Extending range of 24kWh Leaf with LeafBox

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Piro, would it be possible with LeafBox to disable the low speed "crawl" that mimics and automatic transmission so that the car just sits still without pressing on either pedal?
 
VitaminJ said:
Piro, would it be possible with LeafBox to disable the low speed "crawl" that mimics and automatic transmission so that the car just sits still without pressing on either pedal?


Great feature. If possible create something similar as BMW i3 one pedal driving.
 
Thomas,

I just found your post about the Nissan Leaf range extender. We have a 2011 Leaf with only nine lights on the battery, so I think a range extender would help us a lot. Do you have any of the beta tester modules left? I would like to help you out by testing one in our situation, where the battery is not in the best of health to start with. Do you think there would be any improvement?

All the best for you and your project.

Alan
 
IssacZachary said:
Maybe on flat land. But don't try that here in the Rockies. :lol:
The Leaf is genius in that regard, it will hold itself in place on hills with no brake input, no matter how steep. The car will sense it's rolling backwards and use motor braking to stop itself. If the forward crawl and be eliminated, there's no reason to think the hill-hold can't be retained.
 
I see what you're saying. I've noticed that at 0mph the motor seems to be drawing practically no power. But as the car speeds up to about 5mph the motor uses a small but noticeable amount of power, even if you're using your brakes going down hill. Canceling that out might help a little bit in the 1 to 5mph area.

Still I wonder how much the 0mph anti-rollback and the 1 to 5mph crawl are related and separable.

I was just saying you wouldn't want to be in essentially neutral and not use either pedal on a hill.

PS. To hold itself at a stop it's impossible to be using regenerative braking. Even at slow speeds regenerative braking is practically impossible and nonexistent. The Leaf has to apply power to slow the vehicle at those speeds.
 
IssacZachary said:
I see what you're saying. I've noticed that at 0mph the motor seems to be drawing practically no power. But as the car speeds up to about 5mph the motor uses a small but noticeable amount of power, even if you're using your brakes going down hill. Canceling that out might help a little bit in the 1 to 5mph area.
I suspect the power graph thingy isn't 100% accurate, especially at low speeds. As you say, it doesn't report any power being used but clearly at low speeds the car is fighting the brake pedal like a classic automatic transmission. I think it may improve efficiency, especially in stop and go traffic, but mostly I think it's annoying.
Still I wonder how much the 0mph anti-rollback and the 1 to 5mph crawl are related and separable.
Well the electric motor is not at all like a traditional automatic. In a normal auto the idle speed of the engine and the unlocked torque converter cause the car to crawl forward at slow speed based on how the mechanism works (and the car can even roll backwards on a steep enough hill). Nissan just emulated that behavior with the electric motor. There is no reason why behavior >0 RPM has to effect behavior <0 RPM. The motor and all the wheel speed sensors know when the car is doing 0.1mph and -0.1mph, and can adjust the behavior instantly.
I was just saying you wouldn't want to be in essentially neutral and not use either pedal on a hill.
I was literally doing just that last night while sitting in horrible <4mph stop and go traffic for at least 20 miles as all the Californians slid off the side of the highway in 1 inch of snow. I just sat there riding the brake pedal wishing there was no crawl. Then on the uphill sections I crawled up and up and up a few feet at a time without touching the brake pedal, only feathering the throttle. I would like to do that on flat ground too.
PS. To hold itself at a stop it's impossible to be using regenerative braking. Even at slow speeds regenerative braking is practically impossible and nonexistent. The Leaf has to apply power to slow the vehicle at those speeds.
Regen is one thing, but motor braking is completely different. Theoretically, the Leaf can supply the equivalent of 80kw of front wheel "braking" force to cancel out any hill. The limit there is traction of the front wheels (I am not sure if the car will automatically apply the friction brakes to all 4 corners, I suspect not).
 
IssacZachary said:
This is very interesting. I've been shifting into N and coasting a lot. This would do that automatically if I wanted it to?

Yes, coasting now = just do not remove leg from accelerator pedal, leave it a bit pressed, so LeafBox will understand this and make car coast.
 
bigalfromwigan said:
Thomas,

I just found your post about the Nissan Leaf range extender. We have a 2011 Leaf with only nine lights on the battery, so I think a range extender would help us a lot. Do you have any of the beta tester modules left? I would like to help you out by testing one in our situation, where the battery is not in the best of health to start with. Do you think there would be any improvement?

All the best for you and your project.

Alan

Alan - I have already 2 testers with 2011 Leafs with battery worn - I will soon have results (actual reports are promising, I did special setup for 2011-2012 Leafs, (see LeafBox Manual: http://vtechtuning.eu/leafbox.html?file=files/download/leafbox manual.pdf) but after 2 weeks I do not have enough results to have clear average gain. I need 1-2 weeks more.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Py6jNEyEU

172,8 km, or 107,3 miles till turtle with 24kwh 2013 Leaf.
- winter tires, drive in hills (I have no flat terrain :( ) heat on but minimal possible, seat heating on (LO), ECO mode,
average speed of 62 km/h, I tried to drive not faster than 75, and not slower than 55 km/h
rural area, small cities and villages, maybe 5 stops because of lights, rather smooth drive.
Last 15 km done in higher mountains, as I wanted to be able to return home, so I drived high hill up and down till turtle (I know this is bad for range, but I have no alternative at all - at my home village there are no flat areas longer than 40 m...), and then - I returned home (luckily turtle came 200 m from home).
LeafBox range extender installed.

In 2 weeks I will install normal tires, so I expect improvement, even in our hills.
 
Piro said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Py6jNEyEU

172,8 km, or 107,3 miles till turtle with 24kwh 2013 Leaf.
- winter tires, drive in hills (I have no flat terrain :( ) heat on but minimal possible, seat heating on (LO), ECO mode,
average speed of 62 km/h, I tried to drive not faster than 75, and not slower than 55 km/h
rural area, small cities and villages, maybe 5 stops because of lights, rather smooth drive.
Last 15 km done in higher mountains, as I wanted to be able to return home, so I drived high hill up and down till turtle (I know this is bad for range, but I have no alternative at all - at my home village there are no flat areas longer than 40 m...), and then - I returned home (luckily turtle came 200 m from home).
LeafBox range extender installed.

In 2 weeks I will install normal tires, so I expect improvement, even in our hills.

I'm following you on Facebook

Your'e having great results!
 
I watched your range video and did the calculations to miles.... I do not care about finding the final range to a dead battery... I stopped your demonstration at 30%. From a 100% to 30% battery, the car traveled 68 miles. At my current general range on my car, I get 1 mile / percent of battery. So if I travel 70 miles on a good day with my current car, I will have about 30 miles of range left (at 30% battery)-------

Your numbers are not much different than I get on my stock Leaf?? I understand that you used heat, so those numbers are good. However, where is the real benefit in this product? I do not see a significant difference in buying/ using an additional electronic product.

This strikes me like all those ICE car engine "chips" that are supposed to increase mileage.....
 
powersurge said:
So if I travel 70 miles on a good day with my current car, I will have about 30 miles of range left (at 30% battery)-------
He is travelling on a bad day, cold. Using heater. And using chunky snow tires. Oh yeah and driving in the mountains.
 
Piro said:
I have already 2 testers with 2011 Leafs with battery worn - I will soon have results (actual reports are promising, I did special setup for 2011-2012 Leafs, (see LeafBox Manual: http://vtechtuning.eu/leafbox.html?file=files/download/leafbox manual.pdf) but after 2 weeks I do not have enough results to have clear average gain. I need 1-2 weeks more.
Did you ever mail out any of the LeafBox's? I was the first one to respond to this thread and PM'd you my address, if I haven't got one I wonder just who has :?
 
Hi Thomas

I've received it yesterday. In your facebook you say we should update it. How is it suposed to be done? or the version I received doesn't need to be updated?

I will install it this weekend.

Thank you.

Hugo
 
Because I'm a bit confused, who received, and who did not recieve LeafBox, please write me to priv, if not received. I will check all sendings, maybe our secretary did a mistake or so.

BTW, Update 1.1
[added] even a bit better regen in D-mode, Better characteristics for 2011-12 (Gen1) Leaf.
[fixed] stepness with power at D-mode in program nr 3, and 4 - corrected.

I have now second delivery of plugs for Nissan Leaf, so all delayed orders (and unsend test boxes, if any) will be send almost immediately. We sit day and night at production of wiring cables. All boxes sent from today have update 1.1 installed (no need to update).

Thomas
----------------------------
Thank you all, who sent me LeafSpy logs and spend generally a lot of time driving Leafs with LeafBox and collecting information for me. Thank you for ideas - I try to add all, that are possible.

Results until now:
It seems that it is absolutely fair to say, that LeafBox extends range by 10%. There are some better results, even one guy, who drives few Leafs in Uber reported, that that one with LeafBox is 20% better in range than others, but I think that he personally drives that one Leaf and is a better driver than other hired drivers (it is my theory, I havent directly asked) so I do not rely on this one report. It sounds like miracle.
Back to Earth - people, who drive in cities have better results (10-15%), people who drive mostly highways have improvement only, when they drive in cities or slower speeds (sounds logical, as power needed to maintain constant speed at highway does not change with LeafBox, so car should use exact same amount of energy).
Compiling information from all LeafSpy logs, it looks like 60% of savings comes from gliding/coasting, next 30% from alternative power demand, and maybe 10% from extended regen (mainly - faster start of full regen).
Among testers we have found one issue - it was not possible to unplug the factory plug from Acc pedal. It was probably glued or so (in factory?).
Have anybody seen such situation, that plug (any) in the car was glued?

--------------------------

I plan do explain also a bit more about that, how it is possible to go over 80kW limit (by poor 3kW, but still better than factory power, this functionality is NOT ENABLED yet) and how it is possible to invoke higher regen (again about 3kW better regen, as it bases on the same trick - exploit of factory PID_R algorythm for power demand stabilization). Maybe this will be boring for most of you, but for some it will be interesting. For me personally this exploit is a well known trick, because I have observed it in many ECUs of gasoline cars years ago, while working at reverse engineering them (as Im car tuner, all in all). I checked that in Leaf just for fun, believing in maybe 5% of chance, that this will work - and tadaaam - it works. Also for regen. I will prepare some pictures (graphs) to explain that better.
 
Piro said:
Back to Earth - people, who drive in cities have better results (10-15%), people who drive mostly highways have improvement only, when they drive in cities or slower speeds (sounds logical, as power needed to maintain constant speed at highway does not change with LeafBox, so car should use exact same amount of energy).

This is what I originally suspected, so glad to see it proved out. Unfortunately, the times I need range extension are on trips that are (mostly) highway, which reduces the value of LeafBox for me. There's no range-killer like speed for an EV ;)
 
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