How to Check Battery Capacity, Degradation and Range

[Yogi62]

Wow, fantastic distance on a charge. What sort of speeds were you driving to keep the 6 Miles/Kwh? (I know what the chart says, but curious to see how real life situations map to it.)

The first 50 was about 27 MPH, from 25 to 45 on country roads. In the middle there was an hour of stop and go traffic. At the end when I was stretching it, 25 KPH (~15 MPH) Overall, about 19 MPH.

Click for images of the dash and ELM327 readings.

[JimK]

I just lost my first battery bar at 22000 miles on my 2011 Leaf. I now use 9 to 10 bars to drive 35 miles and I have never had anywhere near the range Nissan publishes. The trip used to take 8 bars so I mostly charged to 80%, now I always get the LBW a few miles from home so I charge to 100%. None of the numbers add up for me. The car says I get 3.5 miles/kWh so 35 miles should only be 10kWh but it uses up 10 or 11 bars and only takes 3 to 4 hours to charge at 3.3kW. My Blink charger reports 13 to 15kWh to charge the 10 or 11 bars. Accounting for charging efficiency loss, this implies to me that the battery is less than 16kWh capacity, certainly not 24kWh. I just had the “battery usage report” done by Nissan and everything is five stars (good) but the report is totally useless in diagnosing battery capacity or cell condition. Is there anyone near Benicia or Richmond, Ca with the GID meter or Leaf battery app that could analyze my battery for me?

[cwerdna]

this implies to me that the battery is less than 16kWh capacity, certainly not 24kWh.

There are only ~21 kWh usable (accessible) on a new un-degraded battery.

Yes, many have stated the battery check report is useless.

[planet4ever]

None of the numbers add up for me. The car says I get 3.5 miles/kWh so 35 miles should only be 10kWh but it uses up 10 or 11 bars and only takes 3 to 4 hours to charge at 3.3kW. My Blink charger reports 13 to 15kWh to charge the 10 or 11 bars. Accounting for charging efficiency loss, this implies to me that the battery is less than 16kWh capacity, certainly not 24kWh.

I see some minor discrepancies in the numbers you report, but nothing really major. Is that 3.5 m/kWh a long term average, or for recent driving? If it is long term, and you have been experiencing colder than usual weather recently (it would help if you provided some location information), your recent average may be somewhat lower than that.

So let's say your recent average is really 3.0 m/kWh, like mine has been (even though my overall average is about 4.0). That would give just under 12kWh used per day. This would agree nicely with what your Blink is reporting, since 240v charging efficiency is about 85%. 14kWh x .85 = 11.9kWh to the battery. Charging 12kWh at 3.3kW should take 3.6 hours, again agreeing with what you are seeing.

There seems to be general agreement that 2011 LEAFs (other than any early ones out there still running "old bars") have about 1½ "hidden bars" below the 12 visible ones. So if we divide your 10 or 11 bars by 13.5, we find that you are using roughly 75-80% of the usable portion of your battery. If you are using 12kWh, that makes your usable capacity 15-16kWh. As cwerdna said, you started out with about 21kWh usable and, unless you have had a recent software update, the first capacity bar seems to disappear at about a 20% loss. That would suggest you should be somewhere around 16.8kWh. That's off a bit from what I just calculated, but not all that much. All these numbers we are throwing around are approximations, including the 21kWh initially available. Some people seem to start with at least 22kWh, others may only get 20kWh initially. Perhaps you were one of the unlucky ones.

Bottom line: I think your numbers do add up, and I am sorry you are experiencing the loss, but battery life, for all types of rechargeable batteries, is limited.

Ray

[vrwl]

I just lost my first battery bar at 22000 miles on my 2011 Leaf. I now use 9 to 10 bars to drive 35 miles and I have never had anywhere near the range Nissan publishes. The trip used to take 8 bars so I mostly charged to 80%, now I always get the LBW a few miles from home so I charge to 100%. None of the numbers add up for me. The car says I get 3.5 miles/kWh so 35 miles should only be 10kWh but it uses up 10 or 11 bars and only takes 3 to 4 hours to charge at 3.3kW. My Blink charger reports 13 to 15kWh to charge the 10 or 11 bars. Accounting for charging efficiency loss, this implies to me that the battery is less than 16kWh capacity, certainly not 24kWh. I just had the “battery usage report” done by Nissan and everything is five stars (good) but the report is totally useless in diagnosing battery capacity or cell condition. Is there anyone near Benicia or Richmond, Ca with the GID meter or Leaf battery app that could analyze my battery for me?

Since you are probably using more than 50% of your charge per trip, it seems like it might be a good investment for you to purchase the Leaf Spy battery app so you can feel more confident about running your car down into the lower ranges of your battery capacity. If you don't have an Android phone, there are several prepaid phones that work well for this purpose and you don't have to pay a monthly connection fee. Just use the phone for the app. That's what I do. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index. ... pplication" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for more info about the couple of pieces of equipment you'd need for that.

[RottenMutt]

This is my first post. Last week I leased a 2013 Leaf S with the 6.6Kw charger option, with two miles on the clock, mfg date 11/13. Order a leafDD and a ClipperCreek HCS-40.

I checked my battery stats after trickle charging overnight.
GID 263
S 97.25
C 60.5177
H 92.87
Battery temp 32F

Am I really down seven percent on battery health? I don't seem to be off to a good start.
Comments please...
Eric in Fort Worth TX

[stjohnh]

This is my first post. Last week I leased a 2013 Leaf S with the 6.6Kw charger option, with two miles on the clock, mfg date 11/13. Order a leafDD and a ClipperCreek HCS-40.

I checked my battery stats after trickle charging overnight.
GID 263
S 97.25
C 60.5177
H 92.87
Battery temp 32F

Am I really down seven percent on battery health? I don't seem to be off to a good start.
Comments please...
Eric in Fort Worth TX

Probably normal. Many normal 2013 leafs report lower numbers than older leafs. Do a range test.

[DougWantsALeaf]

Here is my post from another thread today:

Question for the board.

Do cold temps reduce the number of GIDs a car will charge? Charged to 100% overnight and gids on leaf spy showed 256 according to soc I might have a couple more gids that could charge, but that feels like a fair amount of loss for 9 months and 3500 miles.

Leaf spy pro is very fun

[Berlino]

Do cold temps reduce the number of GIDs a car will charge? Charged to 100% overnight

Usually, when I charge to 100% LEAF Spy reports 97.3% SOC.

However, occasionally when charging overnight in the cold the SOC% will be ~93 at the end, despite the LEAF's dash reporting 100%.

[TonyWilliams]

This is my first post. Last week I leased a 2013 Leaf S with the 6.6Kw charger option, with two miles on the clock, mfg date 11/13. Order a leafDD and a ClipperCreek HCS-40.

I checked my battery stats after trickle charging overnight.
GID 263
S 97.25
C 60.5177
H 92.87
Battery temp 32F

Am I really down seven percent on battery health? I don't seem to be off to a good start.
Comments please...
Eric in Fort Worth TX

Probably normal. Many normal 2013 leafs report lower numbers than older leafs. Do a range test.

The battery is fine. Not perfect, but fine for a battery built in Smyrna, Tennessee and not Japan. We really don't know what H is yet.

When it warms up that battery and you've driven it a bit, post your data again for a full charge.

Read this thread:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.p ... 72#p340972" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;