Nissan issues software update to solve 30 kwh battery issues

[jake14mw]

I'm skeptical.

https://insideevs.com/nissan-issues-sof ... ng-issues/

[garsh]

I can easily believe that there was a reporting issue. After Nissan's debacle with the original batteries, the sane thing for them to do would be to make sure that the battery in the next version of the car didn't have such big degredation problems.

Or at the very least, make sure it wasn't any worse.

So I'm glad that at least part of the problem was just software reporting bad values. I'm interested to see the actual degredation of these new batteries.

[jake14mw]

I agree with what you are saying, it makes sense that the new battery couldn't be THAT bad. The thing that surprises me though, is that it would take them this long to fix something like that. How long has it been since it was reported?

The interesting part will be to see how much of an effect the software fix has on range and degredation.

[OrientExpress]

I agree with what you are saying, it makes sense that the new battery couldn't be THAT bad. The thing that surprises me though, is that it would take them this long to fix something like that. How long has it been since it was reported?

The interesting part will be to see how much of an effect the software fix has on range and degredation.

Debugging, developing a solution, and testing take a long time for a conservative company like Nissan. The issue was first reported last fall, and while the fix was being finalized, Nissan honored the battery degradation warranty and replaced quite a few 30 kWh batteries that all turned out to be just fine. It appears that the majority of 16-17 LEAFs that were presenting the accelerated degradation actually didn't have any degradation at all. It was all just bad math.

[jake14mw]

Debugging, developing a solution, and testing take a long time for a conservative company like Nissan. The issue was first reported last fall, and while the fix was being finalized, Nissan honored the battery degradation warranty and replaced quite a few 30 kWh batteries that all turned out to be just fine. It appears that the majority of 16-17 LEAFs that were presenting the accelerated degradation actually didn't have any degradation at all. It was all just bad math.

Well with the Model 3 Braking issue, it took Tesla about a week to get a fix out to all of their customers. This problem is more serious than that braking issue.

[OrientExpress]

Well this issue is certainly more subtle than the braking issue. But I would disagree with your ranking. The Tesla braking performance was a life-threatening one, this issue was just false range degradation.

[jake14mw]

Well this issue is certainly more subtle than the braking issue. But I would disagree with your ranking. The Tesla braking performance was a life-threatening one, this issue was just false range degradation.

We'll have to disagree then. The Tesla issue was, on a SECOND panic stop (60-0) within a short amount of time, the length of the stop was 20 feet longer than normal. This almost never happens. Yet they had a fix within a week. With the Nissan Leaf issue, most drivers were seeing unacceptable drops in driving range. People were seeing an average 15% drop in range in their second year with the car. I think this would have an impact on potential buyers. It has had that impact on me. I love my 2014 Leaf, but I will not buy another until I see evidence that they have fixed the degredation problem.

[OrientExpress]

Jake, the old adage that "Your mileage may vary" applies here.

With my 2014, I drove it for almost 60K miles, and when I moved to a 2018, the 2014 still had all 12 bars and same range as new. The reality of the LEAF is that there is a vocal minority of owners complaining of degradation, but for the majority of vehicles on the road today it is not an issue.

In fact from late 2013 to today, the legacy degradation issues that did affect the early cars is pretty much non-existent. The 2016/17 cars that this thread is about, other than having bad SW that gave false reading of degradation, have had an excellent track record of stability.

One thing that I have noticed with stories from owners that have not had a similar experience as I have had, is that they tend to indemnify themselves from having any responsibility for the issues that caused their less than stellar experience with their LEAF. This disappoints me greatly.

I have found that in the majority of cases the way the car is operated and maintained by the driver has a much larger influence on the cars performance than the actual design of the hardware.

[bmw]

I too am skeptical.

If it were just a software reporting issue why would the distance traveled on a full charge decrease? Does the software prevent the battery from accepting a full charge? Or does the the software show low charge when the charge is not that low?

My year April 2017 leaf showed a SOH with Leafspy Pro of under 86% two months ago. After several months of charging the battery more often to 100% and taking longer drives SOH is now just under 93%. I wonder if that is a software problem or a real change.

That is still not good for a year old battery with just over 8K miles. What is interesting is that the distance I can drive on a full charge hasn't changed since I bought the car, but the miles/kWh has increased to an average to over 5 miles/kWh. I'm not sure if that is due to me being a more efficient driver or car break in? Or is the change due to software? By the way, the readings on my Leaf instrument panel and LeafSpy agree on miles/kWh.

In any case, I hope that the 30kWh battery is actually not so bad and the software will fix the problem.

[SageBrush]

This is an interesting puzzle: what meter to believe ?
I suggest known, at discharged level cell voltage as reported by LeafSpy, and then kWh consumed to bring battery capacity up to "100%"
L2 charging losses are variable but using 12% should get us to a result within a couple percent of actual.

Or we can just drive to VLBW and charge up from there to "100%"

Opinions ?