GerryAZ wrote:
I may be the only Leaf owner in Phoenix who feels this way, but I am glad that Nissan chose not to use active battery cooling. As a field engineer, I like the "keep it simple" approach. Also, I would not want to return to the car to find a dead (or partially depleted) battery because the cooling system tried to keep it cool while I was gone.
I have been waiting for the LeafSCAN to become available, but am now thinking about ordering a Gid meter kit in the meantime to get something to monitor my battery.
Gerry
Thanks for the input, Gerry. I still have all 12 capacity bars, too, but there's definitely some loss of range. LEAFfan's ScanGuage read 85.7% on my car about a month ago after a 100% charge. I'm sure he'd be willing to take a reading on your car as well if you're interested.
I couldn't disagree with you more about the battery cooling, or in Volt lingo, thermal management system (TMS). I'll link to a very interesting post about the Volt's TMS. A few highlights:
1)Your battery would never be fully depleted due to active cooling. It won't run if not plugged in with a SOC less than 75%.
2) Quoted from the linked post:
"there is a substantial lifetime difference between 21C (70F) and 32C (90F) in the lithium-manganese batteries (which have the highest heat sensitivity/degradation profile of all lithium battery chemistries) that GM is using in the Volt. At 60% SOC, lithium-manganese batteries have a little over 8 year life at 21C (70F) but only a 5 year life at 32C (90F). At higher states of charge, the heat sensitivity and degradation rate is even greater."
3) The insulation of the TMS alone will slow heat conduction to some degree.
Here's the full link:
http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php ... #post45948" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Anyway, glad to hear you haven't noticed any loss of capacity, but please do keep us posted.