My 2018 Leaf is not what I expected

120 kph is real world driving on the 401 in Canada. The truckers all drive between 105-110 and it's safe to say that less than 5% of the rest of the vehicles in the highway drive slower than the trucks.
Please.......any Canadians here, please chime in! LOL

As a matter of fact, it's a well known understanding that most Canadians that travel the 401 can safely set their cruise control to 122 kph and stay under the radar.

sthbeach said:

SageBrush said:

sthbeach said:

Also, I believe my Leaf suffers from Rapidgate and needs a software update because last week was the long weekend and I did a trip to cottage country. I planned my route so I would have to quick charge each way for about 20-30 minutes......anyway the 50kw DC quick charger I hit on the way up and back charged at less than 20 kw/h both times and it took me forever!

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What does kw/h mean ?

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Sorry, I meant it didn't was intaking 20 kilowatts max.

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Ah, understood.

The first DC charge on a trip can be throttled due to a *cold* battery. Bjorn Nyland has coined this "cold-gate."
It is actually a common and well described phenomenon. So far as I know only Tesla has taken steps to mitigate this by pre-warming the battery when the car is told it is heading to a SuperCharger.

In a LEAF you get throttled on both sides: The first DC charge of the day the battery is too cold to take 200 Amps, but by the end of the session the battery is too hot to take 200 Amps at subsequent charging stops during the day. You might be able to game the first charge by watching LeafSpy and restarting the charge when the battery temp is ~ 30C or so. Bjorn has also showed in his youtube videos that a LEAF battery will not cool down when driven at 120 kph speeds, but it will at ~ 100 kph and below. So if the ambient is not too high (perhaps under 30C) you can try driving you usual 120 kph the first part of the trip and then slowing down to 100 kph for the 30 minutes before your next charge. I don't remember exactly, but the battery has to be below ~ 42C to not be heat throttled.

Do these games sound a bit silly to you ? Welcome to the LEAF life and no thermal control. And keep in mind that you might be able to game the battery to charge faster but the battery reaches 50+C during these long drives with DC fast charging. Degradation is going to be pronounced.

css28 said:

It's an alternate convention for kWh. I see it a lot on UK discussion forums. I agree it is confusing, if you interpret the slash as a division symbol.

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That's even more incorrect. The poster meant he was charging at a rate of 20kW. 20 kWh is not a rate.

jlv said:

css28 said:

It's an alternate convention for kWh. I see it a lot on UK discussion forums. I agree it is confusing, if you interpret the slash as a division symbol.

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That's even more incorrect. The poster meant he was charging at a rate of 20kW. 20 kWh is not a rate.

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Right you are.

I'm tempted to start a campaign for using Megajoules in place of kWh for energy units going forward. 1 kWh = 3.6 MJ. Easy peasey.

Watt hours are kind of contrived--multiplying an energy rate by time to get an energy unit through the back door. Look at all the pain it causes on mynissanleaf.com alone!

Getting back to the original topic... Sounds like those in Canada push their cars to the limits with the long distances they need to travel and the cold weather..

I agree that the OP's complaints are not the function of the car being a problem. The electric car is not an equivalent to the gasoline car. Gas cars are much more powerful than in the past, and we think nothing of pushing the speed to 70, 80, and more.

The EV, however is subject to the limits of wind resistance, which is a geometric function, with the car needing increasingly more energy to move the car every mile per hour more than a certain amount.

The OP should try to accept that he DOES NOT HAVE TO TRAVEL At 75 MILES PER HOUR with an EV. Let the traffic respect your wish to travel the speed that you want..... You will get much better results at 55-60 MPH, and running the heat at a constant, modest amount. The Leaf will not yield to your will, you must yield to the laws of physics. As I understand it, wind resistance increases with the X (squared), where X is speed.... So compared to a 50 mph car, at 60 MPH, the resistance is 150%, at 70, the resistance is 196%, and at 80 it is 256% of that needed at 50 MPH..

powersurge said:

Getting back to the original topic... Sounds like those in Canada push their cars to the limits with the long distances they need to travel and the cold weather..
...

The OP should try to accept that he DOES NOT HAVE TO TRAVEL At 75 MILES PER HOUR with an EV. Let the traffic respect your wish to travel the speed that you want..... You will get much better results at 55-60 MPH, and running the heat at a constant, modest amount. The Leaf will not yield to your will, you must yield to the laws of physics. As I understand it, wind resistance increases with the X (squared), where X is speed.... So compared to a 50 mph car, at 60 MPH, the resistance is 150%, at 70, the resistance is 196%, and at 80 it is 256% of that needed at 50 MPH..

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On the other hand, he *is* talking about the 401...

powersurge said:

As I understand it, wind resistance increases with the X (squared), where X is speed.... So compared to a 50 mph car, at 60 MPH, the resistance is 150%, at 70, the resistance is 196%, and at 80 it is 256% of that needed at 50 MPH..

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That is true for air drag, but it is not true for the energy consumption increase per distance in a car as the speed increases.

Time for a review of High School Physics, Mr. "scientist."

powersurge said:

Getting back to the original topic... Sounds like those in Canada push their cars to the limits with the long distances they need to travel and the cold weather..

I agree that the OP's complaints are not the function of the car being a problem. The electric car is not an equivalent to the gasoline car. Gas cars are much more powerful than in the past, and we think nothing of pushing the speed to 70, 80, and more.

The EV, however is subject to the limits of wind resistance, which is a geometric function, with the car needing increasingly more energy to move the car every mile per hour more than a certain amount.

The OP should try to accept that he DOES NOT HAVE TO TRAVEL At 75 MILES PER HOUR with an EV. Let the traffic respect your wish to travel the speed that you want..... You will get much better results at 55-60 MPH, and running the heat at a constant, modest amount. The Leaf will not yield to your will, you must yield to the laws of physics. As I understand it, wind resistance increases with the X (squared), where X is speed.... So compared to a 50 mph car, at 60 MPH, the resistance is 150%, at 70, the resistance is 196%, and at 80 it is 256% of that needed at 50 MPH..

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As the OP of this thread, my main point I was trying to get across is that as much as the EV homers want the good ole gas folks to understand the technology and the infrastructure and so on, facts are facts and the technology is quite there yet for most people on an affordable level. I think I read it on another thread in here that pretty much sums up all the scientific talk and mumbo jumbo about range and stats and the guy said, the best way to buy an EV is take your daily commute and double it and choose the EV based on that. So the bottom line is that if my average daily commute is 160kms I should buy an EV with a range of at least 320 kms (200 miles). And that's the truth! Then there is no range anxiety, no discussion of stats, no multiple charging in one day and most importantly the longevity of vehicle because then I could always run it between 20-80% and the batteries would last forever!

Yes, of course I could slow down and drive under the highway speed limit as powesurge suggests or just suck it up and multiple charge in one day........BUT I DON'T WANT TO COMPROMISE! Especially when I have to shell out that kind of money. I would need to move up to a Chevy Bolt or a Tesla Model 3 and then every day I go out to my driveway I will think of the money I spent on the car in front of me and know that I could be looking at a convertible BMW 3 series.

Right now EV's are a great choice for anyone with under a 50 mile commute as you can pick up just about any used EV for cheap to do the trick.
Right now EV's are a good choice for anyone with under 80 mile commute with little to no compromise and a fair amount of choice out there.
Right now EV's are a bad choice for anyone with over a 100 mile commute as there is limited selection and they are still very pricey.
By 2021 there is supposed to be 100 full EV cars available from all the carmakers, hopefully that will be the big tipping point in technology and cost.

I agree with a lot that you say.

sthbeach said:

Right now EV's are a bad choice for anyone with over a 100 mile commute as there is limited selection and they are still very pricey.
By 2021 there is supposed to be 100 full EV cars available from all the carmakers, hopefully that will be the big tipping point in technology and cost.

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The money story works out when you figure in the savings in fuel. Electricity can be cheap and dirty, rarely cheap and clean, and in some places clean but expensive. Depending where you live the answer is usually home solar (PV.)

EV + PV = the best choice today, hands down

Sthbeach,

I'm going to sound like Sage, but the leaf probably isnt right for you.

Nobody should drive a vehicle and feel uncomfortable doing it.

I have no idea what incentives or rebates you got, and whether you can sell it and get into something else.

Solar and a different ev may or may not fit into your finances. Saving the environment is great, but YOU actually have to pay, not anyone here. Good luck!

By the way, I posted stats today for my 2018 in the battery thread. Our numbers are almost the same! My SOH is at 94.68 as of this am. And I have a lot less miles (1600) than you. I live in an oven.

Yes, this is true, I believe I made a bad decision. I think my best bet is to give my wife my car since she does about 30kms less a day and she drives nicer than me. And then sell her 2017 Leaf SV. It only has 37,000kms and is in absolute mint condition and she is getting almost bang on what that car is capable of so maybe I won't take too bad of a hit on it.

That's even a smarter idea. Happy wife too.

It's just so disappointing.....Any car company should make it a point to educate new EV buyers on real world conditions, highway and city driving and hot/cold weather because it really is the single most important thing to any EV buyer! It's not like a gas car where people go read the sticker and it says 27/32mpg city/highway, buy it and then 6 months later realize that they are realistically getting 22/26.
Nobody is up in arms about it and selling their car because of it. As a matter of fact, most accept it pretty reasonably.
It's more of a situation like a guy goes and buys a $50k sportscar that states a 0-60 in 5 secs and yet after 100 tries he's doing 0-60 in no better than 6 secs......now that's a kick in the nuts! He bought it based on facts that its speed will be able to beat most stock cars on the road and yet he just got punked by an 18 year old driving a brand new Honda Civic SIR that mommy and daddy bought!
This is how I feel about my supposed 242 km range Leaf on my 160km commute! FML!!!

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=27677

DougWantsALeaf said:

In my 2019, I have driven for many miles after hitting 1% on the dash and still not hit VLB? VLB is still miles from turtle.

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FYI the dash NEVER shows LB or VLB, that indication is only shown on the center screen overlaid on the default navigation screen when you boot up the car.

And most annoyingly it only warns you upon a restart. Case in point I started a trip across town last week around 10-11% & had no warning; arrived with around 4% & had no warning... Then when I got back into the car and VLB was displayed on the center screen & that was it!!! Along with the nav voice asking me if I wanted to look for chargers which I declined.

Then I went home & got to 2% turned off the car & made dinner. Went back back out to see what would be displayed as a warning & got the same msg/warning at 4% & continued driving low speed near the house until the dash display went to 0% aka "---%" at which point LeafSpy showed 9.3% remaining...

Then I drove another 1/2 mile home & charged to avoid any further battery damage from such low SOC.

^^^
Out of curiosity, how many gids were you at in each of these states? I could care less about the % SoC Leaf Spy says.

It sounds like the behavior may have changed between gen 1 and 2. Gen 1 w/nav would most definitely give warnings on the dash and on the nav system (w/voice) at the same time when you hit LBW then VLBW. Those w/no nav (S trim) would only hear a beep and never voice. Also, on gen 1, IIRC, the GOM goes from flashing some value to --- miles at VLBW.

On 24 kWh Leafs, LBW sounds at about 49 gids and VLBW at 24 gids. The values are different for higher capacity Leafs.

I also have gone from 6% on the dash display to ---%. I never considered that as 0%. To me, it was it's somewhere below 6% but "all bets are off, so I'm not going to show you anything".

The video at https://www.edmunds.com/nissan/leaf/2011/long-term-road-test/2011-nissan-leaf-driving-it-to-the-bitter-end.html at 1:15 has them hitting LBW. This is before Leaf had a % SoC display. That didn't arrive until model year '15.

Quick update.
Just got home from work.
I decided to do the day with Pro Pilot Cruise enabled the whole drive.
I set it to 115kph (71.5mph)
Total trip: 153 kms (95 miles)
At times I was behind trucks and too lazy to switch lanes so I was travelling at 105 kph for probably about 10 minutes each way.

GOM:
17.1 kwh/100km = 5.85 kms per kw (3.6 miles)
17% battery remaining
38 kms remaining (23.6 miles)

LeafSpy:
GIDS = 24.8%
SOC = 25.8%
9.6 kw remaining


Average outside temperature today was 60-68 degrees.

SOH : 94.16
Ahr : 108.70
HX : 108.30

sthbeach said:

GOM:
17.1 kwh/100km = 5.85 kms per kw (3.6 miles)
17% battery remaining
38 kms remaining (23.6 miles)

LeafSpy:
GIDS = 24.8%
SOC = 25.8%
9.6 kw remaining

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Did you mean kWh in the bolded parts?

I wouldn't bother with whatever kWh Leaf Spy says you have. See https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=562501#p562501 as to why.

The GOM value (38 km remaining or whatever) is pointless, unless your future driving is exactly like that of your recent driving before you powered down.