Do Battery Usage Bars Relate to Physical Areas of Battery?

[TaylorSFGuy]

I see consistently lower range from the third bar used than all the others. Does this correspond to a physical part of the battery?

 

[surfingslovak]

I see consistently lower range from the third bar used than all the others. Does this correspond to a physical part of the battery?

That's weird. Third bar from the top or the bottom on the SOC gauge? Bars seem to be fairly fluid and shouldn't correspond to a particular battery range. The consensus seems to be that the car is using coulomb counting, open-current voltage and other parameters to estimate the state of charge. Did you have a software update applied to your car recently? Any perceived change to the available motor power?

 

[ztanos]

I see consistently lower range from the third bar used than all the others. Does this correspond to a physical part of the battery?

That's weird. Third bar from the top or the bottom on the SOC gauge? Bars seem to be fairly fluid and shouldn't correspond to a particular battery range. The consensus seems to be that the car is using coulomb counting, open-current voltage and other parameters to estimate the state of charge. Did you have a software update applied to your car recently? Any perceived change to the available motor power?

Is your third bar highway or up a mountain?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i spent a lot of time early in the game trying to gauge a pattern of "disapperance" of the bars and gave up simply because they were so variant. i pretty much ignore them now.

to be honest with ya, i jump in the car that morning knowing how far i have to go, check the gauge if i have not charged to 100% the night before to make sure i have enough and that is pretty much the last time i look at the bars (having GID meter really helps a lot!)

speaking of which; how many miles u up to and did you ever get a chance to check your SOC?

 

[Nubo]

I see consistently lower range from the third bar used than all the others. Does this correspond to a physical part of the battery?

Here's a visual representation of the table which Tony Williams meticulously compiled. It shows how many miles of range one can get at various constant speeds (mph are at the bottom). Should point out that this is for a new battery.

Bar #1, which includes the "low battery warning" range, and the "very low battery warning" range, is by far the "thickest" bar. By a LOT. This is followed by bar#2. Bar #12 is the "thinnest" bar and the rest are fairly close to each other. The determination of those ranges is done by the car's software and in fact this has changed at least once. Nissan chooses to use the bars, unfortunately, as a psychological game instead of simply showing the amount of energy available (e.g.: kilowatt-hours). To be fair, most manufacturers do this with their gas gauges too.

As far as "physical part of the battery... the car uses all of the cells together; it doesn't use some first and others later.

 

[TaylorSFGuy]

i spent a lot of time early in the game trying to gauge a pattern of "disapperance" of the bars and gave up simply because they were so variant. i pretty much ignore them now.

to be honest with ya, i jump in the car that morning knowing how far i have to go, check the gauge if i have not charged to 100% the night before to make sure i have enough and that is pretty much the last time i look at the bars (having GID meter really helps a lot!)

speaking of which; how many miles u up to and did you ever get a chance to check your SOC?

I've tried 3 different routes. For me it began quite consistently - I used to take my Miles/kwh x 1.5 and multiplied by number of bars expecting it to drop off at that point. They fell off pretty consistently - at 10 bars gone, I expected 66 miles with 4.4 miles/kwh.

I will be through 50,000 miles on Friday and will do the SOC testing this weekend or early next week.

8/28 In Average Total Miles Expected Miles % of Expected
Bar 1 4.5 6.5 6.8 96.3%
Bar 2 5.0 14.0 15.0 93.3%
Bar 3 4.7 18.5 21.2 87.3%
Bar 4 4.4 22.4 26.4 84.8%
Bar 5 4.6 29.1 34.5 84.3%
Bar 6 4.5 34.7 40.5 85.7%
Bar 7 4.7 42.9 49.4 86.8%
Bar 8 4.7 48.7 56.4 86.3%
Bar 9 4.6 53.9 62.1 86.8%
Bar 10 4.6 59.4 69.0 86.1%
End 4.5 63.3

8/29 Out
Bar 1 3.8 4.6 5.7 80.7%
Bar 2 3.9 11.0 11.7 94.0%
Bar 3 4.1 15.5 18.5 83.8%
Bar 4 4.1 20.8 24.6 84.6%
Bar 5 4.2 27.4 31.5 87.0%
Bar 6 4.3 33.5 38.7 86.6%
Bar 7 4.3 39.7 45.2 87.8%
Bar 8 4.5 47.0 54.0 87.0%
Bar 9 4.3 51.6 58.1 88.8%
Bar 10 4.4 58.4 66.0 88.5%
End

8/30 In - Puyallup
Bar 1 4.6 6.4 6.9 92.8%
Bar 2 4.7 13.8 14.1 97.9%
Bar 3 4.7 18.4 21.2 86.8%
Bar 4 4.2 21.7 25.2 86.1%
Bar 5 4.3 27.6 32.3 85.4%
Bar 6 4.4 33.9 39.6 85.6%
Bar 7 4.6 42.3 48.3 87.6%
Bar 8 4.5 47.2 54.0 87.4%
Bar 9 4.5 52.6 60.8 86.5%
Bar 10 4.4 58.7 66.0 88.9%
Bar 11 4.4 65.6 72.6 90.4%

 

[surfingslovak]

I've tried 3 different routes. For me it began quite consistently - I used to take my Miles/kwh x 1.5 and multiplied by number of bars expecting it to drop off at that point. They fell off pretty consistently - at 10 bars gone, I expected 66 miles with 4.4 miles/kwh.

I will be through 50,000 miles on Friday and will do the SOC testing this weekend or early next week.

8/28 In Average Total Miles Expected Miles % of Expected
Bar 1 4.5 6.5 6.8 96.3%
Bar 2 5.0 14.0 15.0 93.3%
Bar 3 4.7 18.5 21.2 87.3%
Bar 4 4.4 22.4 26.4 84.8%
Bar 5 4.6 29.1 34.5 84.3%
Bar 6 4.5 34.7 40.5 85.7%
Bar 7 4.7 42.9 49.4 86.8%
Bar 8 4.7 48.7 56.4 86.3%
Bar 9 4.6 53.9 62.1 86.8%
Bar 10 4.6 59.4 69.0 86.1%
End 4.5 63.3

8/29 Out
Bar 1 3.8 4.6 5.7 80.7%
Bar 2 3.9 11.0 11.7 94.0%
Bar 3 4.1 15.5 18.5 83.8%
Bar 4 4.1 20.8 24.6 84.6%
Bar 5 4.2 27.4 31.5 87.0%
Bar 6 4.3 33.5 38.7 86.6%
Bar 7 4.3 39.7 45.2 87.8%
Bar 8 4.5 47.0 54.0 87.0%
Bar 9 4.3 51.6 58.1 88.8%
Bar 10 4.4 58.4 66.0 88.5%
End

8/30 In - Puyallup
Bar 1 4.6 6.4 6.9 92.8%
Bar 2 4.7 13.8 14.1 97.9%
Bar 3 4.7 18.4 21.2 86.8%
Bar 4 4.2 21.7 25.2 86.1%
Bar 5 4.3 27.6 32.3 85.4%
Bar 6 4.4 33.9 39.6 85.6%
Bar 7 4.6 42.3 48.3 87.6%
Bar 8 4.5 47.2 54.0 87.4%
Bar 9 4.5 52.6 60.8 86.5%
Bar 10 4.4 58.7 66.0 88.9%
Bar 11 4.4 65.6 72.6 90.4%

Impressive recordkeeping! While the data does suggest some capacity loss, I don't think that there is a clear pattern, which shows less range for a particular bar. Am I looking right? That said, we now know that the bars are fluid and they get remapped as the available capacity shrinks. It looks like the bars are derived the current Gid count, which in turn is based on a Coulomb count and adjusted by looking at the pack voltage when the car is not running. Although not perfect, we would not expect this relationship and the discharge curve of the battery to change much over time. Can you explain the effect you observed again? Did you have a chance to record the pack voltage after a full charge last time you had access to the Gid meter? If not, it might be beneficial to do that now.

 

[FairwoodRed]

Did you have a chance to record the pack voltage after a full charge last time you had access to the Gid meter? If not, it might be beneficial to do that now.

I've never seen an option for checking pack voltage with my GID meter. Is it possible that not all GID meters have that option? If my GID meter had it, could you describe how to find it / use it / take a reading?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Did you have a chance to record the pack voltage after a full charge last time you had access to the Gid meter? If not, it might be beneficial to do that now.

I've never seen an option for checking pack voltage with my GID meter. Is it possible that not all GID meters have that option? If my GID meter had it, could you describe how to find it / use it / take a reading?

press the black button to change function. it will toggle from

GID/SOC
to
Volts/Amps/Power

use the red button to toggle from measurement to another

 

[91040]

Dave, isn't it the opposite?

Red button toggles between Gid/percentage mode and the Amps/Voltage/power mode.
Black button toggles within each mode.

Did you have a chance to record the pack voltage after a full charge last time you had access to the Gid meter? If not, it might be beneficial to do that now.

I've never seen an option for checking pack voltage with my GID meter. Is it possible that not all GID meters have that option? If my GID meter had it, could you describe how to find it / use it / take a reading?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Dave, isn't it the opposite?

Red button toggles between Gid/percentage mode and the Amps/Voltage/power mode.
Black button toggles within each mode.

Did you have a chance to record the pack voltage after a full charge last time you had access to the Gid meter? If not, it might be beneficial to do that now.

I've never seen an option for checking pack voltage with my GID meter. Is it possible that not all GID meters have that option? If my GID meter had it, could you describe how to find it / use it / take a reading?

ok, i am good with that. its a two button device, if one way does not work, try the other. i am just saying how mine works. but that would have depended on how it was put together i guess. on mine, the black is on the left, the red is on the right, so how about

the button on the left toggles...

 

[FairwoodRed]

Good to know! For some reason I had it in my mind that the buttons were for "future development". What I remember about the switches is that "they both should be down". I should have read the manual better.

My meter is with TaylorSFguy for a while, but I'll test it after. Unless TaylorSFguy wants to play with it for me...

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Good to know! For some reason I had it in my mind that the buttons were for "future development". What I remember about the switches is that "they both should be down". I should have read the manual better.

My meter is with TaylorSFguy for a while, but I'll test it after. Unless TaylorSFguy wants to play with it for me...

the "future" development thingy is the toggle switches on the side which control which bus the data is read from. not sure of what color they are since i never move them

the one (dont remember if its top one or bottom one) is a 3 position power switch

which is always on, off, on when car is on (not sure of the elegant way of saying that)

then the other is supposed to change from one bus to another. its there because gas cars have different options and so since this aint gas, it is unused at this time

 

[91040]

Upper toggle switch on the side should be the 3 position power switch.
Lower toggle switch should read the different CAN buses.
When the boffins decode any data streams on the Car CAN bus it should be added to a firmware update.