80% Charging on 2014-17 LEAF

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reeler

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 17, 2010
Messages
220
I just upgraded to a 2016 LEAF and hate charging to 100%. I leave a car for business in DC and only visit one week a month. I hate that the car might be left soaking at a full charge.

It is common knowledge that this is bad for modern battery chemistry and that Nissan removed the feature when regulators reduced the range given the recommendation to only 80% charge. My Bolt has a Hill Top Mode that only charges to 90% so you have full regen down the mountain, but everyone knows that this is the long life mode. Tesla avoids the issue by letting you charge to any amount you like and gives no recommendation.

Perhaps there is an App that can query the state of charge while plugged in and tell the car or the charger to stop charging? Is there such a thing?
 
The lack of charge limit options is one reason the 2017 Leaf isn't high on my list, even though I like my 2013 SV, with 80% charge option. The others are:

* Terrible high beams still not fixed.

* No minor fixes, either, AFAIK. The wheel heater is still too hot followed by too cold, the 12 volt battery may or may not become an issue (it will if you leave it plugged in but not charging), they haven't tweaked the power output since 2013, and there still isn't an optional spare, even though they offered one in Australia for a while.
 
One thought that I had is to use the end-time on the Leaf timer along with a timer on the EVSE to achieve roughly 80% charging. If your EVSE has a plug you can use a a 220v timer to cut power at, say 7am. If you set the Leaf to end charging at 8am (experimentation will be required) then it should up with something like 80% charge. I haven't been able to try this becuase I don't have my Leaf or EVSE yet, but it seems like it should work. It's really a shame they took away this option and make you jump through hoops to get this result.

I won't be doing this in the winter when I'm more concerned about how to get a reasonable range with a 100% charge, but in the summer I might give this a try.
 
I have an S which I don't believe has a direct way to set the charge time. But for OP it will be simpler.

The most annoying thing to me about base model anything is when they intentionally hobble them to encourage people to pay more. There is no cost savings to Nissan for not having the same start and stop function for the model S. Oh well, everyone does it.
 
It is possible to do tricks to stop charging before 100%.
Either mess with end timer and add EVSE power cutout relay (another timer).
Or add relay that takes pack voltage as input data and once voltage tips over lets say
390V it will cut J1772 signal pin.

But from Nissan, it was very stupid. No regen every day. They are idiots, lets be honest.
 
arnis said:
But from Nissan, it was very stupid. No regen every day. They are idiots, lets be honest.

And your opinion of the owners who find a little mental arithmetic too difficult* ?
You could always make a handy table you keep in the car.

The only annoyance here is changing the start time if the initial SOC is different than your last charge <<shrug>>

* E.g., my car adds one bar of charge every 15 minutes on my 6.6 kW (delivered) EVSE.
 
Having to change your start timer every day (if you start charge varies regularly) in order to have regen when you depart is undeniably pretty stupid.

The start timer approach doesn't even work if you have irregular departure times, as I do. Luckily I was aware of the limitations when purchasing an EVSE and bought one that can add a fixed number of kWh, or a fixed time. It's still stupid to have to input it each time, but it's better than nothing.
 
ltbighorn said:
Having to change your start timer every day (if you start charge varies regularly) in order to have regen when you depart is undeniably pretty stupid.

The start timer approach doesn't even work if you have irregular departure times, as I do. Luckily I was aware of the limitations when purchasing an EVSE and bought one that can add a fixed number of kWh, or a fixed time. It's still stupid to have to input it each time, but it's better than nothing.

Exactly. I use my car for individual driving pattern. If I did the same trip for the whole year I would use public transportation system or something.
I depart randomly. I arrive randomly. I want to leave my car, plug it in within 6 seconds and that's all. No more than 10 seconds for
stupid things. I want to live. I don't want to manage small things for no reason.

If I was stuck in this 100% problem I would definitely build Arduino or just relay based system that cuts pilot signal when pack voltage goes
up to 393V.
 
Wouldn't it be easy enough to have an IFFTT script that could ping the LEAF for state of charge and command a ChargePoint Home adapter to turn off once it hits 80%. ChargePoint could put this into their app too easily enough.
 
reeler said:
Wouldn't it be easy enough to have an IFFTT script that could ping the LEAF for state of charge and command a ChargePoint Home adapter to turn off once it hits 80%. ChargePoint could put this into their app too easily enough.

I'm not sure if there's any IFTTT support built in, but it'd be really easy to write a python script (or anything else for that matter) that queries the car's charge through the Nissan API and then turns off the EVSE when it gets to a certain charge. I've been thinking of doing that for my 2015, but I don't have an EVSE with wireless control, just a dumb plug and charge one. When I eventually get a different EVSE I'll probably end up doing that, since I'd like to set up a way to charge to ~80% when I plug in at 6pm and then finish charging to 100% before I leave for work the next morning. That way it isn't sitting fully charged all night but is still usable in the evening.
 
A smartphone could query the OBDII for SOC information and then IFTTT
You might even be able to tell the car through OBDII to stop charging.
 
wouldn't it be so easy if you could just set a dial on your evse for how long you would like to charge?? Man, they had egg times going back to the 1940s or 50s...
 
powersurge said:
wouldn't it be so easy if you could just set a dial on your evse for how long you would like to charge?? Man, they had egg times going back to the 1940s or 50s...
If you know the time you are leaving in the morning it is easy enough to set a delayed start time that matches the charge you want when you leave.

E.g.,
My battery holds 20 kWh when full, so each 10% SoC is 2 kWh
My EVSE sends 6 kWh an hour to the battery
-- so 10% charge every 20 minutes

Say I arrive with 30% SoC and want to leave at 7:30 am with 80%
100 minutes charge time needed ( 50% * 20 minutes/10%)
I set the delayed start timer to 5:50 am

If people would like to print out a nomogram to keep in the car for easy reference, let me know.
 
Probably, for those with CarWings (or whatever they call the current bit). Not for those of us without a telematics module. Could in theory do the same with an OBDII wifi connector, but from what I understand you'll run into issues with prematurely drained 12V battery.
 
SageBrush said:
A smartphone could query the OBDII for SOC information and then IFTTT
You might even be able to tell the car through OBDII to stop charging.
This is the best option - I wonder if OVMS will have support for this.
 
Nothing can be easier.

Cars full charge is 26h at 110V 6h at 220V 6.6kW

So 20% of the full charge is 5h at 110V and 1h 20 min at 6.6kW
Your charging indicator on the panel tells you how much would it take to complete the charge to 100%.

Now all you need to do is to deduct 5h or 1h 20 min from that time depending on the charging mode and set your timer to that time.

Lets say you are charging at 6.6kW and the panel tell you it will take 3 hours to charge to 100%. Deduct 1h20 min from it and set your timer to end the charge in 1h 40 min.


You do the math only once. Every time you charge use the magic number 5h for 110V and 1h20min for 6.6.kW
 
^^^
Your math won't work. When the car nears full (~94 to 96% or so on the % SoC display), the car begins ramping down and enters a bounce phase. Very little energy makes it into the car in the last hour or so.

Also, the time estimates aren't very good. Sometimes they're significantly longer than actual. If you take off 1 hour, 20 minutes as you describe, you will be WELL past 80%.

Also, US voltages are not 110 nor 220 volts.
 
^^ Agree, I figure I get 30%/hr gain with my 6.6kwh charger, from relatively low SOCs to mid 90s SOC, I also get 20%/hr gain with my 19a EVSE.
This is with a 12 bar 24ah battery.
 
Then just charge your car to over 80% and drive it till it is at 80% Now notice how much time it say is left to charge it to full. Since then use that number every time to set your timer.
About 110v and 220v I often here that argument from people who do not work with electricity.
Here is a nice article about the issue.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-power-system-in-the-US-technically-110-115-or-120VAC-How-about-220-or-is-it-240-or-235VAC
 
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