Lizard Pack Will Hold Up IF Your Driving Patterns Support It

bolshevik36 said:

I may have asked a poorly constructed question, considering your points, but I still didnt get a single answer!

I just want to know what my range/capacity will be on 5 yr old Leaf; in this case the 2011's. I need to make sure buying a Leaf makes sense economically which is why I am asking this question. Even 15-20 miles is very useful for my uses, so Im thinking he battery can lose 60%+ capacity/range and still be useful errand/shopping car for our family.

Also so some of you are saying using it more, with full charges, prolongs the battery life? That is counter-intuitive no?

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you dont provide enough information to answer the question other than depending on your location you could have between 40 and 75% of your remaining range left.


and to clarify; I never said driving it more prolongs battery life. I said driving it more increases your battery's available capacity. so whether you look at it as a muscle exercised will perform better or the LEAF's BMS is adjusting to better address your needs, so be it.

Now does this complicate matters? well of course it does which leads us back to the fact that without a lot of details about where you live, what your needs are, garage or not, etc. it all matters but even with all that, one can only generalize. you say 20 miles is "very useful" then you are set!

bolshevik36 said:

I may have asked a poorly constructed question, considering your points, but I still didnt get a single answer!

I just want to know what my range/capacity will be on 5 yr old Leaf; in this case the 2011's. I need to make sure buying a Leaf makes sense economically which is why I am asking this question. Even 15-20 miles is very useful for my uses, so Im thinking he battery can lose 60%+ capacity/range and still be useful errand/shopping car for our family.

Also so some of you are saying using it more, with full charges, prolongs the battery life? That is counter-intuitive no?

Click to expand...

If you are satisfied with 20 miles on a charge, a 5 year old Leaf should be OK for you. When my 2011 was down to 8 capacity bars, I was still making my 52-mile roundtrip commute using A/C. It would not have been possible to make 50 miles on a charge at cold temperatures (even without using heat/defrost). It was great to be driving a "new car" after Nissan replaced the original battery until the car met its demise. I have always charged to 100% and the "lizard" battery in the 2015 seems to be doing better than the original and replacement batteries in the 2011.

Gerry

DaveinOlyWA said:

bolshevik36 said:

I may have asked a poorly constructed question, considering your points, but I still didnt get a single answer!

I just want to know what my range/capacity will be on 5 yr old Leaf; in this case the 2011's. I need to make sure buying a Leaf makes sense economically which is why I am asking this question. Even 15-20 miles is very useful for my uses, so Im thinking he battery can lose 60%+ capacity/range and still be useful errand/shopping car for our family.

Click to expand...

you dont provide enough information to answer the question other than depending on your location you could have between 40 and 75% of your remaining range left.

Click to expand...

Yep.

DaveinOlyWA said:

Now does this complicate matters? well of course it does which leads us back to the fact that without a lot of details about where you live, what your needs are, garage or not, etc. it all matters but even with all that, one can only generalize. you say 20 miles is "very useful" then you are set!

Click to expand...

Yep.

Let's look at it another way. TonyWilliams put together range charts at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293. They're reasonably accurate. For an '11 thru '15 w/brand new battery, if on a full charge, you drive a steady continuous 35 mph (no stopping) or achieve 6.3 miles/kWh for a trip, you should be able to go about 132 miles until battery exhaustion (dead) on level ground, no winds (head or tail) and no HVAC usage.

Edmunds got exactly 132.0 miles doing that at http://www.edmunds.com/nissan/leaf/2011/long-term-road-test/2011-nissan-leaf-driving-it-to-the-bitter-end.html.

If you went 75 mph or achieved 3.0 miles/kWh for the trip, you'd only make it ~62 miles.

Further down, he has range charts for losing up to 4 capacity bars (e.g. Use this 63% chart for a battery that has 8 of 12 capacity bar segments.) A 4 bar loser would do 83 and 39 miles respectively, until dead.

But most people don't drive their cars until dead because you'd need to either have a generator, a charging station to push the car or need a tow to a charging station. Cut it too close or have a detour or misjudge? Have fun. The instrumentation in '11 and '12 Leafs is frankly crap, can cause unnecessary range anxiety and cause you (depending on your personality) to leave say 20 to ~35% usable capacity UNUSED! (i.e. calling it quits too early)

One MUST use something like Leaf Spy on those cars if you want to ride around near the bottom. Heck, you should for any Leaf if you ride around near the bottom.

There are many other factors that will reduce range such as heater AC use, increased rolling friction (from rain, slush, snow, etc.), winds, etc.

Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

In Phoenix, the Leaf had only been out ~21 months and there was already a 4 bar loser in Tony's range test: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=228326. Per http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery#Battery_Capacity_Behavior, the 4 bar loser probably had 60-66.25% capacity remaining. Hot climates are murder on '11 to '12 Leaf batteries.

bolshevik36 said:

... Also so some of you are saying using it more, with full charges, prolongs the battery life? ...

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No one said that.
You read what Dave said and did inaccurate reading between the lines to come to that conclusion.

Limited use and not charging to 100% and occasionally deep discharging just results in inaccurate battery stats.

The slowest capacity degradation results from keeping the battery in the mid range of charge, someting like 35% to 80%.

bolshevik36 said:

I may have asked a poorly constructed question, considering your points, but I still didnt get a single answer!

I just want to know what my range/capacity will be on 5 yr old Leaf; in this case the 2011's. I need to make sure buying a Leaf makes sense economically which is why I am asking this question. Even 15-20 miles is very useful for my uses, so Im thinking he battery can lose 60%+ capacity/range and still be useful errand/shopping car for our family.

Also so some of you are saying using it more, with full charges, prolongs the battery life? That is counter-intuitive no?

Click to expand...

I can only give you my experience.

At 87,000 miles and three bare down, my 2011 max range is about 55 miles, 45 to LBW.

JPWhite said:

I can only give you my experience.

At 87,000 miles and three bare down, my 2011 max range is about 55 miles, 45 to LBW.

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And for bolshevik36's edification, after LBW, there's VLBW then turtle then dead.

Wow the amount of condescension for simply asking questions is pretty boggling considering this is a forum for Leaf owners, which I assume invites new and old alike.

Im in the IE (45miles east of DT LA) and the Leaf will be garaged. Daily typical commute is under 40 miles, sometimes a little bit more.

For those of you who did provide actual #'s, thanks a lot! Those #'s actually encourage my purchase, especially looking at the 2011 at 87k still commuting 50miles. Thats what i needed!

JPWhite said:

bolshevik36 said:

I may have asked a poorly constructed question, considering your points, but I still didnt get a single answer!

I just want to know what my range/capacity will be on 5 yr old Leaf; in this case the 2011's. I need to make sure buying a Leaf makes sense economically which is why I am asking this question. Even 15-20 miles is very useful for my uses, so Im thinking he battery can lose 60%+ capacity/range and still be useful errand/shopping car for our family.

Also so some of you are saying using it more, with full charges, prolongs the battery life? That is counter-intuitive no?

Click to expand...

I can only give you my experience.

At 87,000 miles and three bare down, my 2011 max range is about 55 miles, 45 to LBW.

Click to expand...

Do you usually charge to 80 or 100%?

bolshevik36 said:

Wow the amount of condescension for simply asking questions is pretty boggling considering this is a forum for Leaf owners, which I assume invites new and old alike.

Click to expand...

Look, we didn't have sufficient info from you to give you an even semi-accurate or useful answer. We also didn't know your background knowledge, assumptions, misconceptions, whether your understood the concepts we were trying to convey (e.g. total kWh usable, miles/kWh, degradation, etc.) and so on. Some people call it quits even BEFORE LBW.

As I posted at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=429850#p429850:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=261457#p261457 was an example of something very vague of someone complaining of "getting a whopping 30 miles per charge here in frigid Chicago" after having lost no capacity bars. They did answer the questionnaire but there was still a fair amount of back and forth.

The above person had a BRAND NEW Leaf but was in Chicago and had no ability to charge at home nor work.

There are plenty of Leaf drivers who don't even know about the capacity bars or are totally confused about range, like http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=16446 and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=268304#p268304.

bolshevik36 said:

Im in the IE (45miles east of DT LA) and the Leaf will be garaged. Daily typical commute is under 40 miles, sometimes a little bit more.

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So Cal heat will be not so kind to the battery, in the long run. If it cools down at night considerably, it might be better to park it outside so the battery cools. I've looked at battery temps via Leaf Spy and have a digital thermometer in my garage. The battery pack has a lot of thermal mass and takes a long time to cool down. If it's 60 to 70 F in my garage yet at night it's going to be 40 to 49 F, and my battery is at say 75 F when I come home... well, it's going to get cooler faster at the outside lower temps.

bolshevik36 said:

For those of you who did provide actual #'s, thanks a lot! Those #'s actually encourage my purchase, especially looking at the 2011 at 87k still commuting 50miles. Thats what i needed!

Click to expand...

In http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=228326, Blue494 on an under 21 month old '11 Leaf in Phoenix was down 4 capacity bars at under 29K miles and only made it 59.3 miles until battery exhaustion on a a steady 100 kph (~62 mph) drive w/no HVAC usage. http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss#four_bars says (search for 494) that the 4th bar was lost at 28,190 miles.

The heater on '11 and '12s is power hungry and slow to heat. There's little free waste heat in an EV, so it takes energy to heat the cabin.

Others, like this guy have more pessimistic views for winter.... but he might be on the mark for very cold climates:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=440165#p440165
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=428344#p428344
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=415539#p415539

And, as the battery degrades, if trips were on the edge of whatever the comfort level is, they'll get harder and harder, esp. in winter.

The guy at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=20275&p=431911#p431911 commutes 130 miles/day and to charge fully on both ends. But per that post, he has to charge in the middle on both legs now since he's down 5 capacity bars. He's in the PNW, which is a very gentle climate for the batteries, vs. So Cal. Hit hit 100K miles on his '11 in Dec 2013 per http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/releases/washington-nissan-leaf-owner-celebrates-100-000-all-electric-miles.

The original 11/12 pack would lose 8-10% annually in your area. I could no longer make my 60 mile commute after 4.5 years and 85k miles, with pack down to 60%, range was about 50 miles mixed careful driving w/out using climate control. I observed capacity loss rate accelerating with time, which probably had to do with deeper and more frequent cycling of the pack. There's still hope the Lizard pack performs better, but the initial reports are somewhat discouraging.

bolshevik36 said:

JPWhite said:

bolshevik36 said:

I may have asked a poorly constructed question, considering your points, but I still didnt get a single answer!

I just want to know what my range/capacity will be on 5 yr old Leaf; in this case the 2011's. I need to make sure buying a Leaf makes sense economically which is why I am asking this question. Even 15-20 miles is very useful for my uses, so Im thinking he battery can lose 60%+ capacity/range and still be useful errand/shopping car for our family.

Also so some of you are saying using it more, with full charges, prolongs the battery life? That is counter-intuitive no?

Click to expand...

I can only give you my experience.

At 87,000 miles and three bare down, my 2011 max range is about 55 miles, 45 to LBW.

Click to expand...

Do you usually charge to 80 or 100%?

Click to expand...

I charge to 100% (93% in reality) in the morning before leaving for work. This allows for speed limit drive all the way.

Nissan DCFC leaves the car at about 75% SOC at "80%" max charge. I sometimes top off with L2 if I have the opportunity at lunch. If I only have 75% to get home it's a max of 65 to cover the 38 miles home and arrive close to or slightly past LBW.

JPWhite said:

So you've done less than 2,000 miles in 5 months?

If so capacity loss is running about 4 GID's/month (1.5%) without the addition of significant cycle losses..

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Yes, and my new commute of just 10 miles on surface streets with many high torque starts apprears to be more detrimental to battery longevity than my old 30 mile commute of (mostly) cruising with occasional stop and start segments.

mwalsh said:

JPWhite said:

So you've done less than 2,000 miles in 5 months?

If so capacity loss is running about 4 GID's/month (1.5%) without the addition of significant cycle losses..

Click to expand...

Yes, and my new commute of just 10 miles on surface streets with many high torque starts apprears to be more detrimental to battery longevity than my old 30 mile commute of (mostly) cruising with occasional stop and start segments.

Click to expand...

I think the distance driven and charging habits are more to blame. I rarely speed on the freeways but I also rarely drive sanely when on surface streets (not my observation mind you! since my driving is PERFECTLY fine all the time...) and my measured capacity gains and losses are more determined by driving distances and charging habits.

charge often and fully, drive a lot; battery stats high. drive less, charge every few days rarely to full and battery whines...

Now this was always the case with the 2011 but their came a time when the stats would no longer recover no matter what I did. on my 2013, I am still able to manipulate my battery numbers after 29 months and 36,000 miles. This is far far far beyond what my 2011 could do.

DaveinOlyWA said:

mwalsh said:

JPWhite said:

So you've done less than 2,000 miles in 5 months?

If so capacity loss is running about 4 GID's/month (1.5%) without the addition of significant cycle losses..

Click to expand...

Yes, and my new commute of just 10 miles on surface streets with many high torque starts apprears to be more detrimental to battery longevity than my old 30 mile commute of (mostly) cruising with occasional stop and start segments.

Click to expand...

I think the distance driven and charging habits are more to blame. I rarely speed on the freeways but I also rarely drive sanely when on surface streets (not my observation mind you! since my driving is PERFECTLY fine all the time...) and my measured capacity gains and losses are more determined by driving distances and charging habits.

charge often and fully, drive a lot; battery stats high. drive less, charge every few days rarely to full and battery whines...

Now this was always the case with the 2011 but their came a time when the stats would no longer recover no matter what I did. on my 2013, I am still able to manipulate my battery numbers after 29 months and 36,000 miles. This is far far far beyond what my 2011 could do.

Click to expand...

I would expect faster degradation with greater discharge rates, and suspect the difference between the two of you (absent any detailed data comparing your driving styles), is due to the temperature differences between PNW and SoCal.

edit... sorry, moved post to other lizard pack thread.

DaveinOlyWA said:

I think the distance driven and charging habits are more to blame. I rarely speed on the freeways but I also rarely drive sanely when on surface streets (not my observation mind you! since my driving is PERFECTLY fine all the time...) and my measured capacity gains and losses are more determined by driving distances and charging habits.

charge often and fully, drive a lot; battery stats high. drive less, charge every few days rarely to full and battery whines...

Click to expand...

You could be onto something. This is after another few days back at my old job for a special project:

4/30/16: AHr=63.91 CAP=97.43% Hlth/Hx=94.14% SOH=97% Gids=282. Mileage: 58,784

So I've changed the thread title up a bit, and will give Nissan the benefit of the doubt...for now.

mwalsh said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

I think the distance driven and charging habits are more to blame. I rarely speed on the freeways but I also rarely drive sanely when on surface streets (not my observation mind you! since my driving is PERFECTLY fine all the time...) and my measured capacity gains and losses are more determined by driving distances and charging habits.

charge often and fully, drive a lot; battery stats high. drive less, charge every few days rarely to full and battery whines...

Click to expand...

You could be onto something. This is after another few days back at my old job for a special project:

4/30/16: AHr=63.91 CAP=97.43% Hlth/Hx=94.14% SOH=97% Gids=282. Mileage: 58,784

So I've changed the thread title up a bit, and will give Nissan the benefit of the doubt...for now.

Click to expand...

the last 2 weeks on my 2013 have been the perfect example. First off, I went almost 2 weeks of light driving only fully charging one time in nearly 2 weeks. I did charge but only for an hour or two so never full, never empty, just bouncing around the mid SOC ranges. I eventually hit the 59 ahr range which was fully expected along with the 91% Hx, both numbers I had seen in Aug 2015 when I went thru a similar low driving period coupled with an 11 day vacation when the LEAF did not drive at all.

I fully charged on Monday the 25th and had 58.44 ahr, 88.62% Hx, and 19.6 kwh available; a new low water mark. After 35,000 miles, I guess it was simply time for my battery to start its fade. I drove 48 miles on Monday then started a 5 day run where I had to fast charge once in the morning and once in the afternoon to make the LEAF work. This was a setup to see if my battery stats could come back. It took over 600 miles but the results are unmistakeable.

http://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2016/05/april-2016-drive-report-after-36000.html

mwalsh said:

12/30/15: AHr=63.80 CAP=97.26% Hlth/Hx=100.00% Gids=277. Mileage: 56,588
1/24/16: AHr=63.53 CAP=96.85% Hlth/Hx=95.57% Gids=278. Mileage: 56,886
2/22/16: AHr=62.55 CAP=95.35% Hlth/Hx=93.99% SOH=98% Gids=273. Mileage: 57,363
3/19/16: AHr=62.92 CAP=95.91% Hlth/Hx=94.76% SOH=98% Gids=278. Mileage: 57,841
4/22/16: AHr=62.09 CAP=94.65% Hlth/Hx=93.26% SOH=97% Gids=274. Mileage: 58,295
4/30/16: AHr=63.91 CAP=97.43% Hlth/Hx=96.14% SOH=100% Gids=282. Mileage: 58,784

Click to expand...

5/20/16: AHr=66.14 CAP=100.83% Hlth/Hx=98.82% SOH=100% Gids=283. Mileage: 59,457

Look at that jump in AHr!

Changing thread title to "Lizard Pack Will Hold Up IF Your Driving Patterns Support It"

mwalsh said:

mwalsh said:

12/30/15: AHr=63.80 CAP=97.26% Hlth/Hx=100.00% Gids=277. Mileage: 56,588
1/24/16: AHr=63.53 CAP=96.85% Hlth/Hx=95.57% Gids=278. Mileage: 56,886
2/22/16: AHr=62.55 CAP=95.35% Hlth/Hx=93.99% SOH=98% Gids=273. Mileage: 57,363
3/19/16: AHr=62.92 CAP=95.91% Hlth/Hx=94.76% SOH=98% Gids=278. Mileage: 57,841
4/22/16: AHr=62.09 CAP=94.65% Hlth/Hx=93.26% SOH=97% Gids=274. Mileage: 58,295
4/30/16: AHr=63.91 CAP=97.43% Hlth/Hx=96.14% SOH=100% Gids=282. Mileage: 58,784

Click to expand...

5/20/16: AHr=66.14 CAP=100.83% Hlth/Hx=98.82% SOH=100% Gids=283. Mileage: 59,457

Look at that jump in AHr!

Click to expand...

Hoping to get a "Lizard" later this summer so all this is of great interest - we'll see.

Interesting that your AH reading is greater now than new. Am I interpreting this correctly? Usually (in the FLA world of off-gridders) the measure of actual AH would be a really good indicator of battery health/capacity (when corrected by Peukert/temperature if more than moderate discharge). Is there enough variability in the "pack" voltage to affect the real KWH available? Seems avg. temp of the "pack" would be significant also. From LeafSpy data - is there any indication that number/depth of capacity loss of individual cell packs can predict early failures (or not)? There may be this type of analysis done on the early batteries - there is so much out there on this subject!

One must wonder what algorithms are used to produce the readings - it is an estimate!

My limited experience so far (don't have Leaf Spy working yet) with a used Leaf (in hot Texas) has been that deep/deep discharges and full charges seems to "reset" the capacity - with more driving range - could be my imagination - or a GOM problem. Don't have any significant experience with DC/QC - mostly level II with the 3.3KW charger.

mwalsh said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

I think the distance driven and charging habits are more to blame. I rarely speed on the freeways but I also rarely drive sanely when on surface streets (not my observation mind you! since my driving is PERFECTLY fine all the time...) and my measured capacity gains and losses are more determined by driving distances and charging habits.

charge often and fully, drive a lot; battery stats high. drive less, charge every few days rarely to full and battery whines...

Click to expand...

You could be onto something. This is after another few days back at my old job for a special project:

4/30/16: AHr=63.91 CAP=97.43% Hlth/Hx=94.14% SOH=97% Gids=282. Mileage: 58,784

So I've changed the thread title up a bit, and will give Nissan the benefit of the doubt...for now.

Click to expand...

Thanks. You might want to edit your initial post to reflect that because I was scratching my head for 6 pages wondering what kind of driving patterns we were talking about