2013 Leaf SV losing battery capacity checked with LeafSpy lite

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Swamibob

Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2016
Messages
11
Location
Florida
Hi all this is my fist post. I first bough my Leaf used about a year ago with 22000 miles. When I bought it there were 12 bars, but within a month it had dropped to 11. I'm guessing it was probably about to go to 11 anyway and thought that wasn't too bad. I have always charged it to 80% capacity ever since i have owned it and about once a week I fully charge it to balance the cells. I have driven it for about 7000 miles so I am now at 29,250 and it has dropped all the way to 9 bars. I just read and downloaded LeafSpy Lite and have some numbers to share. I fully charged the leaf last night and when i got up this morning, I started up the car and then ran leafspy. Here are my results.

bat stats: AHr=43.71 SOH=66% 393.56v Hx=60.14 At the bottom it says SOC=96.4

So does this mean my battery is only 66% capacity of a new battery pack? Am i close to being able to claim a warranty on the battery. When it was fully charged this morning it showed 70 miles at 100% capacity. Will this recover at all if i do more full charges, or if I do a more complete cycle like down to turtle then fully charge it back?

Thanks for the info,
Robert
 
It appears that you are close to qualifying for a new pack. Check the car's build date on the door sticker: I'd bet serious money that it was built between January and March (including March) of 2013. Those early build packs apparently used the old 2011-2012 battery chemistry, albeit in the same new package as the rest of the 2013 cars, and they lose capacity fast.
 
OP, where are you located? Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

Where did the Leaf reside before?

I agree w/what Leftie said. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if you were the victim of a BMS reset and that the car originally had maybe only 10 or 11 CBs showing when it was turned in or first sold used.
 
I am located in FL. It was a lease car in Miami before I bought it from Don Mealey Mazda in Orlando. How is it possible to do a BMS reset? Is it just a temporary way to make someone think it is full power then it shortly drops back down?
 
LeftieBiker said:
It appears that you are close to qualifying for a new pack. Check the car's build date on the door sticker: I'd bet serious money that it was built between January and March (including March) of 2013. Those early build packs apparently used the old 2011-2012 battery chemistry, albeit in the same new package as the rest of the 2013 cars, and they lose capacity fast.

Build date 02/13
 
Swamibob said:
bat stats: AHr=43.71 SOH=66% 393.56v Hx=60.14 At the bottom it says SOC=96.4

So does this mean my battery is only 66% capacity of a new battery pack? Am i close to being able to claim a warranty on the battery. When it was fully charged this morning it showed 70 miles at 100% capacity. Will this recover at all if i do more full charges, or if I do a more complete cycle like down to turtle then fully charge it back?

Thanks for the info,
Robert


Congrats, looks like you'll win the lottery. My 2012 still has 73% SOH so no free pack for me. But you will likely get a free pack in 2017.

Don't bother trying to recover, nothing you do will make a big difference. Just drive it as much as you like, charge it as much as you need to and be prepared to give it up for a few days while they replace the pack (when that time comes, maybe spring 2017?).
 
Swamibob said:
I am located in FL. It was a lease car in Miami before I bought it from Don Mealey Mazda in Orlando. How is it possible to do a BMS reset? Is it just a temporary way to make someone think it is full power then it shortly drops back down?
Yours is not the first nor only case we've heard of this. http://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2014/11/buyers-beware-this-is-must-read.html was one. There have been others

IIRC, a dealer tech is supposed to do an intentional reset if the big battery is changed. Unfortunately, it seems some unscrupulous folks have been doing this w/o replacing the battery.

IIRC, also during the Phoenix battery degradation debacle, some customer cars were temporarily borrowed by Nissan corporate and at least one came back with the display reset to 12 CBs. It eventually crept back to the original level. I thought I recall reading this. Hopefully someone can confirm my story or tell me I'm wrong.
Swamibob said:
How much more AHr does it need to drop until I will lose another bar and qualify for the battery under warranty?
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=455984#p455984 is one table I've found.

But yeah, being down 3 bars w/a pre-4/2013 battery in a warm/hot climate before the 5 year/60K capacity warranty is up isn't surprising.

I still have all 12 bars on my 5/2013 built used '13 Leaf SV. I'm in a hotter part of the SF Bay Area. As of earlier tonight my stats were these:
AHr: 57.68
SOH: 88%
Hx: 86.98%
odo: 40,340 miles

I am getting closer to losing a capacity bar... sometimes Hx is down to 84.xx%.
 
cwerdna said:
Swamibob said:
I am located in FL. It was a lease car in Miami before I bought it from Don Mealey Mazda in Orlando. How is it possible to do a BMS reset? Is it just a temporary way to make someone think it is full power then it shortly drops back down?
Yours is not the first nor only case we've heard of this. http://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2014/11/buyers-beware-this-is-must-read.html was one. There have been others

IIRC, a dealer tech is supposed to do an intentional reset if the big battery is changed. Unfortunately, it seems some unscrupulous folks have been doing this w/o replacing the battery.

IIRC, also during the Phoenix battery degradation debacle, some customer cars were temporarily borrowed by Nissan corporate and at least one came back with the display reset to 12 CBs. It eventually crept back to the original level. I thought I recall reading this. Hopefully someone can confirm my story or tell me I'm wrong.
Swamibob said:
How much more AHr does it need to drop until I will lose another bar and qualify for the battery under warranty?
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=455984#p455984 is one table I've found.

But yeah, being down 3 bars w/a pre-4/2013 battery in a warm/hot climate before the 5 year/60K capacity warranty is up isn't surprising.

I'm still have all 12 bars on my 5/2013 built used '13 Leaf SV. I'm in a hotter part of the SF Bay Area. As of earlier tonight my stats were these:
AHr: 57.68
SOH: 88%
Hx: 86.98%
odo: 40,340 miles

I am getting closer to losing a capacity bar... sometimes Hx is down to 84.xx%.

Thanks for this information. It really irritates me that someone reset this to make it look like it was in better condition than it really was. This is like electronically resetting the odometer and saying it was never driven, then you buy the car and notice there is no tread left on the tires and brakes are worn out with only 100 miles on the car. I've only put 7000 miles on the car and it dropped from 12 to almost 8 bars, it just doesn't add up, especially since I was trying to baby it after learning that keeping it between 80%-20% charge would help extend the life of the battery, and then watching the bars tick off month after month.

Since i have owned the car I have ran it on 80% long life mode most of the time, only full charging it about once a week since I had read that you should full charge it sometimes to balance the cells. Now I find out it's about shot anyway. I'm sure whoever leased it just charged to 100% all the time because if you didn't plan on keeping it why would you worry about it or they may not have even known that they had an 80% setting.

So, if I want to speed this along and get it to the 8 bar level so Nissan will do something about it, should I just start full charging it all the time and running it to low battery, or doesn't it really make that much difference. From the looks of it, i'm gonna hit 8 bars any day now since that other post said you will lose bar 9 between 41.75 and 44 AHr and i'm already at 43.71.

Thanks again everyone, this has been an educational experience.

Rob
 
There are a few positive things. You're at least aware of the capacity warranty. I've seen at least one person semi-recently who claimed he was unaware and passed his 5 years/60K miles, insisting that he was probably down to 8 bars before it expired. But, he didn't know and AFAIK, it was never documented by a Nissan dealer. Oh well.

Another is that you have a pre-4/0213 built Leaf degraded this badly already. Those batteries seem worse in terms of degradation. If you had a 4/2013 or later built Leaf treated the same way by the previous driver, you might not win the battery lottery and might not hit 8 bars before the 5 year/60K capacity is up in your climate. I'm 95% certain I won't in mine.

There are threads like http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19967 to read/exchange notes on the loss of the 4th capacity bar.
 
The OP sounds like a battery close to warranty replacement although the 70 mile range displayed by the GOM is surprising. What miles/kWh factor is the car using ? What is the kWh capacity reported by LEAFspy ? What is the actual driving range at 60-65 mph going from full charge to Low battery warning ?
 
SageBrush said:
The OP sounds like a battery close to warranty replacement although the 70 mile range displayed by the GOM is surprising. What miles/kWh factor is the car using ? What is the kWh capacity reported by LEAFspy ? What is the actual driving range at 60-65 mph going from full charge to Low battery warning ?

How can i tell what miles/kWh factor it is using? I only have leafspy lite so I don't think it gives all of that info. All I see is the screen I posted, the max voltage difference, and a battery temp screen that shows sensors 1, 2 and 4 but no 3, not sure if that is normal either. I do know that the miles go down way faster than the estimation that it gives when I first start it. One thing I did notice today when getting the screenshots, I had it set to a 2011 leaf instead of 2013 leaf in leafspy. I hope that doesn't skew the numbers. I can tell you that from 80% charge, I either hit low battery warning right before i get home or almost hit it every day on my 30 mile round trip commute if you can figure anything from that and it is mostly 40-50mph driving.
 
Swamibob said:
SageBrush said:
The OP sounds like a battery close to warranty replacement although the 70 mile range displayed by the GOM is surprising. What miles/kWh factor is the car using ? What is the kWh capacity reported by LEAFspy ? What is the actual driving range at 60-65 mph going from full charge to Low battery warning ?

How can i tell what miles/kWh factor it is using? I only have leafspy lite so I don't think it gives all of that info. All I see is the screen I posted, the max voltage difference, and a battery temp screen that shows sensors 1, 2 and 4 but no 3, not sure if that is normal either. I do know that the miles go down way faster than the estimation that it gives when I first start it. One thing I did notice today when getting the screenshots, I had it set to a 2011 leaf instead of 2013 leaf in leafspy. I hope that doesn't skew the numbers. I can tell you that from 80% charge, I either hit low battery warning right before i get home or almost hit it every day on my 30 mile round trip commute if you can figure anything from that and it is mostly 40-50mph driving.
Your self-reported driving range matches LEAFspy, so the GOM is just way, way off.

The calc goes like this: if the battery has degraded 33% as LEAFspy says, your (when new) range of 75 miles would now be 75*2/3 = 50 miles. Since you charge to 80% SOC, the range at the start of the day would be 50*0.8 = 40 miles. Subtract the buffer still available when the low battery alert sounds and you are right around your daily experience.

You might as well charge to 100% from now on and use AC freely for a better daily driving experience and to hasten the battery towards it's warranty replacement. I don't know how much of the fast degradation can be mitigated when you start off fresh with a new battery, but consider these strategies if the weather is warm:
  • Charge outside during the coolest hours of the night
    Let the battery cool down before beginning a charge
    Continue charging to 80% max or below most of the time. Perhaps 100% once a month is enough ?
    Set your charge routine to finish about the time you leave in the AM if possible and the hour is still cool
If this was my car and I was starting out with a new battery I wanted to pamper, I would figure on using about half the new range of 75 miles a day. Since that is about 50% of full SOC I would charge to 75% and expect to return home at 25%. This would take ~ 7 kWh of battery charge, or ~ 8 kWh from the wall each day. If you need help figuring out charging duration post the EVSE you use.

As an example, my EVSE is 240 volts and 32 Amp so outlet is able to send 240*32/1000 = 7.68 kW. My car tops off at 6.6 kW to the battery so it would take me a little over one hour to charge 7 kWh. If I left for work in the morning at 7am I would start the charge routine at 5:55 am.
 
SageBrush said:
Swamibob said:
SageBrush said:
The OP sounds like a battery close to warranty replacement although the 70 mile range displayed by the GOM is surprising. What miles/kWh factor is the car using ? What is the kWh capacity reported by LEAFspy ? What is the actual driving range at 60-65 mph going from full charge to Low battery warning ?

How can i tell what miles/kWh factor it is using? I only have leafspy lite so I don't think it gives all of that info. All I see is the screen I posted, the max voltage difference, and a battery temp screen that shows sensors 1, 2 and 4 but no 3, not sure if that is normal either. I do know that the miles go down way faster than the estimation that it gives when I first start it. One thing I did notice today when getting the screenshots, I had it set to a 2011 leaf instead of 2013 leaf in leafspy. I hope that doesn't skew the numbers. I can tell you that from 80% charge, I either hit low battery warning right before i get home or almost hit it every day on my 30 mile round trip commute if you can figure anything from that and it is mostly 40-50mph driving.
Your self-reported driving range matches LEAFspy, so the GOM is just way, way off.

The calc goes like this: if the battery has degraded 33% as LEAFspy says, your (when new) range of 75 miles would now be 75*2/3 = 50 miles. Since you charge to 80% SOC, the range at the start of the day would be 50*0.8 = 40 miles. Subtract the buffer still available when the low battery alert sounds and you are right around your daily experience.

You might as well charge to 100% from now on and use AC freely for a better daily driving experience and to hasten the battery towards it's warranty replacement. I don't know how much of the fast degradation can be mitigated when you start off fresh with a new battery, but consider these strategies if the weather is warm:
  • Charge outside during the coolest hours of the night
    Let the battery cool down before beginning a charge
    Continue charging to 80% max or below most of the time. Perhaps 100% once a month is enough ?
    Set your charge routine to finish about the time you leave in the AM if possible and the hour is still cool. Alternatively you can wait a few hours after you return home to charge for half the daily needed charge and then charge the other half a few hours later. LEAFspy is your friend since it reports battery sensor temperatures. A little trial and error should help you come up with a good charging routine.
Bad behavior to hasten battery degradation are the opposite of the above.

If this was my car and I was starting out with a new battery I wanted to pamper, I would figure on using about half the new range of 75 miles a day. Since that is about 50% of full SOC I would charge to 75% and expect to return home at 25%. This would take ~ 7 kWh of battery charge, or ~ 8 kWh from the wall each day. If you need help figuring out charging duration post the EVSE you use.

As an example, my EVSE is 240 volts and 32 Amp so outlet is able to send 240*32/1000 = 7.68 kW. My car tops off at 6.6 kW to the battery so it would take me a little over one hour to charge 7 kWh. If I left for work in the morning at 7am I would start the charge routine at 5:55 am.
 
SageBrush said:
SageBrush said:
Swamibob said:
How can i tell what miles/kWh factor it is using? I only have leafspy lite so I don't think it gives all of that info. All I see is the screen I posted, the max voltage difference, and a battery temp screen that shows sensors 1, 2 and 4 but no 3, not sure if that is normal either. I do know that the miles go down way faster than the estimation that it gives when I first start it. One thing I did notice today when getting the screenshots, I had it set to a 2011 leaf instead of 2013 leaf in leafspy. I hope that doesn't skew the numbers. I can tell you that from 80% charge, I either hit low battery warning right before i get home or almost hit it every day on my 30 mile round trip commute if you can figure anything from that and it is mostly 40-50mph driving.
Your self-reported driving range matches LEAFspy, so the GOM is just way, way off.

The calc goes like this: if the battery has degraded 33% as LEAFspy says, your (when new) range of 75 miles would now be 75*2/3 = 50 miles. Since you charge to 80% SOC, the range at the start of the day would be 50*0.8 = 40 miles. Subtract the buffer still available when the low battery alert sounds and you are right around your daily experience.

You might as well charge to 100% from now on and use AC freely for a better daily driving experience and to hasten the battery towards it's warranty replacement. I don't know how much of the fast degradation can be mitigated when you start off fresh with a new battery, but consider these strategies if the weather is warm:
  • Charge outside during the coolest hours of the night
    Let the battery cool down before beginning a charge
    Continue charging to 80% max or below most of the time. Perhaps 100% once a month is enough ?
    Set your charge routine to finish about the time you leave in the AM if possible and the hour is still cool. Alternatively you can wait a few hours after you return home to charge for half the daily needed charge and then charge the other half a few hours later. LEAFspy is your friend since it reports battery sensor temperatures. A little trial and error should help you come up with a good charging routine.
Bad behavior to hasten battery degradation are the opposite of the above.

If this was my car and I was starting out with a new battery I wanted to pamper, I would figure on using about half the new range of 75 miles a day. Since that is about 50% of full SOC I would charge to 75% and expect to return home at 25%. This would take ~ 7 kWh of battery charge, or ~ 8 kWh from the wall each day. If you need help figuring out charging duration post the EVSE you use.

As an example, my EVSE is 240 volts and 32 Amp so outlet is able to send 240*32/1000 = 7.68 kW. My car tops off at 6.6 kW to the battery so it would take me a little over one hour to charge 7 kWh. If I left for work in the morning at 7am I would start the charge routine at 5:55 am.

So you are saying with a new battery installed if i get it changed out under warranty, It starts out with 75 miles range from 100% charge? I was thinking a new battery was more than that. I saw a guy on craigslist who said his was covered under warranty and his gauge showed 115 at 100%.

On my daily commute of about 30 miles it usually takes mine a little over an hour to recharge. I have a juicebox 40 hooked up on a 50 amp breaker. When i check my app, it always hows it charging at 6.66kW, then drops down lower near the end if I am charging to 100%. I guess there is a way to program the car to start charging at a specific time so if i leave for work at 7:25 i'd prob have it start the charge at 6:15 or maybe 6:00 to be safe.

I thought a lot of people act like the newer battery you don't have to worry about charging to 100% anymore. Is it still advantageous to only charge to 80 or less? I would guess so since lithium ion batteries they say they like to be in the 20%-80% charge range all the time.

Thanks for your info, you got me thinking about other aspects of the charge routine. I was thinking that waiting to charge later was just to save money if your electric goes to a lower rate at night (mine doesn't) but as far as heat damage it makes sense as well.
 
Swamibob said:
SageBrush said:
Your self-reported driving range matches LEAFspy, so the GOM is just way, way off.

The calc goes like this: if the battery has degraded 33% as LEAFspy says, your (when new) range of 75 miles would now be 75*2/3 = 50 miles. Since you charge to 80% SOC, the range at the start of the day would be 50*0.8 = 40 miles. Subtract the buffer still available when the low battery alert sounds and you are right around your daily experience.

You might as well charge to 100% from now on and use AC freely for a better daily driving experience and to hasten the battery towards it's warranty replacement. I don't know how much of the fast degradation can be mitigated when you start off fresh with a new battery, but consider these strategies if the weather is warm:
  • Charge outside during the coolest hours of the night
    Let the battery cool down before beginning a charge
    Continue charging to 80% max or below most of the time. Perhaps 100% once a month is enough ?
    Set your charge routine to finish about the time you leave in the AM if possible and the hour is still cool. Alternatively you can wait a few hours after you return home to charge for half the daily needed charge and then charge the other half a few hours later. LEAFspy is your friend since it reports battery sensor temperatures. A little trial and error should help you come up with a good charging routine.
Bad behavior to hasten battery degradation are the opposite of the above.

If this was my car and I was starting out with a new battery I wanted to pamper, I would figure on using about half the new range of 75 miles a day. Since that is about 50% of full SOC I would charge to 75% and expect to return home at 25%. This would take ~ 7 kWh of battery charge, or ~ 8 kWh from the wall each day. If you need help figuring out charging duration post the EVSE you use.

As an example, my EVSE is 240 volts and 32 Amp so outlet is able to send 240*32/1000 = 7.68 kW. My car tops off at 6.6 kW to the battery so it would take me a little over one hour to charge 7 kWh. If I left for work in the morning at 7am I would start the charge routine at 5:55 am.
So you are saying with a new battery installed if i get it changed out under warranty, It starts out with 75 miles range from 100% charge?
Right. EPA says 84 miles but that presumes using the battery down to zero, and it is pretty common to lose a couple percent of the nominal battery capacity pretty quickly in the beginning. This is a quirk of present day manufacturing of all Li-ion batteries so far as I know. So you *might* get 80 EPA miles from a brand new battery but I would not count on it and since the discussion is regarding long battery life behaviors, it is really not relevant.

I guess there is a way to program the car to start charging at a specific time
Indeed. Check out the user manual

Is it still advantageous to only charge to 80 or less?
Yes

Thanks for your info
You are quite welcome
 
Back
Top