80% Charge only 9 bars?

[KJD]

="RegGuheert"...The car has a production date of June 15, 2011 and an in-service date of 30 September 30, 2011...

Where can others find those dates for their LEAFs, and do you know exactly what they indicate?

It seems like I found the production date on a tag on the drivers door post in the car.

 

[gbarry42]

Our dealer was able to look up the production date, while we were buying the car.

I've been experiencing something that I haven't seen posted. Carwings will occasionally report that the charged stopped at "9 of 12 bars". I haven't seen less than 10 bars on the dash when I go to drive the car. The charge usually ends around midnight, so one possibility is a drop in temperature in the following hours. I have not been paying all that much attention to this, until I began reading this thread. So, I need to do further research, to see what I get if I check it immediately after getting the Carwings message. The last time it happened, I let it sit, because I wanted to re-verify that part of the experiment.

As expressed in an earlier message, I, too, do not understand how it would arrive at 9 bars, if its internal calculations for charging are based on the current capacity, and its internal calculations for displaying bars is also based on current capacity. There should be no "fudge factors" because the current capacity calculations already contains them!

The only thing I can accept is the recalculation that occurs when the car is powered up.

 

[edatoakrun]

I got my first "...nine bars..." email, and also had nine bars on the dash, both for the first time, Thursday AM, the day I brought my car in for repair as mentioned here:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=9573" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More obsevations, and/or coincidences?

This was the first timer recharge to 80%, following my hottest day of driving this year, on last Tuesday. The dash temp had topped out at 103, but the temp bar never hit 7.

As soon as I descended the ~200ft over the first 1/8 mile of my drive, the 10th bar appeared. Very odd, considering I get little regen (reported by CW as .0 kWh) on this steep, slow, gravel grade.

The 10th bar lasted for about 13 miles, close to what I usually get, with the 1500 ft net descent, on the drive towards Redding, at the same speed.

Second and third bars lasted about as long as I'd expect, had I had the normal 10 from the beginning, also.

 

[Valdemar]

Joining the club. Today is first time 9 bars on the 80% timer, had the car since September 2011 . Blink unit reported a fairly typical 11.5 kWh for the last charge. One interesting detail is that "charge to 80%" time estimate on the dash was blank for much longer than usual, and when it kicked in it showed a value that wasn't much out of the ordinary for that point on my morning trip to work. At the destination I had my typical range remaining on the GOM and time to charge to 80% value. Sounds like a rounding error to me, but may be an early sign of dropping capacity.

What's different:

1. Temperatures are up this week, about 100F, however my car is always parked in the shade during daytime.
2. I recently started to use the end of charge timer so that charging completes around 7am, because of that the car typically sits at about 20% SOC from 8pm to 4am.

 

[DTB]

Just like Valdemar, I got my first 9 bars at 80% charge yesterday. Coincidentally (or maybe not), it looks like we both live in the West San Fernando Valley. Also maybe not coincidentally, we had a pretty dramatic spike in temps, with highs topping 100 and lows not much below 70. My car sits in a very cool parking structure all day and charges in my garage at night (garage temps are from mid 80s in the evening down to mid 70s by the morning).

I have never QC’d, never been to VLB, and rarely charge to 100%. I bought the car in May ’11 and only have 11k miles, so hopefully this doesn’t mean I’m about the loose a bar.

 

[Valdemar]

Just like Valdemar, I got my first 9 bars at 80% charge yesterday. Coincidentally (or maybe not), it looks like we both live in the West San Fernando Valley. Also maybe not coincidentally, we had a pretty dramatic spike in temps, with highs topping 100 and lows not much below 70. My car sits in a very cool parking structure all day and charges in my garage at night (garage temps are from mid 80s in the evening down to mid 70s by the morning).

I have never QC’d, never been to VLB, and rarely charge to 100%. I bought the car in May ’11 and only have 11k miles, so hopefully this doesn’t mean I’m about the loose a bar.

Statistically insignificant but interesting correlation nonetheless. I have 16k on mine, 100% charge once a week maybe but never stored long time at high SOC, 3QC events, once LBW, never VLBW. Appears to be ambient temperature related.

 

[wsbca]

First 9 bars at "80%" charge today - actually yesterday now that I look at the carwings emails.

Car delivered January 2011, coming up on 13K miles. No quick charges, maybe a dozen 100% charges, the rest 80% on timer.

Probably a coincidence (?) but just a couple of days ago I switched from having an 80% timer start at 9pm to just having an end timer at 5am, so the charge is starting somewhat later. My intent there (discussed in another thread) was threefold: generally cooler temp when charging, less time sitting at 80% overnight, and longer time between ending an evening drive and starting a charge. Looking at the emails, the first of those end-only charges, which complete around 4-4:30am and yielded the normal 10 bars was 2 days ago, and then yesterday and today it ended at 9.

It has been a little bit warm the last couple of days (San Diego warm, not Phoenix warm), but I'm also starting the charge later when it should be a little cooler in the garage.

So...either we've just now had the first evidence of a change in capacity (perhaps revealed by the slightly higher ambient temps), or something is slightly different when it comes to using an end-only timer vs. a start timer.

 

[shay]

Has anyone spoken to Nissan about this phenomenon?

 

[aleph5]

I only charge to 80% except on rare occasions when I added another 30-45 minutes for longer range. Mine started this phenomenon around the time we were getting the highest daytime temps of high 90s or low 100s (though I charge overnight in a relatively cool garage). I've never see more than 6 bars on the batt temp gauge (4 white). However, this went away, back to 10 charge bars, after a couple of weeks or so and has maybe shown only 9 bars once or twice since.

Interestingly, when it does this, the time-to-charge display on the dash won't start incrementing until another bar (4th from top) drops and then the time-to-charge display would start at 40 minutes to recharge to 80%. Normally, when it starts at 10 bars, the display will increment in 10 minute intervals until it gets to 1 hour, at which point it changes to 30 minute intervals. The 10 minute resolution for the first hour has returned when it starts at 10 bars. Not sure, but maybe 2 dropped bars from start of driving corresponds to 40 minutes on the display in either scenario.

Sorry if this latter part has been reported before. I can't wade through 13 pages.

 

[ht2]

I do plan on driving this thing forever, even if the batteries slowly fail, I will replace them. From what I understand, electric motors can go up to 250k with no problem and other than the batteries, there aren't a lot of things that can go wrong with the vehicle. Maybe when we need them, batteries will only be 3 or 4K.

+1.
May be 3rd party battery will come rescue Nissan soon.
24kwh replacement battery $125/kwh x 24kwh = $3000.
Same weight 61kwh battery(EPA Eq range 170miles) $125/kwh x 61 = $7625.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1073442_new-battery-promises-to-bring-300-mile-electric-cars-to-the-masses" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[kennyboy]

It's cooled off here a little bit in Tennessee and I was back down to 5 temp bars again this morning.

My LEAF (about 15,000 miles on it now) acted like a totally different creature this morning.

I have been getting 9 bars @ 80% off and on for the past few weeks.

My first bar (when I started out with 10) used to disappear around 6 miles when I first got my car.

Lately though, whenever I would get 10 bars @ 80%, the first bar would go away anywhere between 1.5 and 4 miles.

Needless to say, I was assuming I was losing a little capacity.

Well this morning, with 5 temp bars and 10 bars @ 80%, my first bar didn't disappear until a good 10 miles into my trip.

I don't think it's EVER lasted that long. (my route and driving efficiency were identical to what they've always been on my way to work).

The second bar lasted about that long as well, meaning I arrived at work after my 25 mile commute having only consumed 2 bars (the 3rd bar was still illuminated).

That's just about the best my car has ever performed.

Strange.

 

[aqn]

I've been getting 9 bars on 80% charges almost every time these days, but:

• Twice recently, I got 11 bars on 80% charges!
• I was looking through my "Nissan LEAF update" CARWINGS emails and noticed that the email started reporting "the vehicle's battery is currently at 9 of 12 bars" on 80% charges a good three months before I started seeing 9 bars on 80% charge on the SoC gauge!

Just a bit interesting; I won't bother reading those tea leaves.

 

[Valdemar]

That's just about the best my car has ever performed.
Strange.

Keep in mind that a bar is just a coarse indicator of SOC. I noticed that on occasion the 80% timer stops charging a bit later than usual, so you end up with higher SOC while still being at 10 bars, hence better perceived range per bar.

 

[shrink]

It has been ridiculously hot in Phoenix for the past few weeks. On my 2012, leased on 6/26/2012 and with about 1500 miles on the odometer, I got a 9 bar 80% charge the morning of 8/12/2012.

It took about 9 months to see that on the 2011 I had.

 

[phxsmiley]

I expected that my 9 bars that started the capacity loss long ago, would readjust back to 10 after losing a bar. But, even after losing the second bar, I still only get 9 bars on a 80% charge. I don't think I ever came back to 10 bars for an 80% charge.

 

[Stanton]

It's cooled off here a little bit in Tennessee and I was back down to 5 temp bars again this morning.
My LEAF (about 15,000 miles on it now) acted like a totally different creature this morning.
I have been getting 9 bars @ 80% off and on for the past few weeks.
My first bar (when I started out with 10) used to disappear around 6 miles when I first got my car.
Lately though, whenever I would get 10 bars @ 80%, the first bar would go away anywhere between 1.5 and 4 miles.
Needless to say, I was assuming I was losing a little capacity.
Well this morning, with 5 temp bars and 10 bars @ 80%, my first bar didn't disappear until a good 10 miles into my trip.

I had something similar happen a few weeks ago on what turned out to be a "cool" (6TB) day in the midst of some hot (mostly 7TB) days. I have had very few "9 bar @ 80%" occurances, but this day happened AFTER one of those on a 100% charge. I saw the best range I had seen in weeks; after that it got hot again and my range backed off a bit. That tells me there's more going on than meets the eye with temp and the BMS, and I'm cautiously optimistic that my range will increase (again) when we get out of these 100F days.

 

[gbshaun]

Lost my "80% Charge = 9 bars" virginity today.
16 months, 7800 miles, 100% once a week.
San Diego coastal, so 60's/70's, but as reported we've been creeping up to the 80's lately.

Quite possible my battery had warmed up after it stopped charging, increasing its capacity and thus reducing the %charged. HOWEVER, the e-mail I received at 3.07 am when it stopped charging was "9 out of 12 bars", so I don't think that's it.

Regarding a couple of mentions of it changing back to 10 once it was driven a short distance, this ties in with another thread which notes a difference between bars displayed at rest and when in use. I think we've all had many occasions where we shut it off with X bars remaining, and when we stated back up it was at X-1. So suspect this was just the reverse as the SOC was only marginally below 9.5



BTW, I recharged to 80% when i got home after a 4 mile drive, and when completed my carwings app showed 11 out of 12 bars, then later dropped to 10.
After 4 miles driving the car still displayed 10 bars


Shaun

 

[ttweed]

Lost my "80% Charge = 9 bars" virginity today.

Same here, first email from Carwings saying "9 of 12 bars" last night. Our car is #1317 built 3/11, del. 4/1/11, with 18,300 miles now. Same charging habits--usually 80% by timer overnight (midnight to 5AM) and 100% once a week or less. Never QC'd except for one test to make sure the port worked (for 5 minutes, stopped charge at <65%). Carwings showed 75% and 9 bars, so I started charging remotely and refreshing status constantly, and in <5 minutes it was 10 bars and 83% charge.

San Diego coastal, so 60's/70's, but as reported we've been creeping up to the 80's lately.

Yes, it's been a heat wave for the last week, which for us means 80s along the coast, which I'm sure you folks in AZ and TX will find laughable.

The heat broke yesterday and the normal marine layer onshore started up, so last night was cooler than anytime in the last week. Hope this isn't the beginning of a spiral into a capacity bar loss.

The car has been everything we need so far, saved us nearly $3000 in gas money already, and even at 70% capacity it will serve us well, but I'm not anxious to get there. I'm not that worried, but watching the capacity loss threads with interest...

TT

 

[ht2]

It's cooled off here a little bit in Tennessee and I was back down to 5 temp bars again this morning.
My LEAF (about 15,000 miles on it now) acted like a totally different creature this morning.
I have been getting 9 bars @ 80% off and on for the past few weeks.
My first bar (when I started out with 10) used to disappear around 6 miles when I first got my car.
Lately though, whenever I would get 10 bars @ 80%, the first bar would go away anywhere between 1.5 and 4 miles.
Needless to say, I was assuming I was losing a little capacity.
Well this morning, with 5 temp bars and 10 bars @ 80%, my first bar didn't disappear until a good 10 miles into my trip.

I had something similar happen a few weeks ago on what turned out to be a "cool" (6TB) day in the midst of some hot (mostly 7TB) days. I have had very few "9 bar @ 80%" occurances, but this day happened AFTER one of those on a 100% charge. I saw the best range I had seen in weeks; after that it got hot again and my range backed off a bit. That tells me there's more going on than meets the eye with temp and the BMS, and I'm cautiously optimistic that my range will increase (again) when we get out of these 100F days.

This is very good news.
May be when temperature is hot, Leaf is reducing usable battery capacity to protect battery and we are seeing 80% of reduced usable capacity.
Let's hope when temperature is cool down, usable capacity will be back to normal.

 

[DaveEV]

Got my first 80% 9-bar charge this morning. 14-months and 11,300 miles. Garage seemed to stay a few degrees warmer last night than the last couple weeks - I think the thermometer said 77-78F or so this morning despite outdoor temps getting down to 70F.

Seems to be contagious given that the last 3 reports in 3 days (gbshaun, ttweet and myself) are all San Diego coastal LEAFs... Must be related to the warm weather we've been having recently.