2013 Leaf bar loss.

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I hope so, but the garage can get hot in the summers. I need to get leafspy to verify my battery condition but my calculations based on miles/Kwh and range seems to show a good state for my battery with now 40k miles and still 12 bars.
 
Not sure if it's been pointed out already, but there's already http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=18269 on this subject.
 
My 2013 Leaf SL still charges up to full bars, But the battery only holds 16kW! I'm wondering if they've reprogrammed the system so the bars just don't go away, because mine should be missing 4 bars. I know this because I also have a 2015 that I bought new, and I am very familiar with the way the 24kW battery performs. For example, from a near zero charge state, a full charge takes just under 16kW, which makes perfect sense because I get a little over 4 Mi/kW, so 4 X 16 = 62, which is very close to the actual range of the car.

So how do you get it warranteed if the capacity drops to half, but no bars are missing????!!!!???? I want to go more that 60 miles on a full charge!!

Anybody else experiencing this with the 2013? I've seen other leafs with bars lost, but I've never heard of dropping capacity with no bar loss!

John- 1015 Leaf LV bought new in January 2016 currently maintaining full capacity and range at 23,500 miles...(No Fast Charger), and a
2013 Leaf SL with 30,500 miles and a capacity of 16kW, and 58-60 miles, and the Quick Charge system, with no bars missing.
 
johnbechtold said:
My 2013 Leaf SL still charges up to full bars, But the battery only holds 16kW! I'm wondering if they've reprogrammed the system so the bars just don't go away, because mine should be missing 4 bars. I know this because I also have a 2015 that I bought new, and I am very familiar with the way the 24kW battery performs. For example, from a near zero charge state, a full charge takes just under 16kW, which makes perfect sense because I get a little over 4 Mi/kW, so 4 X 16 = 62, which is very close to the actual range of the car.

So how do you get it warranteed if the capacity drops to half, but no bars are missing????!!!!???? I want to go more that 60 miles on a full charge!!

Anybody else experiencing this with the 2013? I've seen other leafs with bars lost, but I've never heard of dropping capacity with no bar loss!

John- 1015 Leaf LV bought new in January 2016 currently maintaining full capacity and range at 23,500 miles...(No Fast Charger), and a
2013 Leaf SL with 30,500 miles and a capacity of 16kW, and 58-60 miles, and the Quick Charge system, with no bars missing.

I'd get the leaf-spy gids reading and file a warranty claim against the battery meter (at 4 years, and just over 30k miles, your accessories warranty might still be valid). Once that meter's fixed, then you should be able to make a claim against the battery warranty.
 
My nissan leaf is close to the warranty replacement date but I don't think I can get there with my leaf spy stats. Any suggestions? I have four months before the warranty expires.

2013 S leaf
33k miles odo
build date 1/2013
in service date 2/21/2013
AHr 47.47
soh 72%
hx 66.07%
0 qc
73.3% gids
206 gids

I live in San Diego so it doesn't get too cold in the winter and run the hell out of it for the warranty but am afraid to kill the battery after the warranty period. I tried to call nissan's leaf line and they indicate you are **** out of luck if you don't get that 4th bar lost. No assistance on battery from my calls.

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.

Thanks,

Travis
 
SeasonsAfter said:
My nissan leaf is close to the warranty replacement date but I don't think I can get there with my leaf spy stats. Any suggestions? I have four months before the warranty expires.

2013 S leaf
33k miles odo
build date 1/2013
in service date 2/21/2013
AHr 47.47
soh 72%
hx 66.07%
0 qc
73.3% gids
206 gids

I live in San Diego so it doesn't get too cold in the winter and run the hell out of it for the warranty but am afraid to kill the battery after the warranty period. I tried to call nissan's leaf line and they indicate you are **** out of luck if you don't get that 4th bar lost. No assistance on battery from my calls.

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.

Thanks,

Travis

Since we're now entering winter, you won't have heat to help you with this one. I suggest parking the car at VLBW for long periods of time. Anything under 5% should do. Maybe charge just enough for your day's needs? You'll suffer range anxiety every day until the SOH drops below 68% though. Not a good way to live frankly.
 
I have seen zero evidence that leaving a Leaf at a low SOC is any help at all in losing capacity, and it may well do the opposite. The only known substantial factor aside from heat and time is HIGH SOC. Parking the car with a full charge whenever possible and leaving it sitting that way might work, but it also might not work in time.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I have seen zero evidence that leaving a Leaf at a low SOC is any help at all in losing capacity, and it may well do the opposite. The only known substantial factor aside from heat and time is HIGH SOC. Parking the car with a full charge whenever possible and leaving it sitting that way might work, but it also might not work in time.

Really?!

Although anecdotal, my most significant SOH drop came after I got home under VLBW and plugged in, but didn't change the charge timer, so the car sat at VLBW for almost 8 hrs.

OP, I suggest you try it just for the weekend and check your leaf spy stats.
 
johnbechtold said:
For example, from a near zero charge state, a full charge takes just under 16kW,
Is this measured or calculated ?

Perhaps you are confusing the capacity bar graph with the SoC bar graph

One thing is for sure, you will engender more confidence in your understanding of the car if you get your units sorted out:
kW is a power
kWh is an energy amount
 
SageBrush said:
johnbechtold said:
For example, from a near zero charge state, a full charge takes just under 16kW,
Is this measured or calculated ?
...
One thing is for sure, you will engender more confidence in your understanding of the car if you get your units sorted out:
kW is a power
kWh is an energy amount
Yes on the first and from where is it being measured or displayed?

Yep on the 2nd.

kW and kWh are very different metrics. It's the same as confusing gallons with horsepower. Think of kW = horsepower, kWh = gallons.

If one charges at 1 kW (or 1000 watts) for 6 hours, 6 kWh came out of the wall. If it's at 6 kW for 1 hour, it's also 6 kWh. If it's 1 watt for 6000 hours, it's also 6 kWh.

One pays for electricity at home in cents per kWh. There are a few utilities w/residential plans where they not only bill per kWh but also have demand charges, but that's rare and complicates calculations. (Demand charges aren't unusual on many commercial plans.)

Leaf has ~21 kWh usable battery but since charging isn't 100% efficient, it takes more than 21 kWh out of the wall to fully charge a dead Leaf. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=155305#p155305 has some figures, but it was before the '13+ Leaf w/optional 6 kW on-board charger.

(BTW, many .gov sites say 1 gallon of gasoline has about 33.7 kWh of energy content.)
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
SeasonsAfter said:
My nissan leaf is close to the warranty replacement date but I don't think I can get there with my leaf spy stats. Any suggestions? I have four months before the warranty expires.

2013 S leaf
33k miles odo
build date 1/2013
in service date 2/21/2013
AHr 47.47
soh 72%
hx 66.07%
0 qc
73.3% gids
206 gids

I live in San Diego so it doesn't get too cold in the winter and run the hell out of it for the warranty but am afraid to kill the battery after the warranty period. I tried to call nissan's leaf line and they indicate you are **** out of luck if you don't get that 4th bar lost. No assistance on battery from my calls.

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.

Thanks,

Travis

Since we're now entering winter, you won't have heat to help you with this one. I suggest parking the car at VLBW for long periods of time. Anything under 5% should do. Maybe charge just enough for your day's needs? You'll suffer range anxiety every day until the SOH drops below 68% though. Not a good way to live frankly.

That would qualify as abuse and invalidate the warranty. Besides that likely won't do it fast enough.

Best bet, charge it as fully as possible and let it sit out in a unshaded asphalt parking lot. At full charge, you only need a little warmth to degrade the pack. Warmth you can still find quite easily by traveling 20 miles East.

The key thing is the higher the SOC, the lower the temp needs to be to degrade. at full SOC, anything over 80º will probably do it.
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
LeftieBiker said:
I have seen zero evidence that leaving a Leaf at a low SOC is any help at all in losing capacity, and it may well do the opposite. The only known substantial factor aside from heat and time is HIGH SOC. Parking the car with a full charge whenever possible and leaving it sitting that way might work, but it also might not work in time.

Really?!

Although anecdotal, my most significant SOH drop came after I got home under VLBW and plugged in, but didn't change the charge timer, so the car sat at VLBW for almost 8 hrs.

OP, I suggest you try it just for the weekend and check your leaf spy stats.

sitting at low SOC will degrade the pack but people here won't believe you unless you can post a study (as if they were some sort of unassailable truth... :lol: )

The problem is unless the temp is reasonably high, the degradation is too slow for what you need. You need to go the other way. Heat ALONE does not degrade the pack. It MUST BE heat AND high SOC . The higher the SOC, the lower the amount of heat. IOW; degradation does not come on like a switch. It flows gently in and out.

At full charge (what you want to do is complete the charge. Then restart it to make sure its "full full") degradation is likely happening at temps as low as 80º

From what I am seeing on the news, these temps are easily within your reach. Maybe not in your drive way but well within your range
 
LeftieBiker said:
Did you check the SOH before or after recharging, and did it go back up later?

As I wasn't expecting to lose SOH that time, I measured it afterwards and saw a 2% overnight drop in SOH. After a few days of rebalancing the pack, I got 1% back, but not the full 2%. I never left the car parked overnight below 20% ever again.
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
LeftieBiker said:
Did you check the SOH before or after recharging, and did it go back up later?

As I wasn't expecting to lose SOH that time, I measured it afterwards and saw a 2% overnight drop in SOH. After a few days of rebalancing the pack, I got 1% back, but not the full 2%. I never left the car parked overnight below 20% ever again.

This goes against what is known about lithium batteries. If you had driven it to Turtle and left it there, I could see damage occurring. But what you did shouldn't have caused a lasting drop in capacity. My guess is that it's an artifact of the BMS, but I really can't say for sure. The OP could try it, but all bets are off...
 
LeftieBiker said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
LeftieBiker said:
Did you check the SOH before or after recharging, and did it go back up later?

As I wasn't expecting to lose SOH that time, I measured it afterwards and saw a 2% overnight drop in SOH. After a few days of rebalancing the pack, I got 1% back, but not the full 2%. I never left the car parked overnight below 20% ever again.

This goes against what is known about lithium batteries. If you had driven it to Turtle and left it there, I could see damage occurring. But what you did shouldn't have caused a lasting drop in capacity. My guess is that it's an artifact of the BMS, but I really can't say for sure. The OP could try it, but all bets are off...

Isn't VLBW just one step away from turtle? I saw "- - -" on the GOM.
 
Nissan would have programmed the BMS to turtle the car right before damage was likely. One step before that step should be safe for the pack. Studies in the lab have shown that a ~ 5% SOC is actually good for a lithium pack.
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
LeftieBiker said:
Did you check the SOH before or after recharging, and did it go back up later?

As I wasn't expecting to lose SOH that time, I measured it afterwards and saw a 2% overnight drop in SOH. After a few days of rebalancing the pack, I got 1% back, but not the full 2%. I never left the car parked overnight below 20% ever again.

Do you have updated LEAF Spy stats? Your pack is not following the curve of others in your build time frame AND you live in a pretty warm area
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
LeftieBiker said:
Did you check the SOH before or after recharging, and did it go back up later?

As I wasn't expecting to lose SOH that time, I measured it afterwards and saw a 2% overnight drop in SOH. After a few days of rebalancing the pack, I got 1% back, but not the full 2%. I never left the car parked overnight below 20% ever again.

Do you have updated LEAF Spy stats? Your pack is not following the curve of others in your build time frame AND you live in a pretty warm area

Unfortunately no, that was my 2013 leaf S (built in Sept and bought in Oct 2013), which I turned in last year. That 2% drop happened in summer 2014. I had just taken the leaf on its first trip to disneyland and back. It was returned with ~79% battery health @ 45,000 miles, so it would've lost its fourth bar ~10,000 miles outside the warranty period.

My 2016 leaf S (current stats in the signature) is experiencing better degradation rate (~94% battery health @ 15,000 miles).
 
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