2019 Leaf battery overheating

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metricus

Well-known member
Joined
May 15, 2019
Messages
100
Location
Reading, PA
I have leased my second leaf 2 weeks ago. My previous one was a 2016 - 24kwh one.

I was a happy customer until I got my 2019 one. I had never heard of Rapidgate or ever needed to Google anything about my leaf. Took quite a few longer trips with repeated QC and never had an issue to report.

With my 2019 one the first QC I did i found my battery temp gauge all the way up to the first red line.

I see a lot of talk about 2018 overheating. Any similar experience with 2019?

So here is a quick description of my test drive I did yesterday. FYI I live in PA and the temp outside was around 14 Celsius (50s).

I picked my car from the dealership where it stayed overnight to be "checked" and took a trip to Newark Airport and back to dealership and then home. The total trip was around 225 miles. Speeds were turnpike style 65-70.

Started at 83% charge and drove 62 miles to first charging station on NJ turnpike.
It charged at 35kW and I went up to 75% until the EVGo charger shut me down after 30 min.
After this charge the temp gauge was 3/4 up (40 C) and stayed there until next charge.
Next stage was another some 60 miles.
Second charge was at 26 kW and 30 minutes got me from 28% to 64%
Temp gauge went up to 46 C after the charge and remained there during the next stage
The trip back to the dealer was 54 miles
At the dealer the charge was down to 19 kW and took me from 16% to 55% in about 40 mins
After this charge the temp was at first red line (50 C).
I had enough juice to get home but since there is another QC on the way I tried plugging in.
At this point the charge was only 14 kW, the temp gauge was on red and stayed there until I finally got home. I did not charge here for more than a few minutes.

I read a lot about Rapidgate these past days and understand that there is no cooling etc etc. i am also an engineer so you don't need to start with the basics.

1. How does this behavior compare to Rapidgate?
2. Do other 2019 owners experience the same? Is this a car problem or just "normal"?
3. I have started a Nissan ticket. Can I expect anything? Any advice on what to ask for?

Thank you!
 
This sounds like the "Rapidgate" charging issue, and while it's outrageous that it happens even with lower ambient temps. UK drivers found the same thing happening in lower temps than did you.
 
When you talk about these temperatures and the "gauge", are you getting them from Leaf Spy or some other tool that reads the sensors or are they guesses?
 
I have not installed the Leaf spy dongle yet. Too early for this. I have used the image I found circulating on the net with the approximate temps based on the position of the gauge.

As I can see that gauge is not linear but rather incremental. There are not too many positions for it.

For now no am trying to get a sense if the car has issues or this is "normal behaviour".
 
If really want to know what's going on w/battery temps, I strongly recommend Leaf Spy.

I can't speak to the '18+ Leaf temp gauge but the '11 to '17 one had huge overlapping ranges. Click on Battery Temperature Gauge at http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/wiki/battery-d1/. And yes, I do use Leaf Spy and can tell you the temp gauge on the '13 is crap.
 
Follow-up on the previous reply: Frankly I think the accuracy of the temp gauge is less relevant at this point. The main problem is the fact that a 220 mile trip caused the car to decrease the charging power to as low as 14 kW. the reason for this is irrelevant for the user.

My problem snowballs after this: EVGO kicks me out after 30 minutes. which means that at a slower power I get less energy in that amount of time.
This means that I have to use my credit card to charge to the level i need which makes the NCTC program a false advertisement.

False advertisement is also the claim that the car can be charged in less than 30 mins on QC because that can only happen once per day if at all. in my case the first charge was at 35 kW not at 43 or "up to 50 kW" as they advertise.

And i'm not even mentioning the fact that i simply cannot plan a trip with any decent accuracy because I will never know at what rate the car decides to charge. So if i have to be at the airport at 5PM i can leave either too late or too early depending solely on the "mood" of my Leaf.
 
metricus said:
3. I have started a Nissan ticket. Can I expect anything?
Yes
"We checked out your car thoroughly and everything is fine."

The LEAF is a ( hobbled, at that) one DCFC per trip car.
If your use case is more than that you leased the wrong car.
 
SageBrush said:
metricus said:
3. I have started a Nissan ticket. Can I expect anything?
Yes
"We checked out your car thoroughly and everything is fine."

The LEAF is a ( hobbled, at that) one DCFC per trip car.
If your use case is more than that you leased the wrong car.

I was afraid of that!
Sadly nobody tells you this when they sell it.
 
Out of curiosity, is this a 40 kWh car or a 62 kWh Leaf Plus?

Many other EVs have active thermal management... Bolt does but its DC FCing isn't that fast (from what I hear). In the case of https://electricrevs.com/2018/07/17/watch-a-bolt-ev-at-a-chargepoint-express-250-charge-at-up-to-55-kw/, it may start slowing down after 55% SoC. And, I hear it's quite slow if the battery's cold, until it warms up enough.
 
I'm sure it's a 40kwh Leaf. That degree of throttling of charge rate isn't likely to happen in cool temps with the ePlus.

The 2018+ temp "gauge" is even more vague than the previous one, but it seems consistent enough. There are 12 segments again, but they aren't visually delineated so it looks more like a creeping bar gauge. Once you get to the Red - especially in mild ambient temps! - it's clear enough that the pack is hot.

And, of course, Nissan continues to insist that very few North American drivers are complaining about the issue...
 
LeftieBiker said:
Once you get to the Red - especially in mild ambient temps! - it's clear enough that the pack is hot.

... and, as far as I understand so far, once it passes the very middle you know to expect throttling if you plan to DC charge.
 
So let's go back to my initial questions:
does anyone have a 2019? does it behave the same? I'd like to understand if my specimen has a problem or i have to just get used to it.
 
metricus said:
LeftieBiker said:
Once you get to the Red - especially in mild ambient temps! - it's clear enough that the pack is hot.

... and, as far as I understand so far, once it passes the very middle you know to expect throttling if you plan to DC charge.

That I can't say. If you can post data on that, please do so.
 
metricus said:
I have leased my second leaf 2 weeks ago. My previous one was a 2016 - 24kwh one.

I was a happy customer until I got my 2019 one. I had never heard of Rapidgate or ever needed to Google anything about my leaf. Took quite a few longer trips with repeated QC and never had an issue to report.

With my 2019 one the first QC I did i found my battery temp gauge all the way up to the first red line.

I see a lot of talk about 2018 overheating. Any similar experience with 2019?

So here is a quick description of my test drive I did yesterday. FYI I live in PA and the temp outside was around 14 Celsius (50s).

I picked my car from the dealership where it stayed overnight to be "checked" and took a trip to Newark Airport and back to dealership and then home. The total trip was around 225 miles. Speeds were turnpike style 65-70.

Started at 83% charge and drove 62 miles to first charging station on NJ turnpike.
It charged at 35kW and I went up to 75% until the EVGo charger shut me down after 30 min.
After this charge the temp gauge was 3/4 up (40 C) and stayed there until next charge.
Next stage was another some 60 miles.
Second charge was at 26 kW and 30 minutes got me from 28% to 64%
Temp gauge went up to 46 C after the charge and remained there during the next stage
The trip back to the dealer was 54 miles
At the dealer the charge was down to 19 kW and took me from 16% to 55% in about 40 mins
After this charge the temp was at first red line (50 C).
I had enough juice to get home but since there is another QC on the way I tried plugging in.
At this point the charge was only 14 kW, the temp gauge was on red and stayed there until I finally got home. I did not charge here for more than a few minutes.

I read a lot about Rapidgate these past days and understand that there is no cooling etc etc. i am also an engineer so you don't need to start with the basics.

1. How does this behavior compare to Rapidgate?
2. Do other 2019 owners experience the same? Is this a car problem or just "normal"?
3. I have started a Nissan ticket. Can I expect anything? Any advice on what to ask for?

Thank you!

My 2019 40 kWh (delivery 4/19) experienced basically a similar increase in temperature, but not as high (122F) as yours.
I only QCed for 30 minutes and the temperature reached 100F via LeafSpy. This was on a fairly cool day where ambient was about 72F.
Based on yours and my results, one can easily imagine what the battery temp would be on a 85-90F degree SoCal day. That's basically
why I'll only do one QC per day if absolutely necessary. I've also noticed that speeds in excess of 60 MPH can quickly heat the battery too,
so my speeds are generally 50-55 MPH. Luckily here in SoCal that's typically the freeway speed with fairly light traffic.

For those concerned about "RapidGate", potentially lower successive charge rates are a fact one needs to adjust to with larger
capacity Leaf batteries not having TMS. Nissan is not going to increase their battery liabilities the result of thermal degradation with
multiple QCs where the battery temps reach problematic levels. That's the reality. My 2013 never reached temps in excess of 95F,
although I typically only QCed for 15-30 minutes. My present 2013 Leaf data are indicated in my signature. Luckily, my 2013 battery
doesn't have a worse SOH.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I'm sure it's a 40kwh Leaf. That degree of throttling of charge rate isn't likely to happen in cool temps with the ePlus.

In theory maybe, but complete reference data using LeafSpy has not been presented on the Plus battery. Some thought that the 40 kWh
battery having more parallel cells (pouches), i.e. for increased capacity, would result in lower battery resistance, thereby developing less
battery heat at higher QCs. That seems to not be the case whether QCing or driving at higher speeds. Given that, one would question
the logical of the Plus' battery being more heat tolerant than the 40 kWh battery.
 
lorenfb said:
My 2013 never reached temps in excess of 95F,
although I typically only QCed for 15-30 minutes. My present 2013 Leaf datas indicated in my signature. Luckily, my 2013 battery
doesn't have a worse SOH.
knightmb at https://web.archive.org/web/20170717073322/http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=22134 I think has a '13 judging by his VIN and some prior posts. He's gotten his battery to least 131 F (55 C).

I'm pretty sure I've reached battery temps over 90 F just due to high ambient temps w/my current '13 Leaf. My current Leaf doesn't even have a CHADeMO inlet.
 
lorenfb said:
LeftieBiker said:
I'm sure it's a 40kwh Leaf. That degree of throttling of charge rate isn't likely to happen in cool temps with the ePlus.

In theory maybe, but complete reference data using LeafSpy has not been presented on the Plus battery. Some thought that the 40 kWh
battery having more parallel cells (pouches), i.e. for increased capacity, would result in lower battery resistance, thereby developing less
battery heat at higher QCs. That seems to not be the case whether QCing or driving at higher speeds. Given that, one would question
the logical of the Plus' battery being more heat tolerant than the 40 kWh battery.

I never thought that the 40kwh pack would heat any less. The 62kwh pack has the simple advantage of having much more capacity, so with much more chemical "space" available there need not be as much heating per amp of input charge. That isn't to say that the 62kwh pack won't suffer from high ambient heat, from heat produced by hard driving, or even from heat produced by multiple fast charges. It will just take it longer to get hot - and then longer to cool off again.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The 62kwh pack has the simple advantage of having much more capacity, so with much more chemical "space" available there need not be as much heating per amp of input charge. That isn't to say that the 62kwh pack won't suffer from high ambient heat, from heat produced by hard driving, or even from heat produced by multiple fast charges. It will just take it longer to get hot - and then longer to cool off again.

You're making an inference based on a your own personal hypothesis without quantitative data. Using your logic, given that the 40 kWh
Leaf has more capacity than the 24/30 kWh Leafs, it should be more heat tolerant, right? The fact is that the thermal time constant from
ambient to the battery is fairly lengthy as you describe. As opposed to when internal heat is developed via the internal battery resistance
from a high charge rate or from a high motor current as high speeds. If the battery resistance of the Plus (which we don't know) is somewhat less than the 40 kWh Leaf, then yes it can charge at higher rates, but still will have its own "RapidGate" issues as it relates to internal heat generation and sequential QCs.

Again, the Leaf's battery acquires heat at a slow rate from ambient, i.e. a long time constant, but also dissipates its internal heat at a slow
rate too increasing the heat soak effect, which is problematic to battery life. Furthermore, the larger the battery is in physical size 62 vs 40,
the longer is its thermal time constant to ambient. Without TMS, there's nothing that can control the Leaf's battery temperature other than
its charging current and vehicle speed, irrespective of ambient.

Bottom Line: Without field data to corroborate one's hypothesis, one is just guessing about the Plus' battery.
 
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