edatoakrun said:
"surfingslovak"]Ah, here we go. Since the test LEAF was located in Phoenix, it would be interesting to know how it was garaged and operated and if it was purchased there new. Additional details should be made available by the lab to help explain some of the discrepancies in their published data. Anyone care to contact them?...
See my reply at the thread on-topic:
LEAF Range and kWh use, at 45, 60 and 70 mph DOE tests
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13265&start=50" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks, Ed, I will respond when I have time to respond on those threads. That said, you have misunderstood or misinterpreted the point I raised about the energy enconomy gauge. We cannot take energy economy measurements from other sources, assume that the dash gauge would show the same figure, and then deduce the range of the vehicle from that. That's like measuring vehicle speed via GPS, taking time from a stop watch and calculating what the odometer gauge should be showing. You have also not addressed the concern about diverging charger and EVSE efficiencies in the reports from different sources.
I took some time to review the UDDS projections the lab has made for the 2011 and 2012 Volt, and those aprear to be off by about 10% also. Interestingly, the two Volt batteries they measured were nearly perfect. One measured over the rated capacity and the other about 5% below. I don't think that the same argument can be used here, and I do think that the lab results for energy economy are low, which translates to low range predictions.
I also believe that the lab should not wait until test vehicles accumulated 6,000 miles before getting baseline figures. That might have been appropriate for gasoline engines, which require a break-in period. Battery packs can degrade dignificantly over a 12-month period, and they should be measured in factory-new condition. Not surprisingly, the
battery discharge test this lab has conducted shows exactly that: about 13% capacity loss on their test LEAF after 6,000 miles. Strangely, you chose to selectively use the energy economy figures from this lab to disprove the very same thing, and to insinuate that battery degradation and range loss both exist just in our imagination.
Your objections to using dash instrumentation are well documented. That said, we don't need that to conduct a range test. All that's needed is a GPS-based speedometer and map data. As has been demonstrated, a new LEAF off a dealer parking lot will travel between 84 to 89 miles at steady 100 km/h (62.5 mph). If you believe the
data from the NREL Oak Ridge lab, this implies an energy economy between 3.92 m/kWh to 4.16 m/kWh. Although CarWings and dash instruments were not involved in this, the resulting values would roughly correspond to what several LEAF owners have observed on the dash economy gauge.
If someone is satisfied with the range of their vehicle after two years of use, that's fantastic and more power to them. But I would not go as far as dismissing the observations and calculations of others, which show something else as
fairy tales or
gauge errors. I think that's a bit extreme, there is quite a bit of data to the contrary as well.