Shopping for my first Leaf (used)

[ToddLeaf]

Hi y'all!

I've test driven 4 now, I'm in love for sure, and I have a very specific set of...driving conditions.

So my wife is just gonna use this 2-4 days every 2 week to drive this 11 miles r/t to work. And we'll use it to go to the store and do very local tasks; nothing over 10 miles one way.

Just today I drove a 2011 (65k miles), the first one I used Leaf Spy Pro app on, and it tested out at basically SOH=35% 26 QCs 3568 L1/L2s

My question is this: if I BABY it (trickle charge only, make sure it's always in the sweet zone of charging, keep it in a relatively cool dry parking spot, etc) how long before the batteries completely die? 2 years, 5 years?

Thanks!

 

[NeguE]

No one knows.
Completely die perhaps never but die when "full charged" don't drive you for what you buy it.
Winter condition will affect miles range more of a weak battery then a "good" (75%) shape one.
Don't matter what display range told you, need to test driving it.
Perhaps thous 35% life can't hold a good acceleration and with a " full charge " still put car in a "safety stop"

 

[Drew21]

Based on the information you provided. the Leaf in question was plugged into a charger at approximately 17.6 mile intervals. Wow.

When most folks talk about "babying" an EV battery, they refer to things like no quick charging and not letting the car sit for long periods at either low or high charge levels. Many folks try to keep their battery charge level between 20-80% or similar.

Once you're dealing with a 35% SOH battery, there's not a lot of leeway for this sort of behavior. If you try to stop charging at 80% of current capacity you're probably looking at a situation where even a 20 mile roundtrip drive uses most or all available charge. If you have weak cells, you will almost certainly run into problems when you're calling on the battery to work hard (e.g., going up a hill, cold winter temperatures, etc).

I don't have LeafSpy but many folks here recommend using the app to check the uniformity of cell voltages at a low state of charge while driving the car. If the cell voltages are all over the place, you should stay away. If they're uniform, the battery is probably ok (or in your case, more likely to last a bit longer).

My opinion: if the car is very cheap and only going to be used for limited/restricted purposes such as the 11 mile roundtrip work drive you referenced it might be okay for a while. Or it might crap out on your wife while she's driving to work on the first cold day in December. LeafSpy can probably provide more useful information to help you decide which outcome is more likely.