Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

[OrientExpress]

If I understand what he's saying, he's saying it is possible that the software is limiting the amount of charge to something below what the battery could potentially take. Since the battery would be holding less charge, all the measurements would be affected and the range would be less, but it could physically take more. It's not a crazy idea. Even if it's not the entire issue it might be part of the issue.

This is my point, if there is a bug that corrupts the data that the charger and other reporting and management systems use, then it would charge less, report less, and would have less range. In this scenario, the batteries are fully capable of holding more charge and giving more range, but are inhibited by the data that is used to manage the battery system.

[azdre]

If I understand what he's saying, he's saying it is possible that the software is limiting the amount of charge to something below what the battery could potentially take. Since the battery would be holding less charge, all the measurements would be affected and the range would be less, but it could physically take more. It's not a crazy idea. Even if it's not the entire issue it might be part of the issue.

This is my point, if there is a bug that corrupts the data that the charger and other reporting and management systems use, then it would charge less, report less, and would have less range. In this scenario, the batteries are fully capable of holding more charge and giving more range, but are inhibited by the data that is used to manage the battery system.

If that were the cause, it would be a software bug that has existed since the first few cars were delivered, and did not present itself last summer. I've seen some wacky conditions that cause bugs to crop up, it just seems unlikely given the affected population.

[OrientExpress]

2

[Nubo]

"TonyWilliams"

While everybody is pontificating about temperature adjustments to available capacity, please address why I had 15-18% loss of RANGE / AUTONOMY in 75F temperatures?...

How many times did you run your LEAF past VLBW?

To "turtle"?

Until shut-down?

"TonyWilliams"...So, is that the problem with my battery (and not mentioned in the owner's manual)?...

Nissan wrote the manual for the benefit of drivers of an anticipated minimum level of intelligence.

It was undoubtedly assumed, correctly, that drivers would learn their LEAFs battery capacity after a few "turtle" events, and only rarely repeat this experience.

Tony, you are the only LEAF owner anywhere (AFAIK) who, through careful planning, intentionally subjected your battery to charge levels below VLBW dozens (or hundreds? Please report) of times.

Should Nissan now be responsible for not anticipating your behavior, in the owner's manual?

Emphatically - YES. Absent any warnings to the contrary, the consumer is completely justified in assuming that the car's systems will protect them from over-discharging the battery to the point of damage. This isn't a cordless drill where you can torture the battery until the bit stops turning because the battery is dead flat. The car DOES shut down before the battery is empty, for the express reason of preserving the battery. If the cutoff voltage is overly aggressive and pack-damaging, then that is the sole responsibility and fault of Nissan.

This is where the lack of warranty leads us. If there were a warranty it would obviously have exclusions for abuse. And then Nissan would have to design their systems so that they were not self-abusing. There are other EVs which give you an option to dip further into the SOC discharge curve, but on a limited basis and the number of events allowable is defined in the warranty. "Abuse" has to be defined and not left up to some nebulous concept of the consumer recognizing unstated assumptions. A warranty forces the manufacturer to either clean up these ambiguities, or assume the cost. This is not a difficult concept but Nissan has either failed to grasp it or has chosen to ignore it.

I think it's very unfortunate, that after subjecting your LEAFs battery to these conditions, you sold it, without disclosing your knowledge of its past abuse, and your suspicions of the level of battery degradation, to a new buyer. Now we may never know what the results of your past behavior will be, on this LEAFs future battery capacity.

Continued reports on this LEAFs future battery capacity, would be very valuable information, IMO.

[TonyWilliams]

At the end of the day, the only "measurement" that really matters is that the distance the car can travel has been reduced to the point where the car is no longer useful as a primary commuter

This is where Nissan will lose in the end game.The car was bought and went X miles; less than a year later it goes X - 30% in the exact same conditions.

Two year later, will it be X - 50%? And three year X- 70%? End game loss for Nissan seems very very well assured, if that is the case. Even if Nissan wins in court for every case. Nissan, buy a clue. Or at least rent a hint....

Make a fair offer to convert sales to leases, and allow for early lease termination on fair terms, on battery capacity loss of 30%(*) or more. Do this soon, before any more lawyers get involved. Do this soon, and make the owners your allies, not your enemies. Nissan has good will from owners. Don't waste it.....
(*) Or even 35% or some other percentage loss.

Anything that is indexed to a number that Nissan can not only change, but define, will not work. We've already seen plenty of wishy washy data from Nissan, starting with the misleading range claims to instruments with non-linear values. Now, it looks like they are moving to "informing us" that cars with 75% reduction in measured, actual range autonomy is "normal" with their measurements of "85-87%" capacity batteries. Like so many data points coming from Nissan, things don't add up, and that's intentional. This method won't change voluntarily.

My thinking is there needs to be regulation on these battery capacity claims on the Monroney sticker, with a disclosure as to the EPA range in XX months, worst case and best case.

[SanDust]

If that were the cause, it would be a software bug that has existed since the first few cars were delivered, and did not present itself last summer. I've seen some wacky conditions that cause bugs to crop up, it just seems unlikely given the affected population.

Yes this is what suggests it's not a software/sensor/battery issue. However, it's possible that one of the conditions for the issue to surface is some degradation of the battery and/or some number of miles. Or maybe it's some tripping point where the temperature has to exceed some threshold and last summer wasn't hot enough.

I think the problem for Nissan is that they're not being sufficiently transparent. That may change once they've finished testing and analyzing the cars. Nissan engineering may not know what the issue is, and in this case there isn't much Nissan can say. Mark Perry making the point that this isn't a warranty issue wasn't encouraging however.

IMO these batteries shouldn't be losing 20%+ of their capacity in a year. Two or three years maybe but not one year. The battery in the Volt is not all that different and GM is saying EOL in Arizona in 12 years. A TMS will definitely help but it shouldn't extend the life by 12X. Then again it may turn out that the electrolyte or even possibly the separator wasn't as good as Nissan thought it was.

[dsh]

Can anyone confirm, is this Capacity issue only affecting 2011 manufactured LEAFS or does it include 2012 models as well?

[shrink]

Can anyone confirm, is this Capacity issue only affecting 2011 manufactured LEAFS or does it include 2012 models as well?

In a recent Facebook post, the owner (who is not on these boards but lives in Phoenix) said his 2012 lost a capacity bar. From the wiki:

#42 Jul 29, 2012 David Ovienmhada Phoenix, AZ 12344 miles

https://www.facebook.com/nissanleaf/pos ... omments=68" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[surfingslovak]

IMO these batteries shouldn't be losing 20%+ of their capacity in a year. Two or three years maybe but not one year. The battery in the Volt is not all that different and GM is saying EOL in Arizona in 12 years. A TMS will definitely help but it shouldn't extend the life by 12X. Then again it may turn out that the electrolyte or even possibly the separator wasn't as good as Nissan thought it was.

Couldn't agree more. There is a serious problem in there somewhere, and it won't be explained away with the (mostly) lame rationalizations presented so far.

[vrwl]

Maybe maybe not. But given that this condition has only shown up in early production cars that are operated in severe environments, that many have higher than average mileage for their time-in-service, and that this condition has not affected cars that were made after the late summer of 2011, or in cars that are operated in less severe conditions or have lower time-in-service/miles driven ratios, leaves this possibility quite probable.

In this scenario, this bug is present in all cars that were manufactured prior to say August 2012, but only those cars that have been driven in a severe and high-mileage mode trigger the condition.

Given the relatively small number of cars from the entire fleet that have this issue, it is totally possible.

Granted, my car is in a hot area of the country, but it was manufactured in 8/11, originally sold to Hertz in Oct 2011, has only 1200 miles on it, obviously has a very low number of charge cycles on it (due to the low mileage), and yet it already has 10% capacity loss as measured by Gidmeter.

My car might be considered a hot weather "control" car because of the low usage in the 12 months since it was manufactured. However, my car does not completely fall within your proposed scenario listed above.