is anyone charging to only 80% with standard charge?

[saywatt]

I don't do anything from the iPhone app because, well, I don't have a smartphone! Plus you can't really do anything useful from it anyway. I hope that changes in the future.

Excellent reason not to use the app. However, I find it convenient to use it for checking my SOC, remote CC control, and continuing the charge to 100% when needed—these can be done on the Mac via CarWings also.

BTW, the reason I don't use the timer override for the 100% charge (I do agree that setting timers for 80% and using the override button for 100% is a great strategy and very easy) is simply that on those occasions that I do charge to 100%, I don't want the car sitting in the garage at 100% for any more time than is absolutely necessary. Is this based on my experience as a battery chemist? Absolutely not! I have no idea if letting the car sit fully charged for 8 hours instead of 2 is detrimental to battery life, but at least some people that post here says letting it sit like that should be avoided, so I figure it can't hurt to try to have the car reach 100% just prior to my pulling out of the garage.

In my statement, I was trying imply that I boost the charge from 80 to 100 just before use. Yes, it is not good to "store" fully charged Lithium-Ion batts.

 

[lpickup]

I don't do anything from the iPhone app because, well, I don't have a smartphone! Plus you can't really do anything useful from it anyway. I hope that changes in the future.

Excellent reason not to use the app. However, I find it convenient to use it for checking my SOC, remote CC control, and continuing the charge to 100% when needed—these can be done on the Mac via CarWings also.

I do use the leafic.com mobile web page from my not-so-smartphone very successfully. You can do everything that you can do from the app and is very easy to use. I may even attempt to do a "graphical" version of it some day.

 

[ebill3]

Balancing does not occur when charging to 80%.

Reference please? When Nissan was asked whether balancing occurs at 80%, the answer was "that is proprietary information".

Sorry, no reference, but I'll bet considerable gold that there is no balancing at 80%.

First, I have never seen the two 'stopped charging' messages when charging to 80%. Second, there doesn't seem to be anything to gain in balancing cells at less than 100%.

So, I guess I'll change my pronouncement to: "I am absolutely convinced that there is no balancing taking place when charging to 80%."

I wonder why Nissan is so mum about the whole issue of balancing? After all, it is not rocket science.

Bill

 

[saywatt]

I've experienced my Blink ESVE going on (after charging to 80%) a couple of times a day for 1 or two minutes then shutting down. I wrote it off as a "quirk" of the Blink. I can think of no reason for this except perhaps Blink was checking the car for data to transmit???? Or, perhaps it is the Leaf turning on the Blink and cell balancing :?:

Balancing does not occur when charging to 80%.

Reference please? When Nissan was asked whether balancing occurs at 80%, the answer was "that is proprietary information".

Sorry, no reference, but I'll bet considerable gold that there is no balancing at 80%.

First, I have never seen the two 'stopped charging' messages when charging to 80%. Second, there doesn't seem to be anything to gain in balancing cells at less than 100%.

So, I guess I'll change my pronouncement to: "I am absolutely convinced that there is no balancing taking place when charging to 80%."

I wonder why Nissan is so mum about the whole issue of balancing? After all, it is not rocket science.

Bill

 

[MarkBC]

Dumb question but the owners manual didn't come with the car up here in Canada, hopefully arrive in a few weeks.

How do I set the charge timer? In the dealership we set it to always charge to 80% but tomorrow I have a long drive and I want it to charge to 100%. I sat in the car for 15 minutes this evening poking around the menus but I couldn't find it anywhere.

 

[KJD]

Dumb question but the owners manual didn't come with the car up here in Canada, hopefully arrive in a few weeks.

How do I set the charge timer? In the dealership we set it to always charge to 80% but tomorrow I have a long drive and I want it to charge to 100%. I sat in the car for 15 minutes this evening poking around the menus but I couldn't find it anywhere.

It took me a while to find that one too.

1) Zero Emission button ( right side bottom one)
2) Charging timer menu
3) Set timer 1
4) Percent of charge 80 or 100 percent.

 

[ebill3]

Dumb question but the owners manual didn't come with the car up here in Canada, hopefully arrive in a few weeks.

How do I set the charge timer? In the dealership we set it to always charge to 80% but tomorrow I have a long drive and I want it to charge to 100%. I sat in the car for 15 minutes this evening poking around the menus but I couldn't find it anywhere.

Rather than reset the timer, use the override button (proper name is immediate charge)

On the lower left dash panel, there are 6 buttons, on my car, the right most two are blank.
One has an icon of a clock with an electric plug, and the word 'OFF'
That temporarily overrides the timer and the car will start to charge to 100%. If not plugged in, push the button, a blue light comes on and you have 15 minutes to connect the charge cord. It will work either L1 or L2.

Bill

 

[dgpcolorado]

Dumb question but the owners manual didn't come with the car up here in Canada, hopefully arrive in a few weeks.

How do I set the charge timer? In the dealership we set it to always charge to 80% but tomorrow I have a long drive and I want it to charge to 100%. I sat in the car for 15 minutes this evening poking around the menus but I couldn't find it anywhere.

You can download the 2012 owner's manual as a pdf here:
http://www.nissanusa.com/owning/manuals-and-guides.html?model=Nissan+LEAF&year=2012" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The magic button is the zero emissions one at the bottom of the right side of the center console. Choose the "Charge Timer" button at the lower left of the array. From there you can "Set Timer 1" or "Set Timer 2".

In addition to setting the charge level of 80% or 100% you will need to set the days of the week. And you need to set the time for the charge. For 80% one can just use a time like 12:20 AM to 12:10 AM and the car will charge pretty much any time you plug it in. For 100% you will probably want to specify an end time about when you plan to leave or a bit after, since the charging takes less time than the software estimates.

You can also charge to 100% by turning the Charge Timers off. Or using the override button to the left of the steering wheel. But be aware that using the override button won't work if charging is interrupted because it won't automatically resume.

Edit: KJD and ebill3 beat me to it!

 

[planet4ever]

60+ miles/day always to 83% even on weekend. Time will show if I am a winner.

:roll: I see you've been looking at the fake carwings numbers. The only thing that software really knows is how many bars are lit. It turns out that for almost all LEAFs almost all of the time, an 80% charge results in 10 bars showing. The silly software just says 10 bars out of 12 means 10/12 = 0.83333, so it tells you 83%. If you have zero bars lit, carwings will say you are 0% charged, even though you are quite likely to have 10% or possibly even 15% of the battery capacity left.

By giving you a percentage number, carwings tricks you into believing it knows the value to two-digit precision. In fact, the data it is working from is less than one-digit precision, even though there are 13 data points, because the data points are not equally distributed across the battery state of charge.

Ray

 

[nosuchthing]

I wonder if any of you fret about charging your cell phone.
I don't, and I doubt you do. 80% to be "nice" to the battery? Balancing the cells? Please... Spare me.

I set NO timers. I charge to MAXIMUM every time I plug in because I'm not sure how far wife is going to go and how much heat she'll feel like using. So whenever she or me for that matter go out driving, we unplug and we go. Done. And we hope we charged it long enough between arrivals and departures to have the least range "concern" while at it. The only time we limit charging is during the time of use E7 -12 to 6. And we break that too when necessary because even 50 cent per kW juice is cheaper than gas, and it's good for the polar bears.

It's the old Dale Carnegie's "stop worrying and start living" motto at work here. After all, battery is covered by a decent 8/100,000 warranty, folks, so let's use it, shall we?

 

[lpickup]

I wonder if any of you fret about charging your cell phone.
I don't, and I doubt you do. 80% to be "nice" to the battery? Balancing the cells? Please... Spare me.

If Nissan is going to offer me a replacement car after 2 years for $49.95 and another 2 year commitment, then yeah, I won't care about the LEAF's batteries either!

And actually I do fret about the cell phone's (and laptop's) batteries. I do try to treat them right meaning avoiding unnecessary charging cycles. But the point with the LEAF's batteries is that the batteries are the bulk of the cost of the car. While I do honestly believe that in 8 years battery technology will have advanced sufficiently to offer less expensive replacement options than exist today, I'm still not going to feel like running out and buying a replacement pack if I can take steps today to prolong their use. The battery warranty is meant to cover premature failure--that doesn't mean we have to treat them like they are worthless after 8 years/100000 miles and if they fail before that we're covered.

By all means I would charge to 100% if you need it or aren't sure if you'll need it (that's what I do) or if that's simply your style. But if I know I'll only be going 30 miles the next day and don't need 100%, then I'll charge to 80%. That's not much of a fret.

 

[lenny]

I wonder if any of you fret about charging your cell phone.
I don't, and I doubt you do. 80% to be "nice" to the battery? Balancing the cells? Please... Spare me.

Right, because replacing the battery in my car costs me $10, just like in my cell phone.

 

[coqui]

I was charging to 100% when i first got the car. Reason for that is the so-called "certified" :shock: dealer told me nothing about Nissan recommending an 80% charge, even though an 80% charge is quite sufficient for me most of the time.

Thanks to all the posts on here, I now know better though.

 

[surfingslovak]

Nissan recommends charging only to 80% when using the standard charge. better for long term battery life. i'm curious if others are heeding this advice or charging to 100%.

i'm leasing the car, so i have little concern for battery life beyond the 36 month lease period.

Great discussion, I found the EV Project report quite illuminating. Thank you for posting it.

I was wondering if there was a way to link this thread to the 80% Club, which was started a year ago. There are 27 pages of discussion in the older thread, and I suspect that quite a few forum members charge to 80% (or less) on a daily basis. I'm one of them.

Balancing does not occur when charging to 80%.

Reference please? When Nissan was asked whether balancing occurs at 80%, the answer was "that is proprietary information".

Very good point. I've been spending more time on the Tesla forum recently, and found several very clear references indicating that cell balancing occurs when charging the Roadster in standard mode. This mode roughly corresponds to our 80% charge. Tesla refers to 100% as range mode. This does not imply that the Leaf performs cell balancing when charging to 80%, but it could be a possibility.

On a related note, I ran my Leaf down to turtle a few time over the past month, and found that it did not perform predictably after the very low battery warning on occasion. The problem went away after couple of 80% charges. I made a point of letting the Leaf sit plugged in for several hours after reaching 80%, even though I usually drive off shortly after completing a charge.

I'm not sure what this signifies, if anything. It would be great, if we had more clarity about cell balancing after a 80% charge.

 

[garygid]

There is no good reason why the LEAF could not "equalize"
whenever it is "Off" and it detects out-of-balance (sufficiently
higher than average voltage) cell-pairs.