Charging and driving the car usually heated up the battery to -10C when it was -25C outside.
The lowest temperature seen on the sensors (Leaf Spy) was -18C, we had nights at -30C. -18C is at this temperature that the heater will come on if I had one and it stops at -10C.
So the heater would have been used a couple of nights during the worst winter. My car is outside all the time as we dont have a garage.
As an important note, buying a seat heater is an important accessory if you need the full range and saving on heating.
djwhite wrote:abasile wrote:cgaydos wrote:I can't speak to the various import issues, but if you are looking at a 2011 (per the original post) make sure you get the CW (cold weather) version that was made available toward the end of the model year. It has heated seats, steering wheel, and mirrors plus a battery heater for extreme cold.
+1. For Montreal, the most important part of the Cold Weather package would be the battery heater to prevent the Li-ion battery from freezing at -20 C. That could be fatal! The battery heater is just for protection at very low temperatures, not for improved performance.
Actually, my 2011 does not have the winter package, so it's something we will need to be carefull with. I will be parking it in a heated garage overnight so the only concerning scenario will be work through the day. We may often get wind chils of -20 but not often throught the day in absolute degrees. Short durations I'm hoping we will be fine due to the mass and insulaltion of the battery pack.
I actually went looking for stories of frozen batteries and only heard of one anectodal through a local Nissan sales guy who was trying to convince me to buy a new one. We'll see .
Dave