Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[derkraut]

Thank you Mr. Walsh.

 

[ChipsLeaf]

Just lost my second bar today at 42740 miles - strange time of year to lose a bar with temps in the 40s. However, I was surprised to go so long after I lost the first lost bar at 28,600 miles 14.5 months ago.

Alas, not on track to lose four bars before 60,000 miles unless I move to Arizona or Las Vegas for a summer.

 

[mark133]

I just got my first bar loss on my 2nd battery

 

[KJD]

I just got my first bar loss on my 2nd battery

What is your location and how many miles do you have on the 2nd battery?

 

[DaveEV]

I just got my first bar loss on my 2nd battery

What is your location and how many miles do you have on the 2nd battery?

And was your replacement battery an original battery or a lizard battery? (Am thinking it must be an original battery)

 

[jhm614]

I just got my first bar loss on my 2nd battery

I was wondering when this was going to happen. I think you were the first person to get a replacement battery... Sorry for your loss! I wonder if you will make through next summer without losing #2 and #3?

 

[cwerdna]

I just got my first bar loss on my 2nd battery

What is your location and how many miles do you have on the 2nd battery?

And was your replacement battery an original battery or a lizard battery? (Am thinking it must be an original battery)

mark133: Can you update your location info via User Control Panel (near top) > Profile (left side)? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

Can you give us more details on the age and mileage of when your 1st battery was replaced? Did it lose 4+ capacity bars or was it the result of something else?

 

[leafkabob]

I think Mark133 is the former Mark1313 (and before that Mark13?), from Phoenix. Here is a post of his from January, 2014 in the "I beat EPA's estimate. . ." thread (p. 30) http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3207&start=290#p349372" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;:
mark1313: I just wanted to update my 2011 Leaf ....32 months old....32000 miles...2nd battery pack....6.2M/KWH .....Runs great.......

His second battery is clearly not a lizard battery.

 

[Moof]

That post was January 2014, not 2012, so just at a year to drop a bar from the replacement pack. On the plus side, he could possibly get a third battery out of it just barely?

The cliff to the battery warranty really sucks, some sort of prorated system would make a lot more sense to soften the blow to folks who clearly will not get close to the 70% at 100k/10 years expectation, but won't quite hit the 66% at 60k/5 years trigger for full replacement.

My hope is that we will see an escalation of warranties like the ICE market saw over the last ~10-15 years. 36k/3 years was the norm for a long time, and now 100k/7 year power trains are pretty typical. With more competitors entering the fray it will be one major avenue to differentiate on.

 

[electricfuture]

Update and summary: I lost the 4th bar on November 24th and my range at that time dropped below 50 miles with 33,771 miles. I requested the replacement immediately and was told that previous 3-4 day wait times were suddenly changed to 3-4 weeks. Even with that delay I was sure that the battery would be replaced before my Christmas guests arrived. I was finally informed that the battery had shipped on Dec. 8, 2014 from Tennessee. This was 3 weeks after it had been ordered! I was told that it would arrive within 3-4 weeks. The battery did not arrive at the dealership until late in the day Dec. 31 in spite of my repeated request to have the delivery accelerated so it could be installed before Christmas to no avail. In fact no one could tell me when the battery would be delivered - they have absolutely no tracking system. Due to the Holidays I could not get it installed until Jan. 2, 2015. It has finally been installed and tested today.

The dealer ship informed me that Nissan will put replacement batteries in a production que when ordered as they do not keep them on the shelf due to degradation issues. When they re-set the car your miles per kw is about 1 until some history builds up. Also your "average speed" data is based on when the car is turned on - even when you are not moving. That is why is is so low compared to your actual driving speeds. Nissan is working on fixing this.

 

[cwerdna]

Also your "average speed" data is based on when the car is turned on - even when you are not moving. That is why is is so low compared to your actual driving speeds. Nissan is working on fixing this.

The first part makes perfect sense. Not sure why Nissan should "fix" it. In my book, the clock should tick for this the entire time and only when the car is in READY mode (green car w/arrows), not in non-drivable modes (e.g. ON and ACC).

If it took you 60 minutes (60 minutes in READY mode) to go 15 miles because of low speeds, stop and go and lots of "idling"... err stopped, your average speed was 15 mph. It shouldn't be artificially inflated w/time stopped not counting towards that average.

If they want to keep a separate inflated "average speed" for when your speed is above 0 mph, that might be interesting...

 

[GRA]

Also your "average speed" data is based on when the car is turned on - even when you are not moving. That is why is is so low compared to your actual driving speeds. Nissan is working on fixing this.

The first part makes perfect sense. Not sure why Nissan should "fix" it. In my book, the clock should tick for this the entire time and only when the car is in READY mode (green car w/arrows), not in non-drivable modes (e.g. ON and ACC).

If it took you 60 minutes (60 minutes in READY mode) to go 15 miles because of low speeds, stop and go and lots of "idling"... err stopped, your average speed was 15 mph. It shouldn't be artificially inflated w/time stopped not counting towards that average.

If they want to keep a separate inflated "average speed" for when your speed is above 0 mph, that might be interesting...

My bike cyclometer gives you the option, i.e. calculating based on riding time only or total time, so there's no reason this couldn't be implemented for cars.

 

[NasGoreList]

so this morning I did my first battery check with leafstat on my 2014 Leaf S with 7500 miles:

GID 260 / 20.15kWh

96.05 % SOC

91.64 % Capacity (SOH)
93.25 % HX
60.72 Ahr
50.5 F Avg. Temp.

How does this look like for the car made in Feb 2014 and 7500 miles?

We charge every other day to 100% using L2 charger at home. Most times I have 20-30% of juice left when we plug the car in.

edit:
when I look at the battery loss model my battery profile fits perfectly. Time loss is 6.9% (one year old car) and distance loss is 1.5% (7500 miles driven) combined gives me 8.4% loss which is where my battery is. sad part about is is that my capacity loss if it continues at this rate will not qualify my for replacement battery before the 5 yr/60K miles waranty..maybe I should let it bake in the sun and aid the process :mrgreen:

-Calendar loss was changed to 6.9% for the first year for the city with "normal" temperature (empirically derived to best fit the actual capacity loss data)
-Cycling loss for the "normal" city was changed to 2.0% for every 10,000 miles driven at 4 miles per kwh (empirically derived to best fit the actual capacity loss data)

 

[rainydayzjmb]

I had a SoCal 3 bar loser:

Car 222 omkar Irvine, CA
3 bars lost at 35 months (11/19/2013) / 33,700 miles
2 bars lost at 29 months (5/25/2013) / 29,500 miles
1 bar lost at 20 months (9/5/2012) / 19,000 miles

I just had to pop in and say Hi , I purchased car 222 in WA state! , the interesting thing was I bought it with 12 bars in July 2014 and it rapidly lost 3 bars in 3 months... after discovering this site and this post I discovered it had "previously" lost those 3 bars and somehow it was "reset" and just re-learning its true capacity in these 1st few months after I bought it. ... I had a great tech do a stress test and it quickly lost its 4th bar... I just got 222 back from Nissan of the Eastside in Bellevue with a brand new 2015 battery under warranty!

- Jenn

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152923793646098&set=gm.872339326130839&type=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10923453_10153062278601098_3261181686671693743_n.jpg?oh=80c6ff8ff1b6d758767af61f08feb701&oe=553D4BE6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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[Valdemar]

The service manual specifically calls to only erase capacity loss data when replacing the battery pack or the controller. I doubt it was done by accident.

LI-ION BATTERY GRADUAL CAPACITY LOSS DATA CLEAR
Perform Li-ion Battery Gradual Capacity Loss Data Clear when the Li-ion battery or Li-ion battery controller is
replaced with a new one. VCM saves the Li-ion battery deterioration information sent from the Li-ion battery
controller and manages the Li-ion battery replacement timing. When the Li-ion battery or Li-ion battery controller
is replaced with a new one, there is a difference between the Li-ion battery deterioration data stored in
VCM and the actual Li-ion battery deterioration level. In this case, VCM will incorrectly manage the Li-ion battery
replacement timing. So perform Li-ion Battery Deterioration Data Clear to clear the Li-ion battery deterioration
data stored in VCM.
CAUTION:
Never perform Li-ion Battery Deterioration Data Clear when the Li-ion battery or Li-ion battery controller
is not replaced as new one.

 

[RegGuheert]

I had a SoCal 3 bar loser:

Car 222 omkar Irvine, CA
3 bars lost at 35 months (11/19/2013) / 33,700 miles
2 bars lost at 29 months (5/25/2013) / 29,500 miles
1 bar lost at 20 months (9/5/2012) / 19,000 miles

I just had to pop in and say Hi , I purchased car 222 in WA state! , the interesting thing was I bought it with 12 bars in July 2014 and it rapidly lost 3 bars in 3 months... after discovering this site and this post I discovered it had "previously" lost those 3 bars and somehow it was "reset" and just re-learning its true capacity in these 1st few months after I bought it. ... I had a great tech do a stress test and it quickly lost its 4th bar... I just got 222 back from Nissan of the Eastside in Bellevue with a brand new 2015 battery under warranty!

- Jenn

Welcome, Jenn! Thanks for coming hear to share your story with us!

I'm sorry that your dealer misrepresented the state of your car's battery to you. However, note that this is not a surprise. In fact, in June 2012 I predicted that this exact scenario would happen:

It would be interesting to see if the lost bar affects the trade-in value.

One more thought on this: I'm wondering if the LI-ION GRADUAL CAPACITY LOSS DATA CLEAR command discussed on page EVC-107 of the Nissan LEAF service manual resets lost capacity bars if it is executed on a car with an older battery.

If so, then I suspect some unscrupulous sellers will reset that just as some do with odometers today. The manual says it is only to be executed in the case of the installation of a new battery or a new battery controller, but that won't stop some people.

But I guess I hadn't imagined Nissan would be the purveyors of this scam. What's disturbing about your story is that it appears they may have sent it to a cool climate in hopes that the degradation would slow enough to avoid a warranty claim.

In any case, I'm glad to hear that your LEAF has been made whole again. Hopefully the new battery will provide you many good years of service.

 

[Valdemar]

2011 Leaf #940, apparent original CA registration. 12 capacity bars. Really?

http://m.ebay.com/itm/301474452934" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[KJD]

2011 Leaf #940, apparent original CA registration. 12 capacity bars. Really?
http://m.ebay.com/itm/301474452934" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It only has 15000 miles on it. Might be OK.

You want me to stop by and plug the GID meter into it?

 

[Valdemar]

2011 Leaf #940, apparent original CA registration. 12 capacity bars. Really?
http://m.ebay.com/itm/301474452934" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It only has 15000 miles on it. Might be OK.

You want me to stop by and plug the GID meter into it?

Checked the battery model, you might be right as the car is from Northern California according to history, but likely it will lose the 12th bar very soon. With people getting new packs under warranty left and right I actually tend to think that more degradation is not such a bad thing.

Isn't the GID reading affected by BMS reset? Or is it AHr/SOH/Hx only?

 

[TimLee]

...
Isn't the GID reading affected by BMS reset? Or is it AHr/SOH/Hx only?

I think the GIDS will be incorrect too.
Tick Tick may be able to clarify.
Dealer did reset twice, and his graph shows SOH jumped to 100% but briefly for one data point.
See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=18244&hilit=reset&start=0#p394179" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

My guess is GIDS will act similarly, but after one or two discharge down to Low Battery Warning and charging back to 100% the GIDS will have recalibrated and be accurate.
Maybe TickTock or Jenn can confirm
But the capacity bars will take a long time, multiple weeks or months, to become accurate.