80% Charging anytime, all the time

I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but I wanted to share that one can do 80% charging anytime 24/7 by setting the start time to 12:00am and end time to 11:50pm( I didn't try 12:00am, but might work), then just select all the days in the week. Now anytime you plug-in, charging will begin immediately and stops at 80%. If you like to charge at 100%, just press the bypass button.

Just to add on, yes setting the start @ stop times to midnight works as well. I've been doing that for over a month with my Blink charger, no failures to charge, and anytime I need 100% I just override timer.

-Matt

Why would you only want to charge to 80%

I'm guessing it improves battery life but is there a thread discussing this?

adaminla said:

Why would you only want to charge to 80%

I'm guessing it improves battery life but is there a thread discussing this?

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Quick summary:
More regen at 83% (10 of 12 bars) or less. Limited regen above 83%.
Better charging efficiency up to 83%. Charging efficiency drops as you get closer to 100%.
Longer predicted battery life, higher predicted long term battery capacity using when 80%.
There have been many thread discussing battery life.
You might just start at the topic level:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewforum.php?f=31

trentr said:

I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but I wanted to share that one can do 80% charging anytime 24/7 by setting the start time to 12:00am and end time to 11:50pm( I didn't try 12:00am, but might work), then just select all the days in the week. Now anytime you plug-in, charging will begin immediately and stops at 80%. If you like to charge at 100%, just press the bypass button.

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Trent, how would you do pre-cooling after the car is charged the 80% and then you want to go somewhere an hour later?

LEAFfan said:

trentr said:

I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but I wanted to share that one can do 80% charging anytime 24/7 by setting the start time to 12:00am and end time to 11:50pm( I didn't try 12:00am, but might work), then just select all the days in the week. Now anytime you plug-in, charging will begin immediately and stops at 80%. If you like to charge at 100%, just press the bypass button.

Click to expand...

Trent, how would you do pre-cooling after the car is charged the 80% and then you want to go somewhere an hour later?

Click to expand...

I just use Carwings to turn on the Climate Control. Climate Control settings must be preset. You can also use the Climate Control timers.

i charge over 80% about 70% of the time, but charge to 100% about 2-3 times a month.

using 120 Volt maybe slow, but allows me to set charge to 100% then determine my level of charging by what time i start the charge.

i have become pretty adept at hitting around 90%

mgoleta said:

I just use Carwings to turn on the Climate Control. Climate Control settings must be preset.

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Not sure i understand this statement. Which "Climate Control settings" must be preset? My understanding from the manual is that pre-conditioning of the interior climate of the Leaf happens to a pre-set factory default temperature of 77F. The user cannot adjust this. See section 4-6 of the owner's manual. This is also mentioned in the service manual according to AndyH's post in this thread.

TT

Lopton said:

Just to add on, yes setting the start @ stop times to midnight works as well. I've been doing that for over a month with my Blink charger, no failures to charge, and anytime I need 100% I just override timer.

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+1. I have been doing this for a month as well, except using only the L1 EVSE as my Blink is still non-functional since the contractor has not gotten the city inspector out yet to sign off the installation so that SDG&E can set the second meter. One weird side effect of the start and end timers being set to the same time may be that I sometimes get duplicate "Charging stopped" notifications from Carwings. If the charging completes before midnight, one email is sent telling me I have 10 of 12 bars. Then at midnight, another email is generated telling me the same thing. This doesn't seem to happen if the charging isn't complete until after midnight, but I'm not positive. I may have received multiple notification emails from Carwings before under other circumstances as well. It may just be a Carwings bug, I don't know, but it's not that bothersome to get two emails and hit delete twice.

TT

trentr said:

I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but I wanted to share that one can do 80% charging anytime 24/7 by setting the start time to 12:00am and end time to 11:50pm( I didn't try 12:00am, but might work), then just select all the days in the week. Now anytime you plug-in, charging will begin immediately and stops at 80%. If you like to charge at 100%, just press the bypass button.

Click to expand...

I dont understand why this would happen. Can you explain?

nader said:

I dont understand why this would happen. Can you explain?

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Apparently, if there is an End Time set, the LEAF starts charging immediately if one plugs-in within the time range. The time range in this case is set to 12:00am to 11:50pm(or 12:00am) everyday, basically anytime 24/7. So, if you plug in anytime, the LEAF will start charging to 80% if set. Pressing the override button will charge to 100%.

oh, cool. Makes sense now. I haven't taken delivery yet so I am not fully versed in the day-to-day operation yet.

For those of us who don't have variable rate energy costs, this is a great profile. Thanks for sharing!

I just used Start and End both set to 11:00 AM, and 80% selected. Worked fine.

Then, I tried the Timer-Override switch (it turns on the Center of the 3 blue charging lights), plugged in, charging started immediately and went to 100%.

Unfortunately, Carwings does not indicate or recognize the 80% Charging Goal, and only displays estimated charging time to 100%. So, you just have to hope the charging goal is actually what you intended it to be.

Is there any way, after charging has started, to verify the 80% vs. 100% Charging Goal?

L1 charge profile is fairly flat. Power consumption average was 1.44KW at the meter.
25% SOC to 83% SOC took 8.7 hours for a total of 12.5 KWHrs. This was equivalent to 55-60 miles of driving.

mgoleta said:

25% SOC to 83% SOC took 8.7 hours for a total of 12.5 KWHrs. This was equivalent to 55-60 miles of driving.

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If you are just saying that 83% - 25% = 58%, and 58% * 100 miles = about 58 miles, then you aren't facing facts.

Fact 1: Numbers reported by CARWINGS are not really SOC percentages. They are just a pretentious way of reporting how many bars you have. "83%" really means 10 bars out of 12 showing, nothing more (10/12 = 0.8333). "25%" means 3 bars showing.

Fact 2: If you use timer controlled charging and select the "Battery Longevity" option, you will charge to 80%, not 83%. Yes, there will be 10 bars showing, but see Fact 1.

Fact 3: With the April firmware upgrade the bars disappear more quickly. I'm not sure we know yet just how much more quickly, but there is definitely a significant reserve left after the last bar disappears.

Fact 4: Most people get less than 100 miles of actual driving out of the full capacity.

My own guess on the Fact 3 reserve is that it is about 12% of total usable battery capacity with an extra 3% added to the top bar. If so, each bar represents about 7% of capacity. That would mean you drop to 3 bars at about 33% and to 2 bars at about 26%. On that assumption, CARWINGS report of "25%", which really just means 3 bars, would actually be somewhere between 26% and 33%. That, plus Fact 2, implies you were not seeing 58% used, but instead perhaps somewhere between 47% and 54%. If we assume, from Fact 4, a typical full range of 90 miles rather than 100, your corrected driving distance for 12.5 kWh would be somewhere around 45 miles, call it 40 -50 because of the uncertainties.

Forget the CARWINGS lies. Tell us your actual distance driven based on the odometer and your actual energy used to recharge based on either a Kill A Watt or a dedicated meter, along with your driving speed and conditions, and we'll have something meaningful to work with.

Ray

This data has nothing to do with Carwings. This is the power consumption measured at my meter using a TED5000. Having first recharged to "80%" then drove 57 miles then recharged again to "80%". The 25% SOC was what the car showed as the SOC before I recharged (3 out of 12 bars). What I see is it took 12.5KWH to drive 57 miles which comes out to ~4.5mi/KWH. This had no freeway miles. This does make the assumption that it stops charging at approximately the same SOC each time.
2nd measurement with 30 mi (25 mi freeway) plus climate control for half of it, 9.4KWH => 3.2mi/KWH.

My Ted5000 typically agrees with my electric bill within a couple of percent.

Great numbers! Sorry I misunderstood what you were doing. 57 miles on what I take to be about half the usable pack capacity is indeed very good, even if it was without any freeway driving. And looked at another way, 12.5 kWh for about half the capacity suggests either a very efficient charger or less than 24 kWh available.

Of course a third way to analyze your data is to observe that others have used 26 to 27 kWh to do a full charge. Since you used only 12.5 kWh, it must have been only a 46% to 48% charge,and your extrapolated range would have been even better, 119 to 124 miles.

Ray

Thanks. I have little faith on the accuracy of the SOC on the display in terms of what it actually means or that the available charge is linear in their SOC scale. That's why I've been measuring as mileage driven versus total power. I have definitely seen a drop in efficiency the 3 times I have 100% charged (under 3mi/KHW) but that has also been combined with longer freeway trips but not enough data points to understand that yet (I've only had the car a month). I have been experimenting with different driving styles and varying mileage between charges. The 4.5mi/KHW has been pretty consistent for my normal daily work commute, 9 mi rt, 1/4 of it 30mph, 1/2 of it 40mph, 1/4 of it 50mph, 7 stop lights, 1 stop sign, elevation change only 120'. The 3.2mi/KWH have also been pretty consistent for the freeway trips, freeway speed typically about 55-60mph for our rush hour not much elevation change.

Picked up my car on Memorial Day. I've tried twice to use L1 charger to 80%. No success. I set the timer to 12am start & 12am complete. Went to 100%. Am I missing some key step? So far CARWINGS is not reporting a thing. I get info from the Nissan Owner site, but Carwings is blank. Says it may take 2 days - so maybe I'm being impatient?