How much to charge my 2016 Leaf for battery life

[SimonMatthews]

Has the battery management changed?

I have a 2016 Leaf S and, it seems to me that the range has dropped by a small number of miles. I don't drive it so much since the carpool sticker expired (I drive another EV with current carpool stickers), but it seems to me that the range has declined a little since a service in February of this year.

In general, I try to stop charging before it is at 100%, but today, I forgot to unplug, so it charged to 100%.

On a short drive with the battery at 100%, I noted that the car was doing regenerative braking. If I recall correctly, after charging to 100%, earlier there was no regenerative braking for few miles. This leads me to suspect that the car is not really charging to 100%. I wonder if Nissan did a firmware update during the February service which limited the charging?

[SimonMatthews]

Posting for a second time, because my first post seems to have disappeared into the ether .....

I have a 2016 Leaf S (24kWh) that has done 30,000 miles. This year, I see a slightly reduced mile range estimate (GOM) after a full charge and I am wondering if there was the dealer installed a firmware update that limits maximum charging at its last service.

Obviously, it's possible that I am just seeing slight battery degradation, but I have a reason to believe something else is going on.

Since my carpool stickers expired at the beginning of the year, I don't drive the car as much as I used to (I normally use another EV to commute), so it wasn't very obvious that anything has changed.

When I charged overnight (which resulted in 100% charge, because I have no way to limit it with overnight charging), the GOM would show over 100 miles (and up to 113 miles). I no longer see this -- instead it's usually less than 100 miles. However, I seem to be able to do similar distances to last year.

While driving today after charging to 100%, I realized that something has changed: there was regenerative braking available while the battery was at 100%. If I recall correctly, regenerative braking was not previously available until after a few miles of driving.

If regenerative braking is available, this would indicate that the battery is not actually at 100%, so I wonder if this is a change, which could have been brought about by a firmware update at the last service.

[anthony177]

i had a question about battery use/ warranty and this looks like the closest thread...
so here is my question do we need to have our batteries serviced/ checked for the battery warranty to be in effect ?

[GerryAZ]

i had a question about battery use/ warranty and this looks like the closest thread...
so here is my question do we need to have our batteries serviced/ checked for the battery warranty to be in effect ?

The warranty and maintenance guides that are part of the owner manual packages of all USA LEAFs from 2011 through 2019 have requirements for annual battery tests. I suggest that you read the actual warranty terms for yourself and decide whether or not you want to have the annual tests performed on your car.

[powersurge]

Has the battery management changed?

I have a 2016 Leaf S and, it seems to me that the range has dropped by a small number of miles. I don't drive it so much since the carpool sticker expired (I drive another EV with current carpool stickers), but it seems to me that the range has declined a little since a service in February of this year.

In general, I try to stop charging before it is at 100%, but today, I forgot to unplug, so it charged to 100%.

On a short drive with the battery at 100%, I noted that the car was doing regenerative braking. If I recall correctly, after charging to 100%, earlier there was no regenerative braking for few miles. This leads me to suspect that the car is not really charging to 100%. I wonder if Nissan did a firmware update during the February service which limited the charging?

If you are using a 120 volt charger, then you have a lot of control on how much the battery can be charged. You get a 120v timer that you can set to start and stop when you want. you can get any charge level you want overnight by to doing the math. (1 hour of 120 volt charging = 5 miles of range. AND each mile of range is about 1% of charge on a 24 kwh battery. ) When I first go my car I would only charge to 80%.

Secondly, you should NOT be fearing that something is wrong when the battery begins to degrade... It is like age.. We all age at a different rate, and there isn't a darn thing we can do about it. Stop thinking that battery degradation is Nissan's fault..

[powersurge]

Has the battery management changed?

I have a 2016 Leaf S and, it seems to me that the range has dropped by a small number of miles. I don't drive it so much since the carpool sticker expired (I drive another EV with current carpool stickers), but it seems to me that the range has declined a little since a service in February of this year.

In general, I try to stop charging before it is at 100%, but today, I forgot to unplug, so it charged to 100%.

On a short drive with the battery at 100%, I noted that the car was doing regenerative braking. If I recall correctly, after charging to 100%, earlier there was no regenerative braking for few miles. This leads me to suspect that the car is not really charging to 100%. I wonder if Nissan did a firmware update during the February service which limited the charging?

If you are using a 120 volt charger, then you have a lot of control on how much the battery can be charged. You get a 120v timer that you can set to start and stop when you want. you can get any charge level you want overnight by to doing the math. (1 hour of 120 volt charging = 5 miles of range. AND each mile of range is about 1% of charge on a 24 kwh battery. ) When I first go my car I would only charge to 80%.

Secondly, you should NOT be fearing that something is wrong when the battery begins to degrade... It is like age.. We all age at a different rate, and there isn't a darn thing we can do about it. Stop thinking that battery degradation is Nissan's fault..

PS - If you do not drive a lot daily, you will get the best battery life over time by keeping the charge between 40 and 60% as much as you can.

[johnlocke]

Has the battery management changed?

I have a 2016 Leaf S and, it seems to me that the range has dropped by a small number of miles. I don't drive it so much since the carpool sticker expired (I drive another EV with current carpool stickers), but it seems to me that the range has declined a little since a service in February of this year.

In general, I try to stop charging before it is at 100%, but today, I forgot to unplug, so it charged to 100%.

On a short drive with the battery at 100%, I noted that the car was doing regenerative braking. If I recall correctly, after charging to 100%, earlier there was no regenerative braking for few miles. This leads me to suspect that the car is not really charging to 100%. I wonder if Nissan did a firmware update during the February service which limited the charging?

If you are using a 120 volt charger, then you have a lot of control on how much the battery can be charged. You get a 120v timer that you can set to start and stop when you want. you can get any charge level you want overnight by to doing the math. (1 hour of 120 volt charging = 5 miles of range. AND each mile of range is about 1% of charge on a 24 kwh battery. ) When I first go my car I would only charge to 80%.

Secondly, you should be fearing that something is wrong when the battery begins to degrade... It is like age.. We all age at a different rate, and there isn't a darn thing we can do about it. Stop thinking that battery degradation is Nissan's fault..

PS - If you do not drive a lot daily, you will get the best battery life over time by keeping the charge between 40 and 60% as much as you can.

Excessive battery degradation is Nissan's fault! They made choices about how to cool the battery that proved detrimental to battery life. There's not a lot you can do about it. It appears that where you live is the determining factor. How you charge and when you charge have minor effects at best. If you can keep the max charge to 90% or less, it will help a bit.

As far as regenerative braking goes, the battery firmware update did improve regenerative braking. It didn't change the charging but does allow regen at higher battery percentage's. A warm battery will have a higher regen level than a cold one as well.

[GaleHawkins]

If you are using a 120 volt charger, then you have a lot of control on how much the battery can be charged. You get a 120v timer that you can set to start and stop when you want. you can get any charge level you want overnight by to doing the math. (1 hour of 120 volt charging = 5 miles of range. AND each mile of range is about 1% of charge on a 24 kwh battery. ) When I first go my car I would only charge to 80%.

Secondly, you should be fearing that something is wrong when the battery begins to degrade... It is like age.. We all age at a different rate, and there isn't a darn thing we can do about it. Stop thinking that battery degradation is Nissan's fault..

PS - If you do not drive a lot daily, you will get the best battery life over time by keeping the charge between 40 and 60% as much as you can.

Excessive battery degradation is Nissan's fault! They made choices about how to cool the battery that proved detrimental to battery life. There's not a lot you can do about it. It appears that where you live is the determining factor. How you charge and when you charge have minor effects at best. If you can keep the max charge to 90% or less, it will help a bit.

As far as regenerative braking goes, the battery firmware update did improve regenerative braking. It didn't change the charging but does allow regen at higher battery percentage's. A warm battery will have a higher regen level than a cold one as well.

Temperature is a huge factor in battery charging. I have noticed I can leave a DC charger at 97% and get 4 green Regen dots at first stop with 8 temperature bars which is around 100 F.

[SimonMatthews]

Since my original post, my Leaf has now lost 1 battery bar. This seems to have happened either while or shortly after the car sat at about 50% battery for a couple of weeks in cold weather. Doing that should not impact the battery ... in fact, it's pretty much ideal for storage.