2016-2017 model year 30 kWh bar losers and capacity losses

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eatsleafsandshoots said:
dhanson865 said:
soldcake said:
i cannot help wondering why Nissan does not have "battery cooler" package for hot weather regions. They have "battery heater" package for cold weather regions. :D
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Physics. You can add power to create heat with no practical cost in space or weight. You can't create cold.

Let me repeat, You can't create cold. Full stop.

All you can do is move heat around. And moving heat around takes space and weight of new components that are cumbersome.
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And yet, somehow my Chevy Volt figures this out.
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The Volt trades having less EV range and more cost for not cooking the battery. It's a better engineering attitude, it just isn't free.
 
dhanson865 said:
eatsleafsandshoots said:
dhanson865 said:
Physics. You can add power to create heat with no practical cost in space or weight. You can't create cold.

Let me repeat, You can't create cold. Full stop.

All you can do is move heat around. And moving heat around takes space and weight of new components that are cumbersome.
Click to expand...

And yet, somehow my Chevy Volt figures this out.
Click to expand...


The Volt trades having less EV range and more cost for not cooking the battery. It's a better engineering attitude, it just isn't free.
Click to expand...

My Volt and Leaf had similar MSRPs, Nissan is just choosing to give Leafs away now because everyone knows they basically can't last longer than 7-8 years if you live more than walking distance away from work. I'd be pissed if I bought my Leaf near regular price, not so much for getting a hail damaged new one for under five grand.
 
eatsleafsandshoots said:
My Volt and Leaf had similar MSRPs, Nissan is just choosing to give Leafs away now because everyone knows they basically can't last longer than 7-8 years if you live more than walking distance away from work. I'd be pissed if I bought my Leaf near regular price, not so much for getting a hail damaged new one for under five grand.
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Congratulations on getting a damaged Leaf for $5000. I would certainly take that deal today, but unfortunately, it wasn't available back in 2011. When the Volt/Leaf first came out, the Leaf MSRP was less than the Volt, plus there were some early small discounts on the Leaf while the Volt was often over MSRP. I think the difference was about $5000-$8000. Furthermore, in eastern WA, the Volt wasn't available until a year later. Many decades ago, I made the decision to support the first big-name manufacturer of a fully electric vehicle. At the time I just didn't realize that I would need to wait 20+ years. :roll: So, you are welcome. Without us early adopters, your great deal might never have happened because the Leaf/Volt could have gone the way of the EV1 and the Dodo bird. Oh, and by the way, six years, I'm still on the original battery, and it still meets ALL of my in-town driving needs. Yes, it's degraded (105F today so we do get plenty of heat), but 80% still means plenty of range, which is still much farther than I can walk. ;)
 
You're an early adopter of the same generation Leaf that I've leased once and owned once. OK bud, thanks for enabling me to have my car :lol:

I'm sorry but it's pretty shameful that the battery in the Leaf is so problematic. Again, an EV that costs $30k at MSRP should be able to be meaningfully useful for 10+ years... not under 5 as many have reported.
 
baustin said:
SOH is the State of Health of the battery, and is not directly tied to the State of Charge. If the car was made in February and sold in December, it likely sat on a dealers lot at 100% charge for 10 months. Even in a cooler climate, that is still hard on the battery.
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It is just mind-boggling that Nissan cannot train their dealer network not to do this after all these years. How freaking hard is it to understand "turn on the 80% long-life settling and leave it on" so you don't ruin the customer's car?

I realize the dealer has little incentive to care (barring decreased sales of future Leafs when the problem gets around by word-of-mouth), but Nissan has a huge incentive not to be known for crappy battery life! Why don't they have someone in the corporate office who calls the dealers repeatedly and explains this and then reminds them regularly? This would seem like a pretty cheap fix (or, rather, workaround) for at least part of their battery life problem.
 
BuckMkII said:
baustin said:
SOH is the State of Health of the battery, and is not directly tied to the State of Charge. If the car was made in February and sold in December, it likely sat on a dealers lot at 100% charge for 10 months. Even in a cooler climate, that is still hard on the battery.
Click to expand...
It is just mind-boggling that Nissan cannot train their dealer network not to do this after all these years. How freaking hard is it to understand "turn on the 80% long-life settling and leave it on" so you don't ruin the customer's car?

I realize the dealer has little incentive to care (barring decreased sales of future Leafs when the problem gets around by word-of-mouth), but Nissan has a huge incentive not to be know for crappy battery life! Why don't they have someone in the corporate office who calls the dealers repeatedly and explains this and then reminds them regularly?
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Remember, Nissan dropped the long life setting in... '13, I think. Due to changes in EPA rules on how range was calculated.
 
Ugghhh. I had forgotten that. Does make the situation a little trickier, but still a dealer training problem: Don't charge fully, and if you do, go out and drive the car fast for 10 miles before you park it.
 
Today I am at 63.6 Ah 79% SOH and 77.79 hx. No lost bars yet!

I am below John Locke on Ah and SOH so it must be that HX has more influence on the bars.

I have been dropping about 1% every 8 or 9 days so it should not be long now.
 
Below was posted at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=499004#p499004 on July 7, 2017:
oleviking said:
2016 SV 7293 miles lost first bar, seems early to me based on other posts. 11/15 manufacture, 10/16 lease start for me, so do not know what the dealership did to the vehicle here in Orlando, FL between those two dates. Fortunately a leased car, so there is an end in sight.
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I'm assuming this post at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=499675#p499675 on July 16, 2017 from another thread is for the same vehicle.
oleviking said:
Just lost my second bar as well, but at about 7,500 miles. 77% SOH
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Ouch!

Would be interesting to know if his battery is defective and/or has bad cells.
 
cwerdna said:
Below was posted at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=499004#p499004 on July 7, 2017:
oleviking said:
2016 SV 7293 miles lost first bar, seems early to me based on other posts. 11/15 manufacture, 10/16 lease start for me, so do not know what the dealership did to the vehicle here in Orlando, FL between those two dates. Fortunately a leased car, so there is an end in sight.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming this post at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=499675#p499675 on July 16, 2017 from another thread is for the same vehicle.
oleviking said:
Just lost my second bar as well, but at about 7,500 miles. 77% SOH
Click to expand...
Ouch!

Would be interesting to know if his battery is defective and/or has bad cells.
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2 bars lost in a few hundred miles?

This is an interesting case for sure.
 
Just throwing some data out that I noticed today.

After 11k miles of 100% SOH, I lost 2% last night. I did keep my battery below 25% SOC these past few days and it seems to have affected the SOH reading. There have been a few days before where I left the car parked with an 87% SOC for the day and the SOH never went down. But after being under 22% last night (I park at 6pm, and the car doesn't start charging until 5am due to the charge timer) and I've dropped 2%.

Will charge to full in the next few days to see if the SOH recovers.
 
I should like to point out that in January / February just after I took delivery of my '16 back in December (Happy Birthday to me!), my SOH% dropped to as low as 91% over a couple of months, I thought the whole thing was headed south, built a spreadsheet, got upset, etc.

I was only commuting 2 - 4 miles to work to the train station, and driving a bit on the weekends to Home Depot and such, still languishing in the 91 - 95% range.

Then my wife got a new job where I work in Bellevue and we've mixed up our commute to where sometimes I drive her and I all the way to Bellevue from Tacoma a couple times a month. About a 78 mile round trip on the freeway, in the HOV.

Lo and behold, my SOH% has returned to 100% and has stayed there for over a month consistently.

I don't know (okay I doubt) that the battery had just improved miraculously, it's likely just fat fingered instrumentation, but it's interesting from LeafSpy's point of view, the battery LIKES to be driven long distances where it starts at 100% full charge, get's driven at freeway speeds down to sub 20% and charged again on a timer the night before we take off again finishing at 100% within 20 minutes of departure.

Go figure, my spreadsheet has taken a u-turn and with less than 2k on the odometer things don't look so black.
 
Lost first bar briefly this morning. Stats are 61.83Ah 77% SOH 75.97 hx 9186 mi 283 GID 71.3 mi to LBW @ 3.9 m/kWh.

Been expecting it to go for a while, surprised it got this low before it dropped the first bar.
 
jbuntz said:
Lost first bar briefly this morning. Stats are 61.83Ah 77% SOH 75.97 hx 9186 mi 283 GID 71.3 mi to LBW @ 3.9 m/kWh.

Been expecting it to go for a while, surprised it got this low before it dropped the first bar.
Click to expand...
Ugh. Sorry for your loss. Did you buy new?
 
jhm614 said:
jbuntz said:
Lost first bar briefly this morning. Stats are 61.83Ah 77% SOH 75.97 hx 9186 mi 283 GID 71.3 mi to LBW @ 3.9 m/kWh.

Been expecting it to go for a while, surprised it got this low before it dropped the first bar.
Click to expand...
Ugh. Sorry for your loss. Did you buy new?
Click to expand...

New Dec 2016
 
Scaramanga said:
I should like to point out that in January / February just after I took delivery of my '16 back in December (Happy Birthday to me!), my SOH% dropped to as low as 91% over a couple of months, I thought the whole thing was headed south, built a spreadsheet, got upset, etc.

I was only commuting 2 - 4 miles to work to the train station, and driving a bit on the weekends to Home Depot and such, still languishing in the 91 - 95% range.

Then my wife got a new job where I work in Bellevue and we've mixed up our commute to where sometimes I drive her and I all the way to Bellevue from Tacoma a couple times a month. About a 78 mile round trip on the freeway, in the HOV.

Lo and behold, my SOH% has returned to 100% and has stayed there for over a month consistently.

I don't know (okay I doubt) that the battery had just improved miraculously, it's likely just fat fingered instrumentation, but it's interesting from LeafSpy's point of view, the battery LIKES to be driven long distances where it starts at 100% full charge, get's driven at freeway speeds down to sub 20% and charged again on a timer the night before we take off again finishing at 100% within 20 minutes of departure.

Go figure, my spreadsheet has taken a u-turn and with less than 2k on the odometer things don't look so black.
Click to expand...


As you well know, this is quite normal. The real question is do the higher numbers mean higher range? I have not found any evidence to the contrary as of yet. So wondering how those 200,000 mile Tesla's did it? Its because they were driven!

So why did the numbers improve? Well, part of the reason is your cells are better matched to each other. Cells balance ALL the time but if not full, there is nothing stopping top cells from continuing to take a charge and the balancing charge is very weak. But as cells approach the max voltage cut off, they stop taking a charge allowing lower cells to catch up much more effectively.

So short drives means shorter charging time and in most cases, less time for lower cells to balance with the higher cells. Longer drives means longer charging time, longer balancing time.

There is undoubtedly other forces at work here, but the results are very repeatable which I have reported on several times in my blog. Right now, I am at 100% after 19,000 miles and UNDOUBTEDLY because I am averaging 80+ miles per day
 
jbuntz said:
jhm614 said:
jbuntz said:
Lost first bar briefly this morning. Stats are 61.83Ah 77% SOH 75.97 hx 9186 mi 283 GID 71.3 mi to LBW @ 3.9 m/kWh.

Been expecting it to go for a while, surprised it got this low before it dropped the first bar.
Click to expand...
Ugh. Sorry for your loss. Did you buy new?
Click to expand...

New Dec 2016
Click to expand...

A year on the lot... not surprised. We need to add build date to profile. Its a too reoccurring issue sadly
 
Scaramanga said:
I should like to point out that in January / February just after I took delivery of my '16 back in December (Happy Birthday to me!), my SOH% dropped to as low as 91% over a couple of months, I thought the whole thing was headed south, built a spreadsheet, got upset, etc.

I was only commuting 2 - 4 miles to work to the train station, and driving a bit on the weekends to Home Depot and such, still languishing in the 91 - 95% range.

Then my wife got a new job where I work in Bellevue and we've mixed up our commute to where sometimes I drive her and I all the way to Bellevue from Tacoma a couple times a month. About a 78 mile round trip on the freeway, in the HOV.

Lo and behold, my SOH% has returned to 100% and has stayed there for over a month consistently.

I don't know (okay I doubt) that the battery had just improved miraculously, it's likely just fat fingered instrumentation, but it's interesting from LeafSpy's point of view, the battery LIKES to be driven long distances where it starts at 100% full charge, get's driven at freeway speeds down to sub 20% and charged again on a timer the night before we take off again finishing at 100% within 20 minutes of departure.

Go figure, my spreadsheet has taken a u-turn and with less than 2k on the odometer things don't look so black.
Click to expand...
Very interesting -- thanks.
I've also noticed a 10% drop in estimated capacity, SOH and history during the six months we have owned and babied the car, and mostly used it for 3 mile drives ... yet the range has stayed about the same. I'm inclined to think that measuring artefacts are in play here too, so I'm trying to not extrapolate a poor future.
 
SageBrush said:
Scaramanga said:
I should like to point out that in January / February just after I took delivery of my '16 back in December (Happy Birthday to me!), my SOH% dropped to as low as 91% over a couple of months, I thought the whole thing was headed south, built a spreadsheet, got upset, etc.

I was only commuting 2 - 4 miles to work to the train station, and driving a bit on the weekends to Home Depot and such, still languishing in the 91 - 95% range.

Then my wife got a new job where I work in Bellevue and we've mixed up our commute to where sometimes I drive her and I all the way to Bellevue from Tacoma a couple times a month. About a 78 mile round trip on the freeway, in the HOV.

Lo and behold, my SOH% has returned to 100% and has stayed there for over a month consistently.

I don't know (okay I doubt) that the battery had just improved miraculously, it's likely just fat fingered instrumentation, but it's interesting from LeafSpy's point of view, the battery LIKES to be driven long distances where it starts at 100% full charge, get's driven at freeway speeds down to sub 20% and charged again on a timer the night before we take off again finishing at 100% within 20 minutes of departure.

Go figure, my spreadsheet has taken a u-turn and with less than 2k on the odometer things don't look so black.
Click to expand...
Very interesting -- thanks.
I've also noticed a 10% drop in estimated capacity, SOH and history during the six months we have owned and babied the car, and mostly used it for 3 mile drives ... yet the range has stayed about the same. I'm inclined to think that measuring artefacts are in play here too, so I'm trying to not extrapolate a poor future.
Click to expand...

It does lend some credence to "stretching the LEAF legs" every once in a while where you take a drive, run it down to 20% then do a full overnight charge.

Not sure if its wise but taking another route might be looking at increasing the balancing current but there is likely a risk from increased heat and loss that might not be in our best interests.
 

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