Battery Milestone- 60k and 12 bars

[cwerdna]

Where would I look to see that quantified?
The variation in batteries in my and similar climates would need to be explained to accept that as the only explanation. It is clear that hot areas have had more capacity loss but am unaware of the data on the whole.

With these battery packs its all about the temperature they live in...which is why you should include location in your profile.
From subsequent posts, it seems as though you live in a "cool" climate...so that explains that.

Agreed with Stanton.

The problem is that there have been many different revisions of batteries besides climates. The ones in Leafs built 4/2013 thru model year '14 seem better than ones that came before. Leftie calls those "wolf pack". Lizard pack in model year '15 and presumably '16 S seems best. We don't really know for anything beyond that.

Nissan's been unwilling to release any degradation data.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.p ... 51#p537951 has some pointers to some examples of contrasts by climate. There have been '13s which were still at 12 bars at 90K miles in the mild Pacific NW in May 2017. This would be impossible in my area.

My 5/2013 built '13 lost its 1st bar in Nov 2017 at just shy of 50K miles. I still have 11 bars and am now past 60K miles. SOH is around 83.xx%. Yet a guy in Phoenix w/a '13 with the same build month as mine lost his FOURTH bar by Oct 2016. From http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.p ... 95#p473995:

I got my new 2013 SL (manufactured 5/2013 ) on 9/30/2013. Lost my first bar 5/2015, second bar 9/2015, third bar 5/2016 and forth bar 8/23/2016 (31,400 miles). First 21 months mostly charged L1/L2 to 80% (home and work). My drive was 55 miles round trip with about 75% highway. As capacity started to go away, I had to charge more often to 100%, however, I tried my best to keep it fully charged as little as possible (extreme Phoenix temperatures).

And, within the SF Bay Area (I'm in a hotter part of it), there's considerable difference in temps: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.p ... 24#p533224.

On 1 summer day, Pacifica hit a high of 55 F while Walnut Creek (38 miles away by car) hit 95 F. These huge contrasts aren't unusual in the summer in the Bay Area. But yeah, places that don't get hot like city of SF, Pacifica and Half Moon Bay would be great for Leaf battery longevity.

[Stanton]

With these battery packs its all about the temperature they live in...which is why you should include location in your profile.
From subsequent posts, it seems as though you live in a "cool" climate...so that explains that.

While my location can no debatably be described as "cold" many months of the year, we also get many(and recently are getting many more) "hot" days in the summer, in the 90s.

Some perspective...and anecdotal data.
Temps in the 90's are a "cool" day here in North Texas; it gets into the 80's at night...but my battery pack temps never register below 90 from about June thru September.
In another month, I'll hit 3 years on my (replacement) lizard battery pack...and still be down only 1 bar (my Ahr reading hasn't budged for months, which itself has been a bit surprising). The original battery pack was already down 2 bars at this point with falling Ahr readings. Over all, I'd have to say the lizard pack has definitely out-performed the original pack to this point.

[mtndrvr]

Now at 70k with 12 bars woohoo!

I agree that hot temps are hard on the battery but I am sure the Leaf drivers in our area will be perplexed to understand how their battery lost a bar at 30k .

[DougWantsALeaf]

While our 13 didn’t do so well, losing a bar after 5 years (almost to the day). We also started charing to 100% each time after the first year. The 14 leaf removed the 80% option, so figured it didn’t hurt at the time. My battery never read above about 257 Gids, but admittedly did the first check 6 months after getting the car. There was a thoughnout there for a while that if you didn’t go to 100% once in a while the battery would imprint or something.

Our car was pretty much in the middle of the curve in terms of rate to lose a bar.

[danrjones]

The fact nissan removed the 80% option sure makes it appear like charging fully was expected.

I have a timer set to charge two.hours every night from 2am to 4am. But I only plug in when I flip below 40% ish. This means I end up charging to 70 to 75% but it's not an exact science. It's a pain.

[DougWantsALeaf]

Beyond general battery knowledge and Tesla’s guidance away from 100%, I haven’t seen any hard studies with the Leaf showing that charging to 100% accelerates capacity loss. In fact when I went to charing to 100% regularly, for a short period, Gids went up. (That of course was short lived).

[johnlocke]

Beyond general battery knowledge and Tesla’s guidance away from 100%, I haven’t seen any hard studies with the Leaf showing that charging to 100% accelerates capacity loss. In fact when I went to charing to 100% regularly, for a short period, Gids went up. (That of course was short lived).

You can't actually charge the battery to 100%. 100% charge on the leaf cell is 4.22 V. Nisan intentionally limits the charge to 4,10-4.12 v per cell. Nissan engineers picked that value to improve longevity of the battery pack. Elon Musk has suggested that 4.00 v is the best compromise between longevity and energy storage. Tesla normally limits you to 80% charge unless you override it. Of course they have a big ass battery so you still have a good bit of range. By the way, that's why LeafSpy only reports 97% charge after you charge a leaf to full charge.

[goldbrick]

Specifying '100% SOC' is problematic at best and the value used is really just a number picked by the engineers who designed the car.

As someone mentioned before, 100% SOC could be defined as the point when the battery explodes or starts on fire.

As an analogy, when are the tires '100% full' ?? When they pop off the rims or explode or when they reach the 'max PSI' marked on the side of the tire?

I think everyone wants to equate batteries to gas tanks (which makes a lot of sense...) but unlike a gas tank there is no obvious limit when the battery is at '100%'.

[LeftieBiker]

I think everyone wants to equate batteries to gas tanks (which makes a lot of sense...) but unlike a gas tank there is no obvious limit when the battery is at '100%'.

You can think of a 100% charge as being equivalent to filling a car's gas tank to the very top of the filler pipe. Leave it that way in hot weather and you will eventually regret it.

[GaleHawkins]

I think everyone wants to equate batteries to gas tanks (which makes a lot of sense...) but unlike a gas tank there is no obvious limit when the battery is at '100%'.

You can think of a 100% charge as being equivalent to filling a car's gas tank to the very top of the filler pipe. Leave it that way in hot weather and you will eventually regret it.

That is a good way to drive the point home.