How much to charge my 2016 Leaf for battery life

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tashaneice

New member
Joined
Oct 28, 2019
Messages
3
Hi,

I just bought a 2016 30kw Leaf!

I commute 48 miles roundtrip per day, mostly highway 50-60mph. I live in MA so it's about to be cold for most of my driving. Should I only charge to 80%? Right now, without the heat on, I'm getting two little trees with eco on. Out of a fully charged projected 108 miles, it's going down to about 80 miles projected range after 24 miles, i.e. half my commute.

I think I'll have to charge every day to get back and forth to work with the heat on? I have 12/12 bars. Thanks for your help!
 
This question comes up a lot. If you have an SV or SL with the heat pump, then you should be able to charge to about 80-90%. If you have an S there is no heat pump and you will need more power for heat, so you'll have to try it fully charged and see how much is left when you get home. Charging to 100% isn't a problem, BTW, as long as you use the car soon after the charge is complete. It's also less of an issue in cool or cold weather.
 
tashaneice said:
Out of a fully charged projected 108 miles, it's going down to about 80 miles projected range after 24 miles, i.e. half my commute.
Do not believe the range value displayed on the dashboard. It is called a "Guess-o-meter" (GOM) because it's a wild guess, and usually way too overoptimistic. When I sold my 2013SL, the GOM still often read 110 miles where-as the real summer range of the car was down to 70 miles. That same range turned into 50-55 miles in the winter here in MA (depending upon how much I ran the heat, and I had an SL with the more efficient heat pump).

Highway driving will use more energy and shorten your range.

In the summer, you might try charging to 80%. In the winter, you probably want to charge to 100%.

I strongly suggest getting LeafSpyPro; that will give you a real range estimate.
 
jlv said:
Do not believe the range value displayed on the dashboard. It is called a "Guess-o-meter" (GOM) because it's a wild guess, and usually way too overoptimistic. When I sold my 2013SL, the GOM still often read 110 miles where-as the real summer range of the car was down to 70 miles. That same range turned into 50-55 miles in the winter here in MA (depending upon how much I ran the heat, and I had an SL with the more efficient heat pump).

Highway driving will use more energy and shorten your range.

In the summer, you might try charging to 80%. In the winter, you probably want to charge to 100%.

I strongly suggest getting LeafSpyPro; that will give you a real range estimate.

Any range estimate is a GOM, the term far predates the LEAF and any other modern electric car.

I also suggest LeafSpy Pro, the range estimate allows the driver to enter an estimate of energy consumption per mile rather than the car using the trend following method. This is better once you have enough experience to have a better guess than the car does.
 
WetEV said:
Any range estimate is a GOM, the term far predates the LEAF and any other modern electric car.

I also suggest LeafSpy Pro, the range estimate allows the driver to enter an estimate of energy consumption per mile rather than the car using the trend following method. This is better once you have enough experience to have a better guess than the car does.
But the LEAF's GOM is particularly bad, as it extrapolates from bogus efficiency measurements. The point to the OP is to not believe it.
 
jlv said:
But the LEAF's GOM is particularly bad, as it extrapolates from bogus efficiency measurements. The point to the OP is to not believe it.
Not disagreeing, especially the older cars. The GOM in my 2014 is better than my 2012 was. But I hardly looked at it, used the %SOC display most of the time.
 
jlv said:
WetEV said:
Any range estimate is a GOM, the term far predates the LEAF and any other modern electric car.

I also suggest LeafSpy Pro, the range estimate allows the driver to enter an estimate of energy consumption per mile rather than the car using the trend following method. This is better once you have enough experience to have a better guess than the car does.
But the LEAF's GOM is particularly bad, as it extrapolates from bogus efficiency measurements. The point to the OP is to not believe it.

Well, we’ll agree to disagree. The GOM accuracy seems to be completely dependant on driving conditions and style of driving. In our valley typical speed limits are 90 km with a few stretches of 100 km. And lots of little towns that drag you down to 60 km. In this kind of driving the GOM is dead on...pretty much all the time. On a full charge on our 2016 SV we see 190 km to 200 km of range. We do this about once a month for a specific road trip. It’s always bang on.

I don’t think general statements should be applied to things like the GOM. Let the user figure it out.
 
I've been trying some different techniques on my similar-sounding drive:

Charging to about 80%

Setting up the climate control to recirc when off and defrost (fresh) 68F low fan when on.

Wearing a heavy jacket, hat and mittens

Seat heater on.

Warm blanket over legs.

I keep the climate control off most of the time, and bump the "on" button for a minute when the windows get foggy.

I'm more comfortable with the blanket than I was without it and the heat on, and the temps on the way home the last few times were 9-12 F.
 
PrairieLEAF said:
I've been trying some different techniques on my similar-sounding drive:

Charging to about 80%

Setting up the climate control to recirc when off and defrost (fresh) 68F low fan when on.

Wearing a heavy jacket, hat and mittens

Seat heater on.

Warm blanket over legs.

The lowest we can set our temp in the Leaf is 18 C. Way to warm for winter when you are dressed for the cold. I wish there was away to set it to around 14 or 15 C. My butt stays warm with the seat and my hands stay warm with the steering wheel. But the cabin just gets too freakin warm at 18 in the winter. Meh. Cycling the button isn’t that bad. First world problems. If any one has any ideas I’m listening. I don’t suspect our 2020 Eplus SL will be any different. Doug????

I keep the climate control off most of the time, and bump the "on" button for a minute when the windows get foggy.

I'm more comfortable with the blanket than I was without it and the heat on, and the temps on the way home the last few times were 9-12 F.
 
I've seen in a number of threads on the Forum that many of you Leaf owners charge your battery only to 80% unless planning on driving the car soon after charging the battery to 100%. I have read the manual and see no way to plug in the charger and have it stop at any type of charge percentage, i.e. 80%. Would be very interested in knowing how some of you accomplish that? Thanks ;)
 
Amazing1 said:
I've seen in a number of threads on the Forum that many of you Leaf owners charge your battery only to 80% unless planning on driving the car soon after charging the battery to 100%. I have read the manual and see no way to plug in the charger and have it stop at any type of charge percentage, i.e. 80%. Would be very interested in knowing how some of you accomplish that? Thanks ;)

Drive the car until the capacity is about 50%. Takes several days.

Plug in with a timer set for an hour overnight. 3AM to 4AM

6kWh/20kWh = 30%
50% + 30% = 80%
 
WetEV said:
Amazing1 said:
I've seen in a number of threads on the Forum that many of you Leaf owners charge your battery only to 80% unless planning on driving the car soon after charging the battery to 100%. I have read the manual and see no way to plug in the charger and have it stop at any type of charge percentage, i.e. 80%. Would be very interested in knowing how some of you accomplish that? Thanks ;)

Drive the car until the capacity is about 50%. Takes several days.

Plug in with a timer set for an hour overnight. 3AM to 4AM

6kWh/20kWh = 30%
50% + 30% = 80%



That assumes a 30+ amp EVSE. The same charge with the OEM 120 volt cable would take about 6 hours, and a 16 amp 240 volt charging cable or station would take about 2 hours. The best way to accomplish an 80% charge is to observe how many percent of charge your own home charging system adds per hour, estimate how long a charge is needed based on that, and then either use a charge timer or plug the car in at a time that will make it convenient to unplug it when you've reached about 80%.
 
LeftieBiker said:
That assumes a 30+ amp EVSE. The same charge with the OEM 120 volt cable would take about 6 hours, and a 16 amp 240 volt charging cable or station would take about 2 hours. The best way to accomplish an 80% charge is to observe how many percent of charge your own home charging system adds per hour, estimate how long a charge is needed based on that, and then either use a charge timer or plug the car in at a time that will make it convenient to unplug it when you've reached about 80%.

Not something you see often on this forum, but posts like this make me <3 my 2011...
 
With my Level 2 EVSE, I do a quick mental calculation as I park the car for setting the charge timer for the next morning.

I subtract the battery percentage shown from 80 (my target percentage) and multiply the difference by two. That gives me approximately how many minutes to set the timer for, before the next drive.

Example: If I pull in with 33% battery showing, I want to add 47 percentage points. 47 X 2 = 94 minutes. I round that down to 90 minutes or 1-1/2 hours. This time of year I'm using the climate timer set for 10 minutes later than the charge timer finish time and that seems to continue the battery charging a little longer. With the temperatures we're starting to see right now, that's not a bad thing.
 
I concur with all the above. I had a NEMA 15-50 plug installed, and use the cable that came with the car.

Our system now is this:

When the car gets down to less than 45% (usually about 40), I plug it in that night. A timer is set for the car every night of the week from 2am to 4am. It then charges for two hours each time I plug it in. That two hours usually puts me back around 70-80%. It will never be exact, but its the best I can do. Because we are only doing about 400 miles per month that means we charge about every 3rd night. Once in a great while I'll go out around 10pm and click the timer override button to get a full charge overnight.
 
Or you can just let the car do the calculating for you by setting the charge stop time 2 hours (6 kW) or 3 hours (3 kW) after you plan to leave in the morning, and not setting a start time.

I have noticed that the climate control timer seems to override the charge timer though. In the summer when I set the charge timer to 9:30 am the SOC would be in the mid-80s when I went out at 7:15 am (16 A EVSE). Setting the climate control timer to 7:30 am while keeping the charge timer at 9:30 results in 92-98% SOC (lower when it is colder and preheating requires more energy). Not really a big deal for me, but it might be for someone in a hot climate that wants to pre-cool the car.
 
Since the Leaf software doesn't permit a true 100% I just charge until it reports 100% in our 2016 SL. I try to discharge to Turtle mode often for the month we have owned it
 
GaleHawkins said:
Since the Leaf software doesn't permit a true 100% I just charge until it reports 100% in our 2016 SL. I try to discharge to Turtle mode often for the month we have owned it

Why? Everything I've read says that Li batteries last longest when kept in the middle of their usable range and pushing them to either the high or low limit of the usable charge/voltage range accelerates capacity loss.
 
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