would ruin the battery, sigh. I charged to 80% for the first month and decided the range anxiety it caused was BS and made the car useless for my driving needs. So I charge to 100% 2x a day and I'm 40k miles in. I still have 12 bars, so suck it Nissan and your 80% charge hysteria. Sounds like they are admitting to causing unnecessary charging hysteria and that they were wrong on 80% charging for long life.
What is your Ahr reading and what is your GID reading ?
 
EVDrive said:
So many leafers on this forum and out in the wild have stressed themselves needlessly and regularly not wanting to charge to 100% and suffered range anxiety.
And you know this how?

So I charge to 100% 2x a day and I'm 40k miles in. I still have 12 bars, so suck it Nissan and your 80% charge hysteria. Sounds like they are admitting to causing unnecessary charging hysteria and that they were wrong on 80% charging for long life.
Of course you still have 12 bars--you live in a near ideal climate for the Leaf. Nissan never said 80% charging was a miracle cure, only that it could help prolong the battery life a bit. I have babied my battery, including keeping it at 30-60% SOC for most of its life, and unlike most in Southern California I still have 12 bars. My guess is that I have extended the life of the battery by a modest amount. One of the most uninformed rants I have seen here on MNL.
 
I attended the Nissan Town Hall meeting in Scottsdale that dealt with AZ batteries. At the meeting Andy Palmer said that Nissan never thought a replacement battery would be necessary in the 100,000 mile life span. Even so they were willing to replace the battery within the first 60,000 miles. My next door neighbor has had his battery replaced for free. Thus, I think Nissan is doing everything practically possible to satisfy owners. And, I believe that they have been working hard at improving the battery. I suspect that charging to 100% with the changes made has not lessened the batteries life to any extent and hence the 80% option could be removed to simplify the charging process.

Our 2011 LEAF (#404) is going on 30,000 miles and still has all 12 capacity bars left. However, I must admit that I trailer it up into the mountains for the summers and the car has never been subjected to temperatures over 90 degrees.

Our LEAF has never been down to zero charge bars, and even then only about two or three times has it gotten down to one bar. I am wondering if it may be more deleterious for the battery to be discharged to a low state than charged to a high state.

That's been our experience, but after reading some comments on the forum it may be that certain individuals are not meant to be early adopters and would be more satisfied if they waited several years until the technology gets sorted out.
 
EVDrive said:
So many leafers on this forum and out in the wild have stressed themselves needlessly and regularly not wanting to charge to 100% and suffered range anxiety. People have even sold their leafs because 80% charging didn't give them the range they needed, rather than charge to 100% which they thought would ruin the battery, sigh. I charged to 80% for the first month and decided the range anxiety it caused was BS and made the car useless for my driving needs. So I charge to 100% 2x a day and I'm 40k miles in. I still have 12 bars, so suck it Nissan and your 80% charge hysteria.

I dare say you and Nissan may be in agreement as of 2014.
 
On my '12, with the 3.3, I pick up about a bar for every half hour charging. The '14 S still has a 3.3, but if I went with the 6.0 upgrade I'd expect to pick up a bar every 15 min or so.

So, to charge to 80%, figure out how many bars you need to get to 10, divide by 2 or 4 depending on your OBC, and set the start and end timers accordingly.

(Ex: from 2 bars, schedule 4 hrs for a 3.3 or 2 hrs for a 6.0)

Still not perfect, but takes the guess work out of setting just an end timer.
 
I am absolutely convinced that the one and only reason that Nissan eliminated the 80% option was to artificially increase the EPA range estimate. Period.
 
For a LEAF living on a mountain, or visiting a mountain resort, even 80% is too high before a big descent. For those living on big hills, 80-90% is often ideal.

As far back as late 2011 or so, the LEAF community specifically asked Nissan to support a user-settable charge percentage. Nissan, please learn from Tesla in this area.
 
Very curious.... We can only hope that the "new" battery in the 2014 can achieve the same power level at a lower voltage at "100%" charge, thus the 80% setting is no longer needed, but we won't know until someone gets a 2014 and puts some instrumentation on it.
 
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