Are you in the Sub-80% Club?

Consider this is the kick-off post for the Sub-80% Club!

I'm guessing that I am not the only one here who rarely charges the LEAF to 80% and/or lets it sit mostly at lower SOCs. This is the place to discuss the whys, the hows, the expectations and the drawbacks related to maintaining the LEAF battery SOC below 80% most of the time.

Why?
I have come to believe that so-called "Long-life Mode" in the LEAF may not offer much additional battery life versus charging to full. This is particularly true for those of us who do not drive the car each day and typically do not travel very far when we do drive. The LEAF has plenty of range for most of our trips, but if we simply used 80% charging and plugged in each day, the battery would spend most of its time almost fully charged.

How?
There are two main techniques which we use around here to try to maximize the battery life in our LEAF:
- Just-in-time charging: The LEAF is ONLY charged just before it is to be driven.
- End-of-trip SOC targeting: The SOC the LEAF is charged to is based on discharging the LEAF to three charge bars upon returning home. This is the charge level at which we would prefer the LEAF spend most of its time.

In practice, we do this by setting an 80% charge timer for each morning at 8:00AM.
- If we do not plan to drive the next day, the LEAF does not get plugged in.
- If we need more than about 7 bars of charge the next morning, we plug the car in the evening before. If the target is 10 bars, we're done. If the target is 7 to 9 bars, we simply unplug in the morning when it is at the correct level. If the target is full, then we override the timer to get it full. (This is fine if we are leaving after about 10:00AM. Otherwise, we need to override early in the morning or the night before.)
- If we are driving in the afternoon or need fewer than 7 bars for a trip, we simply press the charge override button a bit before we depart so that it gains the proper number of bars. I use about 2.5 bars/hour for the estimate.

Expectations:
By targeting 30% to 40% SOC for most of our LEAF's resting life, we hope to maximize battery life. Using estimates from Stoaty's LEAF Battery Aging Model we estimate this means 15 to 20 years of life, perhaps even more. Is this expectation reasonable? We really have no way to know. Only time will tell.

Drawbacks:
- This approach is a bit fiddly. It sure would be great if Nissan would allow us some more flexibility in setting up charging endpoints, etc. Several of us have requested this, but so far there has been no enhancement in this area.
- Our LEAF does not sit in a "ready to go" state. As a result, if something comes up on the spur of the moment, either we need to take another vehicle or we will end up running down the LEAF battery further than we should for best battery life. This latter issue can also arise if we use more charge for a given trip because of other factors such as weather, side trips or inefficient driving.

Are you in the Sub-80% Club? If so, please tell us why and how you manage. Perhaps we can all learn something from the exchange.

Yes, I am a charter member of the 80% club. I try to keep my Leaf between 30% and 40% SOC as much of the time as reasonably possible. That means I charge to about 70% SOC right before I go to work, it sits at 50% SOC for about 10 hours while I am at work, and ends up around 35% SOC when I get home. Repeat cycle next working day. On Saturday I usually do a full charge early AM, then drive 50 miles. Leaf slowly charges from 40% SOC to 80% SOC. When I am done hiking, I drive home and end up with about 35% SOC. In 2 years I had to take the ICE vehicle 3 times when I could have used the Leaf. This wasn't due to an emergency, it was because I set the charging timer the night before, but forgot to plug in the EVSE.

It's a bit more trouble, but I think it will pay off in the long run. Probably won't know for many years if it is worth it. Like Abasile, I also avoid taking the Leaf to work when the predicted high is 95 degrees or above. Last summer this was for a total of 5 weeks. I figure this is cheap insurance to protect my Leaf from excessive heat.

I was, but less than 80% charge just doesn't cut it anymore. I also used to set the timer so charging ended right before I was ready to leave for work in the morning. Neither of these actions seemed to help. Still lost the first capacity bar in less than a year and less than 8,500 miles. Now, I just charge to 80% a few hours after I get home in the evening and don't give it much thought.

If anything, I'm interested in seeing how fast my LEAF's battery can decay (not by abusing it, of course). I'm shooting for losing the second bar by the end of the summer, and losing bars 10 and 9 next summer. I want to see if Nissan will release me from my lease at the end of next summer, rather than giving me a new battery under warranty. I'll be very happy if they just let me give the car back and allow me to stop making lease payments on it.

Weatherman said:

I was, but less than 80% charge just doesn't cut it anymore. I also used to set the timer so charging ended right before I was ready to leave for work in the morning. Neither of these actions seemed to help. Still lost the first capacity bar in less than a year and less than 8,500 miles. Now, I just charge to 80% a few hours after I get home in the evening and don't give it much thought.

If anything, I'm interested in seeing how fast my LEAF's battery can decay (not by abusing it, of course). I'm shooting for losing the second bar by the end of the summer, and losing bars 10 and 9 next summer. I want to see if Nissan will release me from my lease at the end of next summer, rather than giving me a new battery under warranty. I'll be very happy if they just let me give the car back and allow me to stop making lease payments on it.

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well speaking from experience they will not let you out of your lease at 9 bar loss, I just called and tried. I may consider that option at 8 bar loss when they are left with replacing the battery or letting me out of the lease. I may see what the dealer will give me on trade for a used leaf with a new battery it may work out to sell it rather than end the lease early. I do hate the idea of going back to gas but the Texas heat is to much for the leaf I will have to see what other EVs will work here in TX.

mksE55 said:

well speaking from experience they will not let you out of your lease at 9 bar loss, I just called and tried. I may consider that option at 8 bar loss when they are left with replacing the battery or letting me out of the lease.

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I figured that would be the case. There needs to be a significant financial incentive.

I would think, since they are required to give the car a new battery once it reaches 8 bars, they would be more interested in immediately taking the car back and transferring it to a cooler location to sell. A 27-month-old car with a new battery might be worth a lot more than a 36-month-old car with a battery that has cooked in the South Florida heat for nine months.

Yes, I'm in the "sub-club". With my 8 mi RT commute and small town size, it's pretty easy. My charging method is mainly a "replace what is used" method. I have my timer set for to charge on L1 from 1-3am to a maximum of 80%. Sat/Sun morning charging timer is set a bit longer for possible weekend trips. This way I just replace what is used during the previous drive and never exceed 80%.

The time varies slightly from summer to winter or if I anticipate farther driving needs. Mostly I plug in nightly, but sometimes I don't bother since I'm over 5 bars.

As with everything, nothing is absolute. Last night I overrode the timer and over charged (all the way to about 75%) because the car came back at LBW yesterday (unexpected trip to a nearby town). Oops, now I need to use run it back down because today's temps might reach 100 F.

During the summer, I park outside at night to keep the battery cooler, and inside under the shade during the day. Mostly I bicycle to work in the summer so this isn't a problem. If anything, I'm driving more than I used to because of the nice Leaf (or perhaps age and laziness).

Previous descriptions:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=12082&start=0#p278498
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=11251&p=259231&hilit=+stoaty#p259231

I'm close to being a member. I have the car timer set on 80% but I don't plug it in every night. Some nights if it's already at 80% I unplug it just so the battery and other electronics don't get queried by the EVSE. If it's at 60% and I know I'm only doing local errands the next day, I don't plug it in. However, I didn't bother with this for the first year and a half. I always just plugged it in every night. Now I try to have it sit longer at lower SOC sometimes on general principles to give the battery a thorough workout, but I really don't feel like I am making a significant difference either way. As the OP said, only time will tell. I expect long battery life just because I'm retired and don't commute, have low mileage, moderate temperature and almost never QC. At the end of 10 years I'll only have 50000 miles on the car, almost all of it under pretty easy conditions.

I've been a member of this club for quite a while, for two reasons:
1. Battery longevity
2. To avoid limiting regenerative braking on the ~5000' descent from the mountain town where I live

Normally we set an 80% timer ending at 8 AM like RegGuheert and unplug early. A more flexible charge timer would be nice!

As Stoaty mentioned, I often avoid taking the LEAF "down the hill" to work when it's hot, i.e., above 90-95 degrees. Today, for instance, it reached 102 degrees at work and only about 82 degrees at home. Thankfully I was able to work from home. On other days I take the family's Prius if needed.

In deciding whether or not to drive the LEAF on a given hot day, I factor in the amount of nighttime cooling available - often our early to mid summer weather is influenced by the North American Monsoon which increases humidity and thus keeps the nighttime temperatures higher. One of my goals is to avoid letting the battery get hot/warm without a chance to fully cool.

It's a good concept, but the average driver won't be bothered to keep the car at a specific SOC. We get the most benefit out of the car when we can actually use it instead of keeping at a low SOC and hoping we have a few hours warning before going out. Having to take the ICE vehicle is a waste of money so I try to make sure we have enough charge to get around town.

Now I do use the timers, and set them to end charge at 80% or 100% in the morning depending on the length of the commute for the day, but it is annoying that if you have a timer set to end at 6am for example, if you want to charge during the day you have to manually turn the timers off either with the timer off button or in the nav. My wife really dislikes the timers and just wants to be able to plug in and it charge. Typically if she has to charge at work in order to make it home and I forgot to turn the timer off, I'll log in to carwings and start the charging manually after she's plugged in (and it didn't start charging because of a timer).

CmdrThor said:

Now I do use the timers, and set them to end charge at 80% or 100% in the morning depending on the length of the commute for the day, but it is annoying that if you have a timer set to end at 6am for example, if you want to charge during the day you have to manually turn the timers off either with the timer off button or in the nav. My wife really dislikes the timers and just wants to be able to plug in and it charge. Typically if she has to charge at work in order to make it home and I forgot to turn the timer off, I'll log in to carwings and start the charging manually after she's plugged in (and it didn't start charging because of a timer).

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What's difficult and/or inconvenient about pushing the timer override button? You can also have no timers set at all, but I presume you are using them so as to take advantage of an off-peak rate.

:lol: There is being responsible with one's investment, and then there is being downright obsessive-compulsive with one's behavior. At the end of the day, the Leaf is designed to be the first mass-market wide-adoption electric vehicle. That means that for the most part it needs to fit in with YOUR lifestyle, not the other way around. Worrying about specific state of charges is frankly silly to possibly, maybe, theoretically squeeze a few more 'bars' of life out of the battery in the long run. (A long run in which we'll have likely improved technology by the time it is relevant.)

Do you keep your cellphone charged in that sweet spot of 30%? Do you hover over the charger of your laptop to keep it right were you need it? Probably not. I know I don't. I plug my phone in at night and use it during the day. If I find myself running low on juice, I plug it back in. The same behavior HAS to become standard for EVs or there will never be mass market adoption:

"Hey neighbor, you should totally get an EV. Just charge it to close to 80% and then quit charging. Of course, plan out your day, keep track of charging. Yes, I know range anxiety is common, and having even less reserve energy in your battery is going to cause you to worry. Just make sure you predict your whole day of driving. Try to bring it back in the garage with 30-60% SOC so your battery is in optimal condition. What's that? You dont' know if you need to go somewhere else tomorrow? Well just plug it back in to 100% in the morning ONLY IF YOU NEED IT." :roll: Of course, it's gonna be a warm day out, better take a back-up car. And you know, if it's gonna be too cold out, might wanna grab the ol' Volvo for that too. WHATEVER YOU DO, KEEP THAT BATTERY IN PEAK CONDITION AT ALL TIMES. Oh, and join the EV revolution, you can see how easy and fun it is!"

Of course, just like I don't start my ICE car up in frozen weather and start maniacally revving the engine before the temps come up, I'm willing to make sure I'm not cooking my car's battery in on a 100 degree+ day. I also don't run my battery down to an extremely low state of charge and don't charge it to 100% every single night just for the hell of it.

Here's the typical charging conversations in Bateman household:

"How's the Leaf?"
"I plugged it in. I have a lot of errands tomorrow."

or

"Got enough charge for tomorrow?"
"Yep, it's around 55% but I'm just heading to work and back."

Those of you fretting over 'hyper extending' your batteries are doing more harm than good for larger EV adoption. Use the car as instructed and let Nissan deal with the real world data of usage, driving patterns, and battery degradation that you agreed to give them when we signed our privacy away on CarWings.

We'd consider doing sub-80% if it was easily selectable in the LEAF. But with 3 - soon to be 5 - drivers sharing the two LEAFs we need a simple charging protocol that everyone can consistently understand and follow. First, the two LEAFs are always plugged in when at home. Second, the timers on both LEAFs are set to 80% 24x7. Third, if someone knows she or he may need more than 80% (a fairly common occurence given our driving distances) that person will hit the timer-off button a short while button before starting the trip.

Now, if the LEAF had some easy way to dial up different charging levels when plugging in - say in 10% increments starting with 40% - then we could factor that into our protocol. But, given the current options we stick with the 80% rule.

What Bateman described is why I have a Volt, and the LEAF will be going back to Nissan as soon as it makes financial sense to give it back.

With the Volt, I just plug it in when I get home. I don't give it another thought. No need to set charging timers or charge levels, or worry that it's going to maintain a high state-of-charge on the battery for a long time. In an emergency, it's always ready to go, even if it doesn't have a full charge. If the battery gets too hot, it will cool itself off. If I go on a trip and encounter an unexpected detour, I don't have to worry that I won't have enough power to get home (public chargers are so few and far between they aren't even worth dealing with).

Playing around with the LEAF was fun, for a very short while, and I still use it for my short, routine, very predictable trips, but I'm very happy to have the Volt always available to act as a backup in case the LEAF doesn't quite make it. Once the LEAF is gone, I won't miss it.

Bateman said:

Those of you fretting over 'hyper extending' your batteries are doing more harm than good for larger EV adoption. Use the car as instructed and let Nissan deal with the real world data of usage, driving patterns, and battery degradation that you agreed to give them when we signed our privacy away on CarWings.

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It's obvious that you are leasing and are enjoying your new LEAF. Good for you! I babied the battery in the LEAF I owned, and I'm downright careless when it comes to the pack in the test vehicle I lease. That said, I did set a timer to finish charging before leaving for work instead of letting it sit at 100% overnight.

I had a longer answer typed up for you, but my device decided to interfere. Let me just note that everyone's situation is different, and I'm not sure if the arguments you brought up are relevant or even fair. How would you feel if you owned your LEAF and heard that other owners have lost 20% of range in less than two years of driving? Meanwhile, the manufacturer was careful to point out that capacity loss is not covered by the warranty, no matter how rapid it was, and the rumored replacement price for the pack was somewhere between $10K and $20K. Wouldn't you look for defensive approaches to help defuse the situation?

This actually happened not long ago. A lot will depend on the ownership model and some of the early adopters might have seen some of this as a learning opportunity as well. If there were some simple rules, which can be beneficial in monetary terms, and they don't inconvenience me very much, would I be so foolish to consider following them?

Weatherman said:

What Bateman described is why I have a Volt, and the LEAF will be going back to Nissan as soon as it makes financial sense to give it back.

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That sounds like a good decision. Several owners in Phoenix followed a similar route. I'm still surprised to see that the simple aging model we worked on last summer delivered such predictable results. I think it sounded so counter-intuitive for many, since Florida lacks Phoenix-style summer heat.

What surprised me, a lot, was that nothing I did over the past year mitigated the effect of the South Florida heat.

Resistance was futile.

Weatherman said:

With the Volt, I just plug it in when I get home.

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Really, given the available energy in the Volt battery, that's your only choice.

For reasons I have discussed elsewhere, I chose to pay $10,000 less and I expect the LEAF battery to last longer.

Weatherman said:

What surprised me, a lot, was that nothing I did over the past year mitigated the effect of the South Florida heat.

Resistance was futile.

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Yeah, in a hot climate, the LEAF battery is going to degrade pretty quickly and user behavior will have little real impact. Perhaps it's possible to extend four years to 70% out to five years.

Calendar life will also be dominate in a cool climate where the annual mileage is low. The difference here is that babying the battery might make the difference between twenty years of life and sixteen. That's the hope, anyway. We'll see.

Bateman said:

There is being responsible with one's investment, and then there is being downright obsessive-compulsive with one's behavior.

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Cars can trigger downright obsessive-compulsive behavior. Not just electric cars, other cars as well.

People that change their oil every 3 months or 2000 miles, for example. I know one of these, he insists that is why his cars last longer. Ok, maybe.

+1

Bateman said:

There is being responsible with one's investment, and then there is being downright obsessive-compulsive with one's behavior. At the end of the day, the Leaf is designed to be the first mass-market wide-adoption electric vehicle. That means that for the most part it needs to fit in with YOUR lifestyle, not the other way around. Worrying about specific state of charges is frankly silly to possibly, maybe, theoretically squeeze a few more 'bars' of life out of the battery in the long run.

Click to expand...

WetEV said:

Bateman said:

There is being responsible with one's investment, and then there is being downright obsessive-compulsive with one's behavior.

Click to expand...

Cars can trigger downright obsessive-compulsive behavior. Not just electric cars, other cars as well.

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Ever heard of Concours d'Elegance? Now, that is some serious effort and l'art pour l'art.

surfingslovak said:

WetEV said:

Bateman said:

There is being responsible with one's investment, and then there is being downright obsessive-compulsive with one's behavior.

Click to expand...

Cars can trigger downright obsessive-compulsive behavior. Not just electric cars, other cars as well.

Click to expand...

Ever heard of Concours d'Elegance? Now, that is some serious effort and l'art pour l'art.

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Great example.