pre-release testers wanted - range-extending technology for Leaf

jjeff,
all cars with adaptive cruise control (that hold distance with a car in front) car brake if going heavy downhill,
but very few without that will brake on downhill. BMW-s with automatic gearbox do shift to use engine braking.
But that is pretty new function. I think that it started in 2010.
Most electric cars are limited to regen braking.
For example 2013+ Leaf are all braking at 30kW power and that is enough. Older Leafs have problems with
battery degradation and had software update that screwed regen down to non-existent.

Hitting bumps will move accelerator pedal if not conscious about that.
I also tried hypermiling and got impressive results. Usually economy is 14kWh per 100km (62mi) but if I limit
my accelerations to 3 bubbles (up to 20kW motor load) and speeds up to 60mph I can get 11kWh/100km.
That is literally 20% reduction. Just by eliminating inefficient accelerations and accelerator pedal movements.
In Europe Leafs have "LIMITER" function. You set maximum speed and vehicle only goes that fast if pedal
pressed hard (except kickdown). I use it all the time. It is almost like cruise control but speed will fall if going uphill
and not pushing harder.

It may also be interesting to note the difference in results when testing this on an S with the 16 inch rims and the harsher riding SV/SL with the 17 inch rims.

If you want a european tester I can do it.

I live in Portugal and have a 2013 Nissan LEAF MK1.

I will test it for you if there are no permanent changes to the car (such as drilling holes or splicing into wiring harnesses). I have been driving LEAFs since 2011.

Gerry

GerryAZ said:

I will test it for you if there are no permanent changes to the car (such as drilling holes or splicing into wiring harnesses). I have been driving LEAFs since 2011.

Click to expand...

Hi Gerry,
Installation is about 10-20 minutes, and removal is about 5-10. Our Smartpedal units snap fit to the connector on the top of the pedal, so no holes or splices or anything like that. It also can't be installed backwards.

Here's a picture of one of the pre-production units. To give some context for sizing, the side with the connector is just slightly wider than a U.S. quarter.



Although compact, Smartpedal can still be challenging to install on the Leaf in particular due to the very tight area above the pedal. Anyone with large paws may find it easier just to use a 10MM socket wrench to remove the accelerator pedal and then reinstall it with Smartpedal already attached.

Marc

Driving home on a moderately but not especially smooth road tonight, I used the instant graph display to watch power consumption, and the results may surprise us both, PedalLogic. It appears to me that the device may indeed remedy a problem with power consumption at steady speeds, but... I don't think it's the problem that PedalLogic identifies. I used both a very steady foot and the cruise control, and the constant small jumps and dips in power consumption were virtually the same with both. Since the cruise control doesn't use the accelerator pedal (I'm assuming that this is a fly by wire system!) I believe that the issue is actually that the varying pavement height slightly but significantly increases and decreases power demand, not accelerator pedal deflection. If this device smooths out the power supply response, then it may work as advertised - just not in the exact way advertised.

Just twisted my ankle yesterday and barely was able to drive home. Keeping my right foot in one position to drive hurt a lot. My only respite was to drive on the highway with cruise control and my hurt foot trying to find a position with the least pain. I'm all game for testing this gadget, more since my 2011 SL range is down to about 40 miles and my commute is 46-52 miles per day. Yes I do have to QC daily. At 43.76 AHr I'm dying to get my battery replaced under warranty (bought 11/2012).

Hi Everyone,

We're ready to ship. If you want to participate and haven't already done so, please email your name and contact information along with answers to the following questions to (prerelease @ pedallogic . com).

• 1. What year and model is your Leaf? Any special additions or features that could potentially affect mileage?
  2. Approximately how many miles do you drive annually?
  3. Approximately what percentage of miles driven are highway versus city?
  4. Do you typically drive in “D” or in “Eco” mode?
  5. What is the historical kWh per mile for your preferred/intended drive mode? (a pic is ideal)
  6. Do you feel comfortable performing the installation process described above?

We received about 2x the number of responses that we needed, so we're closing participation for now. However, we are going to ship to everyone who contacted us before this posting.

Thanks for your interest. We're looking forward to the results.

Best regards,
Marc

Hi Everyone,
Installation directions for those of you in the prerelease program are immediately below.

• Smartpedal is designed to install safely in about 10 minutes:
  
  1. With ignition off, unsnap the wire harness from the top of the accelerator pedal assembly.
  2. Snap the wire harness to the mating connector on Smartpedal.
  3. Snap Smartpedal to the accelerator pedal assembly.

Not sure if I mentioned it on this thread before or only in individual PMs, but if you have large paws, it may be easier to use a 10MM socket wrench to remove the pedal and reinstall it with Smartpedal already attached, rather than reach up under the dash.

Pro Tip: To generate the best mileage out of the gates, manually perform a one-time calibration after installation: WITHOUT touching the brake pedal, press the power button TWICE to power up the vehicle's accelerator pedal and accessories. THEN briefly press the accelerator pedal fully to the floor before releasing it fully. If you have trouble with this step or forget to do it, don’t worry—Smartpedal will calibrate itself as you drive.

On a final note, there is no way to install Smartpedal backwards. If any of the steps are skipped, the vehicle is still safe — it will not accelerate until the pedal is properly connected.

Questions? Please email prerelease@ [youknowtherest]. Thanks for your participation!

Best,
Marc

Hi Everyone,

Just discovered that the forums don't like PDFs, so I uploaded a copy of the prerelease program to Google Drive. It's a short read in plain English. You can access it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6rEgzXybfRZWk9sdkcyYTZ4NU0/view?usp=sharing

Marc

braineo said:

Just twisted my ankle yesterday and barely was able to drive home. Keeping my right foot in one position to drive hurt a lot. My only respite was to drive on the highway with cruise control and my hurt foot trying to find a position with the least pain. I'm all game for testing this gadget, more since my 2011 SL range is down to about 40 miles and my commute is 46-52 miles per day. Yes I do have to QC daily. At 43.76 AHr I'm dying to get my battery replaced under warranty (bought 11/2012).

Click to expand...

Completely off topic reply, but I noticed you are in Duluth. I am in Buford, and drive a 2015 Leaf S. I am almost 2 years and 20k miles into a 3 year lease, and trying to determine if I will buy it out at the end. A big factor for me is whether the 2015 battery is really much better than the 2011 and 2012 models. Do you use Leaf Spy, and do you happen to know or remember what your battery degredation was like after roughly 2 years? Since you and I are in the same climate your experience is quite interesting to me.

For reference, my last reading showed 280 Gids and SOH of 96% at full charge. So no noticeable degredation from my perspective, although some measurable. Of course that's great, but I wonder if the degredation may accelerate after year 3 or 4, and since you are 4 years into your Leaf experience I'm curious what you have seen. Has your degredation been somewhat linear or was it more (or less) early (or later)?

Any comments you can provide would be helpful. Thanks very much, and I hope your ankle feels better!

I'm at 66% SOC, use Leaf Spy and posted all battery degradation stats in the EV Club of the South FB page together with all Leaf owners in the Atlanta area. Waiting for my 4th bar to drop to claim my battery warranty any day now. Stop by any weekend morning for a coffee and a chat to answer your questions. PM me.

Hi Everyone,

All orders for the prerelease units shipped this morning via USPS Priority Mail. USPS generally commits to 2-3 day service, so there's a good chance you'll receive your unit on Saturday. The confirmation email you received includes a tracking number in case you want to check USPS' estimate for delivery.

What's inside the box:

• Smartpedal C1. This is a preproduction unit with software specifically tailored for this test.
  Installation Directions. Although it's pretty simple, there are nuances and pro tips I can share, having installed a lot of these. I'll put together a video and include a link on a later post this week.
  License Agreement. There's a lot of IP in this device that we want to protect, having spent the last five years of our careers on its development. The key points: don't open the device or attempt to reverse engineer it.
  Return Shipping Label. We pick up the cost of returning the unit as long as you save this label. Make sure to either keep the original USPS shipping box or (better) pick up a replacement at your local post office.

Other important information:

• Default Mode. Smartpedal C1 has five built-in driving modes. It ships with mode 3 as the default at boot. You can change the default at any time using the directions on the installation sheet.
  Mode 5 is special. Modes 1-4 are designed to be driven in Eco or D mode for your Leaf, whichever you normally use. However Mode 5 is special and designed specifically for D-mode driving. We are conducting tests to determine if unwanted pedal movement filtering combined with dynamic acceleration optimization may give better results than the built-in “Eco” mode, from performance and driveability points of view. Please use this setting only with your Leaf set to “Drive” (not “Eco”) mode. If you are adventurous, you can try this in “Eco” mode as well, but the driving experience will be significantly impacted.
  Two-Week Cycles. Please drive for two weeks in each of the five modes. Please track your mileage and kWh for each cycle. If you can send start/end pictures for each cycle, that would be great, but an email with a few notes will work too. We'd also like to hear about your experience driving, whether you noticed any changes in vehicle behavior, or whether your driving style changed, etc. Please take a moment to review the official questions on the last section of page 3 of this doc: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6rEgzXybfRZWk9sdkcyYTZ4NU0/view?usp=sharing

Want to know more about how Smartpedal works? The second page of the linked PDF above contains more details on how our system works and the characteristics of the different modes. It's a quick read.

We really appreciate your participation in this prerelease. Thank you for your help.

Marc
Pedal Logic

P.S. I amended the language describing Mode 5 is the post immediately above to make it more conservative.

Any hint on how to release the clasp that is holding the factory wire harness to the pedal? I tried for long time and couldn't get it off. If need, tomorrow I'll remove the pedal (but I wanted to try to avoid that).

jlv said:

Any hint on how to release the clasp that is holding the factory wire harness to the pedal? I tried for long time and couldn't get it off. If need, tomorrow I'll remove the pedal (but I wanted to try to avoid that).

Click to expand...

Hi jlv,

It's just thumb pressure at the top, but it's an awkward angle to apply that pressure. If it's really a challenge, apply pressure just with your pointer finger until the snap latch releases, then slide the connector up and off. This doesn't always work, but it's what I usually try next.

Marc

Hi Everyone,
As promised, videos to help with installation, calibration, and configuration:

Installation: https://youtu.be/lBBoWcpXoVI
Calibration/Configuration: https://youtu.be/jgrDuwNA11o

I'll welcome any suggestions you have for improving the next-gen of these videos.

Best,
Marc

LeftieBiker said:

Driving home on a moderately but not especially smooth road tonight, I used the instant graph display to watch power consumption, and the results may surprise us both, PedalLogic. It appears to me that the device may indeed remedy a problem with power consumption at steady speeds, but... I don't think it's the problem that PedalLogic identifies. I used both a very steady foot and the cruise control, and the constant small jumps and dips in power consumption were virtually the same with both. Since the cruise control doesn't use the accelerator pedal (I'm assuming that this is a fly by wire system!) I believe that the issue is actually that the varying pavement height slightly but significantly increases and decreases power demand, not accelerator pedal deflection. If this device smooths out the power supply response, then it may work as advertised - just not in the exact way advertised.

Click to expand...

there is a million different reasons for the constant power fluctuation you saw and you are correct in that none have to do with your foot.

what this device is basically "adjustable Eco" mode. Even if it works exactly as advertised you will still see a wide fluctuation of power. Road and traffic and weather and wind all will insure that.

LeftieBiker said:

Driving home on a moderately but not especially smooth road tonight, I used the instant graph display to watch power consumption, and the results may surprise us both, PedalLogic. It appears to me that the device may indeed remedy a problem with power consumption at steady speeds, but... I don't think it's the problem that PedalLogic identifies. I used both a very steady foot and the cruise control, and the constant small jumps and dips in power consumption were virtually the same with both. Since the cruise control doesn't use the accelerator pedal (I'm assuming that this is a fly by wire system!) I believe that the issue is actually that the varying pavement height slightly but significantly increases and decreases power demand, not accelerator pedal deflection. If this device smooths out the power supply response, then it may work as advertised - just not in the exact way advertised.

Click to expand...

Hi LeftieBiker,
You are seeing two related effects but your conclusion is incorrect. Here's what's going on:

Manual Control. When acceleration is controlled by the driver (i.e., foot on pedal), there's no question that fluctuations in power demand are caused by the imperfections in the roadway surface. This is easy to observe through data and through your own personal experience. Through data, we know that the driver's foot moves up/down about 1/10th of a second after the vehicle moves in the same axis. We can measure and time this biomechanical interaction by using an accelerometer at the pedal, tracking the data from that accelerometer, and graphing it against changes in the pedal signal caused by sympathetic movement of the driver's foot. And each time this unwanted motion happens, the ECU that controls the motor's output increases or decreases power momentarily.

But our technology isn't just a simple low-pass filter. That approach leads to an immediate and significant change in the driving experience by making changes to both the intended and unintended power requests. Instead, our system utilizes probabilistic analysis to determine whether a particular change was intended by the driver. If it wasn't, the system adjusts the signal to what it believes the driver did intend. By using the built-in driving modes, drivers can manage the threshold for--and extent of--these changes. It's not magic though: if the system is set overly aggressively, it will over correct and there will be a noticeable effect on the driving experience, but even then the the effect is usually smaller (and more enjoyable) than switching from D to Eco.

Cruise Control. When acceleration is controlled by cruise control, you will also see spikes and drops in immediate demand, and this is also caused by the roadway--but not by the driver's foot moving on the pedal. Instead, the ECU is attempting to maintain the vehicle in a steady state in terms of speed. Imperfections in the roadway impart or take away energy from that equation, so the ECU constantly adjusts the instantaneous demand to return to the target speed--and you see the results of that constant "trimming" in the display of instantaneous energy demand.

DaveinOlyWA said:

there is a million different reasons for the constant power fluctuation you saw and you are correct in that none have to do with your foot.

Click to expand...

If you were only referring to when Leftie was driving on cruise control, I totally agree. If you were referring to manual operation as well, I disagree. The only open question is how much power is wasted. One of the purposes of this test is to see if the real-world results of a diverse group of owners/drivers match the results generated in testing on closed courses with professional drivers. There will undoubtedly be differences and things for us to learn.

DaveinOlyWA said:

what this device is basically "adjustable Eco" mode. Even if it works exactly as advertised you will still see a wide fluctuation of power. Road and traffic and weather and wind all will insure that.

Click to expand...

Since we are a different approach to improving mileage than is built into your vehicle, I'm not sure that "adjustable Eco" mode fully captures what we do. In any case, our focus is reducing the fluctuations in power caused by the unintended changes of the pedal position. We do that task really, really well, resulting in an upward bump of kWh from whatever it would normally be in the climate and on the roadways that your Leaf travels.

Best,
Marc

PedalLogic said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

what this device is basically "adjustable Eco" mode. Even if it works exactly as advertised you will still see a wide fluctuation of power. Road and traffic and weather and wind all will insure that.

Click to expand...

Since we are a different approach to improving mileage than is built into your vehicle, I'm not sure that "adjustable Eco" mode fully captures what we do. In any case, our focus is reducing the fluctuations in power caused by the unintended changes of the pedal position. We do that task really, really well, resulting in an upward bump of kWh from whatever it would normally be in the climate and on the roadways that your Leaf travels.

Best,
Marc

Click to expand...

in general layman's terms, I think I am closer than you think. Eco mode's purpose was to do exactly what you are trying to do. But its a factory set "one size fits all" solution. Implementation or results aside, I have to stand by my statement inaccurate as it may be since it does not imply in any way that Eco mode uses the same ideology or mechanism your system does.