Using a 2015 Nissan Leaf as Daily Delivery vehicle in AZ summer

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osi

Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2019
Messages
22
Location
Phoenix, AZ
would it survive? I work at jimmy johns and deliver sandwiches. lunch rush is like 11-1, so i would be driving fairly constantly for that period with short brakes in between, up to an hour sometimes if its slow. a delivery is at most 4 miles total. lets say i do that 4 times a week, most of the other time its being driven later and a lot less frequently. I would never exceed 60 miles in a day, i've tested it in my gas car, i probably average 45-50 on the busy days and less than 20 on the slow ones. I don't drive aggressively and i would attempt to maximize efficiency. I wouldn't take highways, or exceed 55mph. I can park it in my garage and charge it late at night with garage cracked and fans circulating air.

Im mainly worried about summer heat and the car degrading rapidly even with a lizard battery, or it going into turtle mode when im driving a lot. I'll make sure i pick a light colored car, and i'll get it tinted, also get a sunshade for it while parked. I just need this battery to hold more than 60 miles for 2 more years, 3 or 4 would be great. After that i can replace the pack myself or buy a new one, IDK.

should i just get a ford focus electric? i really don't like them, but ik they're cooled much better. Would a leaf last ? :D
 
The Focus EV doesn't do much if any better in heat, despite the active cooling. If you drive gently to keep the motor and pack loads low, it will just depend on how hot, and for how long, each day. Do you have any way to cool the car off at night? It's sustained heat that really degrades those packs.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The Focus EV doesn't do much if any better in heat, despite the active cooling. If you drive gently to keep the motor and pack loads low, it will just depend on how hot, and for how long, each day. Do you have any way to cool the car off at night? It's sustained heat that really degrades those packs.

if the pack doesn't cool down a few bars then i guess i could setup a fan blowing cool air into the garage for an hour or two, would that help? I don't work more than 8hrs a day and most of the time my car is sitting there unless its super busy, even then it gets breaks.
 
Any chance of charging at work while you wait for the next order? Otherwise, I suspect it's just too much of a crapshoot - you might be okay, but if not you're screwed, and the battery is going to degrade quickly in that environment. Personally, I wouldn't count on any BEV without a good TMS to be useful for very long there, unless it's got a whole lot of excess range at the start.
 
As someone who has 79,734 miles on a 2015 SL (typing this while charging at a DCQC station), I will say that a 2015 would be OK for short-range delivery needs. You need to understand there will be battery degradation due to the heat. If the car you choose came from a cool climate and has minimal capacity loss, 60 miles of city driving is possible. A car like mine that has spent its entire life here would be OK for 40 miles or so with A/C use and moderate to aggressive driving. I cannot comment on any better range from really gentle driving because that is not my style. It would be ideal if you have a way to charge between deliveries if you are pushing the daily range to the limit.. A battery in reasonable condition will never get hot enough from driving to cause turtle mode. I have had power limitation mode a few times on really hot days after a DCQC, but it is not as slow as Turtle mode due to low charge.

The worst battery heating comes from DCQC in high ambient temperatures and from parking on hot, black pavement that has been super-heated by the sun. The battery temperature will drop while driving after either of those situations. It may be a little better to park outside at night instead of parking in a garage that holds heat, but don't worry too much about the difference.

As others have already noted, the Ford Focus battery has not proven to be any better than the Leaf (especially the "lizard" battery) in the Phoenix climate.
 
Would you consider a Chevy Spark EV? LG Chem battery on the 2015 and later models, liquid cooled TMS, 82 miles of range. On cars.com, there are 2015's with less than 30,000 miles listed for $7K.
 
Kieran973 said:
Would you consider a Chevy Spark EV? LG Chem battery on the 2015 and later models, liquid cooled TMS, 82 miles of range. On cars.com, there are 2015's with less than 30,000 miles listed for $7K.
They were never sold new by dealers in AZ, but used imports from California are available.
 
I could take a break between 2 shifts to give the car a rest and a charge, like work through lunch rush and then go home for 2-4 hours and work later that day.
 
osi said:
I could take a break between 2 shifts to give the car a rest and a charge, like work through lunch rush and then go home for 2-4 hours and work later that day.

Two hours is enough for a decent L-2 charge, but there is no point in thinking of it as "rest" for the car. The battery is the only component under stress, and that would stay hot - especially if being charged.
 
LeftieBiker said:
GRA said:
See https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6198&p=490239&hilit=Spark+battery#p490148 for testing of the 2015 Spark's battery. As I mentioned in the post following that one, the 2013s used a larger, more heat-tolerant, higher cycle life LiFePO4 chemistry.

Interesting. I didn't think any car-sized EV had used LiFePo4 because of the lower energy density. They are great batteries otherwise, though. I have two of them.
I don't remember for sure now, but the Fit might have used LiFePO4 for the cathode along with their Li-Ti anode.
 
osi said:
I could take a break between 2 shifts to give the car a rest and a charge, like work through lunch rush and then go home for 2-4 hours and work later that day.

Two hours of L2 charging at 6 kW rate will increase your remaining range by at least 30 miles. The car does not need a rest and parking for 2 hours even without charging is not going to cool the battery in our climate. You need to accept that there will be faster battery deterioration in our climate because the average and maximum battery temperatures are much higher here than in cooler areas like the Pacific Northwest.
 
GerryAZ said:
osi said:
I could take a break between 2 shifts to give the car a rest and a charge, like work through lunch rush and then go home for 2-4 hours and work later that day.
...
The car does not need a rest and parking for 2 hours even without charging is not going to cool the battery in our climate. You need to accept that there will be faster battery deterioration in our climate because the average and maximum battery temperatures are much higher here than in cooler areas like the Pacific Northwest.
Yep. Heck, on my '13 Leaf, even 2 hours of sitting in ambient temps much lower than battery temp does virtually nothing. The battery has lots of thermal mass.

Even if I leave my '13 Leaf outside to cool Instead of a warmer garage in say outside air temps of 50 to 55 F and the battery is say at 70 F, the temp might drop by 5-7 F at most after 5-7 hours. Tthese are rough numbers from memory. I'd have to check my notes.

Probably about the only way to get it to cool significantly from blazing hot AZ temps is to drive the car into a freezer or cold storage warehouse and have very powerful fans blowing under the car for an hour to try to bring the temps down. Or, to keep the battery temps down in general, park the car overnight in the above. It'll take some time for the pack to heat up.

Also, spraying large amounts of very cold water (much colder than ambient temp) water upwards into the undercarriage where the battery pack is might help.
 
IMO the best way to cool the pack under those conditions at night would be to acquire a portable air conditioner, make an adapter to have it blow cold air through the car's air cooling channels, and use that at night.
 
That car is perfect For a delivery business....

However, if you drive 4 miles per delivery, in 12 deliveries, the car (with a perfect battery and no use of air conditioning) will be down to about 40%. (driven about 50 miles).

What you really need is a level 2 charger at the business to charge between deliveries... Otherwise you are taking a chance that you will run out of juice during the work day...
 
powersurge said:
That car is perfect For a delivery business....

However, if you drive 4 miles per delivery, in 12 deliveries, the car (with a perfect battery and no use of air conditioning) will be down to about 40%. (driven about 50 miles).

What you really need is a level 2 charger at the business to charge between deliveries... Otherwise you are taking a chance that you will run out of juice during the work day...

2 mile deliveries are rare, rarer than .5 mile deliveries or even .25 mile deliveries. But yeah if I got a bunch of them in a row that would drain the car a lot. I think what I will do is just mostly take shifts with a good break in between, and if I ever run out of juice I can use my room mates hybrid car for little.
 
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