Early Adopter Mistake - Running on Empty

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As to what to do in this situation. I suspect the whole situation is not as tragic as it seems. Yes, the Leaf failed to deliver on the TCO expectations big time, no doubt about that. But, you probably were able to cash in on the $5,000 CVRP rebate at the time, so your cost for the car was $22,500 give or take. You owe as much as the car is worth now which is $6,000, fine. So ignoring interest for simplicity, 4 years, 67,000 miles, your cost was about $16,500, which comes down to about $350/mo. This is really not bad for a $35,000 car or even a $22,500 car considering these were the years with the highest gas prices and you managed to avoid at least 10 oil changes and 2 major maintenance visits to a dealer. Just get rid of the Leaf and lease a new one, so at least you know there will be no surprises.
 
Leafer77 said:
Homework reference was about the capability of the car, when it was sold to me. Trust me, I considered doing lots of things during that last 1,000 miles, but it couldn't do them in good conscious.
From my reading on this board I don't think 4 bar loss is exactly the warranty thresh hold. I encourage anyone to take the car in if three have been gone for a bit and you are approaching 60,000 miles or 60 months.

Not saying to abuse the battery. One of the short heat waves may have been enough for the car to limit capacity and trigger the warranty. Nothing wrong with letting the car sit for 6 months and see what happens.

I really see no obligation to be extra nice to Nissan over this known issue. I knew mine would be close and the range at 2 bar loss was inadequate. I took my loss and leased a RAV4-EV. LEAF was to be a 100 mile car in general conditions when we put down our deposits in April 2010. If LEAF was as Nissan promised I would still be happily driving #2024.

All water under the bridge at this point. I hope you find your solution. My words are primarily directed at others as they approach 60,000 miles. Best of luck with your decision.
 
abasile said:
However, I would not be able to bring myself in good conscience to go out of my way to abuse my LEAF's battery, especially considering that a large factor in my purchase of this car was environmental stewardship.... Sure, I could attempt to rationalize abusing the battery, but it's just not worth it to me. Besides, losing two more bars in less than a year, while putting on no more than another ~4K miles, is nothing to laugh at.

Yeah, too late now. I know now I should have started driving the car "normally" since day 1, would be much happier with it overall.
 
smkettner said:
Not saying to abuse the battery. One of the short heat waves may have been enough for the car to limit capacity and trigger the warranty. Nothing wrong with letting the car sit for 6 months and see what happens.
I agree. If I were on the cusp of qualifying for the warranty, I'd let it sit and degrade on its own.
 
So, it's more than just chemistry. The batteries weren't "perfectly fine".

Leafs in the colder parts of the US are doing a lot better than Leafs in the south.

Active TMS makes batteries in southern Texas operate at the same temperatures as cars in Seattle. Active TMS adds a couple thousand or so to the car cost but other EV drivers seem to be quite happy with 1-2% range losses a year with active TM systems.
 
eloder said:
Active TMS adds a couple thousand or so to the car cost but other EV drivers seem to be quite happy with 1-2% range losses a year with active TM systems.

Those happy Tesla drivers, good for them!
 
Leafer77 said:
It made sense financially and appeared to meet my 60 mile commute easily. The vehicle sticker had 106 city and 92 highway miles. So I pre-ordered a 2011 Nissan Leaf SL-E and it was officially purchased May 31, 2011.
....
Around 6/13/2014 and 52,109 miles, I lost my third capacity bar. I could still make the commute due to my work Blink Vehicle Car Chargers.

Around 1/6/2015 and 61,150 miles, I lost my fourth capacity bar. My range is now limited to 40 miles on the highway. Forget running the AC. Forget running an errand at lunch time or after work. Forget being a Soccer volunteer Coach. Forget participating in my kids extra curricular activities.

...
I'm completely at a loss, as to how I ended up where I am. I did my homework. I drove the car as it was designed, averaging 4.4kWH. I maintained it properly.
You didn't do your homework. The 106 city and 92 highway are (pretty useless) MPGe, NOT city and highway mile ranges! The range rating was 73 miles. See http://blog.caranddriver.com/2011-nissan-leaf-epa-ratings-released/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and your original sticker, if you have it still. You can find many more sticker pics via https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=2011%20nissan%20leaf%20sticker" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Confirmation of numbers at https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=30979" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

As has been pointed out, if I were down to my 9th bar, I would've done something to get it down to 8 bars before 5 years/60K miles (e.g. send the car off for a thorough baking in say Vegas or Phoenix at 100% charge) given that http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13192" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; was announced on 6/7/13. I'd imagine you should've gotten some snail mail on this, as well.

From the range chart, (looking at the 60-66% capacity version), if you average 4.3 miles/kWh, you should be able to go 56 miles. Also, see results of http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=228326" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, in particular Blue494, that had 8 capacity bars.

That said, Nissan had many numerous statements on paper and video to lead '11 and '12 Leaf buyers/lessees that the remaining capacity after 5, 8 (?) or 10 (?) years (don't remember the figures right now) would be MUCH better than what people are experiencing outside say the Pacific Northwest (e.g. Seattle).

edit: https://youtu.be/DShtvd5jJHQ?t=58s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; claimed 70 to 80% remaining capacity over a 10 year life. http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1040181_nissan-leaf-battery-upgrades-secondary-use-part-of-the-plan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; also claims that (found via http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1077805_nissans-mark-perry-were-investigating-arizonas-wilting-leafs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

If you're going to continue to drive the car and ride around near the bottom, you're going to need something to display battery gids (e.g. LeafSpy)... As you well know, the GOM and instrumentation in the '11 and '12 are crap. You can still drive around a bit more after hitting LBW (1st warning).
 
I did my homework. Heck, I even rented a Leaf for a couple days to get a feel if it'll work for me. I even considered it will have 30% capacity loss after 5 years just to err on the safe side and not 20% as it was written in the papers that I signed. No dice.
 
Valdemar said:
eloder said:
Active TMS adds a couple thousand or so to the car cost but other EV drivers seem to be quite happy with 1-2% range losses a year with active TM systems.

Those happy Tesla drivers, good for them!

Smart EDs and Volts both see only 1-2% reported capacity loss a year, and both of those have smaller batteries than the Leaf. RAV4 EV has no degradation issues but it has a larger battery.

There are multiple reports of smart ED drivers with 30k+ miles with less than two miles of capacity loss, and Volts of course have plenty of history with the battery not running into much range degradation at all.

RAV4 EV also has had no problems with significant degradation.

I'm not sure why the Leaf community is so against active TMS. It may add cost to the car, but it'll turn two battery replacements a decade into one battery replacement every 10-15 years (and you'll have the benefit of a real battery warranty because the manufacturer knows their batteries will last).
 
Valdemar said:
I did my homework.
Likewise, I figured that by driving slowly on mountain climbs and limiting motor power to ~20 kW, and by keeping the LEAF in a cool climate most of the time, I'd probably do better than 20% loss after five years. I also figured that Nissan was being conservative, and took comfort in the fact that Phoenix, AZ was one of their initial markets for the LEAF.

I'm not against active TMS...
 
eloder said:
RAV4 EV also has had no problems with significant degradation.

Tony W. should be able to comment on this. And I'm not against TMS, but it probably wouldn't help the original battery much anyway.

Also I tend to accept reports on other cars with a grain of salt. No other car has been scrutinized as fully as the Leaf. The Volt has a fairly large buffer on the top end, so it is not clear if its perceived battery pack stability can be attributed mainly to the TMS. Same likely applies to the Spark EV.
 
abasile said:
However, I would not be able to bring myself in good conscience to go out of my way to abuse my LEAF's battery, especially considering that a large factor in my purchase of this car was environmental stewardship.
Same here. If my Leaf was right on the edge (3 bars + loser) at say, 55,000 miles I might be willing to give it a little "push", but just can't bring myself to abuse the battery or even push it hard otherwise. Lost my second bar recently at 40,000 miles and almost 4 years, so it would take a lot of abuse to lose 2 more bars in one year even if I wanted to go that route. I will probably be a 4 bar loser at 60,000 miles and 6 years, although if the battery aging model is accurate I might be able to go to 70,000 miles and 7 years. If the latter I would be pretty satisfied overall. However, while I was 0.5% ahead of the battery aging model a year ago, I am now 0.7% behind the battery aging model. I suspect the difference will increase quite a bit over the next 1-2 years, as calendar aging doesn't appear to be slowing down as much as the model predicts.
 
Valdemar said:
eloder said:
RAV4 EV also has had no problems with significant degradation.

Tony W. should be able to comment on this. And I'm not against TMS, but it probably wouldn't help the original battery much anyway.

Also I tend to accept reports on other cars with a grain of salt. No other car has been scrutinized as fully as the Leaf. The Volt has a fairly large buffer on the top end, so it is not clear if its battery pack stability can be attributed mainly to the TMS. Same likely applies to the Smart EV.

Well, this isn't the thread for this, to be honest.

The Volt has the benefit of:

1) Robust cooling
2) Limited cell usage (20%-80% when new)
3) Superior anode to LEAF (even with same chemistry cells)
4) Masked degradation (they can just expand to 19% - 81%, then 18% - 82%, etc)

So, Volt owners believe that their cells don't degrade. Yes they do, but the range doesn't change due to degradation up to about maybe 25-30%.

The RAV4 EV uses a version of method (1) and (4) above.. The cells absolutley degrade, as all batteries do. My #1134 is at 51289 miles right now, and 30 months in service, and I have 12% degradation. I consider this quite good.

Toyota hides this degradation from the end user by the following method:

---- Normal charge --- Extended charge

SOC% --- 83% ----------- 97% (new car)
SOC% --- 89% ----------- 97% (50,000 miles, 12% degradation)
SOC % --- 95% ---------- 97% (100,000 mile guess, 24% degradation)

As to the Tesla Model S owner claims, heck, I find it hard to believe that Tesla would fudge the numbers as others do, but I could be wrong. I'd love to test a 100,000 mile Tesla that has "1%-2%" rated range loss with its actual range performance under prescribed conditions.

I do know that if I did that test, and it turned out unfavorable to the party line, the crap would hit the fan like it did here when I called out Nissan with their battery issues.

*******

RAV4 EV battery degradation
Make sure that the battery is at room temperature, then:

1) Fully charge vehicle (extended) with the J1772 port (not CHAdeMO)
2) Battery must be near room temperature
3) Turn off cabin climate control with "OFF" button
4) Disconnect the 12 volt battery negative cables and leave off for several hours minimum (overnight is ideal)

Next day:

5) Reconnect 12 volt battery
6) Hold foot on brake and press START button with key fob nearby
7) Energy gauge will show Full (16 illuminated segments) and "LO" on the GOM
8) Wait for navigation unit to complete its start up
9) Press START with brake pedal depressed a second time
10) The displayed range is "RATED RANGE" at 3.5 miles per kWh

11) Divide this Rated Range by 146 to get usable battery capacity compared to new.

Example: 142 rated range / 146 = 97.2% battery capacity from new

********

If you drive the RAV4 EV at my standard test speed of 100km / 62mph ground speed, it will go almost EXACTLY the rated range.

TEST DRIVING PROTOCOL - dry, hard surface level road with no wind or cabin climate control with new condition battery at 70F, no elevation changes, "out-and-back" or loop course to compensate for any wind, 62mph / 100km/h GROUND speed as measured by GPS.

So, if the car is new, it will bang out 146 miles and the rated range will be 146 under the prescribed conditions.

If the rated range is 135, it will go 135.
 
TonyWilliams said:
My #1134 is at 51289 miles right now, and 30 months in service, and I have 12% degradation. I consider this quite good.

Thank you. Would you say that you cycle your battery deep on a daily basis?
 
Valdemar said:
TonyWilliams said:
My #1134 is at 51289 miles right now, and 30 months in service, and I have 12% degradation. I consider this quite good.

Thank you. Would you say that you cycle your battery deep on a daily basis?

No, I dont (these are the same questions / accusations I got when I reported loss of range with my first LEAF... I must be abusing it).

1) I charge to "Normal" daily, with occasional "Extended" use
2) I live in San Diego (weather and heat is not a factor)
3) My cars are mostly garaged in a finished garage
4) Somebody will bring up that this car has been equipped with CHAdeMO, so there's the "smoking gun", when it fact, this car has had about 12% degradation since last year. It actually hasn't changed much in the last year, but then I don't drive it as much as I used to.
5) I made one real trip with this car, May 1, 2015 weekend, using only CHAdeMO for 1250 miles. The car did great, and the cells never exceeded 47C while charging. They quickly cool to about 35-40C in normal driving.
6) This car did do BC2BC-2012, and yes, that is a max effort to extend range (all charging at 40 amp AC or less)
7) I ran this car out of power once, and turtled it a handful of times... 5-ish, maybe?

Here's an observation between a 30% degraded LEAF and a future 30% degradead RAV4 EV... the former is borderline usable for anybody, and the latter is just a bit of a nuisance. Even at 30% degradation, the RAV4 EV can cruise about 100 miles down the freeway.

The 12% degradation is barely noticed on this car, which is why it is easy to belive that Tesla owners believe that they have "near zero" degradation... IF THEIR INSTRUMENTS TELL THEM THAT.

The far greater range issue is cold weather, which affects all EVs to varying degrees. Like a LEAF, I can easily take a 20-30% hit on range on a cold day.

One final note; by range, I mean how far the car can go, not what the GOM says.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Valdemar said:
TonyWilliams said:
My #1134 is at 51289 miles right now, and 30 months in service, and I have 12% degradation. I consider this quite good.

Thank you. Would you say that you cycle your battery deep on a daily basis?

No, I dont (these are the same questions / accusations I got when I reported loss of range with my first LEAF... I must be abusing it).

1) I charge to "Normal" daily, with occasional "Extended" use
2) I live in San Diego (weather and heat is not a factor)
3) My cars are mostly garaged in a finished garage
4) Somebody will bring up that this car has been equipped with CHAdeMO, so there's the "smoking gun", when it fact, this car has had about 12% degradation since last year. It actually hasn't changed much in the last year, but then I don't drive it as much as I used to.
5) I made one real trip with this car, May 1, 2015 weekend, using only CHAdeMO for 1250 miles. The car did great, and the cells never exceeded 47C while charging. They quickly cool to about 35-40C in normal driving.

I wanted to compare my Leaf to your RAV4, just for the heck of it. So we have a RAV4 with a large pack, no deep cycling, 30 months in, 51289 miles at 12% loss vs. (at the time) my Leaf with a smaller pack, 2x cycling as the RAV4, 33 months in, 53000 miles at 21% loss. Can we say that thanks to TMS the RAV has almost twice as less degradation as the Leaf? Probably not. I'm guessing some 30% better thanks to TMS, the rest is due to more cycling.

And the real question is, will you pay $2,000 more for a car whose battery with TMS will last 30% more for your needs, robbing you of range every day, everything else being equal? $2,000 is almost exactly 30% of the new replacement Leaf pack, installed.
 
The situation with the early Leaf reminds me of what those of us who were early adopters of two-wheeled EVs (mainly Vespa-type scooters and E-bicycles) went through. The main difference is that while the Leaf was generally built to high standards of quality, it was almost impossible to find a well-built scooter or bicycle. Only the Oxygen Lepton scooter stood out in that area, and between costing about $8k when new and having a top speed of 25 MPH (28 indicated) that little Italian scooter filled a very limited niche. The Vextrix electric "motorcycle" ( really more a maxi-scooter) turned out to, like the Leaf, have fatal flaws in how the battery pack was managed and charged. Even Brammo and Zero are still having quality issues with their much more sophisticated (and expensive) bikes.

Anyone want to buy a US-assembled, Chinese-parts ZEV 5000? Between it getting wrecked while in transit, to me making the tragic mistake of letting the company "rebuild" it half-assedly, I've never gotten more than a handful of decent rides for my $4k+ investment...
 
eloder said:
Smart EDs and Volts both see only 1-2% reported capacity loss a year, and both of those have smaller batteries than the Leaf. RAV4 EV has no degradation issues but it has a larger battery.

There are multiple reports of smart ED drivers with 30k+ miles with less than two miles of capacity loss, and Volts of course have plenty of history with the battery not running into much range degradation at all.
Source for the above, esp. the Smart ED? How are they determining this capacity loss?

(I don't care as much about Volt given what Tony already posted...)
 
cwerdna said:
(e.g. send the car off for a thorough baking in say Vegas or Phoenix at 100% charge)
Who's in for a "group buy" to hire a car carrier to ship our 2011s to Death Valley for the summer? :lol: I laugh now but as June 2016 creeps closer and closer and I'm still sitting at 9 bars the option becomes more and more appealing...
 
^^^
Haha... As a reminder (or new info for some), http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=215907#p215907" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; can give some folks an idea about the crazy temps in Phoenix.

Googling for phoenix weather shows that the forecast high temps for Sat, Sun, Mon are 106 F, 107, 107, respectively, w/lows in the mid to upper 70s... The lowest forecasted high temp for the next week is 97 F.
 
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