Project: Destroy my Battery

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eatsleafsandshoots said:
I just try to beat the **** out of this thing and see if I can get a new battery before my 8 years is up?

...Any downsides to my plan?... (to) just try to beat the **** out of this thing and see if I can get a new battery before my 8 years is up?...
The present (discounted) cost to Nissan to exchange a LEAF pack some ~eight years in the future is probably well under $1,000.

Your time and efforts probably would be more highly compensated in some other activity for which you have sufficient skills.

Picking up recyclable cans and bottles along roadsides, for example...
 
Haha yes now I'm a homeless person. C'mon, call me a Nazi. You know you want to.

As a homeless, thieving Nazi, I hearby apologize for creating a clickbait title for the smooth brained and EXTREMELY angry denizens of this forum. Thanks to the folks who chose not to randomly insult me.
 
LeftieBiker said:
eatsleafsandshoots said:
I don't mean to imply I'm going to intentionally damage it! I just want to drive it constantly - I love to drive, and I live awhile aways from work so I can put SERIOUS mileage on with QC at work and L2 at home.

In that case you may want to edit the title. ;-)

After reading through this thread, I agree with Leftie. Your intentions are fine - use the car as much as you can. The title is misleading and obviously hit a few nerves. The attacks are uncalled for, especially after you explained what your intent is.

I see nothing wrong with your plan. Nissan sold you a car. You should be allowed to drive it. Quick charge it if you need to. Nissan expects the battery to last 8 years / 100k miles. We shouldn't have to baby these cars. They are there to serve us, not the other way around. Drive it, charge it, enjoy it. If your battery fails within warranty, you get a new one and keep on keeping on.
 
I'll be a new owner of a used Leaf here shortly. I don't have issue per-say with anything you plan on doing with your property. I would however remind everyone that Nissan has, at least from my POV been trying to maintain goodwill with Leaf customers. By swapping out defective batteries, in some cases after the warranty has expired and for others, provided what seems to be a pretty good subsidy on battery replacements.

When they (Nissan) see things like this -and lets not fool ourselves someone from Nissan will see this. We are figuratively shooting that Goodwill in the face.
 
rmay635703 said:
Volt drivers never have to worry about any of this nonsense,

Just drive the car how you need to, to get where you gotta go

As do the VAST majority of LEAF drivers.
 
eatsleafsandshoots said:
Haha yes now I'm a homeless person. C'mon, call me a Nazi. You know you want to.

As a homeless, thieving Nazi, I hearby apologize for creating a clickbait title for the smooth brained and EXTREMELY angry denizens of this forum. Thanks to the folks who chose not to randomly insult me.
This reply actually gave me a chuckle...hope that at least some degree of levity was the intention...

I was actually thinking you were going to set your traction battery back on fire, kind of like some folks did with scrap magnesium VW engine blocks on empty beaches....this is a tough place; but as far as random insults go, the aforementioned were pretty lightweight...

Have fun with your car.... hills do the most between QCs..
 
eatsleafsandshoots said:
LOL, you people are ridiculous. You hope Nissan figures what out? That I used QC a lot and tried to put as many spirited miles on my car as I can?

Warranties cover manufacturer defects, geniuses. Products that are "intentionally abused" aren't covered by a warranty - by definition, if Mr. Air Jordans got his shoes replaced under warranty, Nike agreed that the product had a defect. Good lord.

Is all this anger because of the pent-up rage at having to baby your batteries?

1) Do whatever lets you sleep at night. I could care less.

2) I thought I knew how warranties work, but thanks for clearing that up. Sounds like you think poking holes in your air soles to fake a return is cool as well, but that fits.

3) I'm not a card carrying member of Mensa but I keep scoring 145+, maybe I should join? Do tell.

4) Neither angry nor babying my battery(s)

5) You're officially on 'ignore'.

:)
 
edatoakrun said:
eatsleafsandshoots said:
I just try to beat the **** out of this thing and see if I can get a new battery before my 8 years is up?

...Any downsides to my plan?... (to) just try to beat the **** out of this thing and see if I can get a new battery before my 8 years is up?...
The present (discounted) cost to Nissan to exchange a LEAF pack some ~eight years in the future is probably well under $1,000.

Your time and efforts probably would be more highly compensated in some other activity for which you have sufficient skills.

Picking up recyclable cans and bottles along roadsides, for example...

LOL, well played.
 
powersurge said:
I once had a work buddy who proudly described how every year he would buy a power washer on Friday, wash his house and stuff all weekend long, and then return it on Monday, saying it didn't work right.... So he would wash his house every year for free.... And who would pay for that?? US.... The consumer.

You guys who are proudly shooting your mouths about PLANNING to abuse your cars and the hope to get free rewards in the future fall into the neighborhood of low life consumers.... I hate them and am repulsed by them. You can't backpedal and say, "oh.. I just want to use the car normally".

I hope Nissan has some spies on this site that can identify yooz..

I never said I'm planning on making Nissan pay for a battery. When it fails, I replace it.

But devil's advocate, if Nissan delivers a car with certain specs, it should meet those specs and be fully warranted while driving within Nissan's limits.

I could light the Leaf on fire tomorrow, I don't care about its long term health and nobody else will ever drive it. I add vehicles, I don't trade them.
 
Only problem with your plan is the actual Nissan warranty. To have the battery replaced you have to lose more than 3 bars. That could end up being as low as 50% of original capacity. I have 27000 miles on my 2016. It has an SOH of 82% and the first bar comes and goes daily. 11 bars to start after a full charge and full bars after 20-30 minutes of driving. The first bar stays lit the rest of the day. It gets an L2 charge every day whenever I get home just in case I have to go somewhere else later. I drive about 60 miles a day on average. I don't abuse the battery but I don't baby it either. It gets an L3 charge when necessary to finish my errands and sits overnight either charging or with a full charge depending on when I get home.
 
eatsleafsandshoots said:
HAHAHAH "morally bankrupt" to do what I said I'm going to do. Keep it up, I'm rolling over here.

What?! Do you relish being criticized? I was referring to his work buddy. As the others have said, your intent does not match your posting title.
 
OP said " I'm OK with not getting a new battery if it means my original one still meets my needs."

Then the question is whether a degraded battery not yet eligible for warranty meets your needs. Or your future needs.
 
Maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't understand why this is such a big deal. The guy is just looking to challenge the durability of the battery. He's not doing anything illegal, and I'm sure he recognizes that there is a strong chance it will just inconvenience him.

Based on what I know, the plan to drive the heck out of the battery will not work. Battery degradation is more correlated with temperature, and charging conditions.

The fastest way to degrade your battery would be to quick charge it all the time, even when it is not depleted down to 20%. Park in the sun. Charge in the sun. Move as close to the sun as possible.
 
I think a lot of the controversy in this thread goes back to something the OP themselves said:

eatsleafsandshoots said:
Warranties cover manufacturer defects, geniuses. Products that are "intentionally abused" aren't covered by a warranty - by definition

The question then is "Project: Destroy my Battery" really a result of a defect? Or just somebody intentionally abusing the battery? It's the former if the battery is supposed to be able to handle someone going out of the way to abuse it. And the latter if that's outside of the realm of "normal driving habits". Based on the comments like "why not just try to beat the **** out of this thing and see if I can get a new battery before my 8 years is up" it sounds more like the latter to me, meaning Nissan might not replace the battery if they think it's been purposefully abused. They'll probably replace it anyway out of goodwill, but it would hurt every LEAF driver if their goodwill was exhausted by people "cheating the system" like this and getting replacements that aren't for defects. If it's just a few people doing this among a larger group of people with legitimate problems with their batteries from normal usage, then I'm pretty neutral towards that. It happens when you've got thousands of people involved in something.

To the OP, why not just drive normally instead of purposefully going out of your way to damage the battery? You don't have to baby it. Just drive it like an ICE car, thousands of people do that already with their LEAFs, the people on this forum are just the ones who are more inclined to read up on things like battery degradation and decide that it's simple to change some behaviors in return for the car lasting longer compared to the tons of LEAF owners who aren't reading up on stuff like that.
 
webb14leafs said:
Maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't understand why this is such a big deal. The guy is just looking to challenge the durability of the battery.
You ARE missing the point.

OP wants to stress the car. The LEAF is less able to tolerate the sort of driving he wants from the car than a garden variety ICE and his behaviour is almost certainly to show up as accelerated battery aging. He gets that, and hopes that Nissan will cover the accelerated aging.

They will if the battery reaches 8 bars within 8 years or 100k miles.

The answers are fairly simple:
1. We don't know if he will reach 8 bars before the warranty expires
2. He has to decide if 11, 10, and 9 bar capacity works for him during the warranty period.
3. After 8 yrs/100k miles the battery is what it is.
 
SageBrush said:
webb14leafs said:
Maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't understand why this is such a big deal. The guy is just looking to challenge the durability of the battery.
You ARE missing the point.

OP wants to stress the car. The LEAF is less able to tolerate the sort of driving he wants from the car than a garden variety ICE and his behaviour is almost certainly to show up as accelerated battery aging. He gets that, and hopes that Nissan will cover the accelerated aging.

They will if the battery reaches 8 bars within 8 years or 100k miles.

The answers are fairly simple:
1. We don't know if he will reach 8 bars before the warranty expires
2. He has to decide if 11, 10, and 9 bar capacity works for him during the warranty period.
3. After 8 yrs/100k miles the battery is what it is.

"This warranty covers any repairs needed to return battery capacity level of nine bars on the vehicles capacity level gauge. If possible the Lithium-Ion battery components will be repaired or replaced, and the original Lithium-Ion battery will be returned to the vehicle. If necessary, the Lithium-Ion battery will be replaced with either a new or re manufactured Lithium-Ion battery. Any repair or replacement made under this Lithium-Ion battery Capacity Coverage may not return your Lithium-Ion battery to an "as new" condition with all 12 battery capacity bars, but will provide the vehicle with a capacity level of nine bars or more on the battery capacity level gauge. "
So that pretty much spells it out right out of the warranty book.
If one makes the choice to rapidly accelerate the capacity degradation then they may be in for an unpleasant surprise and having to live with a 9 bar car for the duration of the 8 years.
Lets also not forget a software update to the the bms may reprogram to achieve those 9 bars or to delay the 9th bar drop.
The car is meant to be driven so IMHO have fun with it feel free to take it to it's designed limits , but at the same token remember the above.
 
soldcake said:
On the other hand, the holy-grail of EV is "the highest mileage with the lowest battery degradation".
Is there a thread for this "search of the holy-grail"? it will be good. :p

yea ! it will be good. ("Indiana Jones" theme music in the background) :D
 
The only problem I see is that evidence suggests that "babying" is not all that big a factor. Degradation seems to be dependent on your local climate more than anything else. That's why the guy who lives at 8000ft isn't seeing much degradation...his weather is cool.
 
davewill said:
The only problem I see is that evidence suggests that "babying" is not all that big a factor. Degradation seems to be dependent on your local climate more than anything else. That's why the guy who lives at 8000ft isn't seeing much degradation...his weather is cool.

That's correct, it is based much more off of temperature than driving style.

I live at 8000ft (and we just had a half-foot of snow this week, first of the season) but the summer temps can get fairly high too. We are in a semi-arid desert, so we just get huge temperature swings. Nothing like living by water where it regulates the daily temps, we can swing 70F in a day no problem.

I still drive my Leaf like I stole it, still have all my capacity bars, GOM still shows 86mi after a full 100% charge. It charges to 100% all the time and sits there. I do absolutely nothing to baby the car and abuse it. But I figure I treat it like the majority of non-tech people would and the car should take that. So far, it has.
 
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