Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[TonyWilliams]

I really like the idea of a LEAF lease, but not sure I can convince the mister to put another dime in the Nissan jukebox. I see a lot of spreadsheets in my future.

Have him call me; ill give him the time honored LEAF sales pitch!

 

[azdre]

30,000 is just about where I, originally, thought the first bar should drop. Nice to see it can make it that far, even for a car that's not in Seattle or San Francisco.

+1

 

[RegGuheert]

I really like the idea of a LEAF lease, but not sure I can convince the mister to put another dime in the Nissan jukebox. I see a lot of spreadsheets in my future.

Hey, give the guy a break! He's had a few difficult months!

 

[JRP3]

The voltage does not decline as the battery degrades. The charge still stops at the same maximum voltage and the car hits Turtle at the same minimum voltage. The degraded battery has fewer Li+ active ions, so fewer Coulombs flow through the battery stack for each volt of charge. The integral of (voltage*current =energy stored) over the charge/discharge cycle is therefore less, and the battery's capacity is diminished.

Finish charge voltage will be the same but the increased internal resistance should mean the voltage sags more under load, reducing power output. If it's still more power than the max of the controller then it won't show up in use.

 

[shrink]

I really like the idea of a LEAF lease, but not sure I can convince the mister to put another dime in the Nissan jukebox. I see a lot of spreadsheets in my future.

As someone with some experience in this very matter, I say go Volt; but my misses made us lease another LEAF.

:lol:

We still have both a LEAF and Volt in the garage, but I was ready for a 2nd Volt. I have to say the combo works quite well. We still have not needed to buy gas for the Volt we bought in May 2012. The LEAF's greater EV range makes that possible. I was also able to do 55 EV miles in the Volt last Friday with the help of a 90-minute L1 charge. We do only have a 24-month lease on the LEAF, but I'm still concerned. 2012 was a nasty hot summer. I imagine 2013 will be just the same or a little worse. The current LEAF needs to get us to 6/26/2014.

We are actually strongly considering a Tesla Model S in 2014 when the LEAF lease is up. I've been close to putting money down for a reservation a few times, but they tell me about a year from reservation to delivery, so we'll re-assess in 6/2013. It's just a lot of money to drop on a depreciating asset.

 

[spike09]

It's official for me too. I have the check and Nissan has a lemon. I am also interested in what happens to the cars after this. I would really like to see what happens to these cars. I am going to extremely disappointed if they just turn around and put new batteries in them and resell the car to someone else.

I was on NBC12 local news station in AZ last night. Here is a the video

If they put a new battery pack in and sold it someone in Portland Oregon what would be wrong with that?

I'm guessing you mean selling back to someone in the Pheonix area. That wouldn't be too cool, but they are still selling new ones right? So I suppose from their point of view it makes no odds.

What would be worse is if the dealer just did their magical battery gage reset and Poof! you got 12 bars again. Of course you still have only 15 kWh of usable capacity, but those 12 bars sure do look good. How's a prospective buyer to know, unless they took it on a very long test drive, that nothing had been done except to reset the battery capacity guage?

Perhaps someone who knows the whole process involving lemons can chime in, but I assume the lemon can not be resold as regular used vehicle. Hopefully the VIN number has been flagged as a lemon in some State or Federal database.

 

[davewill]

Perhaps someone who knows the whole process involving lemons can chime in, but I assume the lemon can not be resold as regular used vehicle. Hopefully the VIN number has been flagged as a lemon in some State or Federal database.

I don't think these cars were processed through the lemon law procedures. Nissan just offered to buy back using the lemon law buyback formula. Therefore the cars aren't officially "lemons".

 

[surfingslovak]

AFAIK a lemon will get a branded title.

 

[azdre]

I doubt the third party processor will do anything different then the normal lemon law buyback, which would mean a flagged title. Either way, title history will clearly show transfer from us to NNA. I would think that they'll take our cars back to casa grande and do more testing and dissection on them. Maybe they'll do a real driving test this time.

 

[cwerdna]

Finally, the cost of ownership blew any other vehicle out of the water. More on this later.

More please. Hard to see how a Leaf beats..... say, a Civic HF for $17,000 and 43mpg highway. Or a Kia Rio that at ~38mpg and $13,500 cost. Or several other lowpriced options.

'12 Civic HF is EPA rated 41 mpg highway. '12 Kio Rio is EPA rated 40 mpg highway. However, not everyone lives and works on a highway and is able to drive most/all of their commutes at highway speeds. Those are 33 or 34 mpg combined cars.

 

[spike09]

Certaintly is good to see some folks finally getting resolution. Even if that means returning their LEAF to Nissan. It certaintly is a shame they are going that route instead of actually finding a fix for the cars so they can remain in Phoenix. Really makes you wonder if there really is no solution.

Hard to fix a problem when no one yet knows what is causing it.

 

[Joeviocoe]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai4b2-v971MwdERhVWx1aW9hNExTRGMtek5VSzd0NWc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
or

http://tinyurl.com/Leaf-BadBatteryMap

I just created this dynamic spreadsheet and map, that is linked to the MyNissanLeaf wiki page that tracks the claims of battery degradation on that forum.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Still a work in progress, but it gives a good picture of the how this issue is distributed geographically.

 

[cwerdna]

I heard one who turned theirs in got some VW TDI. FWIW, I wouldn't buy a VW nor one of their TDIs (due to VW's generally spotty reliability and more recent HPFP problems). And "clean diesels" are pretty dirty in terms of EPA pollution score vs. PZEV certified cars.

The difference between a diesel ULEV and a gasoline SULEV car are minimal... just 1-2 grams more NOx per year. And almost ZERO carbon monoxide for the diesel. In fact a current-year diesel ULEV-II is cleaner than the ULEV-I Civic Hybrid I used to own. Nor are the CO2 emissions as horrible as you claim:

Jetta TDI == 299grams/yr
Toyota Corolla = 306grams/yr

Per http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=31575&id=31767&#tab2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, VW Jetta TDI is 299 grams per MILE (NOT year) for CO2 vs. 178 grams/mile for a '12 Prius. Or, per year it's 5.0 tons/year vs. 2.9 tons/year.

As for the limits, from http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/summarychart.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, a 6 vs. 9 on EPA pollution score reveals a stark difference.

For NOx, allowable grams/mile is 0.07 vs. 0.02 (former is 3.5x higher).
For NMOG, it's 0.055 vs. 0.01 (former is 5.5x higher).
For CO, it's 2.1 vs. 1.0 (former is 2.1x higher).
For HCHO, it's 0.011 vs. 0.004 (former is 2.75x higher).

These aren't small differences. People don't just drive 1 mile and their car isn't the only one on the road.

If we assume 12K miles year, NOx emissions would be 840 grams/yr vs. 240 grams. This is a lot more than "just 1-2 grams more NOx per year".

 

[spooka]

Congrats to all that got rid if their lemons today. I am mostly sure that Nissan did not repurchase these golf carts under the AZ lemon law. They repurchased as a courtesy,so no fault admitted.

To all those still fighting to get rid of your lemon, best of luck to you. I feel you pain.

Here is another (and most likely my last) Sonic Speaks video. If you have 2 minutes of your life to waste, watch away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMen5Cr1LHA&feature=share&list=ULLMen5Cr1LHA

 

[leafwing]

Certaintly is good to see some folks finally getting resolution. Even if that means returning their LEAF to Nissan. It certaintly is a shame they are going that route instead of actually finding a fix for the cars so they can remain in Phoenix. Really makes you wonder if there really is no solution.

Hard to fix a problem when no one yet knows what is causing it.

I know what causes the problem. The absence of active cooling when the ambient air does not provide enough cooling for the battery.

 

[Stoaty]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai4b2-v971MwdERhVWx1aW9hNExTRGMtek5VSzd0NWc
or

http://tinyurl.com/Leaf-BadBatteryMap

I just created this dynamic spreadsheet and map, that is linked to the MyNissanLeaf wiki page that tracks the claims of battery degradation on that forum.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Real_World_Battery_Capacity_Loss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Still a work in progress, but it gives a good picture of the how this issue is distributed geographically.

Interesting, but a couple of comments:

1) It is very hard to see the light colored circles (at least for my old eyes)
2) Why is there a dot in New York? I don't know of a report in that area of battery capacity loss
3) A much larger map would be better

Thanks for your efforts.

 

[spike09]

Certaintly is good to see some folks finally getting resolution. Even if that means returning their LEAF to Nissan. It certaintly is a shame they are going that route instead of actually finding a fix for the cars so they can remain in Phoenix. Really makes you wonder if there really is no solution.

Hard to fix a problem when no one yet knows what is causing it.

I know what causes the problem. The absence of active cooling when the ambient air does not provide enough cooling for the battery.

Lack of active cooling is an oversimplification.

Why isn't every LEAF driven in hot weather climates losing range at relatively equal rates? Even ones with similar driving and charging patterns are not showing similar capacity loss.

 

[azdre]

Now that I have a minute to breathe, I would like to thank each of the individuals at Nissan and Nissan dealerships that I have dealt with over the last 6 months. It is obvious to me that they did the very best for me that they could in their capacity. They knew they weren't going to make me happy, they knew I wasn't going to give up, but they still treated me with respect and I could tell it was painful for them to deliver the corporate line when that time came. Maybe someone inside the machine could have been a more vocal advocate for us, I don't know, but I don't fault any of the individuals for where I am now. There is something wrong in that company that allows them to tell us everything is normal without ever driving the cars to get the real experience. How can you say you can't reproduce a problem when you don't even try?

I'd also like to thank you all on this board. This thread started with curiosity, then skepticism, and led to a whole lotta support and maybe some new friendships. At one point, when I was being misquoted in greencarreports, I was just about ready to try to pull as much of myself off of the interwebs as I could. I'm glad I didn't. For my own sanity, I will most likely be a less-frequent visitor here now (I'll keep up with this thread), but will keep in touch with the community in Phoenix, and will always be available via PM if anyone wants to reach me. If there's anything I can do to help anyone else here with the same issues, please let me know.

 

[WetEV]

I am going to extremely disappointed if they just turn around and put new batteries in them and resell the car to someone else.

Even if resold in climate where Leafs can do well?

Leafs are too good to crush just yet.

 

[vrwl]

Now that I have a minute to breathe, I would like to thank each of the individuals at Nissan and Nissan dealerships that I have dealt with over the last 6 months. It is obvious to me that they did the very best for me that they could in their capacity. They knew they weren't going to make me happy, they knew I wasn't going to give up, but they still treated me with respect and I could tell it was painful for them to deliver the corporate line when that time came. Maybe someone inside the machine could have been a more vocal advocate for us, I don't know, but I don't fault any of the individuals for where I am now. There is something wrong in that company that allows them to tell us everything is normal without ever driving the cars to get the real experience. How can you say you can't reproduce a problem when you don't even try?

I'd also like to thank you all on this board. This thread started with curiosity, then skepticism, and led to a whole lotta support and maybe some new friendships. At one point, when I was being misquoted in greencarreports, I was just about ready to try to pull as much of myself off of the interwebs as I could. I'm glad I didn't. For my own sanity, I will most likely be a less-frequent visitor here now (I'll keep up with this thread), but will keep in touch with the community in Phoenix, and will always be available via PM if anyone wants to reach me. If there's anything I can do to help anyone else here with the same issues, please let me know.

Azdre, I appreciate all you and opossum and the rest of the MNL members have done to educate us all regarding the abilities and disabilities of this car. I wish it hadn't come to the result it did for you, but your persistence in telling your story and the troubles you encountered with your car have helped a lot of others in the same situation and will continue to help others as they come along behind you.