Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[jhm614]

Boy, that was quick.

Three months after I lost the first bar (April 25), I noticed this morning that the second one gave up the ghost. Odom=27177

This is with July in So Cal being one of the coolest on record.

At this rate, I should be a 4BL (four bar loser) by the end of January . The cooler months should actually slow down the degradation, but it seems quite possible that I'll be turning this lease in with four bars down come next April. Tsk, tsk.

Based on my experiences, you may not lose bar 3 until next April (and then bar 4 in June if you extended your lease for some reason...)

 

[thankyouOB]

I can't remember if these NREL reports have ever been mentioned before, so thought I'd post links:

"Variability of Battery Wear in Light-Duty Plug-in Electric Vehicles Subject to Ambient Temperature, Battery Size and Consumer Usage"

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/53953.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Although their model uses a battery with NCA chemistry, I'm sure all here can recognize which cars they based the BEV and PEV on.

very interesting. it seems to say what we have been assuming around here:
temperature, depth of discharge, total distance driven, soc allowed--all are key factors.




"Battery Wear from Disparate Duty-Cycles: Opportunities for Electric-Drive Vehicle Battery Health Management"

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/54698.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Weatherman]

This is with July in So Cal being one of the coolest on record.

Coolest?

Taking Fullerton as an example, July temps have averaged 3.2 degrees above normal. Average high has been in the mid 80s with the highest temperature being 97. Lows have averaged in the upper 60s. A couple of nights the temperature didn't drop below 70.

June temperatures were 4.3 degrees above normal.
May temps were 5.7 degrees above normal.
April temps were 4.4 degrees above normal.

If you live in inland Orange County, it has been warm three months.

 

[z0ner]

This is with July in So Cal being one of the coolest on record.

Coolest?

Taking Fullerton as an example, July temps have averaged 3.2 degrees above normal. Average high has been in the mid 80s with the highest temperature being 97. Lows have averaged in the upper 60s. A couple of nights the temperature didn't drop below 70.

June temperatures were 4.3 degrees above normal.
May temps were 5.7 degrees above normal.
April temps were 4.4 degrees above normal.

If you live in inland Orange County, it has been warm three months.

Although I can't find my source, I'm not going to argue with the "Weatherman". It has certainly felt cooler

 

[Weatherman]

Although I can't find my source, I'm not going to argue with the "Weatherman". It has certainly felt cooler

I guess we're all getting so used to it being warm that when temps are closer to normal they feel "cool". (Temps right at the beach in Southern California have been closer to normal than temps at inland locations.)

 

[mwalsh]

Well, LA certainly has micro-climates. So anyone would probably notice Fullerton as being warmer than, say, Garden Grove (which is my 'hood). But we were at an outside event in Garden Grove on Saturday and it was bloody freezing!

I for one appreciate this cooler weather, and hope it continues. But I hope my battery degradation doesn't continue. And I certainly hope I don't loose another bar as soon as z0ner did. That's not in my plans at all! I want to go another year without an additional bar loss.

 

[surfingslovak]

very interesting. it seems to say what we have been assuming around here:
temperature, depth of discharge, total distance driven, soc allowed--all are key

Yes, these are excellent and the key takeaways have been incorporated into the aging model Stoaty has refined and painstakingly documented on the wiki. One factor missing from the report, which seems to have a significant enough impact, is solar loading.

 

[smkettner]

At this point I say bring it on. May as well excercise the warranty before it expires.
It will be like a battery lotto if you get 12, 11, or 10 bars.... are you feeling lucky?
It will be interesting to see any jackpot winners with a brand new battery.

As far as cooler, I am back to five battery temperature bars today.

 

[GRA]

very interesting. it seems to say what we have been assuming around here:
temperature, depth of discharge, total distance driven, soc allowed--all are key

Yes, these are excellent and the key takeaways have been incorporated into the aging model Stoaty has refined and painstakingly documented on the wiki. One factor missing from the report, which seems to have a significant enough impact, is solar loading.

Not missing, it's incorporated into the vehicle thermal model - see section 2.3 starting on page 3.

 

[surfingslovak]

very interesting. it seems to say what we have been assuming around here:
temperature, depth of discharge, total distance driven, soc allowed--all are key

Yes, these are excellent and the key takeaways have been incorporated into the aging model Stoaty has refined and painstakingly documented on the wiki. One factor missing from the report, which seems to have a significant enough impact, is solar loading.

Not missing, it's incorporated into the vehicle thermal model - see section 2.3 starting on page 3.

Ah, thanks, excellent. I just had a look. That appears to be a relatively new report, and don't recall seeing it before. I used the following paper (linked below) as basis for a simple model. Stoaty made many modifications and added solar loading based on Prius data later, I believe. That said, I glossed over all the NREL papers I could find last summer, and they all appear to be based on NCA chemistry. While I thought that some of the concepts, especially when it comes to cycling and thermal models will likely apply to the LEAF, it might not be true of everything mentioned in their reports. I would love to work on this some more if I had more time, it's a fascinating and important topic. Thanks again for mentioning this.

Modeling of Nonuniform Degradation in Large-Format Li-ion Batteries

 

[TomT]

July has been unusually hot here in Granada Hills... I have 13 years of records on my weather station (http://www.ghweather.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false and this is one of the hotter Julys we have had in that time period...

Averages\Extremes for the month of July 2013
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Average temperature = 75.0°F
Maximum temperature = 99.4°F on day 08 at time 16:39
Minimum temperature = 58.6°F on day 28 at time 07:54
Avg daily max temp : 88.9°F
Avg daily min temp : 63.5°F

This is with July in So Cal being one of the coolest on record.

 

[spooka]

Hi all. It has been quite a while since my last post but I wanted to provide an update on my former Leaf called Sonic. I had been googling the vin from time to time to see if my repurchased car appeared for sale anywhere. It appears it was sent from Arizona to Tennessee at some point and I am guessing Sonic was dissected and possibly refurbished in Smyrna before being sent to a Nissan dealership to be re-sold. The mileage listed in the for sale ad looked to be almost the same as when I turned the car in back in November. I am enjoying my 2012 Leaf and will report when I lose my first capacity bar on Knuckles (Sonic The Hedgehog fans out there will get the analogy since my blue LEAF was Sonic and my newer red LEAF is Knuckles). I do not know when the car sold. I wish I had caught the ad earlier but here is the info that remains.

http://www.sellmycar.com/used-listings/detail-1a?ul=ul622442492#b

I hope the new owner has better luck with Sonic. I'm glad he's still out there on the road enjoying Tennessee. I hear the summers there aren't so bad.

Regards

 

[dhanson865]

Hi all. It has been quite a while since my last post but I wanted to provide an update on my former Leaf called Sonic. I had been googling the vin from time to time to see if my repurchased car appeared for sale anywhere. It appears it was sent from Arizona to Tennessee at some point and I am guessing Sonic was dissected and possibly refurbished in Smyrna before being sent to a Nissan dealership to be re-sold. The mileage listed in the for sale ad looked to be almost the same as when I turned the car in back in November. I am enjoying my 2012 Leaf and will report when I lose my first capacity bar on Knuckles (Sonic The Hedgehog fans out there will get the analogy since my blue LEAF was Sonic and my newer red LEAF is Knuckles). I do not know when the car sold. I wish I had caught the ad earlier but here is the info that remains.

http://www.sellmycar.com/used-listings/detail-1a?ul=ul622442492#b

I hope the new owner has better luck with Sonic. I'm glad he's still out there on the road enjoying Tennessee. I hear the summers there aren't so bad.

Regards

From all I've seen in other cases they haven't refurbished a single leaf before shipping it from AZ to other parts east.

And while the temps are lower hear than AZ I'm starting to notice people in my part of the state losing their 1st bar so its not so much nicer that degradation is halted, it'll just be slower to occur.

 

[TomT]

It's too bad these aren't actually lemon law cars as this practice would then be illegal.

From all I've seen in other cases they haven't refurbished a single leaf before shipping it from AZ to other parts east.

 

[cyellen]

Lost my third bar yesterday morning...at least that's when I noticed it. No big change in the GOM or noticeable change in my range, but I think I'm stuck with 100% charging for the remainder of my lease (11 months).

 

[mkjayakumar]

spooka: my then 4 year old daughter loved your talking Leaf animation so much, she ran to the garage and demanded that I make my Leaf talk like that.

 

[leafwing]

spooka: my then 4 year old daughter loved your talking Leaf animation so much, she ran to the garage and demanded that I make my Leaf talk like that.

Thanks for sharing. That is the best thing I've read in this FrankenThread.

 

[GRA]

Lost my third bar yesterday morning...at least that's when I noticed it. No big change in the GOM or noticeable change in my range, but I think I'm stuck with 100% charging for the remainder of my lease (11 months).

Mileage?

 

[spooka]

spooka: my then 4 year old daughter loved your talking Leaf animation so much, she ran to the garage and demanded that I make my Leaf talk like that.

I love it! If you are interested, I used Crazytalk7 on my Mac to make it. There is a windows equivalent also. I'm glad someone liked the vid.

I was speaking with the salesperson who sold Sonic to me a few weeks after I posted the video. She didn't know it was a product of my twisted mind and commented to me what a jerk the person was who made it. I just chuckled inside and changed the topic. Nissan corporate asked me directly during one of our conversations if I was the owner of Sonic.

I guess I got their attention

(Sorry I'm posting personal stuff here. Let's get back to the business of de-capacitation).

 

[TimLee]

I love it! If you are interested, I used Crazytalk7 on my Mac to make it. There is a windows equivalent also. I'm glad someone liked the vid.

Great video Spooka!
Took me a few minutes to find it, as I've probably only read 300 pages of this epic 617 page thread, so for others here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LMen5Cr1LHA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Am I the only one that finds it morally troubling that Nissan is shipping LEAFs with badly degraded battery packs east, and now it has been sold to an unsuspecting buyer in Bristol, TN for nearly $20,000?
Yes, Nissan has done a few good things. Like paying spooka's and Tony's and others costs associated with the testing that Tony did. Yes, Nissan did the right thing and bought Sonic.
But they're doing an awfully lot badly wrong with the only leasing you a replacement battery program that won't start till 2014, and by selling badly degraded LEAFs with no warning to the buyer.
I think Nissan should fire everyone currently involved with the LEAF program, and bring in entirely new people.