2013-2014 bar losers and capacity losses

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2013 May build, currently with 1 bar loss 51.86 Ahr and 79% SOH. 36k miles, think second bar should drop any day. 1 3/4 year left on capacity warrenty, hope it makes it...
 
swaltner said:
I lost the first capacity bar on my Leaf yesterday morning. Details as follows:

2013 Leaf SV
Manufactured: Jul 2013
Delivered: July 2013 (factory order, so was on the dealers lot for less than 24 hours)
Max gid reading ever recorded: 267
12->11 bars on: 2013-09-06 - 36,147 miles, 240 gids
Location: Wichita, KS
Charging routine: Mostly 80% charge except for 100% charges right before departure (regularly during winter and infrequent at other times)

I assume you mean you lost that bar on Sept-6 2016 not 2013?

I added it to the WIKI but didn't have a VIN for it.
 
silverone said:
Sorry about my first post being in a controversial subject! No disrespect was intended to any of the forum membership.
and none was taken. We only want to make sure you understand what is going on. That is all. Some will read your post and take it to mean the Chevy Volt battery is far superior to the LEAF which is simply not true. They have simply managed it much different because they have the luxury of gas.

But again; still a great option for a lot of us.
 
I lost the first capacity bar on my Leaf last night during my nightly charge. Details as follows:

2014 Leaf SL
Manufactured: Apr 2014
Delivered: Jun 2014
Max gid reading ever recorded: 267
12->11 bars on: 09-13-2016 - 28,834 miles
Location: NORFOLK, VA
Charging routine: Mostly 80% charge except for 100% a couple of times a month. QC: 4 times(never to 80%), 1581 L1/L2
VIN: 339458
GIDS: 239 (85.1%)/97.0 SOC
55.21 AHr, 84% SOH, 81.60% Hx,18.5 KWH, 86 Batt Temp, 97% SOC

So if you look at my signature below I have only lost 5.9% GIDS since new. It is really upsetting that you loose 1 bar from 15% GID loss, and 9% of that came before it even left the factory.
 
GRA said:
Just to be clear, the Volt's battery has suffered degradation but because GM decided to only use 65% of the total capacity when new, that degradation is hidden from the owner. In addition, they employed a very effective active TMS which slows down the rate of heat-related degradation, which combined with the relatively small SoC window allowed when new and the ability to open up that window as the battery ages, allows the Volt to appear to have no degradation from the user's perspective over a prolonged period of time.
Re: the bolded part, I've heard the Volt opening up more capacity as the battery degrades passed around both as speculation and fact by several different folks. I've also heard Volt folks claiming that the Volt does NOT do that.

I'm not clear who's right. Logically, it'd make sense for GM to do that. Whether or not they do it is a question...

If anyone has a definitive answer, preferably different independent sources providing evidence of one or the other, I'd like to know.
 
cwerdna said:
GRA said:
Just to be clear, the Volt's battery has suffered degradation but because GM decided to only use 65% of the total capacity when new, that degradation is hidden from the owner. In addition, they employed a very effective active TMS which slows down the rate of heat-related degradation, which combined with the relatively small SoC window allowed when new and the ability to open up that window as the battery ages, allows the Volt to appear to have no degradation from the user's perspective over a prolonged period of time.
Re: the bolded part, I've heard the Volt opening up more capacity as the battery degrades passed around both as speculation and fact by several different folks. I've also heard Volt folks claiming that the Volt does NOT do that.

I'm not clear who's right. Logically, it'd make sense for GM to do that. Whether or not they do it is a question...

If anyone has a definitive answer, preferably different independent sources providing evidence of one or the other, I'd like to know.

Not definitive but I've seen posts from GM engineers insist that the capacity window does not open up or change. This was on FB Q&A posts at the Gen 2 release as well as the GM Volt forums. There are also no consumer tools to measure it, as the closest we have is SOC. On the Volt this is just a calculated number from other readings.

Supporting this, you would realistically not expect to see the whole 35% battery "buffer" be available to supplement any range loss experienced. The range loss of a smaller battery should be more noticeable than a larger battery as well. Compare a 50,000 EV mile Leaf with a 50,000 mile EV Volt and the Volt will have way more charge cycles in that timeframe - yet no degradation has been reported - to the extent that GM is now using that as a talking point.

Don't get me wrong, I understand there HAS to be some degradation based on battery chemistry, but it's just not being reported as a significant event on these cars. I wouldn't have expected thermal management to trump time and battery cycling to keep batteries going, but that sure appears to be the case.

If degradation is being hidden by a window, I'd expect that we'd be hearing about SOMEONE hitting that by now.
 
silverone said:
cwerdna said:
GRA said:
Just to be clear, the Volt's battery has suffered degradation but because GM decided to only use 65% of the total capacity when new, that degradation is hidden from the owner. In addition, they employed a very effective active TMS which slows down the rate of heat-related degradation, which combined with the relatively small SoC window allowed when new and the ability to open up that window as the battery ages, allows the Volt to appear to have no degradation from the user's perspective over a prolonged period of time.
Re: the bolded part, I've heard the Volt opening up more capacity as the battery degrades passed around both as speculation and fact by several different folks. I've also heard Volt folks claiming that the Volt does NOT do that.

I'm not clear who's right. Logically, it'd make sense for GM to do that. Whether or not they do it is a question...

If anyone has a definitive answer, preferably different independent sources providing evidence of one or the other, I'd like to know.

Not definitive but I've seen posts from GM engineers insist that the capacity window does not open up or change. This was on FB Q&A posts at the Gen 2 release as well as the GM Volt forums.
I've seen those claims too, and simply don't believe them (what, company reps fibbing to the public?), but as you say, until someone has a way to measure this we can't say for certain. OTOH, LG Chem would have had to invent a miracle battery for the Volt to have suffered zero detectable degradation with no change in usable SoC after 5.5 years, so weigh the probabilities.
 
silverone said:
Don't get me wrong, I understand there HAS to be some degradation based on battery chemistry, but it's just not being reported as a significant event on these cars.
INL has tested the Volt and found that when testing the battery out of the car, capacity is definitely being lost.

For example:
https://avt.inl.gov/vehicle-button/2013-chevrolet-volt

After 130k miles and 3 years, the 4 Volts they tested about 9-10% capacity loss.

Compare this to the '13 LEAFs which lost 14-16% in about a year and 15k miles.

FWIW, the '13 Ford Focus EVs they tested also lost about 10% capacity in about a year and 12k miles, despite having thermal management.

Whatever secret sauce GM has in their LG packs, it appears to be working.
 
drees said:
silverone said:
Don't get me wrong, I understand there HAS to be some degradation based on battery chemistry, but it's just not being reported as a significant event on these cars.
INL has tested the Volt and found that when testing the battery out of the car, capacity is definitely being lost.

For example:
https://avt.inl.gov/vehicle-button/2013-chevrolet-volt

After 130k miles and 3 years, the 4 Volts they tested about 9-10% capacity loss...

Whatever secret sauce GM has in their LG packs, it appears to be working.
This has already been discussed, repeatedly, in the Volt thread.

The battery degradation shown by the Volt test fleet cited by drees doesn't tell you much, since the Volt's miles driven were overwhelmingly fueled by gasoline, not electricity.

The four 2013 Chevrolet Volt EREVs have been driven a total of 599,018 miles. The cumulative
average fuel economy is 38.8 mpg and the cumulative average electricity consumption is 60.8 AC
Wh/mile...
https://avt.inl.gov/vehicle-button/2013-chevrolet-volt

So, what this study shows is that if you Drive a Volt ~150 k miles, over 80% of those miles fueled by gas, with very little battery pack cycling, and continue to use gasoline to fuel your battery pack refrigeration system even after the battery charge is depleted, you will not have very much pack degradation over ~3.5 years, even in Phoenix.

You also will have burned more gas than you would have driving an efficient/hybrid ICEV, every kWh you used from the grid would have been totally wasted, and you would have suffered ~$36,000 in depreciation (before incentives).

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/fs2013volt1078EREV.pdf

The only secret sauce in the Gen one Volt's design, is the lack of critical thinking by those considering buying one...

BTW, here are the somewhat improved efficiency results for the Gen 2 Volt so far:

The four 2016 Chevrolet Volt EREVs
have been driven a total of 56,437 miles. The cumulative average fuel economy is 41.3 mpg and the
cumulative average electricity consumption is 46.3 AC Wh/mile....
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/ar2016ChevroletVoltEREV.pdf
 
edatoakrun said:
The battery degradation shown by the Volt test fleet cited by drees doesn't tell you much, since the Volt's miles driven were overwhelmingly fueled by gasoline, not electricity.

The four 2013 Chevrolet Volt EREVs have been driven a total of 599,018 miles. The cumulative
average fuel economy is 38.8 mpg and the cumulative average electricity consumption is 60.8 AC
Wh/mile...
https://avt.inl.gov/vehicle-button/2013-chevrolet-volt

So, what this study shows is that if you Drive a Volt ~150 k miles, over 80% of those miles fueled by gas, with very little battery pack cycling, and continue to use gasoline to fuel your battery pack refrigeration system even after the battery charge is depleted, you will not have very much pack degradation over ~3.5 years, even in Phoenix.

You also will have burned more gas than you would have driving an efficient/hybrid ICEV, every kWh you used from the grid would have been totally wasted, and you would have suffered ~$36,000 in depreciation (before incentives).

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/fs2013volt1078EREV.pdf

The only secret sauce in the Gen one Volt's design, is the lack of critical thinking by those considering buying one...

BTW, here are the somewhat improved efficiency results for the Gen 2 Volt so far:

The four 2016 Chevrolet Volt EREVs
have been driven a total of 56,437 miles. The cumulative average fuel economy is 41.3 mpg and the
cumulative average electricity consumption is 46.3 AC Wh/mile....
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/phev/ar2016ChevroletVoltEREV.pdf

The INL test may be valid on degradation just based on the fact that 80% of the time the Volt battery was floating at the low SOC mark somewhat within operating parameters for most of the test period. I'm not sure the test methods beyond that even reflect the fleet they're trying to measure. For all other conclusions drawn? Not so much.

* All operating cost and cost per mile metrics are based on MSRP plus pricing. When was that ever valid for a Volt or a Leaf for that matter. Depreciation hurts, but I'm betting no one has taken a 36,000 hit on either car. To pick a nit, how many 38MPG highway cars are there and at what prices?

* The Volt fleet on Voltstats shows less than 1% of cars operating at 20% EV mode or less. Few drive this way and there is little financial benefit to do so. The median in that population is well over 75% of miles EV mode. At US average prices and EV efficiency of the Volt, gas is still about twice the price of electricity. More EV miles equal more savings. I don't see how every kWh from grid could be totally wasted when the cost is half of the gas equivalent.

Please let this Volt Driving Critical Thought Imbecile ask one more question, which was why I originally posted here. Do you think a 3 year old 40,000 mile LEAF at or approaching 11 bars would be good for a 40 mile commute for the next 3 years and 60,000 additional miles at potentially zero degree winter temperatures? One way with charging on both ends. I know a 3-5 yr old Volt can, but it would be interesting to try something different and save a 4,000 price premium on a used model Volt vs LEAF.
 
silverone said:
<snip>
Please let this Volt Driving Critical Thought Imbecile ask one more question, which was why I originally posted here. Do you think a 3 year old 40,000 mile LEAF at or approaching 11 bars would be good for a 40 mile commute for the next 3 years and 60,000 additional miles at potentially zero degree winter temperatures? One way with charging on both ends. I know a 3-5 yr old Volt can, but it would be interesting to try something different and save a 4,000 price premium on a used model Volt vs LEAF.
Almost certainly not (I was tempted to just put 'No', but depending on speeds, terrain and how you drive generally you just might make it work). If you expect to use heat, then no.
 
GRA said:
Almost certainly not (I was tempted to just put 'No', but depending on speeds, terrain and how you drive generally you just might make it work). If you expect to use heat, then no.

Thank you. That was my gut feel, but I drove my first winter year in the Volt without much heat to stretch EV miles, so I know that side too.
 
edatoakrun said:
This has already been discussed, repeatedly, in the Volt thread.
I'm not sure what you think I'm discussing, my point was simply:

1. The Volt's batteries DO lose capacity over time (silverone was looking for some data on actual measured capacity loss on the Volt).
2. They don't seem to lose much capacity over time, compared to BEVs and especially compared to the '11-14 LEAF.

Anyway, back on topic.

It's interesting to me that there appears to be a couple late '13 LEAFs and '14 LEAFs that are losing bars at a similar rate as one might expect with '11-12 LEAFs.
 
cwerdna said:
GRA said:
Just to be clear, the Volt's battery has suffered degradation but because GM decided to only use 65% of the total capacity when new, that degradation is hidden from the owner. In addition, they employed a very effective active TMS which slows down the rate of heat-related degradation, which combined with the relatively small SoC window allowed when new and the ability to open up that window as the battery ages, allows the Volt to appear to have no degradation from the user's perspective over a prolonged period of time.
Re: the bolded part, I've heard the Volt opening up more capacity as the battery degrades passed around both as speculation and fact by several different folks. I've also heard Volt folks claiming that the Volt does NOT do that.

I'm not clear who's right. Logically, it'd make sense for GM to do that. Whether or not they do it is a question...

If anyone has a definitive answer, preferably different independent sources providing evidence of one or the other, I'd like to know.

what sense would it make to not use that 35%? we all know batteries will degrade no matter how robust TMS is so its simply not possible to not have noticeable degradation in the car after a few years.
 
Just lost my first bar yesterday on my MY13 Leaf. More details:

Model: 2013 Nissan Leaf SL
Manufactured: 2013 February
First Owner Leased: 2013.03.15
Original Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
Off-Lease Purchase Miles: 13,550
Off-Lease Pruchase Date: 2015.05.15
1st Bar Loss Miles: 25,843
1st Bar Loss Date: 2016.10.17
Current Location: Raleigh, North Carolina

Charging Details: I believe the vehicle was charged mostly on 120V Level 1 charging for the first couple years. When I purchased it off-lease, I charged it mostly at work on 240V Level 2 charging 3 to 4 times a week. Most of the charging sessions I charged it to 100%. Quick charges at 480V Level 3 occurred maybe once a month.

I do not have exact GIDs / SOH. Does this loss seem fairly normal? It seems it lasted through 3 entire summers of 90 F+ heat. GOM still shows 82+ miles when charged to 100%. Got a pretty good deal when I bought it, and I'm pretty satisfied with it. I plan to keep this vehicle for several more years and wait to see if a new battery pack can be offered for $2K or less!
 
I got my new 2013 SL (manufactured 5/2013 ) on 9/30/2013. Lost my first bar 5/2015, second bar 9/2015, third bar 5/2016 and forth bar 8/23/2016 (31,400 miles). First 21 months mostly charged L1/L2 to 80% (home and work). My drive was 55 miles round trip with about 75% highway. As capacity started to go away, I had to charge more often to 100%, however, I tried my best to keep it fully charged as little as possible (extreme Phoenix temperatures).

I wanted to delay replacement even if I was getting at work in the morning with about 12 miles left (from full charge). Just before 3 years, on 9/26 (not charged for third battery check), I was told that the delay in getting a new battery can be 3 months. With that in mind, I asked for the battery to be ordered.

In a month, the capacity loss increased a very few miles (somehow compensated by no AC need in the morning). That was enough to make me accept the replacement, when I was told Friday, 10/28, that my new battery arrived (less than 5 weeks). I dropped my car that afternoon. I got a 9/14 S Leaf as a loaner - similar driving to mine. Saturday afternoon I had back my leaf, with the new battery (AutoNation Nissan Tempe).

I am waiting for more data, but last night I was able to go on highway (15 miles one way, 202 San Tan/I10) both ways, with 61% SOC left (from 100%; in the weekends, driving is 75 - 80 miles/h to keep with the flow). Before, I would have been like 25% at half point - no way to go back on highway.
 
elec7ric said:
I got my new 2013 SL (manufactured 5/2013 ) on 9/30/2013. Lost my first bar 5/2015, second bar 9/2015, third bar 5/2016 and forth bar 8/23/2016 (31,400 miles). First 21 months mostly charged L1/L2 to 80% (home and work). My drive was 55 miles round trip with about 75% highway. As capacity started to go away, I had to charge more often to 100%, however, I tried my best to keep it fully charged as little as possible (extreme Phoenix temperatures).
Thank you for providing your data point and to you or whoever added it to http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss#four_bars.

Wow. At least this confirms that even 4/2013+ built '13 Leafs can definitely lose 4 capacity bars within the capacity warranty. Those Phoenix temps are most definitely brutal.

My used 5/2013 '13 SV (original in-service date towards end of 6/2013) that I bought in July 2015 still has all 12 capacity bars now. I'm inching closer to losing 1 though. My current Leaf Spy stats are:
AHr: 57.49
SOH: 87%
Hx: 87.20% (got better w/some recent full/fuller charges and deeper discharge)
odo: 38,928 miles
 
achewt said:
Hi all - I haven't lost any bars on my 2014 yet, but thought I would pop in and relay my experiences so far:

Manufacture Date:
Feb 2014 (car was sitting on lot in Vancouver, BC)
Purchased Date: May 2014
Commute: 72 km one way
City: Nelson, BC; though the car spends 9-10 hours every day in Trail, BC, which is hotter and an open asphalt parking lot.
Climate: humid continental; summers are hot (for BC), averaging mid 20's (70 - 75) in May, June and September; 30's (85 - 100) in July and August. At night it is in a cool carport that is usually cooler than ambient temps as it is built into a hillside, so overnight temps of 10 (50) throughout summer. Fall/Spring are 5 - 15C. Winter is usually lows of -10 to 0; highs of -5 to 5. The car has been through two summers now, both hotter than average (especially this year).
Terrain: Mountainous! I gain/lose 500/650 m to and from work each day. Sometimes I drive to the nearby town of Rossland, so add another 600 m, charge while biking, then 600 m down and finish my commute.
Charging habits: I have an L2 at home, and charge to 100% every night during the non-summer seasons; typically arriving at work with 30 - 40% charge, then recharge to ~80% on L1 most days. Two months ago the first L2 was installed in Trail, so sometimes I use that charger and charge to 100% twice in a day. In the summer, I have messed with the timers to try and limit my charge to the 85-95% range. I rarely leave it sitting with 100% charge for more than a few hours. I've only QC'd 10 times while on long road trips, since there aren't any in my area.

I did not get an OBDII adapter/LeafSpy at first because I didn't want to bother with getting a different smart phone and thought I could track my apparent battery capacity by logging the dash data in a comprehensive fashion (log each trip, resetting the dash meters each time; recording km, km/kWh, avg speed, SOC% at start and end; I then calculated energy used, and divided that by SOC% used to infer the starting battery capacity in kWh).

After reviewing my daily commute data for the better part of a year, I found that my inferred battery capacity varied wildly from 16 kWh up to 24 kWh (sometimes higher, obviously not possible!) More troubling, I discovered that the Leaf screws up the efficiency calculation when incorporating regen energy. This became very obvious over some of the long descents that I can do in the Kootenays (> 1,000 m).

So, for the first year, I had no indication of what my actual capacity was at, though based on my real world observations, I inferred that it had not been much, since the GOM had only reduced starting range each morning by a few km from the year before (in similar conditions), and the amount of SOC% used for a given drive had stayed fairly constant. During a trip to the coast of BC, I was able to stop at an experimental DCQC station at BCIT, and the guy who runs the station came by and was able to read the capacity of my car as 20.7 kWh in June 2015.

This fall I discovered that LeafSpy was now available for the iPhone, so I bought the app and an adapter. I changed the settings to reflect a 2014 Leaf, but left the max GIDs at 281, and 77.5Wh/GID. I have since gathered the following readings:


Nov 7; 60,011 km; 62.94 Ahr, 96% SOH, 96.8% Hx, 273 GID (97% dash SOC), 21.2 kWh, batt temp 7.1
Dec 15; 61,963 km; 63.77 Ahr, 97% SOH, 97.9% Hx, 277 GID, 21.5 kWh (100% full balance charge), batt temp 8.4
Dec 29, 2015; 63,144 km; 63.79 Ahr, 97% SOH, 97.9% Hx, 267 GID, 20.7 kWh (97% dash SOC), batt temp 8.7
Dec 30, 2015; 63,265 km; 64.26 Ahr, 98% SOH, 98.5% Hx, 279 GID, 21.6 kWh (100%, 1 hr balancing), temp 7.4

Ambient temps over the last few weeks have been around -5 to 0C.

This morning I logged my trip to work with some screenshots of LeafSpy and plugged it into a spreadsheet, and it confirmed what I had noticed casually while viewing LeafSpy; often my energy remaining and energy consumed values do not total the amount of energy shown as available at the start of a trip. I left the house with 21.6 kWh available, and arrived to work with 8.4 kWh available and 11.5 kWh consumed for a total of 19.9 kWh. I extrapolated that trend, and noted that if I had driven to about 1 kWh remaining in the battery (as shown on LeafSpy), I would actually have been at 1 kWh remaining, 17.9 kWh consumed, for a total of 18.9 kWh.

That is a rather disturbing loss, and I'm not sure how to account for it. Can anyone provide some insight there? I'm hoping it is somehow related to the loss in capacity due to the temperature of the battery. Note that the efficiency shown in LeafSpy of 6.3 km/kWh matched that of the dash (though perhaps LS pulls that from the car?)

(Actually on that note, I would love it if someone could show me that calculation, and whether it shows up on LeafSpy, it would make my trip planner spreadsheet http://kootenayevfamily.ca/ev-basics/trip-planner-spreadsheet/ much more accurate if I could really figure out how many kWh are available for a certain battery temperature!)

I also have an OT question - does the value of a GID degrade along with the battery? Curious because have read elsewhere that guess is that the car uses number of GIDs to determine SOC% to display on the dash (and typically the LS GID% matches my dash SOC%, for the most part).

Edit: date of manufacture was actually Feb 2014, not Jan 2014 as originally stated.

Update on the above:
(km) (Ahr) (SOH) (Hx)
Feb 09, 2016 67,968 65.91 100% 101.0%
Mar 10, 2016 71,791 62.86 96% 96.7%
Mar 29, 2016 74,093 60.7 92% 93.2%
Apr 18, 2016 76,297 59.17 90% 90.1%
Apr 25, 2016 77,001 58.57 89% 88.9%
May 09, 2016 79,145 58.68 89% 89.1% QC'd 9 times on a road trip, total now 39
May 21, 2016 80,697 57.97 88% 87.6%
Jun 07, 2016 82,562 57.59 88% 86.8%
Jun 29, 2016 85,063 57.46 87% 86.5%
Jul 21, 2016 86,053 57.37 87% 86.3%
Aug 13, 2016 88,521 57.36 87% 86.3%
Aug 31, 2016 89,989 56.03 85% 83.3%
Sep 02, 2016 90,260 56.51 86% 84.4%
Sep 22, 2016 92,145 58.00 88% 87.7%
Oct 04, 2016 93,261 57.19 87% 85.9%
Oct 20, 2016 95,023 58.4 89% 88.5%
Oct 31, 2016 96,046 57.8 88% 87.2%

I'm not sure what to make of this... first my SOH was plummeting like a rock, then it flattened out. I thought I was going to lose a bar at the end of the summer, but then my SOH and AHr started lurching upwards again as the ambient temps came down... now at the end of October I'm a few % lower than the end of March (with similar ambient temps). Is this normal? I expect I'll lose my first bar once it starts to warm up again next spring.
 
Same happened with me. It went down 3-4% SOH during summer. Down to 90%.
As soon as autumn came it started going up again. Now it is stable at 94%. Whole month.

It appears health comes back when battery temp drops, something like 10*C doing that.
67000km for now. 2014 Leaf.
 
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