Nissan "Out-of-Warranty" support for battery pack degradation

[DaveinOlyWA]

Abasile;

I have to side with the masses here. I think you have a very valid claim and not so much on Poor programing causing lack of regen, excessive degradation, etc.


Simply a car designed with insufficient braking power. You should not have to stop several times going down the mountain. I used to live in Riverside, so have a pretty good idea of your location and have been up and down that mountain many times and yeah, its hell on brakes for sure but its not that bad.

You have a serious performance issue that borders on a major safety violation.

[abasile]

I've just read some of the accounts of 30 kWh LEAF batteries experiencing rapid degradation. Wow! My guess is that they'll run into the same problem with regen. Nissan really has a continuing, serious battery degradation problem on their hands. Limiting regen is just a Band-Aid to stem the flow of capacity warranty claims, in my opinion.

I haven't decided what to do yet, and I'm thankful for your input as a former member of the LEAF Advisory Board.

I have to side with the masses here. I think you have a very valid claim and not so much on Poor programing causing lack of regen, excessive degradation, etc.

Simply a car designed with insufficient braking power. You should not have to stop several times going down the mountain. I used to live in Riverside, so have a pretty good idea of your location and have been up and down that mountain many times and yeah, its hell on brakes for sure but its not that bad.

You have a serious performance issue that borders on a major safety violation.

[GerryAZ]

Abasile,

I think you should raise the issue with Nissan. Even though the LEAF has large brakes, it sounds like you have serious brake fade that would be mitigated by normal regeneration with a new battery. A replacement battery should be a lizard battery. My experience is that the lizard battery in the 2015 has much lower internal resistance so the LBC (lithium battery controller) can allow much higher regeneration rates (or quick charge rates) without reaching maximum cell voltage. It appears to me that the LBC limits charging current to keep the highest cell voltage below a certain threshold. The maximum cell voltage threshold seems to be higher on the 2015 battery than on the 2011 and the internal resistance of the 2015 battery is significantly lower so the net effect is much stronger regeneration even at nearly full charge on the 2015 compared to the 2011.

[DaveEV]

I don't notice much of a difference in the internal resistance of my replacement pack and my original pack when new. LeafDD reports 75-85 mOhm depending on pack temperature. I recall only slightly higher values by the time I had LeafDD on my original pack.

The '13+ LEAFs just seem to have much more aggressive regenerative braking profiles than the '11-13, especially after the P3227 update.

[DaveinOlyWA]

I don't notice much of a difference in the internal resistance of my replacement pack and my original pack when new. LeafDD reports 75-85 mOhm depending on pack temperature. I recall only slightly higher values by the time I had LeafDD on my original pack.

The '13+ LEAFs just seem to have much more aggressive regenerative braking profiles than the '11-13, especially after the P3227 update.

Not sure about that either. without checking, it seems like neither my 2013 or 2016 had as much as my "unaltered" 2011 did.

[abasile]

My experience is that the lizard battery in the 2015 has much lower internal resistance so the LBC (lithium battery controller) can allow much higher regeneration rates (or quick charge rates) without reaching maximum cell voltage.

I'm sure that the pack's internal resistance sets a ceiling on available regen or QC. The problem is that this ceiling seems to then be subject to other non-sensical factors like vehicle speed and amount of recent regen. I think that Nissan has intentionally crippled the regen performance.

Not sure about that either. without checking, it seems like neither my 2013 or 2016 had as much as my "unaltered" 2011 did.

Has anyone found a way to hack the LEAF and install an earlier firmware version? This is probably not a good idea for anyone desiring to file a claim with Nissan or reach a settlement. Otherwise, if we end up having to keep the original battery (and I'm almost certainly not paying $5K for a new, puny 24 kWh battery in a car that's barely worth $5K), then I'd love to try un-doing P3227 if it's feasible without spending tons of hours.

I'll add that it's my opinion that we should not be forced to think of our EVs as throwaway objects. Rather than selling an older EV, the customer should feel free to keep it as a second or third car as we have; I'm not generally one to change cars frequently. The more I think about this, the more I'm inclined to file a claim with Nissan sooner rather than later.

It'd be nice if they could have a dealer send a brake technician up here to come and get our LEAF and drive it down to the dealer!

[DaveinOlyWA]

well thinking of your EV as throwaway is on you. It has value to someone but not to you. Now evaluating low resale as throwaway is a good argument but the reality is low resale applies to everything that is 7 years old.

I couldn't even give away my 7 year old TV. It was a flatscreen, 40" and had it for sale for close to a year and finally when it still wouldn't sell for $50, I took it to Goodwill.

But your elevation challenges makes it a safety hazard imm. Range is not good but a lot of people less on a regular basis.

[SageBrush]

I don't think this is a difficult argument:

A battery defect interferes with car braking. End of story

[Reddy]

Absile: I'm willing to join you on this topic. Even though I live on the flats, my original 2011 battery has nearly zero regen when cold (it's just starting for this winter, essentially anything under 50 F) unless I'm driving less than 35 mph and have less than 50% SOC. Range is not a problem since my commute is 8 mi RT and our community is pretty small. However, the lack of regen (especially for the unobservant masses) make it difficult to gauge stopping distances without using the friction brakes. My hypermileing skills are suffering greatly.

[abasile]

well thinking of your EV as throwaway is on you. It has value to someone but not to you. Now evaluating low resale as throwaway is a good argument but the reality is low resale applies to everything that is 7 years old.

Okay, it's true that practically every used car has at least some value, even if it's just for the scrap metal. However, unless it's been in a wreck, a six or seven year old vehicle should still have plenty of functional value. Our 2011 LEAF still has functional value to us, but it is severely compromised relative to what I'd consider pretty reasonable expectations. I'm only mentioning the low resale value in making the point that I cannot justify spending $5k out of my own pocket on a replacement "24 kWh" battery.

Others have sidestepped the problem of rapid battery degradation by leasing and/or by trading their LEAFs for newer models. That's fine for them, but we're good with holding onto cars for ten years or longer, and it's perfectly reasonable for us to expect some minimal standard of safety performance, particularly during the 8 year / 100k mile battery warranty period.

To initiate a claim, I'm thinking I'll start with Nissan's (877) NO-GAS-EV number. Taking the car to the dealer (a real pain due to the car's condition) seems sort of pointless unless they're willing to try reproducing our driving conditions. Down in the flatlands, they'll probably say that the car behaves within spec (that is, for a car missing three capacity bars).

But your elevation challenges makes it a safety hazard imm. Range is not good but a lot of people less on a regular basis.

When we purchased the LEAF in April 2011, Nissan did warn us in writing that the battery might lose plus or minus 20% of its capacity in five years. Given our cool microclimate and the benefits of cool temperatures for battery longevity, I was expecting that we'd be on the low end of this, and we instead exceeded 20% loss. (Our LEAF is still on the low end of capacity loss relative to other cars in California, of course.)

But my primary concern at this time isn't the range loss, it's the unsafe braking performance on long descents, which itself represents a defect in the battery system.

Abasile: I'm willing to join you on this topic. Even though I live on the flats, my original 2011 battery has nearly zero regen when cold (it's just starting for this winter, essentially anything under 50 F) unless I'm driving less than 35 mph and have less than 50% SOC. Range is not a problem since my commute is 8 mi RT and our community is pretty small. However, the lack of regen (especially for the unobservant masses) make it difficult to gauge stopping distances without using the friction brakes. My hypermileing skills are suffering greatly.

With an especially cold battery and/or high state of charge, any BEV will have limits on regenerative braking. This is characteristic of the technology, at least as it exists today for all known BEVs, and should not itself be considered a "defect". Just as ICE cars have their particular quirks and limitations, this is a BEV-specific behavior pattern that drivers need to be prepared for.

The issue for my family is that, with the LEAF, it's no longer feasible for us to mitigate the issue of limited regen as necessary to drive a well-traveled California state highway. When our LEAF was much newer, it was sufficient for me to avoid charging it to a high SOC; I'd simply unplug it an hour or so before reaching 80%. To help raise the battery temperature during the winter, I'd also charge the LEAF shortly prior to departure. Now, we find regen seriously limited even at low SOCs and even at moderate (like 50F) battery temperatures.

With our 2012 Tesla Model S, we can mitigate the problem of limited regen by doing the same things, but there's also a thermal management system for the battery pack. When I pre-heat the Model S during the winter, the battery pack heater also comes on. Plenty of Tesla owners live in mountainous areas (including in our mountain range), yet regen doesn't generally seem to be a problem.