You're just rationalizing.planet4ever said:
- The twelve bars do not represent all of the available battery energy. You probably still have about 15% of it left when the last bar disappears. So you can't calculate 5/12 X 20 = 8.333.
- It seems very unlikely that all bars represent the same fraction of the available energy, again invalidating the above calculation as well as not allowing another term to account for the 15%.
- Phil (Ingineer) has calculated the input power to the charger carefully, and it is capable of 3.84 kW, not 3.3 kW. The charger is presumably capable of sending 3.3 kW to the battery, so you can forget your 90% adjustment, at least in terms of charger efficiency. There will be some loss at the battery, however. 85% seems to be an accepted overall efficiency with 240v 16A charging, so 3.26 kW into the battery is probably about right.
I could believe that LEAFfan is getting 5.4 to 5.5 kWh into his battery in 100 minutes, and that might well translate to charging from 5+ bars to 10- bars. (9.6 bars - 5.4 bars would be a delta of 4.2 bars.)
1. Since the Leaf has something around 21 kWh of usable battery, I made allowance for a 1 kWh reserve when I said assume 20 kWh. That's realistic if perhaps a bit generous. Your idea that you have 3 kWh of the usable battery left when you have zero bars isn't. So yes, 5/12 X 20 is going to be a good number but I wouldn't argue with 5/12 X 20.5.
2. On balance each bar of the 12 bars will have about 1/12 of the energy. Postulating that there are a few magic bars that contain far less than others, and that they're all grouped together, and that those are the bars he's charging, does rationalize his claim but you don't have any evidence this is the case. It's just a rationalization.
3. This point I don't get at all. I conceded for the sake of argument that you'd end up with 3.3 kW at the battery. You say 3.26 kW. That makes it worse because now you've only getting 4.89 kWh after an hour and a half, leaving you far short of the 8.33 kWh that you need for five bars.
As a note on the conversion losses, I have no idea what you're saying. You suggest that a 90% efficiency number is totally wrong but then turn around and say that an 85% adjustment is "accepted". Huh? What do you think that 85% adjustment factor is? It's an efficiency factor. I just gave him the benefit of the doubt and used a higher number. (Maybe this is semantics. FYI when I say "charger" I mean the actual charger in the Leaf not the EVSE.)
Bottom line is that while you may believe it's possible, the numbers simply don't permit charging five bars in 100 minutes with a 3.3 kW charger. Not to beat a dead horse, but 1.667 X 3.3 = 5.5, and 5.5 isn't remotely close to 8.33. Even your idea that he's only charging 4+ bars doesn't wash because he can't even charge 4 bars in 100 minutes. This follows because four bars of charging would require 6.66 kWh at the battery and you admit that you're not going to end up with more than 5.43 kWh after 100 minutes.
On the right day when everything goes perfectly might one find that after an hour and a half of charging you had restored five bars? Possibly. Unlikely but do it enough times and lots of things can happen. But as a regular matter? No way.