2016-2017 model year 30 kWh bar losers and capacity losses

SageBrush said:

irwinr said:

Our 2016 LEAF w/30kWh battery has now lost 3 bars after only 21k miles and less than 2 years of ownership (Brand new lease).
We live in Austin, TX and the car stays in a garage except when it's being driven.

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I avoid putting our LEAF in the garage outside of winter. Since the battery does not like heat, it most certainly does not like being in an oven.

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I don't even know how to respond to this. You believe being parked in direct Texas sunlight will somehow be cooler than an insulated attached garage?

Our garage is *far* cooler than it is outside in the summer. Outside temps get into the 100s in the summer. Our garage rarely gets above 80 degrees in the hottest months, plus the car isn't baking in the sun.

dwl said:

irwinr said:

Our 2016 LEAF w/30kWh battery has now lost 3 bars after only 21k miles and less than 2 years of ownership (Brand new lease).
...snip...
We live in Austin, TX and the car stays in a garage except when it's being driven.
...snip...

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These are very valuable insights and indicate that temperature (on this chemistry) may be more of a dominant factor than expected. Have you noted temperature of the battery, either temperature bars or from Leaf Spy, during the hotter months?

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Yes, the battery temperature generally sits around 2-3 bars in winter, and 5-6 bars in summer. Possibly going into 7-8 bars in summer if being driven hard on extended distance trips. I have LeafSpy but I don't regularly track the temperature with it.

FWIW: The 2013 LEAF behaved exactly the same with with regards to the temperature bars. I haven't noticed the 2016 running hotter than the 2013 did.

irwinr said:

SageBrush said:

irwinr said:

Our 2016 LEAF w/30kWh battery has now lost 3 bars after only 21k miles and less than 2 years of ownership (Brand new lease).
We live in Austin, TX and the car stays in a garage except when it's being driven.

Click to expand...

I avoid putting our LEAF in the garage outside of winter. Since the battery does not like heat, it most certainly does not like being in an oven.

Click to expand...

I don't even know how to respond to this. You believe being parked in direct Texas sunlight will somehow be cooler than an insulated attached garage?

Our garage is *far* cooler than it is outside in the summer. Outside temps get into the 100s in the summer. Our garage rarely gets above 80 degrees in the hottest months, plus the car isn't baking in the sun.

Click to expand...

I should have specified during the night -- nothing is obvious around here :shock:

Your nicely insulated garage has no ventilation.

An experiment is easy enough -- monitor battery temperatures with LeafSpy for a week of similar ambient temperatures the way you do now and then as I suggest, parking outside for the nights.

SageBrush said:

irwinr said:

SageBrush said:

I avoid putting our LEAF in the garage outside of winter. Since the battery does not like heat, it most certainly does not like being in an oven.

Click to expand...

I don't even know how to respond to this. You believe being parked in direct Texas sunlight will somehow be cooler than an insulated attached garage?

Our garage is *far* cooler than it is outside in the summer. Outside temps get into the 100s in the summer. Our garage rarely gets above 80 degrees in the hottest months, plus the car isn't baking in the sun.

Click to expand...

I should have specified during the night -- nothing is obvious around here :shock:

Your nicely insulated garage has no ventilation.

An experiment is easy enough -- monitor battery temperatures with LeafSpy for a week of similar ambient temperatures the way you do now and then as I suggest, parking outside for the nights.

Click to expand...

I already monitor my garage temperature. There may be a few hours at night between 3 and 6 am where it's only a couple of degrees cooler. But 80%+ of the time the garage is cooler than outside in summer. Three of it's 4 walls are interior walls against climate controlled interior space. Even our attic is cooler than outside most of the summer time because we have spray foam up there against the roof, and the garage is insulated again from the attic with another layer of spray foam between the garage ceiling and the attic. I monitor attic temperatures as we have a heat pump based water heater up there that doesn't operate very efficiently when it's too cold. I have a Zwave temperature sensors in both the attic and garage.

Seriously, who pulls their car out of the garage every night? The charging station is in the garage, I'm really supposed to pull the car out every night, and run an extension cord to charge it, and then pull it back inside before the sun comes up (Which is when it starts to get warmer outside than in the garage).... I mean come on really?

And again: Our 2013 model had no issues being parked in the same garage so to insinuate that these issues are being caused or accelerated because people are mis-treating their cars by charging them too high or leaving them in the garage is a bit ridiculous.

irwinr said:

these issues are being caused or accelerated because people are mis-treating their cars by charging them too high or leaving them in the garage is a bit ridiculous.

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My take is that your garaging behavior is hard on any LEAF and even more so on the 30 kWh model. If you changed you charging behavior, e.g. form 80 to 100% SoC *and* stuck the car in a closed space at 80F every night then accelerated degradation is not surprising. Do you keep any LEAF battery temperature records ?

What part of Texas do you live in ? I'm curious to look at the local climate.

My EVSE is in the garage as well but I placed it near the front so that I can still use it when the car is outside.

irwinr said:

dwl said:

irwinr said:

Our 2016 LEAF w/30kWh battery has now lost 3 bars after only 21k miles and less than 2 years of ownership (Brand new lease).
...snip...
We live in Austin, TX and the car stays in a garage except when it's being driven.
...snip...

Click to expand...

These are very valuable insights and indicate that temperature (on this chemistry) may be more of a dominant factor than expected. Have you noted temperature of the battery, either temperature bars or from Leaf Spy, during the hotter months?

Click to expand...

Yes, the battery temperature generally sits around 2-3 bars in winter, and 5-6 bars in summer. Possibly going into 7-8 bars in summer if being driven hard on extended distance trips. I have LeafSpy but I don't regularly track the temperature with it.

FWIW: The 2013 LEAF behaved exactly the same with with regards to the temperature bars. I haven't noticed the 2016 running hotter than the 2013 did.

Click to expand...

With your observed temperatures it is putting the car more into the range that we experience here in New Zealand when the cars are outside in summer and rapid charging heating up the battery. For some 2016 cars we are now seeing first bar loss (a few second bar) which hasn't been happening with same age 24kWh (even 2015) so there is some fundamental weakness in some of the 30kWh packs, at least in the earlier modules which we understand were all made in the US (for all markets).

It is great to have data where someone has taken care monitoring parameters and has made efforts to constrain the charge as a a variable. There is a graph of NMC degradation which has been posted earlier which shows the variation with temperature and how 80% and 95% SoC very similar with worse at 100% (4.2V, more than the 4.12V in these Leafs), and down at 60% should significantly be better. There is certainly something unexpected happening and a lot of owners, especially here in NZ currently with no Nissan warranty or even module supply, would love to know why this is happening when the 24kWh on average are doing as expected (80% in 5 years) in the same temperatures.

Nissan has made a great car and we have many happy 24kWh owners who have encouraged their friends and family to buy a Leaf. Stories like yours have highlighted that even following Nissan guidelines as carefully as possible it isn't enough. We are hoping they are close to better understanding what has gone wrong and developing a solution so that replacement packs are more robust. Maybe the 40kWh modules downrated with charge more aggressively controlled could be a fix. Many thanks for sharing the info.

irwinr said:

I already monitor my garage temperature. There may be a few hours at night between 3 and 6 am where it's only a couple of degrees cooler. But 80%+ of the time the garage is cooler than outside in summer. Three of it's 4 walls are interior walls against climate controlled interior space.

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I have no 30 kWh Leaf and live in a hotter part of the South Bay int the SF Bay Area, but looking at outside air temps vs. the thermometer I have in the garage, the outside at night is almost always cooler than the garage for me, regardless of time of year. There can be a delta of of over 20 F.

My house has no AC other than a "portable" rolling AC unit upstairs that I occasionally use on very hot summer days.

irwinr said:

Seriously, who pulls their car out of the garage every night? The charging station is in the garage, I'm really supposed to pull the car out every night, and run an extension cord to charge it, and then pull it back inside before the sun comes up (Which is when it starts to get warmer outside than in the garage).... I mean come on really?

Click to expand...

I don't. On workdays, I arrive home usually when it's dark. I leave my car outside for hours (maybe 6+) for the batteries to acclimate to the cooler outside temps before pulling it into the garage. I almost never charge my car at home, there's usually no need to on work days due to free L2 charging at work.

The only reason why I pull it in is I don't want to get would be burglars an idea of when I leave in the morning. I had my 1st home burglary ever (and first ever for this house since it was built in 1979) a few years ago. If I weren't concerned about that or had other signals to confuse burglars (e.g. another car left outside), I'd probably leave the Leaf outside all night. On Friday and Saturday nights, I usually do that. I pull it into the garage in the morning and try to so before OAT exceeds battery temps.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Pack replacement #1 of 4 is in process. Dealer confirmed capacity loss and new pack has been ordered. Supposed to be here in a week.

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Six weeks later no new battery and nobody can tell us when it will arrive.
(New pack ordered around March 21st)

May status report. Still hanging in there with 9 bars but it can't be much longer now. 234 GID's 51.35AH SOH 64.72% Hx 56.86% 43750 mi. 104 L3, 849 L2. Range is down to 65 mi. I can make my daily commute OK but not if I have to make any detours. I'm DCFC'ing 2-4 times a week to be sure I can get home OK. Since my NCTC is still good and charging is free, it's more an inconvenience than a problem. If I had to pay for charging though it would be at least $50-75 a month for that much DCFC on EVGo.

I expect the battery to drop the fourth bar at 50 AH or so. End of May or sometime in June is my best guess. Too bad it will be another Crap battery from Nissan. I don't expect it to last any longer than this one so probably a third battery under warranty at 90,000 mi. I had hoped that this car would be good for 150K or more. Not gonna happen. I am going to have to replace this car by the time I pay it off and it won't be worth more than $5K when I get rid of it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/nissan.leaf.owners.group/permalink/1932083060195859/ has a report of the 1st bar gone on their '17 Leaf at just under 19K miles. Person's initials are ES and it looks like they're in San Diego.

johnlocke said:

Too bad it will be another Crap battery from Nissan. I don't expect it to last any longer than this one so probably a third battery under warranty at 90,000 mi.

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Batteries are expensive. Nissan should be motivated to fix the problem to avoid more battery replacements.

WetEV said:

johnlocke said:

Too bad it will be another Crap battery from Nissan. I don't expect it to last any longer than this one so probably a third battery under warranty at 90,000 mi.

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Batteries are expensive. Nissan should be motivated to fix the problem to avoid more battery replacements.

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They have taken steps to address the problem but contracts got in the way so it would have actually been more expensive to not finish the contract out.

DaveinOlyWA said:

They have taken steps to address the problem but contracts got in the way so it would have actually been more expensive to not finish the contract out.

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I wonder if anyone at Nissan thought to factor their reputation into that particular decision... probably not.

davewill said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

They have taken steps to address the problem but contracts got in the way so it would have actually been more expensive to not finish the contract out.

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I wonder if anyone at Nissan thought to factor their reputation into that particular decision... probably not.

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who knows what the legal/financial ramifications of their partnership with AESC held. I am guessing it was significant enough. Besides we have short memories. Bring out a great car and all is forgiven immediately. Ask any Bolter for clarification on that.

DaveinOlyWA said:

Besides we have short memories. Bring out a great car and all is forgiven immediately. Ask any Bolter for clarification on that.

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YYMV. I know that if *I* ever buy a new EV, it will probably not be until three to four years into the product cycle to try to look at the battery longevity, and for Nissan products, you can strike the "probably."

DaveinOlyWA said:

Besides we have short memories. Bring out a great car and all is forgiven immediately. Ask any Bolter for clarification on that.

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Speak for yourself.
The mass exodus of prior LEAF owner to Tesla-land says differently.
The inability of Nissan to move much over 1000 EVs a month (and perhaps quite a few less in the coming months) at ~ msrp says differently.
The inability of Nissan to convince more than a handful of people to buy rather than lease says something different.
Or just look at the vitality of the Tesla forums compared to this one.

I don't know if Nissan will bounce back in the EV marketplace but for now they are the walking dead. And I think they like it that way.

SageBrush said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

Besides we have short memories. Bring out a great car and all is forgiven immediately. Ask any Bolter for clarification on that.

Click to expand...

Speak for yourself.
The mass exodus of prior LEAF owner to Tesla-land says differently.
The inability of Nissan to move much over 1000 EVs a month (and perhaps quite a few less in the coming months) at ~ msrp says differently.
The inability of Nissan to convince more than a handful of people to buy rather than lease says something different.
Or just look at the vitality of the Tesla forums compared to this one.

I don't know if Nissan will bounce back in the EV marketplace but for now they are the walking dead. And I think they like it that way.

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I guess the only thing I missed was the great car that Nissan brought out??

WetEV said:

johnlocke said:

Too bad it will be another Crap battery from Nissan. I don't expect it to last any longer than this one so probably a third battery under warranty at 90,000 mi.

Click to expand...

Batteries are expensive. Nissan should be motivated to fix the problem to avoid more battery replacements.

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They've got the solution to that, just tell people the replacements are back ordered indefinitely.
Has anyone had a 30kwh pack replaced recently? I'm wondering if they are out of production and they used up all the inventory they allocated for warranty replacements.

SageBrush said:

The inability of Nissan to move much over 1000 EVs a month (and perhaps quite a few less in the coming months) at ~ msrp says differently.
...
I don't know if Nissan will bounce back in the EV marketplace but for now they are the walking dead. And I think they like it that way.

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Yet, per http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=526119#p526119, in March, Nissan moved about 11K Leafs worldwide.

And, there's https://insideevs.com/nissan-sell-march-more-leafs-record-month-norway/ and https://pushevs.com/2018/04/04/2018-nissan-leaf-is-leading-alone-the-car-market-in-norway/. Sometimes, you need to see the forest, not just the trees.

cwerdna said:

SageBrush said:

The inability of Nissan to move much over 1000 EVs a month (and perhaps quite a few less in the coming months) at ~ msrp says differently.
...
I don't know if Nissan will bounce back in the EV marketplace but for now they are the walking dead. And I think they like it that way.

Click to expand...

Yet, per http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=526119#p526119, in March, Nissan moved about 11K Leafs worldwide.

And, there's https://insideevs.com/nissan-sell-march-more-leafs-record-month-norway/ and https://pushevs.com/2018/04/04/2018-nissan-leaf-is-leading-alone-the-car-market-in-norway/. Sometimes, you need to see the forest, not just the trees.

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I know Norway buys LEAFS (and other EVs too) but I view them as an outlier for three reasons:

1. They have a cold climate
2. They have subsidies that are extremely generous ... for now
3. They are a small market and easily saturated.

The other large market thus far is Japan. I'm not sure of EV subsidies but I do know that new models tend to have a honeymoon for a few months of high sales. Time will tell if Nissan can maintain EV sales there.

So while the world-wide sales seems quite nice at first glance, it is actually mostly two countries with caveats attached to each. The US and continental Europe are better testa as harbingers of long term sales.