madbrain
Well-known member
I did the following round trips thursday after my car (MY2012 SL) was fully charged on L2 at work and had all 12 bars.
This is the data from carwings :
1) First leg
Total consumption : 9.7 kWh
Consumption : 10.4 kWh
Regeneration : 0.8 kWh
Distance traveled : 33.7 miles
Energy economy : 3.5 miles/kWh
This was driven at 65 mph with cruise control and A/C on.
Mostly freeway, maybe about 4 miles city driving.
No major hills were involved, but the freeway is not completely flat.
This correlates fairly well with Tony's chart which states 3.6 miles/kW for 65 mph speed.
The trip used 7 of the 12 battery bars.
2) return leg
Total consumption : 7.0 kWh
Consumption : 7.9 kWh
Regeneration : 0.9 kWh
Distance traveled : 33.6 miles
Energy economy : 4.8 miles/kWh
Given that I only had 5 bars left to make the return trip, I had to slow down. I was driving mostly 50 miles/hour on cruise control except that I hit some roadwork for about 3 miles during which there was stop and go traffic.
Even so, the end of the trip was still pretty scary. I drove about 5 miles past the Very low battery warning (---), including 3 on the freeway still at 50. I still did not hit turtle. But there couldn't have been too much energy left in the battery.
Tony's chart states that 50 mph driving is 4.6 miles/kWh, and again that is pretty close to the 4.8 miles/kWh I got - the difference is explained by the roadwork.
So, the miles/kWh relating to speed seem to be accurate on the chart.
My issue is with the range on the chart.
The range chart states that at 65 mph or 3.6 miles/kWh, I should get about 75 miles with 12 bars or 71 miles with 11 bars (assuming my 12th bar is just about to go). Either way, it should have been no problem to drive the return trip at 65 mph according to the chart. If I believed the instrumentation on the car, there is no way this would have been possible, given the fact that I already drove 5 miles past VLBW and felt quite lucky to have made it back to a charger.
I also note that the net consumption of the two trips is only 9.7 + 7.0 = 16.7 kWh - only 79% of the 21 kWh of usable capacity that a new Leaf is supposed to have. Even if my first battery bar is about to go, does that first bar really represent close to 4.3 kWh ?
The average consumption for both trips was (33.7 + 33.6) / (9.7 + 7.0) = 4.02 miles/kWh.
According to Tony's chart a Leaf driving 3.9 miles/kWh and 12 battery bars should have a range between 78 and 82 miles.
But I drove 67.3 miles including 5 past VLB.
On Tony's chart, at 3.9 miles/kWh a range of 67.3 miles corresponds to 10 battery bars - between 66 and 72.
So what is going on here ?
1) is the Carwings data wrong ?
I am not inclined to think so, given that the miles/kWh from Carwings are matching the miles/kWh from Tony's range for the speed I drove.
2) is the range of Tony's chart wrong ?
3) did Nissan's recent software update significantly change the capacity reflected in each battery bars vs when Tony' did his tests ? I know they claim that they didn't, but this seems suspicious.
My car is not 1 year old yet, and has only 9000 miles. I definitely think there is some capacity degradation since the time I first got it, despite all 12 bars still being there. This summer, I took a 3 weeks trip to Europe. I make sure to leave the car unplugged and with only 6 bars of battery charge. But a friend of mine who was doing house & pet sitting thought I "forgot" to plug in the car, and plugged it in the next day after I left. I told him to unplug the car t after I received the end of charge text. But the car ended up sitting with about 100% state of charge for 3 weeks in my hot garage in August. So, I'm sure the car now has some battery degradation as a result, and I wouldn't be surprised if the 1st bar is about to go. But still, the range I am observing doesn't even match a car with 11 bars on Tony's chart.
This is the data from carwings :
1) First leg
Total consumption : 9.7 kWh
Consumption : 10.4 kWh
Regeneration : 0.8 kWh
Distance traveled : 33.7 miles
Energy economy : 3.5 miles/kWh
This was driven at 65 mph with cruise control and A/C on.
Mostly freeway, maybe about 4 miles city driving.
No major hills were involved, but the freeway is not completely flat.
This correlates fairly well with Tony's chart which states 3.6 miles/kW for 65 mph speed.
The trip used 7 of the 12 battery bars.
2) return leg
Total consumption : 7.0 kWh
Consumption : 7.9 kWh
Regeneration : 0.9 kWh
Distance traveled : 33.6 miles
Energy economy : 4.8 miles/kWh
Given that I only had 5 bars left to make the return trip, I had to slow down. I was driving mostly 50 miles/hour on cruise control except that I hit some roadwork for about 3 miles during which there was stop and go traffic.
Even so, the end of the trip was still pretty scary. I drove about 5 miles past the Very low battery warning (---), including 3 on the freeway still at 50. I still did not hit turtle. But there couldn't have been too much energy left in the battery.
Tony's chart states that 50 mph driving is 4.6 miles/kWh, and again that is pretty close to the 4.8 miles/kWh I got - the difference is explained by the roadwork.
So, the miles/kWh relating to speed seem to be accurate on the chart.
My issue is with the range on the chart.
The range chart states that at 65 mph or 3.6 miles/kWh, I should get about 75 miles with 12 bars or 71 miles with 11 bars (assuming my 12th bar is just about to go). Either way, it should have been no problem to drive the return trip at 65 mph according to the chart. If I believed the instrumentation on the car, there is no way this would have been possible, given the fact that I already drove 5 miles past VLBW and felt quite lucky to have made it back to a charger.
I also note that the net consumption of the two trips is only 9.7 + 7.0 = 16.7 kWh - only 79% of the 21 kWh of usable capacity that a new Leaf is supposed to have. Even if my first battery bar is about to go, does that first bar really represent close to 4.3 kWh ?
The average consumption for both trips was (33.7 + 33.6) / (9.7 + 7.0) = 4.02 miles/kWh.
According to Tony's chart a Leaf driving 3.9 miles/kWh and 12 battery bars should have a range between 78 and 82 miles.
But I drove 67.3 miles including 5 past VLB.
On Tony's chart, at 3.9 miles/kWh a range of 67.3 miles corresponds to 10 battery bars - between 66 and 72.
So what is going on here ?
1) is the Carwings data wrong ?
I am not inclined to think so, given that the miles/kWh from Carwings are matching the miles/kWh from Tony's range for the speed I drove.
2) is the range of Tony's chart wrong ?
3) did Nissan's recent software update significantly change the capacity reflected in each battery bars vs when Tony' did his tests ? I know they claim that they didn't, but this seems suspicious.
My car is not 1 year old yet, and has only 9000 miles. I definitely think there is some capacity degradation since the time I first got it, despite all 12 bars still being there. This summer, I took a 3 weeks trip to Europe. I make sure to leave the car unplugged and with only 6 bars of battery charge. But a friend of mine who was doing house & pet sitting thought I "forgot" to plug in the car, and plugged it in the next day after I left. I told him to unplug the car t after I received the end of charge text. But the car ended up sitting with about 100% state of charge for 3 weeks in my hot garage in August. So, I'm sure the car now has some battery degradation as a result, and I wouldn't be surprised if the 1st bar is about to go. But still, the range I am observing doesn't even match a car with 11 bars on Tony's chart.