Phoenix Range Test Sept 15, 2012 planning!

[edatoakrun]

While the Gid meter is not official, its readings were acknowledged by the Leaf Chief Engineer at the Dec 1011 Google meeting of BayLeafs, where he confirmed that one Gid is calculated to be 80 Wh. If the car that went 11 miles over its predicted range is one of the ones with the most capacity loss, this would suggest that we (or Nissan, if we can trust them) can develop some kind of modest correction to the Gid count, but it is NOT going to explain ALL the capacity loss at high temperatures. The Chief Engineer alluded to the difficulty of computing an accurate Gid count, and that was without considering battery capacity loss.

Well said, Tom! I measured the underbody on several cars with an infrared thermometer gun before the test early in the morning. It was a nearly perfect 80F on all of them. The temperature gauge was at six bars, in all the vehicles I have looked at, of course...

Wouldn't it be likely you would get more consistent results in comparative capacity tests by normalizing the battery pack temperatures while charging?

Was that done?

 

[shrink]

I was thinking the same thing too. Since I haven't seen the damage and don't know the nature of it, I wonder about its severity and whether it's something that would need to be repaired for those leasing and/or how much impact it'd have on the value of a Leaf, if it were sold in the near future.

I think mine got dinged the worst:

I appreciate the sentiment. We filed a claim with U-Haul. We'll see how that works out.

This is the first I'm looking at this thread and I haven't read other posts yet, but a BIG thank you to Tony, opposum/AZDre, and slovak for all the time and hard work. The four of them pulled all nighters organizing and prepping. Their efforts were above and beyond.

BTW - opposum is a crazy good recovery vehicle driver!

I imagine it's been mentioned, but I'd like to contribute to reimburse Tony and Slovak's travel funds, as well as to those who rented trailers from UHaul. Maybe we can even donate to Tony's QC fund.

Just keep me posted and let me know where to send the money. I'll keep you all posted on the repair status of my LEAF as well. Again, I appreciate the concern. Hopefully UHaul insurance will take care of it.

 

[cwerdna]

^^^
Ouch! That's bad. I really hope UHaul's insurance covers it.

I had minor damage (much more minor that yours) to the front of my former 350Z after an auto shipper moved it. IIRC, there were slight gouges in the paint and a black plastic strip (lip?) under the bumper cover. Repainting the front bumper cover and replacing the plastic strip was >$900. Fortunately, the auto shipper covered it and likely lost $ shipping my cars.

In your case, that whole front bumper cover's going to need to be replaced and the new one will need painting.

 

[opossum]

Wouldn't it be likely you would get more consistent results in comparative capacity tests by normalizing the battery pack temperatures while charging?

Was that done?

Yep. We stuffed all 12 cars in a temperature chamber at exactly 7pm on September 12th with exactly 40% SOC, held them at a constant 72 degrees, then rolled them outside at 11am Friday and charged them all simultaneously on 12 chargers. We made sure to space them out by 50 feet so they had the same exposure to breezes. And if we saw a bird crap on a hood, we captured more birds and forced them to crap on the rest of the hoods, just to be sure one car did not have a dissimilar charge environment.

Actually... the cars showed up at whatever time and in whatever state the owners could afford to deliver them. The first car was there at about 4:15pm, freshly driven, and at a pretty low SOC. Other cars showed up after 8pm at different SOCs. We charged them via the fast charger and whatever L2 connections we had available at that time. We had just the fast charger and 2 L2 Blinks, no upgraded EVSEs until after 7pm, and only one J1772 splitter until after 9pm.

 

[Stoaty]

This all sounds like a huge amount of work. I would be happy to contribute to help reimburse those who traveled far to conduct the test. Very interested to hear the final results, too.

 

[vrwl]

Wouldn't it be likely you would get more consistent results in comparative capacity tests by normalizing the battery pack temperatures while charging?

Was that done?

Yep. We stuffed all 12 cars in a temperature chamber at exactly 7pm on September 12th with exactly 40% SOC, held them at a constant 72 degrees, then rolled them outside at 11am Friday and charged them all simultaneously on 12 chargers. We made sure to space them out by 50 feet so they had the same exposure to breezes. And if we saw a bird crap on a hood, we captured more birds and forced them to crap on the rest of the hoods, just to be sure one car did not have a dissimilar charge environment.

Not sure about anyone else, but you got a big laugh out of me!

 

[scottf200]

Sounds like some people are already trying to invalidate the data collected by questioning the methods/situations/variations if ever so slight.

 

[ht2]

It would be nice if it was toastier Saturday and we were able to charge the cars in enclosed garages overnight. Unfortunately, the ranges won't truly reflect just how awful most of these cars are in 90+ degree daytime commutes. I believe even Scott and Dawn's 4-bar loss car still managed 59 freeway miles! On the flip side, we did see some pretty awful GID levels for the relatively new cars that Tony and shrink brought out, so the data should still be fairly telling.

Thanks for the quick summary.

 

[mdh]

Sounds like some people are already trying to invalidate the data collected by questioning the methods/situations/variations if ever so slight.

1. I am really impressed that people took the time and effort to be our "consumer reports." I want to thank everyone! This is cutting edge.
2. I will contributed $ to the cause
3. I think Nissan built a great 1.0 EV car. They should be bragging about their technology and I am sure their TMS/BMS is doing amazing highly proprietary stuff. Likely very extensive machine learning technology. I wish they would be more open as this would reduce the stress and increase sales.

 

[ElectricVehicle]

While the Gid meter is not official, its readings were acknowledged by the Leaf Chief Engineer at the Dec 1011 Google meeting of BayLeafs, where he confirmed that one Gid is calculated to be 80 Wh. If the car that went 11 miles over its predicted range is one of the ones with the most capacity loss, this would suggest that we (or Nissan, if we can trust them) can develop some kind of modest correction to the Gid count, but it is NOT going to explain ALL the capacity loss at high temperatures. The Chief Engineer alluded to the difficulty of computing an accurate Gid count, and that was without considering battery capacity loss.

Well said, Tom! I measured the underbody on several cars with an infrared thermometer gun before the test early in the morning. It was a nearly perfect 80F on all of them. The temperature gauge was at six bars, in all the vehicles I have looked at, of course.

Given how much handwringing this test has caused even before any results were published, I'm nearly certain everything will be dissected and questioned. That's to be expected on this forum, but please step back for a moment and consider how much time, effort and goodwill this undertaking required. That's of course in addition to any problem with the car (real or imagined as OrientExpress put it).

Hear Hear! Thanks Tony, Surfingslovak and everyone who put SO MUCH effort and care into making this test happen and the attention to detail to making it the most controlled test of battery capacity loss to date. A brilliant exercise in seeking the truth, which will hopefully set us free to enjoy our LEAFs as they were meant to be!

Collect good data, analyse it carefully, beware of drawing conclusions without data, try to sort coincidences for cause and effect, identify the problem, and develop a fix for it, with all parties working together in good faith. For the people whose battery capacity loss as indicated by the LEAF dash instruments is curtailing their use of the car, this is a serious issue, regardless of whether they're local climate or particular LEAF represents a small percentage of all LEAFs, worldwide, most of them in cooler climates. Anyone with a LEAF who thinks it isn't an issue for those experiencing it is invited to swap their LEAF with a capacity loss LEAF!

The capacity loss is serious issue to those experiencing it and others who may experience it in the future and it's a golden opportunity for everyone to work together to solve this issue for existing LEAFs and incorporate fixes into future LEAF model years to prevent the issue.

In short - best wishes and a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who made this test possible!

 

[EatsShootsandLeafs]

I would contribute also,some $.

 

[edatoakrun]

="edatoakrun"

Wouldn't it be likely you would get more consistent results in comparative capacity tests by normalizing the battery pack temperatures while charging?

Was that done?

="opossum"
...the cars showed up at whatever time and in whatever state the owners could afford to deliver them. The first car was there at about 4:15pm, freshly driven, and at a pretty low SOC. Other cars showed up after 8pm at different SOCs. We charged them via the fast charger and whatever L2 connections we had available at that time. We had just the fast charger and 2 L2 Blinks, no upgraded EVSEs until after 7pm, and only one J1772 splitter until after 9pm.

If they all had 6 bars on the battery temp gauge, I doubt you could have had more than ~20 F variation in battery temperatures at the times the charges were completed.

No one, AFAIK, has accurately calculated how much more capacity the batteries have (assuming the BMS does not intervene at some higher temperature) when the battery temperature is increased this amount, but I think most would say this is probably no more than 2% to 3%. Not huge, but probably quit a bit more significant than the accuracy caused by the variable levels your windows are open while you drive, or for that matter, whether your tires had 36 or 40 lbs of pressure.

A simple way of avoiding most of this inaccuracy in future "mass" tests might be to charge the entire "fleet" to anywhere from 80% to 95%, let the temperature normalize to near ambient (overnight, in your situation) and top them off just before the test.

Of course, if you only want to test a single car and observe capacity loss over time, you can just choose days (and nights) with temperature conditions similar to those of your prior test. I charge to 80% overnight on the timer, and then finish up to 100% charge, trying to have it done so just before begin my range test, at close to the same charge and drive temperature that I had on my previous test(s).

 

[TonyWilliams]

Does anybody in Phoenix have access to a very new LEAF that one of our volunteers can drive for 84 miles ? A dealer?

Unfortunately, even a newly purchased LEAF in Phoenix is already likely to have advanced battery degradation just from sitting in the brutal hot Phoenix sun on the dealer's lot. So, any possible candidate LEAF would need to first pass the Gidmeter test at 100% charge.

Then, I'm confident we could find a volunteer to make that early morning drive in the same weather conditions we experienced Saturday. Any leads are welcome.

I appreciate all the offers for financial support. Let me think a day or two on how folks might be able to do that, if they so desire. We have a bit more work to do first.

 

[shrink]

Does anybody in Phoenix have access to a very new LEAF that one of our volunteers can drive for 84 miles ? A dealer?

Unfortunately, even a newly purchased LEAF in Phoenix is already likely to have advanced battery degradation just from sitting in the brutal hot Phoenix sun on the dealer's lot. So, any possible candidate LEAF would need to first pass the Gidmeter test at 100% charge.

Then, I'm confident we could find a volunteer to make that early morning drive in the same weather conditions we experienced Saturday. Any leads are welcome.

I appreciate all the offers for financial support. Let me think a day or two on how folks might be able to do that, if they so desire. We have a bit more work to do first.

Why don't you email the Ecotality folks? I think they have some new LEAF's.

 

[palmermd]

Well, you guys made the latest edition of EVTV. see 28:24-32:24. Only 4 minutes but interesting view from a non Leaf owner. We'll really only 2 minutes because he does not really start until 30:24 after getting sidetracked on lithium iron phosphate.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qauMYUUXai8#t=28m24s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[shrink]

Found a couple photos:

Staging. This was taken around midnight when Tony, surfingslovak, opposum, and AZDre were hard at work:

At dawn, just before takeoff:

 

[palmermd]

I see a real problem with the test....no silver leafs, and only one black one that's half disguised as white. It is always nice to see so many in a parking lot. I'm sure you got some attention just because of that, even if they had no idea why you were all there.

 

[GerryAZ]

I see a real problem with the test....no silver leafs, and only one black one that's half disguised as white. It is always nice to see so many in a parking lot. I'm sure you got some attention just because of that, even if they had no idea why you were all there.

Michael,
Until you noted this, I did not realize I had the only silver one in the test. Look at the one on the tow dolly--I towed it from home (far north side of Phoenix) with a full charge ready for the test. The door is open and I think Tick Tock has his computer plugged in recording pretest data before we start it to back it off the trailer.

Shrink and the others with damage,
I am sorry your cars were damaged and hope you get them repaired without too much hassle.

Special THANK YOU to all those who worked all night getting the rest cars ready and preparing for the test. I have a question for the group: Where did you get the self-stick numbers used to identify the cars during the test?

Gerry

 

[cwerdna]

Well, you guys made the latest edition of EVTV. see 28:24-32:24. Only 4 minutes but interesting view from a non Leaf owner. We'll really only 2 minutes because he does not really start until 30:24 after getting sidetracked on lithium iron phosphate.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qauMYUUXai8#t=28m24s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

LOL! This is the 2nd time I've watched a clip of these guys. Those guys are hilarious but I don't think I could sit thru an entire episode of their conversations/ramblings...

I did meet up w/surfingslovak at Turbo3's house tonight (Turbo3 lives near me) and got a sense of a few of the results and what transpired. It sounds like Tony's report is going to be very interesting and leave us w/a bunch of head scratchers. Surfingslovak was returning my GPS units and Turbo3's meter. I just wanted to hear about what he observed. I figured it was a time saver for surfingslovak to just to meet there.

Don't take my results as gospel, but it sounded like the worst car got ~59 miles before turtle, which is definitely much worse than the best (?) car's 76.

Surfingslovak described the gid behavior as strange (I used the word squirrelly, to which he concurred) on degraded cars once you get low on battery, at least from the 3-bar loser he drove.

 

[mwalsh]

Well, you guys made the latest edition of EVTV. see 28:24-32:24. Only 4 minutes but interesting view from a non Leaf owner. We'll really only 2 minutes because he does not really start until 30:24 after getting sidetracked on lithium iron phosphate.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qauMYUUXai8#t=28m24s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Link for those of us with Apple devices:

http://media3.ev-tv.me/news091412-iPhone.m4v" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;