Phoenix Range Test Results, September 15, 2012

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Yanquetino said:
Huh. The best one has lost 14%? Was that "best" car in the test? Which one was it? I wonder who the Nissan rep was who told the owner that...? And I wonder how many miles that Leaf had on its odometer...? Sure sounds like Nissan's left hand (whoever said that) doesn't know what its right hand (Palmer) is saying.

If that quote is indeed accurate, I'll be very curious to see what Nissan says, when it says it. "In the near term." "Very soon." ;)
No, but I believe that opossum was the one that reported being given that figure. Nissan told him he had 85% capacity remaining. His car was one of the 9 bar cars in the test. I am not sure which one. Given that his car tested at either 80% or 82.5% in the range test, and the fact that his Leaf endured another 6 weeks of hot Phoenix summer after Nissan tested it, I would say that the results from the range test agree remarkably well with what Nissan found when testing his car. They certainly didn't tell him that the problem was just "instrument error".
 
Yanquetino said:
Stoaty said:
Nissan's own tests don't agree with your conclusions. One of the affected owners was told that of the 7 cars tested at Casa Grande, the best one had lost 14% of capacity from new. That doesn't sound like they are on track to lose 20% in five years.
Huh. The best one has lost 14%? Was that "best" car in the test? Which one was it? I wonder who the Nissan rep was who told the owner that...? And I wonder how many miles that Leaf had on its odometer...? Sure sounds like Nissan's left hand (whoever said that) doesn't know what its right hand (Palmer) is saying.
That would be azdre's/opossum's car (Red500). TickTock's car (White626) allegedly tested at 87%, best of the group in Casa Grande.

Yanquetino said:
If that quote is indeed accurate, I'll be very curious to see what Nissan says, when it says it. "In the near term." "Very soon." ;)
Me too!
1
 
surfingslovak said:
30&t=8802&p=218767#p218767]azdre's/opossum's car[/url] (Red429). TickTock's car (White626) allegedly tested at 87% in Casa Grande.
Reviewing this against the first post it appears that those two cars are 1.5 and .5% off from what Nissan said then? If so, the test was remarkably accurate for at least those two cars!
 
EatsShootsandLeafs said:
surfingslovak said:
30&t=8802&p=218767#p218767]azdre's/opossum's car[/url] (Red429). TickTock's car (White626) allegedly tested at 87% in Casa Grande.
Reviewing this against the first post it appears that those two cars are 1.5 and .5% off from what Nissan said then? If so, the test was remarkably accurate for at least those two cars!
YES!
 
Weatherman said:
I would have chosen the middle of the range of mileage-to-empty for 4 miles/kWh, rather than the bottom of the range, as the reference point for any discussion. In other words, 80 miles rather than 76 miles.

You're welcome to choose whatever you wish. Nissan publishes 76-84 miles, and we know the car will do either, depending on how new it is, and then how much climate control is used. You'll note, that climate control is NOT included as a limit in the Nissan chart, so unless you believe that the cars go the same distance with climate control on or off, then I guess it would be easy to believe 76 is "the" number.

The very same new car that will go 84 miles, will go some value less than that with climate control (at the same 4.0 miles/kWh). Maybe even, oh say, 76 miles.

I probably will just run another car or two just to eliminate this "guess", 'cuz that's all it is (either 76 or 84) until we run the car that can do it in the same conditions.
 
Yanquetino said:
And, in fact, the temperatures were slightly higher than in Nissan's bulletin, so the adage that YMMV seems to favor the lower estimate.

You've got an number of factual errors in your review, and this is just wrong also. The car will go FARTHER in warmer conditions with climate control off, with all other variables the same. The density altitude increases (goes through the air with less drag) and the battery has more stored capacity the hotter it is (up to 50C+). We don't want the battery that hot because it degrades, not because it will have less capacity or power.

Drag race electrics bake their batteries !!!

The same car that will do 84 miles at sea level (funny, about the same numbers on my range chart before Nissan produced that bulletin) will go farther, maybe 86-87 miles at 2600 feet density altitude and the same temp. Increasing temperature, but lowering elevation to match density altitude will go farther yet, maybe 88 miles, for instance. Same air density, hotter battery, slightly larger stored capacity, slightly longer range.
 
klapauzius said:
Unfortunately this particular test can only be done on the same route, if we want to use the numbers from the AZ test.

Not true. This test can be duplicated anyplace you can match the conditions. We have all the data to do that.

The LEAF won't know it's in Arizona, or California, if the air is 92% dense, with 80F-ish temps, and 1200-ish elevation, and flat, concrete or asphalt hard, dry roadbed with light winds, and a two way course to compensate for those winds.

All is not lost, and I suspect we'll just continue to have "84 mile deniers" until we "prove it". It's certainly the logical approach, and the one that we WOULD HAVE DONE, had we had a car that could. ;)
 
My simplistic view. The car is freakin broke. :idea: Whether its the battery or the gauge ,( NIssan should be figuring this out not US) it has problems that need to be addressed and repaired. How hard is it to say some new issues have been brought to our attention and we currently have a Team of experts working on the problem and the solution, Please give us 30-60 days and we will address the problem. :shock: I really dont understand people who are not driving a Leaf with bars lost and noticeable mileage lost try to tell us YOUR wrong. Get down here and drive my car 76 miles,or 84 if your good. I promise you , you will be walking last 10-14 miles ( like to use ranges like Nissan) home. As other have pointed out, if Nissan is leaving 15-20% of the range in the last bar then they are the ones shooting themselves in the foot. Who drives their car past empty every day to go the published range. ok off soap box ;)
 
Yanquetino said:
Indeed, they openly stated in Green Car Reports on September 12 that “Nissan appears to be in complete denial at the highest levels,” and even that “it appears on the surface that an outright fraud may have been committed.” Whoa! Now those are fighting words.

Wow! Just read your trash piece. I'll state for the record that the "they" is me. Since you know that, you also know that the "fraud" I was referring to was taking a car with reduced range, and an instrument that indicates 21% - 27% battery capacity reduction, and then resetting that instrument to show "like new" readings, and not doing ANYTHING to change the capacity of the battery... THAT'S FRAUD.


In my opinion, they are now fudging their conclusions.


In my opinion, you're on my blow hard list who doesn't even get the basic facts right.


From what I can see in the data, they are skewing and exaggerating their interpretation of the results.


Imagine what I think about yours!!


I purport that apologies to Nissan are now in order for the accusations of being "in complete denial" and committing "outright fraud."

I purport that won't happen. I also purport that you've done a great job of making clear your shortcomings in the LEAF knowledge area, but no shortcomings in BS. Hey, but it's good entertainment. :roll:
 
TonyWilliams said:
You've got an number of factual errors in your review, and this is just wrong also.
Could be! I am as prone to error as anyone, no question.

Tell ya what, though, Tony: please include what, in fact, Nissan projects to be the normal capacity loss according to an odometer's mileage. I have merely taken my best guess by extrapolating from the admittedly limited parameters Nissan provides. If you have more accurate, reliable figures for expected range losses according to mileage, please post them alongside the actual ranges achieved in the test. Without knowing what Nissan considers normal capacity losses, it is impossible to substantiate abnormal losses —as the owners continue to assert via the news media.

Oh... and thanks, once again, for attacking and insulting the messenger when you do not like the message. Sorry to have to tell you this, Tony, but people skills are not exactly your forté.
 
Yanquetino said:
TonyWilliams said:
You've got an number of factual errors in your review, and this is just wrong also.
Could be! I am as prone to error as anyone, no question.

Tell ya what, though, Tony: please include what, in fact, Nissan projects to be the normal capacity loss according to an odometer's mileage. I have merely taken my best guess by extrapolating from the admittedly limited parameters Nissan provides. If you have more accurate, reliable figures for expected range losses according to mileage, please post them alongside the actual ranges achieved in the test. Without knowing what Nissan considers normal capacity losses, it is impossible to substantiate abnormal losses —as the owners continue to assert via the news media.

Ok, excellent point on "normal" versus "abnormal" losses. Of course, in the interest of mass market simplicity, the message is, "a new car should go 84 miles in these conditions, according to Nissan, and 12-18 months later in Phoenix, these cars only went something far, far less. Actually, up to 30% less."

I know I've said this about a million times, but the argument over the "84 mile car" ends when a car goes 84 miles. Each of you who have danced around that number are not telling me anything that I don't already know, and knew the very second I learned that neither 2012 would pull anything close to 100% stored wattHours.

So, I've asked, and I'll ask again; please stop generating pages of guessing. I'm not against guessing on things, and I've done plenty myself. But this one has been guessed to death, when a readily available answer is coming.

The many, many times I've made mistakes (and plenty on this range demonstration), I hope and think that I'm man enough to admit to the mistake and fix it. Through this thread, you'll see that I have done that. So, I'm not opposed to fixing this one.

The missing 84 mile car is a mistake. I'm to blame, due to my oversight. I will fix it. Until then, you'll just have to "trust me" on that. Sure, we can belly ache and pontificate until then, but why? I will get the number, and I know the number VERY well, as others like LEAFfan pointed out (and he also has mucho experience in this area, and believe me, we didn't always agree on the details).


Oh... and thanks, once again, for attacking and insulting the messenger when you do not like the message. Sorry to have to tell you this, Tony, but people skills are not exactly your forté.

Gosh, I think I'm merely responding to you in a "like" manner and by my measure, deserved manner. Eh, no biggie. I suspect you mean well. Thanks for not escalating issues further.

Beyond the finger pointing, accusations, and other misc. BS in your piece, if you just got the basic numbers right, you have solid stuff there.

:ugeek:
 
Yanquetino said:
If you have more accurate, reliable figures for expected range losses according to mileage, please post them alongside the actual ranges achieved in the test. Without knowing what Nissan considers normal capacity losses, it is impossible to substantiate abnormal losses —as the owners continue to assert via the news media.

Oh... and thanks, once again, for attacking and insulting the messenger when you do not like the message. Sorry to have to tell you this, Tony, but people skills are not exactly your forté.
Mark, point taken. I just realized that you only had your Leaf for about four months, and it looks like you might have caught the EV bug a while ago. I believe that most of us did, and there is nothing wrong with that.

What confused me a bit was the beginning of your article. It seemed fairly argumentative. Some of us spent inordinate amount of time looking into this battery capacity issue, but that pales in comparison to what some of the owners with significant range loss have gone through.

I'm sure that Tony will get you the numbers you are looking for. I joined this forum when he just published the first version of his range chart. Very interesting idea, which hasn't been applied to EVs before, from what I can tell. The 21 kWh you mentioned in another write-up of yours were defined here on the forum. There were long debates about that. Nissan never said anything specific, that's why NTB11-076a was such a big deal when it came out.

Anyway, let me conclude with one observation: it appears that you live in a desert climate and drive about 1,000 miles per month, give or take. This is just a rough estimate, but all things being equal, there is a good chance that you will observe about 10 to 15% reduction in range by the end of next summer. We don't know how it will progress from there. There were a few ideas, but nothing panned out so far.

I don't have the latest correlation coefficients at hand, but battery capacity, and by extension range, seems to depend on ambient temperature to a large degree. This relationship was never clearly defined by Nissan. All they ever mentioned was vehicle mileage and a few warranty disclaimers.
1
 
If you're going to sit on your throne and judge the way we've handled this situation by involving the media and publish some defaming blog post, you should know that you are spewing a big load of bull. I've posted this before, but I'll do it again for the people who can't be bothered to keep up, but still insist on flaming us. We did not go to the media until we had been told by 2 dealers, 1 GM, 1 Nissan field operations manager, and 1 Nissan EV specialist that our car, that had lost 22-27% range (based on the entire range in the NTB to LBW) was performing as designed and the capacity loss was normal. This says nothing of the changing story we were told at each of these levels. It was obvious pretty quickly that they were moving their 'normal' target all summer. Nissan did not decide to take our cars to casa grande until AFTER the first story aired, and the second was in the can waiting for airtime.


Yanquetino said:
For the last several months, a few early adopters of the Nissan Leaf in Phoenix have been complaining long and loud about losing capacity bars prematurely, supposedly because of the extremely hot temperatures in Arizona. What originally started out as a worrisome concern has now snowballed (fireballed?) into something of a feeding frenzy, with nearly 400 pages of discussion piling up in the “My Nissan Leaf” forum.
A few of those Leaf owners then decided to raise the volume of their outcry even further by contacting the news media, and the Arizona CBS affiliate, KPHO, aired a segment with their complaints on July 18, 2012. Although toward the beginning of the broadcast two owners praised the Leaf, they then lamented in no uncertain terms that their enthusiasm had “shriveled up” with “disappointment” and “frustration.” One claimed that, when his Leaf was new, he could drive a 90-mile commute on a single charge, but now he was only getting 44 miles —less thathalf the original range. Yow! Had the capacity really dropped that far in one year? The other owner then predicted that “Soon I'll be left with a very expensive paper weight in the garage.” Ouch!
Yet it gets even worse. Only two days later, KPHO ran another segment, in which they showed numerous owners gathering together to "commiserate" about the problem. In this broadcast, they claimed that they had lost “30% of their driving range after only one year,” and one individual stated that Nissan failed to mention at the time of purchase that they “were going to lose capacity at 3 times the rate of anybody else.” Double ouch!
I had to groan upon viewing these broadcasts. Real great, folks. That’ll sure teach Nissan a lesson: let’s turn the concern into another “runaway Prius” news blitz in front of the public eye. Although I totally agree that Nissan should have addressed these concerns much earlier, according to these broadcasts the company had, in fact, already arranged to gather together, test, and analyze five of the affected Leafs at their Arizona Testing Center. So why air these stories? To publicly turn the screws even tighter on Nissan, regardless? Whatever the motives, you can bet that any potential car buyers who viewed these segments have now crossed the Leaf off their list of vehicles to consider. Niiiiice...!
 
azdre said:
If you're going to sit on your throne and judge the way we've handled this situation by involving the media and publish some defaming blog post... Nissan did not decide to take our cars to casa grande until AFTER the first story aired, and the second was in the can waiting for airtime.

I hate to see you get upset over this. We know that Nissan isn't going to do squat without the threat of bad publicity. Keep your chin up!

:D
 
TonyWilliams said:
azdre said:
If you're going to sit on your throne and judge the way we've handled this situation by involving the media and publish some defaming blog post... Nissan did not decide to take our cars to casa grande until AFTER the first story aired, and the second was in the can waiting for airtime.

I hate to see you get upset over this. We know that Nissan isn't going to do squat without the threat of bad publicity. Keep your chin up!

:D

There's plenty of very valid ways to insult me, there's no need to tell lies! ;)
 
azdre said:
There's plenty of very valid ways to insult me, there's no need to tell lies! ;)

I know I was not smelling too good after last weekend, so I'm glad nobody insulted me for stinking too bad! Actually, I think I would have just agreed.

Have some vino, and wait to see what Nissan has got for you in a few days. We'll be anxious to hear from you, since you'll know first.
 
TonyWilliams said:
azdre said:
If you're going to sit on your throne and judge the way we've handled this situation by involving the media and publish some defaming blog post... Nissan did not decide to take our cars to casa grande until AFTER the first story aired, and the second was in the can waiting for airtime.

I hate to see you get upset over this. We know that Nissan isn't going to do squat without the threat of bad publicity. Keep your chin up!
+1

Don't laugh, but it's been suggested that I might have been working on an illicit owner delegation for the Sunday event in SF. There appeared to be some consternation about that ;-)
 
surfingslovak said:
Don't laugh, but it's been suggested that I might have been working on an illicit owner delegation for the Sunday event in SF. There appeared to be some consternation about that ;-)
Come on! I can't laugh at that?!? No fair!!!
 
Azdre and opossum, I'm sorry that you are being attacked, yet again, for posting about your bad experiences with your new-yet-oh-so-old Nissan LEAF.

Tony, I'm sorry that you, too, are being attacked again for all of your efforts to try to make heads or tails of this situation.

Let's be frank about NTB11-076a: That document is NOT freely available to buyers of the Nissan LEAF, but it should be. I'm sure that most Nissan LEAF purchasers are unaware that it even exists. If fact, given the publication date of December 22, 2011, it did not even exist when most of the capacity-bar-loser LEAFs were purchased. Why not? Because Nissan has been very consistent with their marketing of the LEAF: they have over-promised on both range and battery reliability and they have left their service departments to clean up the mess that results when customers learn the truth about their new car: it does not go nearly as far as Nissan lead them to believe before their purchase. It's no wonder that a self-proclaimed Nissan service manager came on this site complaining that he couldn't stand LEAF owners.

But why does Nissan include a range chart in NTB11-076a with ranges that cover usable battery capacity from 19 to 21 kWh? My conclusion is that 21 kWh is what Nissan believes is the usable capacity of a new LEAF with a fully-balanced pack. But Nissan also knows that the pack may not always be fully balanced, which would account for losing up to about 1 kWh of usable energy. So what does the other 1 kWh account for? Many things, perhaps, but certainly it might account for degradation that occurs between the time LEAF is manufactured and when it is finally delivered. I'm sure Nissan knows as well as we do that most Nissan dealers charge these things up to 100% the moment they get them and leave the battery to degrade.

Just like Yanquetino wrote on his blog, I have also been waiting for decades to purchase an EV. And I'm very pleased to be able to be driving one today. Nissan is to be commended for designing and delivering a very fine automobile. They have certainly done that and I hope that this is only the start of a long line of Nissan EVs. But none of that excuses the very poor marketing practices and customer relations that Nissan has used for this program. When LEAF lessees in Phoenix are having to turn in their cars before even HALF of their lease period is over, it seems clear to me that Nissan should not still be offering them for sale there. I'm pretty sure that Azdre and opossum wish that they had leased their LEAF instead of purchased it outright. Perhaps they wish they had avoided the LEAF altogether. The point is that NEARLY ALL LEAF owners in AZ would choose to lease if they had known what they know now or will find out in the near future: the range in their car is dropping much faster than they had expected it to. And the only reason they did not know this is because Nissan did not tell them.

Let's be honest with ourselves: there is a very wide range of experiences among those of us who have purchased or leased our LEAFs. Fortunately most of us are finding that the LEAF meets or exceeds our expectations. But I see no reason to denigrate those for whom the car is a disappointment. Did some people purchase the LEAF without sufficiently researching what they are getting? Absolutely! But not all cases of owner's disappointment are the fault of the owner: in some cases Nissan needs to take the responsibility. It seems that they may be doing that in their own way. Let's just hope that it is a way that we can all live with.

Can't we all just get along? :)
 
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