2011 Nissan Leaf Battery Capacity Loss: Nissan Responds
By Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
...“We’re aware of a few isolated cases where a very small number of consumers are reporting a one bar loss. (We’re talking less than 5 units versus the 12,000 on the road in the U.S.),” a Nissan representative told us.
Non linear loss.
In our original article, we told you that the Nissan Leaf workshop manual indicates the extinguishing of the first capacity light represents a 15 percent drop in battery capacity.
Losing that much capacity in the first year seemed drastic in the light of Nissan’s previous statements on battery life, but Nissan says battery capacity loss isn’t linear.
“In general, all batteries exhibit a higher loss of capacity early in life, but then the curve flattens over time,” we were told. “Our internal results indicate that the battery will have 80 precent of its capacity under normal use after 5 years, and 70 percent after 10 years.”...