Nissan : Leaf’s Battery Pack Should Last As Long As The Car

[TomT]

After 5 1/2 months and 7,000 miles, I've noticed no difference. I charge to 80 percent all the time except perhaps once or twice a month when I go to 100 percent and I've had no QCs.

For the very first owners / pioneers, do you feel any real degradation, I mean, do you feel now that the car is doing less miles using the same charge procedures ?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I've been reading this topic and would like to ask the following:

For the very first owners / pioneers, do you feel any real degradation, I mean, do you feel now that the car is doing less miles using the same charge procedures ?

Sorry if this has been asked already, I've been away and my searches didn't find a direct answer for this question.

Thank you, guys.

i will echo the same too early to tell simply because its impossible to say. the difference in range from winter to summer makes a half year evaluation worthless. i might have some info for you come January but only based on the range left on SO's commute to Centralia which is about 64 miles. last year she was coming home with 7-12 miles left. our temps were pretty mild but there was a few days with temps in low 20's.

to compare; last trip to Centralia included 2 side trips so distance was 74 miles and there was 19 miles of range left. a huge difference.

 

[lspooz]

I have yet to trust any projected battery claims nor would I trust what Mark Perry says since he is a bit of a spin doctor. There is a reason Nissan give absolutely no capacity warranty, the reason for that vagueness was no mistake. Only time and user reports will reveal this.

About the battery pack, "it'll last a lifetime if you die when you're supposed to."

 

[davetex99]

So far, I haven't noticed my battery temperature getting high, even driving 120 or more miles (with Level 2 charging along the way) in temperatures well over 100 (107 showed on the Leaf's outside thermometer). I'm also charging to 100% every night since I sometimes need to drive 70 to 80 miles and never know ahead of time which day it will be, but seldom take it down to the low battery level alert (7 miles remaining on the guessometer) and never below that. We don't have much public charging here yet, so mostly charge at home. I've been told that charging to 100% won't hurt, but I still plan to drop to 80% charging once my days become more routine. It seems Nissan changes their answers as they learn more about these cars and batteries in real use.

One thing I haven't seen discussed in this thread is the potential availability of used battery packs. If my pack deteriorates to the point that I need to replace it in 8 to 10 years, I'm hoping that the Leaf is so popular that I can pick up a lightly used one or two year old pack at a wrecking yard from a totaled late model Leaf. I'm seeing that with Prius packs now where they can be obtained fairly cheaply now from wrecked cars.

Dave

 

[JPWhite]

So far, I haven't noticed my battery temperature getting high, even driving 120 or more miles (with Level 2 charging along the way) in temperatures well over 100 (107 showed on the Leaf's outside thermometer). I'm also charging to 100% every night since I sometimes need to drive 70 to 80 miles and never know ahead of time which day it will be, but seldom take it down to the low battery level alert (7 miles remaining on the guessometer) and never below that. We don't have much public charging here yet, so mostly charge at home. I've been told that charging to 100% won't hurt, but I still plan to drop to 80% charging once my days become more routine. It seems Nissan changes their answers as they learn more about these cars and batteries in real use.

One thing I haven't seen discussed in this thread is the potential availability of used battery packs. If my pack deteriorates to the point that I need to replace it in 8 to 10 years, I'm hoping that the Leaf is so popular that I can pick up a lightly used one or two year old pack at a wrecking yard from a totaled late model Leaf. I'm seeing that with Prius packs now where they can be obtained fairly cheaply now from wrecked cars.

Dave

Yeah. Wrecked cars should be a good source for battery modules. Sure some will be torn up in the wreck, but a good number will come out of it just fine. I'm sure batteries out of a wrecked virtually new car will attract a better price than ones in cars that have aged. Nissan track each module with a serial #, so they will know if we have tinkered with the modules and I'm sure that would void the warranty for some or all of the modules.

 

[qwk]

If I lived in Phoenix, I would want to keep the Leaf under shade at all times. Perhaps this where they came up with the 5 year life?

Nice report Herm! The spec of the EV they used looked very similar to the Leaf.

I think that Mark Perry, Nissan's spokesperson, was addressing concerns voiced by Top Gear's battery expert. He claimed that Leaf's pack will last 10 years at best, but possibly 5.

I have never heard 5 years being considered as pack EOL until now, after Top Gear aired their report. Would it be conceivable that Nissan does not have any official numbers for 5 years worth of battery use? Did Mark simply use the numbers from their widely publicized 8-year simulation to say that the battery will still be usable, it will just have less capacity?

I believe that most of us will see 12 bars after a full charge for a while. The capacity fade will be hardly noticeable, only 2-3 miles per year, but after three years or so, the top bar won't light up anymore. What do you think?

I have yet to trust any projected battery claims nor would I trust what Mark Perry says since he is a bit of a spin doctor. There is a reason Nissan give absolutely no capacity warranty, the reason for that vagueness was no mistake. Only time and user reports will reveal this.

I fully agree. You cannot say the battery will last the life of the car, and the degredation is 20-30% after five years in the same sentence.

I'm also very curious to see how Nissan handles the battery warranty issues, as they will come up after a few years for some drivers. It's inevetable. Tesla is already seeing this problem, and has replaced more than a handfull of battery sheets under warranty.

 

[EricBayArea]

As I sit patiently waiting for my Leaf to be delivered, I wonder that when the battery starts to degrade will the DISPLAY (guess-o-meter) of total miles available after a 80% or 100% charge be different, or, will it just be noticeable when driving and the car is constantly recalculating.

 

[JPWhite]

As I sit patiently waiting for my Leaf to be delivered, I wonder that when the battery starts to degrade will the DISPLAY (guess-o-meter) of total miles available after a 80% or 100% charge be different, or, will it just be noticeable when driving and the car is constantly recalculating.

The guess-o-meter will work on the remaining 'bars' of electric as it always does. My understanding is that as the vehicle detects that overall battery capacity has diminished, the upper 'bar' will disappear off the display and be unavailable to reflect diminished capacity. Then the next then the next. The guess-o-meter will be as bad as ever.

BTW there are two guess-o-meters in the LEAF. The optimistic one that displays on the 'gas' gauge and a lesser known one that is on the driving range screen, available when you press a blue button on the steering wheel. The driving range display shows both the optimistic and a realistic driving range estimate. I use the 'realistic' range to adjust my speed and driving style if I am concerned about not getting back home. The realistic guess-o-meter is in my experience a quite decent judge of remaining driving range.

 

[TomT]

What is supposed to happen once it becomes significant enough is that the number of bars available, as shown by the ticks on the right side of the bar graph, will drop (from 12 to 11, for example). Presumably Gary's SOC meter would also show a reduction from the max of 281...

As I sit patiently waiting for my Leaf to be delivered, I wonder that when the battery starts to degrade will the DISPLAY (guess-o-meter) of total miles available after a 80% or 100% charge be different, or, will it just be noticeable when driving and the car is constantly recalculating.

 

[EricBayArea]

I wonder if that's why there are 12 bars and not 10, that way when the battery degrades a bit it'll show 10, which psychologically sounds like a good round full number

 

[TonyWilliams]

What is supposed to happen once it becomes significant enough is that the number of bars available, as shown by the ticks on the right side of the bar graph, will drop (from 12 to 11, for example). Presumably Gary's SOC meter would also show a reduction from the max of 281...

There's the 64 dollar question. I honestly have no idea if this diminished capacity will show as something less the 4.10 volts per cell, or if those cells just more quickly use up their capacity.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

U could look at the 10 white bars being the gauge and the. 2 red bars being the reserve or the unseen part of a regular gas gauge below the empty mark

 

[TomT]

The even better question is, what is Nissan using to trigger the reduced bar availability tics?

What is supposed to happen once it becomes significant enough is that the number of bars available, as shown by the ticks on the right side of the bar graph, will drop (from 12 to 11, for example). Presumably Gary's SOC meter would also show a reduction from the max of 281...

There's the 64 dollar question. I honestly have no idea if this diminished capacity will show as something less the 4.10 volts per cell, or if those cells just more quickly use up their capacity.

 

[Herm]

There's the 64 dollar question. I honestly have no idea if this diminished capacity will show as something less the 4.10 volts per cell, or if those cells just more quickly use up their capacity.

The 4.1V per cell wont change as the battery degrades, but the internal resistance will increase lowering the voltage under load, that may trigger the warranty if the power available drops below 108kw (or whatever the Leaf spec is).

 

[planet4ever]

What is supposed to happen once it becomes significant enough is that the number of bars available, as shown by the ticks on the right side of the bar graph, will drop (from 12 to 11, for example). Presumably Gary's SOC meter would also show a reduction from the max of 281...

As I sit patiently waiting for my Leaf to be delivered, I wonder that when the battery starts to degrade will the DISPLAY (guess-o-meter) of total miles available after a 80% or 100% charge be different, or, will it just be noticeable when driving and the car is constantly recalculating.

The guess-o-meter will work on the remaining 'bars' of electric as it always does. My understanding is that as the vehicle detects that overall battery capacity has diminished, the upper 'bar' will disappear off the display and be unavailable to reflect diminished capacity. Then the next then the next. The guess-o-meter will be as bad as ever.

I'm fairly certain that you folks are making the wrong assumption. The manual says:

The number of segments illuminated on the Li-ion battery available charge gauge can change based on the amount of power the Li-ion battery is capable of storing. For example, when the Li-ion battery becomes colder, more segments on the Li-ion battery available charge gauge illuminate because the available charge is a greater percentage of the Li-ion battery’s capability of storing power.

I agree that the first sentence could be read either way, but the second sentence makes it clear that the bars represent a percentage of the battery's capacity. When you charge to "100%" you will see 12 available charge bars, no matter now much the battery has degraded (i.e. how many little short capacity bars you see). You just won't get as many miles from each bar as you used to.

Back to Eric's pondering, I have little doubt that the guessometer will show lower (but still inaccurate) numbers with a degraded battery, just as I have little doubt that it currently shows lower numbers if the battery is at "100%" but very cold.

Ray

 

[JPWhite]

I agree that the first sentence could be read either way, but the second sentence makes it clear that the bars represent a percentage of the battery's capacity. When you charge to "100%" you will see 12 available charge bars, no matter now much the battery has degraded (i.e. how many little short capacity bars you see). You just won't get as many miles from each bar as you used to.

Ray

Just because each bar would now represents a greater 'percentage' charge doesn't mean a change in absolute energy per bar.

Each bar will still contain the same absolute amount of energy, but the bar will represent a greater percentage than it did before since there are fewer bars available for a full charge. A full charge will now contain less absolute energy since there are less 'bars' to fill up.

Think of it this way. A new the car has say 120 units of energy, so each bar represents 10 absolute units of energy. Now the battery degrades and accepts less and less absolute energy until the car detects that now 108 units of energy can be put into the battery, so the cars software will now remove the top bar because the car will not accept those 12 units of energy anymore. Each bar now represents 9% of a 100% charge cycle, instead of 8.3% prior to when the car was new.

Percentages will change, but what the bar represents does not.

 

[Smidge204]

Just because each bar would now represents a greater 'percentage' charge doesn't mean a change in absolute energy per bar.

I interpret the cited paragraph from the manual, as well as some data out of the service manual, as planet4ever does.

NOTE:
• The available charge of the Li-ion battery is indicated as a percentage of its full capacity.
• When the Li-ion battery temperature changes, the Li-ion battery capacity also changes. As a result, the display
of the Li-ion battery available charge gauge may change.

And by "Full capacity" it is my interpretation they mean available (degraded) capacity, not designed (original, non-degraded) capacity. A full charge will always be 12 bars no matter how much the battery can hold - this is the only way the comments on temperature makes sense. By necessity this means the total energy each bar represents will change and the bars will vanish faster as you drive with a degraded battery.
=Smidge=

 

[JPWhite]

A full charge will always be 12 bars no matter how much the battery can hold - this is the only way the comments on temperature makes sense. By necessity this means the total energy each bar represents will change and the bars will vanish faster as you drive with a degraded battery.
=Smidge=

Well it's quite possible I have the wrong information, but what I've read and what the sales-guy told me during delivery of the LEAF is that as capacity degrades, then the available bars will extinguish on the 'gas' gauge.

On Page 2-10 of the user manual it talks about the Battery capacity level gauge. Here's what it says.

LI-ION BATTERY CAPACITY LEVEL
GAUGE
This gauge indicates the amount of charge the
Li-ion battery is capable of storing.
When the capacity of the Li-ion battery
decreases with age and usage, the level of the
gauge will also decrease.

My interpretation of that is that as the battery degrades, then the number of bars on the battery available charge gauge will be limited by the capacity level gauge. i.e. it will drop from 12 bars to 11 and so and so forth. So a 100% charge will illuminate 11 or fewer battery available bars depending on how much it has degraded.

I suppose when that depredations happen, well find out how it really works.

JP

 

[Smidge204]

On Page 2-10 of the user manual it talks about the Battery capacity level gauge. Here's what it says.

The capacity gauge (Owner's manual, Page 0-8, item 14) is the outer, thin set of "bars." If that's what you've been talking about all along then you are correct - once those bars vanish, they're gone until the battery is refurbished. My apologies if we've been talking about different things here!

I'm talking about the available charge gauge (Owner's manual, Page 0-8, item 13), which is the inner, wider set of bars that the range guestimator cuts into. These are the bars that vanish as you drive and reappear as you charge. A full charge will always show 12 inner bars even if the battery is degraded.
=Smidge=

 

[amtoro]

This is a very long tread, but I think we should look at Nissan's numbers as very conservative estimates; Some Toyota RAV4 electric have been routinely checked as a longevity study and on average, their battery capacity measured in Ah-out was still above 72% after 100,000 miles.

And those batteries on the roads still today, are Ni-MH...

I'm confident that by the time my LEAF needs a new batt because is too low for my comfort, I'd have saved enough on "fuel" to gladly and happily pay for it. The key there is to SAVE your money and budget for an expense that will come in 7 or 10 years.