LEAF Range and kWh use, at 45, 60 and 70 mph DOE tests

[madbrain]

Tony,

It's hard to say exactly how much usable energy you had remaining, but we do know that it's between:

3.1kWh (Low Batt Warning)

and

1.3kWh (Very Low Batt... GOM goes to "---")

OK. It's probably closer to the first number, I don't think the LBW had been on very long when I parked at the DC charger.

As I stated to you previously, range is stored usable energy multiplied by economy:

KWh * miles/kWh = Range in miles

Yes, the formula is obvious, what isn't is getting the actual battery capacity left. My 2012 doesn't have a SOC %.
There is no "free kWh" display. And I don't have a gid meter.
I can't exactly predict the miles/kWh either.

If we just estimate and split the difference at 2kWh usable remaining, and it appears that your driving style can achieve 4 miles per kWh, then a very rough guess of remaining range is:

2 * 4 = 8 miles

Based on that, and 15 miles left from the charger to home, I couldn't have made it home from the quick charger location, but that's not a big surprise to me.

What I wonder is if I didn't take the detour to that charger if I could actually have made it home, after trip 3 when I had 1 bar.

When climate control is on, it will be reflected in your economy, as will going up and down hills, etc. if you had a Gidmeter, you would know somewhat accurately how much energy remains. The two Low Battery warnings are indexed to that 3.1kWh and 1.3kWh regardless of battery degradation.

Yes, I know how the climate control affects the economy. A/C is not bad though, unlike the heater. The hills are bad for sure. I don't have a Gidmeter. Even at $5 per avoided quick charge it would be a while before it pays back for itself. It could save time potentially though by avoiding the detour to the charger unnecessarily.

The fuel bars, CarWings, and the GOM are not the best tools to use to determine how much range might remain after your 65 mile drive. The next time you are unsure of your remaining range, AND you have already seen the LBW or VLB warning, you'll be ready.

I know to ignore the GOM. I rely mostly on the fuel bars while driving. Is there any reason to distrust the numbers recorded in Carwings after the fact ? Those don't help while on the road anyway, though.

With experience, you will learn to reset one of your trip odometers at LBW, and then assuming you can accurately determine your economy (again, I'll just use 4), you'll know that:

Thanks for the tip, I hadn't thought of using the trip odometer this way, I haven't used them for months

[DaveEV]

When I plugged in, the screen of the Blink charger said my car reported 0% charge. I thought that couldn't be right because there is some reserve battery after LBW.
But when the charge actually started, it was going up from about 18%. I thought that was a little high.

There was no one around and I set it to charge to 100% and shopping. I got a text 30 mins later that the charge stopped. I came back to the car within 5 minutes. The charger said the car was at 90%, not 100%. I don't know why the charge did not complete to 100%.

Unless you have a '13 LEAF, the car will stop charging at around 80% when you start a QC from below 50% SOC or so.

I started another session at 100%. It went pretty quickly to 98%, then became slow. I stopped there.
I was surprised to see that my Leaf had only 10 bars. I was expecting 11.

I logged in to Blinknetwork and see that the first session was 30 minutes and 10 seconds.
The second session was 6 minutes 24 seconds.
I called Blink to let them know about the charge interruption.

Not likely to be Blink's problem - as mentioned earlier, the car generally controls how long the charge will run unless you set the Blink to something besides 100%.

[TonyWilliams]

And I don't have a gid meter.
I can't exactly predict the miles/kWh either.

I think there's a new device, "LeafDD", that is less than $100. It will show Gids. If you have an Android device already, you can buy a $15-$20 OBDII Bluetooth device and download a program from Turbo3 (who lives right in your area) and get all the info you need. If you don't have an Android device, you can buy one for as little as $39. There are whole threads devoted to this stuff.

Predicting economy isn't that hard with experience. Just like resetting the trip odometer to determine how far you have traveled from a landmark warning, you can reset the economy (miles/kWh) at the same time. Try doing that a few times and drive your normal routes to learn about what the economy might be.

We already know that 65mph driving on a level roadway without climate control is 4 miles/kWh. By the way, if you're that close to running out of energy, ALWAYS turn off the climate control. It isn't going to be working much longer anyway!! In the aircraft business, we create "flows" for processes, and checklists to verify them. You can probably not use a checklist, since the worst thing that will happen to you is walking in an environment that you will always be able to survive in, but I recommend the muscle/memory "flow" items.

Ding! Low Battery Warning! What do you do? Starting from left to right:

Trip Odometer A/B - SELECT
Trip Mileage - RESET
Economy - SELECT
Economy Mileage - RESET
Climate Control - OFF (except for bursts to defrost, if applicable)
Navigation distance to go - NOTE

Now, drive accordingly to get to your destination, or stop for energy.

What I wonder is if I didn't take the detour to that charger if I could actually have made it home, after trip 3 when I had 1 bar.

Sorry, one bar is an EXTREMELY bad reference for cutting things close. You'll note if you go back through almost two years of talking about this, the landmarks are the fixed energy references of LBW and VLB. If you had reset your trip odometer at LBW, and you could learn to estimate your economy, you will always have a pretty good idea of how much further you can go.

Even at $5 per avoided quick charge it would be a while before it pays back for itself. It could save time potentially though by avoiding the detour to the charger unnecessarily.

You clearly want to push the limits, and it seems saving time is important to you. It seems obvious to me that their is a "pay back" with a Gidmeter or similar device for you.

I know to ignore the GOM. I rely mostly on the fuel bars while driving. Is there any reason to distrust the numbers recorded in Carwings after the fact ? Those don't help while on the road anyway, though.

Historically, CarWings was GROSSLY wrong. So, I never used it. They made changes to improve it, but I've never had a reason to use it even once. Sorry, can't help you there. The LEAF-S doesn't even come with CarWings, and I can't imagine the thrifty folks who buy a LEAF would pay for CarWings when it expires in 3 years.

So, I wouldn't get too reliant on that, even if it were perfect.

[TomT]

Nope, when I hit three years in March, it is gone unless it is really dirt cheap! But then, my XM STILL continues to work on trial so I can't complain too much!

Historically, CarWings was GROSSLY wrong. So, I never used it. They made changes to improve it, but I've never had a reason to use it even once. Sorry, can't help you there. The LEAF-S doesn't even come with CarWings, and I can't imagine the thrifty folks who buy a LEAF would pay for CarWings when it expires in 3 years.

[madbrain]

Tony,

I think there's a new device, "LeafDD", that is less than $100. It will show Gids. If you have an Android device already, you can buy a $15-$20 OBDII Bluetooth device and download a program from Turbo3 (who lives right in your area) and get all the info you need. If you don't have an Android device, you can buy one for as little as $39. There are whole threads devoted to this stuff.

I do have an Android device. I will look into buying the OBDII thingy. $15-$20 is definitely worth it.
That is much better than the gidmeters that were a couple hundred dollars last time I looked into it.

Can the Android phone still stay connected to the car via Bluetooth at the same time that the app is running and talking to the OBDII via Bluetooth ?

You clearly want to push the limits, and it seems saving time is important to you. It seems obvious to me that their is a "pay back" with a Gidmeter or similar device for you.

Well, pushing the limits wasn't my goal. I had done a roundtrip from home to San Mateo before in the winter without charging on the way. It did result in VLB. There was no stopover at Fry's though. I thought I might be able to make it without charging in summer weather with that stop, and maybe I could have, but I wanted to play it safe so I stopped for a charge.

Yes, the Gidmeter or equivalent device is worth it at the costs you mentioned.

Historically, CarWings was GROSSLY wrong. So, I never used it. They made changes to improve it, but I've never had a reason to use it even once. Sorry, can't help you there. The LEAF-S doesn't even come with CarWings, and I can't imagine the thrifty folks who buy a LEAF would pay for CarWings when it expires in 3 years.

So, I wouldn't get too reliant on that, even if it were perfect.

I have been analyzing lots of my trips after I did them on Carwings. The miles data for sure is correct.
I can't say for sure if the energy usage data for each trip is correct, but it looks pretty good to me.

[madbrain]

The last leg that's still missing in Carwings is about 15 miles, again mostly freeway, plus the uphill at the end. I expect about 4 to 5 kWh.

I got it and the stats for that last leg are 4.4 kWh net usage, 4.9 kWh consumed , 0.5 kWh recharged, 14.4 miles, 3.3 miles/kWh . I was not trying to control speed as I had just quick charged, I might have done a little better if I drove under 65 mph on the freeway.

The total stats for the day from Carwings are 80.8 miles driven, 20.9 kWh net consumption, 3.9 miles/kWh.
A brand new car with zero degradation is supposed to have 21 kWh usable, so it is doubtful that I could have made those same trips without charging,.I would probably have been stuck on the way back home.

Without leg 4 (the detour to the charger), I would have saved 1.1 kWh. Driving slower for the last leg might have saved another 0.5 kWh or so. It would still be a little over 19 kWh . I don't know for sure if my battery still has that much usable capacity when fully charged.

[madbrain]

Unless you have a '13 LEAF, the car will stop charging at around 80% when you start a QC from below 50% SOC or so.

Why would the car itself interrupt the charge before full charge ? It doesn't do that on L1 or L2.
My car definitely had under 50% SOC when I started.
But the Blink DC charger reported that the first charge stopped at 90%, not 80%.

It seems that the car and the Blink charger's idea of the SOC % may be different.

Not likely to be Blink's problem - as mentioned earlier, the car generally controls how long the charge will run unless you set the Blink to something besides 100%.

In the past, when I have left the Blink charger to 80% (default), it stopped at 80% on the screen.
This was my first time setting the Blink charger to 100%.

[edatoakrun]

...Let us look at it differently - how exactly would I use this new info from the lab ?

IMO, the first thing we can conclude, is that it is even more foolish now to try to establish a single “new” available kWh capacity value for a LEAF, than was the case before these results were available.

We already had a lot of evidence that capacity varies with recharge temperature, and the results from the three constant speed tests seem to indicate that even where the recharge temperatures are closely controlled, the recharge capacity the test LEAF’s LBC allowed appeared to have varied by at least ~3%.

The most important new information, IMO, is that I think we can now find the available capacity for the LEAF’s 100 mile EPA rating, and relate it to the constant speed and recharge capacity tests, which I think is very useful.

Since the UDDS (LA4) methodology was replicated in the baseline dynamometer test, resulting in 90.2 miles of range, and this testing criteria Is designed to be constant for available battery capacity, I believe we should be able to use the same ratio to determine ranges from the (close to) constant average kW use from the constant speed tests.

And since the 60 mph constant speed test (for example) resulted in 65.3 miles range, I believe we may tentatively conclude that a “new” 2011 (as defined by one allowing the same available battery capacity shown by the EPA 100 mile rating) should get ~72.4 miles, (+/_ at least ~3%, due to variable LBC operation) of range, if you are able to accurately replicate all the test conditions.

That 72.4 mile range, BTW, looks to be well within the range that Nissan says it should be, if your trip computer actually accurately displayed the ~3.7 m/kWh that the 60 mph test did show.

http://mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php? ... 1-076a.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And corresponds quite closely to the highway range performance Nissan promises, both on their website and in the sale/lease battery disclosure:

Highway driving in the summer: 112km (70 miles)
Speed: Average 88km/h (55 mph)
Temperature: 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit)
Climate control: On

Though we do not know exactly how much the lower speed and higher ambient and battery temperatures should increase the range, as opposed to the range decrease due to the AC use in this example.

http://www.nissan.ca/vehicles/ms/leaf/e ... ndamentals" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


So you could try to run your own constant speed range test, at any of the three test speeds, to assess your own battery capacity compared with 100 mile LA4.

Remember however, that neither a range test or a recharge test will determine your batteries level of “degradation”. They can only show you the level of battery capacity your LEAF is allowing you to access, out of the total capacity, as compared to that capacity level allowed the LEAFs the EPA used in it’s testing to get the 100 mile L4 rating.

And you may find attempting a constant-speed range test may not be the best use of your time and energy.

We have numerous examples on MNL of amateur attempts to get accurate constant-speed range test/capacity results, but failing, due to their inability to understand and adequately control all relevant test variables. If you want to give it a try, at least you now have an accurate reference test for comparison, and a 29 page checklist of methodology you can attempt to replicate, to the best of your ability. Good luck!

I believe you may find that you actually may be able to get more accurate (or at least less inaccurate) capacity results with your own L2 timed recharge tests, compared to the results published from LEAF 0356.

And probably more accurate than either, would be establishing your dash or nav screen m/kWh error rate, by using Carwings and replicating one of the m/kWh test conditions from 0356 over a practical test distance, to find the common error in your m/kWh displays and CarWings kWh use data, and so find the actual kWh use and available battery capacity of your LEAF.

...The total stats for the day from Carwings are 80.8 miles driven, 20.9 kWh net consumption, 3.9 miles/kWh.
A brand new car with zero degradation is supposed to have 21 kWh usable...

You might want to go to the thread links I posted on Friday on page 3 for more suggestions on using your CW kWh use data.

[TonyWilliams]

And you may find attempting a constant-speed range test may not be the best use of your time and energy.

We have numerous examples on MNL of amateur attempts to get accurate constant-speed range test/capacity results, but failing, due to their inability to understand and adequately control all relevant test variables.

The guy with "all the answers" is also this guy:

I thought the test results below might be worth a new thread since, AFAIK, these results have not been posted on MNL before, and no reputable test prior to this has correlated range....

I was never tempted to go to the extreme inconvenience those tests would entail...

[evnow]

...Let us look at it differently - how exactly would I use this new info from the lab ?

IMO, the first thing we can conclude, is that it is even more foolish now to try to establish a single “new” available kWh capacity value for a LEAF, than was the case before these results were available.

We already had a lot of evidence that capacity varies with recharge temperature, and the results from the three constant speed tests seem to indicate that even where the recharge temperatures are closely controlled, the recharge capacity the test LEAF’s LBC allowed appeared to have varied by at least ~3%.

3% variation hardly makes the effort to find the useable capacity foolish.

What I ultimately want to find out is - how many miles can I go if I'm getting, say 5.0 m/kWh on the dash. That is a question these lab results don't answer. So while the lab results are very interesting - they don't replace the non-lab tests others have conducted.

Anyway, I just wish the lab noted the dash m/kWh, it would have been so much more useful or atleast enlightening.

I was trying to find out the contact of the author/authors. I couldn't in the paper - if we can, then I'd like to contact them to see if they noted that information.