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

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johnlocke said:
Current trade-in value is around $7K according to several dealers
Ouch.
One lousy LEAF battery experience is quite enough for me. I cannot imagine volunteering for it again, let alone in a new car.

About the center screen -- I loved it from day #1 but I found it interesting to read on TMC that the most bitter complaints before delivery all vanished within a couple weeks.
 
johnlocke said:
Oct update. 326 GID's 71.24AH, SOH=89.63%, Hx=71.99%, 68500 total mi. 23571 mi on new battery. 18 DCFC and 450 l2 charges on the new battery. Okay, the good news is that the new battery is holding up better than the old one, the bad news is that it's not a whole lot better. I have 15 months use on the new battery and am down by 10%. The old battery was down 10% after just 10 months of use and was down by 14% at 15 months. The cumulative mileage on both batteries was similar so my usage habits haven't changed. As it stands now I expect to be able to get 70000-80000 miles out of this battery before it hits 8 bars. That puts the car over the warranty limit so no third battery for me. Current trade-in value is around $7K according to several dealers so there's no point in buying a new battery. I might be able to get $10K from a private sale but still not much better.

I've looked at a Tesla III and at a Nissan Leaf +. Top end Leaf SV+ is pretty similar to a Standard + III and the costs are similar. The Leaf gets a bigger Rebate but there's no TMS and DCFC problems. The Leaf fits like an old shoe and I feel very comfortable in it but the battery worries me. The III is all whizzbang and sleek. It's a different idea of what a car is or could be. I find that I'm not entirely comfortable with just a touch screen. I like it mechanically and I might be able to get used to the lack of physical controls. Problem is neither car wows me and makes me say "I got to have one". The VW ID 4 is still a year out and I don't know if I want to wait for it.

You'll also have the option of the model Y and the revised bolt, in addition to the ID4 next year. So waiting will give you more options.
 
Sorry for your poor Leaf experience. Good luck with VW. I, too, am looking forward to VW's EV offerings, tempered by a vivid memory of their questionable past reliability.

VW is legendary for dismissing serious flaws until provoked with massive lawsuits: (earlier) TDI camshaft premature wear, caused by poor lubrication mgmt, HighPressureFuelPump failures (2012>>>) which destroy the ENTIRE fuel system circuit ($5-6k repair), DieselEmissionsFluid system failures, now water pump failures...to name a few.

My experience wasn't horrible, partly, I believe, because I always get "up close and personal" with any dealership Service DIRECTOR at the time of purchase, and maintain a good relationship with them...oil changes, [discounted] tire purchases, all maintenance. Countless other VW owners have been left with massive repair bills on relatively new cars, just outside of warranty.


I'm a longtime VW/Audi devotee, who chose to finally bail from VW, because of the "clean diesel" disaster. They built an amazing engine, excellent MPG, solid core reliability, surrounded by a poorly executed electronic/fuel/emissions systems that are prone to failure.

(Ironically, my 2015 LeafS has been flawless in the 3 1/2 years of ownership [tires, cabin filter, wiper blades], from 6500 miles to almost 34k miles (we bought it used). I've not visited the Nissan dealership to even KNOW any of the service techs, or the service director.)

Every manufacturer has its issues. All cars have myriad sensors, which are prone to glitches. I often joke, "My car's sensors have sensors!"

Again, sorry for your experience, but be careful for what you wish. VW might not be your best choice! ;)

I was also a long-time VW fan, even ran a fan site in the '90s..... my last VW was a '99 New Beetle.... and after a few thousand dollars of repairs (after the extended warranty expired) I was done...... they are fun to drive but a PITA to maintain.....(at least then) I have hopes that a VW EV would be a lot less trouble, but I remember many non engine related things would also have issues..... :roll:
 
electromotive said:
The POS '17 LEAF that I am leasing lost the second capacity bar today.
At 28400 miles.
The first capacity bar dropped at 19400 miles.
I have as much available energy with my '12 with it's warranty replaced traction battery as I now have with this piece of crap '17.
I leased as a stop-gap for what I had hoped would be the arrival of the E NV200.
Well we all know that will never happen.
I am so looking forward to turning this crap car in at the end of the lease in April 2020.
I hope VW has the E-Van available sometime in 2020. They should really appreciate my business as I continue to tell folks not to buy a LEAF.
We are guinea pigs for Nissan.
Once again Nissan bites me on the backside like it did with my 2011.
Beware the LEAF.

Did you get the SW update for your 2017 that corrects the BMS reporting phantom degradation?
 
I got curious and started doing a little research and a little math. An automotive grade Li-Ion battery is supposed to have a lifetime of 1500 cycles. End of life is defined as 70% of original capacity. That 1500 cycles seems to be based on charging to 90% and discharging to 20%, Charging to 100% shortens the battery's life particularly if held there for long periods. Discharging below 20% will shorten the life to some extent as well. Shallower discharges (80%-40%) will increase the battery life somewhat at the expense of range. For now, I'll limit the discussion to 90%-20% discharge cycles.

If you use a Leaf as a base, 3.8mi/KWH and 30 KWH battery, Range starts at 114 mi maximum with a usable range of 80 mi after charging. At 30% degradation, the maximum range is 80 miles and the usable range is 56 miles. Assuming linear degradation, you could drive 102,000 miles. That's probably close to a best case scenario. In real life, you probably won't do that well.

In my case, the first battery failed after 874 cycles at 45,000 miles. That's about 52 miles to a charge. The second battery has about 24,000 miles and 450 cycles with 53 miles per charge. The new battery is down 10% at this point and I'll likely see 1300-1400 cycles and get about 70,000 miles out of it. A lot better than the original but not good. I've always needed more than half the reported capacity for my commute and always charged as soon as I got home in case I needed to make a second trip. A larger battery would have solved a lot of problems.

A 30 KWH battery isn't large enough to last the life of the car but if you double the battery size things start to look a lot better. I'd only need to charge ever other day and could do it overnight so the battery would not sit at full charge for more than a couple of hours. If Nissan ever includes a 90% charge option I could use that as well. Assuming a 90%-20% discharge cycle and 1500 cycles, you could drive 200,000 miles on the original battery. At 12,000 mi/yr for the average driver, that's almost 17 years. Considering that the average service life for a car is 12 years, the battery would likely last longer than the car.

It looks like a 50-60 KWH battery is large enough to last the life of almost any car. With proper temperature management and charge control to limit charging to 80-90%, batteries might last far longer. Tesla S models seem to be able to go 150,000 miles with 10% degradation on average. The key here is a larger battery and proper temperature management. Higher miles/cycle, fewer cycles annually, and less stress on the battery during discharge. If the discharge rate is 15KW per hour (60mph) then a 30 KWH battery is discharging at a ½ C rate while the 60 KWH battery discharges at ¼ C rate. The lower the discharge rate, the higher the total discharge value ( you can pull more energy out of a battery if you do it slowly) and the lower the stress on the battery. If the battery is built with multiple cells in parallel and more cells are added to increase the KWH then the current per cell drops and internal heating drops as well.

If we look at a Tesla Model 3 Long Range and use Tesla's current recommendations then we can use a 90%-10% discharge cycle and 1500 cycles as our reference. Maximum range is 325 mi, usable range is 80% or 260 miles. Range at 70% would be 228 miles and the usable range would be 182 miles. Assuming linear degradation over the life of the battery, you could drive 330,000 miles on that battery. At 12,000 mi/yr, that's 27 years of driving. While the Model 3 is too new to have much data on it's pack and that pack uses the newer 21700 battery, if we go by the Model S data then 450,000 miles on the battery is conceivable. That's 37 years of driving. Subtract 25% for the Model 3 Standard+.

I can't imagine driving a car for 20 years but I can imagine it going though 3-4 owners in 20 years. If electric cars prove to be as maintenance free as expected, then the auto market undergoes an upheaval as people hold onto their cars longer and used cars end up as much more reliable transportation.
 
johnlocke said:
Tesla S models seem to be able to go 150,000 miles with 10% degradation on average. The key here is a larger battery and proper temperature management.
...
if we go by the Model S data then 450,000 miles on the battery is conceivable. That's 37 years of driving. Subtract 25% for the Model 3 Standard+.
This presumes the packs even last that long. I suspect the odds of any Tesla making it to 450K miles on the original pack are low.

In this old survey (https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/two-thirds-of-early-model-s-drivetrains-may-fail-by-60-000miles.58763/page-2#post-1279598), the data at https://survey.pluginamerica.org/model-s/charts.php, 15.6% of '12 Model S drivers had their packs swapped at least once, for whatever reason.

Edmunds's Model S had to have a pack and drive unit replacement at shy of 19K miles: https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/2013-tesla-model-s-is-the-third-drive-unit-the-charm.html after https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/2013-tesla-model-s-stuck-on-the-freeway.html happened. Edmunds in the end had their drive unit replaced 3 times (1st for noise, 2nd one for failure and 3rd for noise again).

Many folks on TMC have gotten their Model S packs replaced for whatever reason.

This guy needed a new pack at 141K miles: https://insideevs.com/news/339193/3-ways-to-ruin-your-tesla-battery-plus-what-it-costs-to-replace-it/. From https://insideevs.com/news/340739/check-out-this-used-tesla-model-s-with-a-brand-new-battery/, apparently, Tesla was willing to replace it for free even though he was out of warranty (he had a 60 kWh S).

https://www.tesloop.com/blog/2018/7/16/tesloops-tesla-model-s-surpasses-400000-miles-643737-kilometers said "The Model S has had its high voltage battery replaced twice under warranty at 194,000 and 324,000 miles."

Here are a couple folks who needs replacement packs already in their 3 that I had in my bookmarks:
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-new-model-3-has-faulty-battery-needs-replacement.116109/
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-3-my-car-is-in-the-shop-on-day-2.113783/page-5#post-2783682
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-new-model-3-has-faulty-battery-needs-replacement.116109/page-4#post-3092827
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/car-shutting-down-pull-over-safely-on-the-freeway-3-days-after-delivery.124513/page-3#post-2937676
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/notification-that-battery-cannot-charge-to-100.149483/#post-3598386
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/notification-that-battery-cannot-charge-to-100.149483/page-2
 
johnlocke said:
I got curious and started doing a little research and a little math. An automotive grade Li-Ion battery is supposed to have a lifetime of 1500 cycles. End of life is defined as 70% of original capacity. That 1500 cycles seems to be based on charging to 90% and discharging to 20%,
.
So far as I know the testing is done under steady temperature conditions so it could well apply to a Tesla but most definitely does not apply to a LEAF.

Musk has said that Tesla expects a Model 3 battery to last 300 - 500k miles. As an aside, I hope my car lasts 20+ years and is the last car I buy. Since I use the battery exactly as you posit, I'm feeling reasonably confident.
 
cwerdna said:
johnlocke said:
Tesla S models seem to be able to go 150,000 miles with 10% degradation on average. The key here is a larger battery and proper temperature management.
...
if we go by the Model S data then 450,000 miles on the battery is conceivable. That's 37 years of driving. Subtract 25% for the Model 3 Standard+.
This presumes the packs even last that long. I suspect the odds of any Tesla making it to 450K miles on the original pack are low.

In this old survey (https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/two-thirds-of-early-model-s-drivetrains-may-fail-by-60-000miles.58763/page-2#post-1279598), the data at https://survey.pluginamerica.org/model-s/charts.php, 15.6% of '12 Model S drivers had their packs swapped at least once, for whatever reason.

Edmunds's Model S had to have a pack and drive unit replacement at shy of 19K miles: https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/2013-tesla-model-s-is-the-third-drive-unit-the-charm.html after https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/2013-tesla-model-s-stuck-on-the-freeway.html happened. Edmunds in the end had their drive unit replaced 3 times (1st for noise, 2nd one for failure and 3rd for noise again).

Many folks on TMC have gotten their Model S packs replaced for whatever reason.

This guy needed a new pack at 141K miles: https://insideevs.com/news/339193/3-ways-to-ruin-your-tesla-battery-plus-what-it-costs-to-replace-it/. From https://insideevs.com/news/340739/check-out-this-used-tesla-model-s-with-a-brand-new-battery/, apparently, Tesla was willing to replace it for free even though he was out of warranty (he had a 60 kWh S).

https://www.tesloop.com/blog/2018/7/16/tesloops-tesla-model-s-surpasses-400000-miles-643737-kilometers said "The Model S has had its high voltage battery replaced twice under warranty at 194,000 and 324,000 miles."

Here are a couple folks who needs replacement packs already in their 3 that I had in my bookmarks:
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-new-model-3-has-faulty-battery-needs-replacement.116109/
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-3-my-car-is-in-the-shop-on-day-2.113783/page-5#post-2783682
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-new-model-3-has-faulty-battery-needs-replacement.116109/page-4#post-3092827
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/car-shutting-down-pull-over-safely-on-the-freeway-3-days-after-delivery.124513/page-3#post-2937676
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/notification-that-battery-cannot-charge-to-100.149483/#post-3598386
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/notification-that-battery-cannot-charge-to-100.149483/page-2
Anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything. And in any case, those batteries were replaced under warranty weren't they? The degradation plots show how well the battery is doing or not. Plots for Tesla are much different than the Nissan plots. Are there some early failures? YES. Can you make 100,000 of anything without having a few bad parts? NO.

Tesloop cars are subject to daily DCFC and are driven constantly. They constitute just about the worst case scenario and they still got almost 200,000 miles out of a battery. I bet that that was their worst performing car as well.

I'm willing to concede that the early drivetrain was prone to failure if you are willing to admit it was redesigned to eliminate those failures.
 
SageBrush said:
johnlocke said:
I got curious and started doing a little research and a little math. An automotive grade Li-Ion battery is supposed to have a lifetime of 1500 cycles. End of life is defined as 70% of original capacity. That 1500 cycles seems to be based on charging to 90% and discharging to 20%,
.
So far as I know the testing is done under steady temperature conditions so it could well apply to a Tesla but most definitely does not apply to a LEAF.

Musk has said that Tesla expects a Model 3 battery to last 300 - 500k miles. As an aside, I hope my car lasts 20+ years and is the last car I buy. Since I use the battery exactly as you posit, I'm feeling reasonably confident.

The interior will wear out before the mechanicals. Start looking for a good auto upholstery shop, that will more important then a mechanic.
 
johnlocke said:
The interior will wear out before the mechanicals. Start looking for a good auto upholstery shop, that will more important then a mechanic.
If so that is on me.
However, we are not hard on car interiors since the children are grown up. And in fact the interior of our 18 year old Subaru and 18 year old Prius held up pretty well. Oh, and we use seat covers. I'm not concerned
 
Interesting posit, but you did not factor time into it. You likely could "easily" make your mileage goal if you drove more in a year. I get that there is a huge range of need, but in the day of ultra expensive city living, commuting from cheaper bedroom communities is more the norm than the exception these days.

That is much more so in my area than most. There is a $3-$5 an hour wage difference from Seattle to Thurston County. McDonalds starts at $15 an hour. Remember the big Amazon/Walmart $15 wage? Well, might have been cool in Tennessee, but there would be no one working here at that wage.

This means that 15,000 annually is a bit on the low side. We have LEAFers here completely blowing up the curve but only because they are driving a lot. They are beating the clock.

In reality, a bigger battery will last longer because it provides a bigger buffer. As far as Tesla goes; we can only guess at the size of the buffer in their packs.

So 20 to 90% is good but 30 to 70% is better.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
So 20 to 90% is good but 30 to 70% is better.
.
"Better" but far from linear
And very much pack temperature related

Personally, I don't give charging up to 90% SoC a second thought in the winter so long as I use the car within a few hours, but I do routinely charge to below 80% SoC in the summer.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Interesting posit, but you did not factor time into it. You likely could "easily" make your mileage goal if you drove more in a year. I get that there is a huge range of need, but in the day of ultra expensive city living, commuting from cheaper bedroom communities is more the norm than the exception these days.

That is much more so in my area than most. There is a $3-$5 an hour wage difference from Seattle to Thurston County. McDonalds starts at $15 an hour. Remember the big Amazon/Walmart $15 wage? Well, might have been cool in Tennessee, but there would be no one working here at that wage.

This means that 15,000 annually is a bit on the low side. We have LEAFers here completely blowing up the curve but only because they are driving a lot. They are beating the clock.

In reality, a bigger battery will last longer because it provides a bigger buffer. As far as Tesla goes; we can only guess at the size of the buffer in their packs.

So 20 to 90% is good but 30 to 70% is better.

There is an apparent problem at least in Teslas that causes the reported available range to decrease if they are charged to only 70%-80% regularly. Tesla now suggests the car be occasionally charged to 100% (once or twice a month) to keep the BMS calibrated. From what I've read, the critical thing is to keep the maximum cell voltage to 4.00 VDC per cell. For every 70 millivolts above that, you lose 10% of battery life. The actual values probably vary slightly depending on which exact chemistry you use. The latest research points to batteries with much longer life spans even with full charges and deep discharges so It may not matter much in the future how you charge.
 
johnlocke said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Interesting posit, but you did not factor time into it. You likely could "easily" make your mileage goal if you drove more in a year. I get that there is a huge range of need, but in the day of ultra expensive city living, commuting from cheaper bedroom communities is more the norm than the exception these days.

That is much more so in my area than most. There is a $3-$5 an hour wage difference from Seattle to Thurston County. McDonalds starts at $15 an hour. Remember the big Amazon/Walmart $15 wage? Well, might have been cool in Tennessee, but there would be no one working here at that wage.

This means that 15,000 annually is a bit on the low side. We have LEAFers here completely blowing up the curve but only because they are driving a lot. They are beating the clock.

In reality, a bigger battery will last longer because it provides a bigger buffer. As far as Tesla goes; we can only guess at the size of the buffer in their packs.

So 20 to 90% is good but 30 to 70% is better.

There is an apparent problem at least in Teslas that causes the reported available range to decrease if they are charged to only 70%-80% regularly. Tesla now suggests the car be occasionally charged to 100% (once or twice a month) to keep the BMS calibrated. From what I've read, the critical thing is to keep the maximum cell voltage to 4.00 VDC per cell. For every 70 millivolts above that, you lose 10% of battery life. The actual values probably vary slightly depending on which exact chemistry you use. The latest research points to batteries with much longer life spans even with full charges and deep discharges so It may not matter much in the future how you charge.

Let us not mistake software shortcomings with best case battery practices.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
johnlocke said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Interesting posit, but you did not factor time into it. You likely could "easily" make your mileage goal if you drove more in a year. I get that there is a huge range of need, but in the day of ultra expensive city living, commuting from cheaper bedroom communities is more the norm than the exception these days.

That is much more so in my area than most. There is a $3-$5 an hour wage difference from Seattle to Thurston County. McDonalds starts at $15 an hour. Remember the big Amazon/Walmart $15 wage? Well, might have been cool in Tennessee, but there would be no one working here at that wage.

This means that 15,000 annually is a bit on the low side. We have LEAFers here completely blowing up the curve but only because they are driving a lot. They are beating the clock.

In reality, a bigger battery will last longer because it provides a bigger buffer. As far as Tesla goes; we can only guess at the size of the buffer in their packs.

So 20 to 90% is good but 30 to 70% is better.

There is an apparent problem at least in Teslas that causes the reported available range to decrease if they are charged to only 70%-80% regularly. Tesla now suggests the car be occasionally charged to 100% (once or twice a month) to keep the BMS calibrated. From what I've read, the critical thing is to keep the maximum cell voltage to 4.00 VDC per cell. For every 70 millivolts above that, you lose 10% of battery life. The actual values probably vary slightly depending on which exact chemistry you use. The latest research points to batteries with much longer life spans even with full charges and deep discharges so It may not matter much in the future how you charge.

Let us not mistake software shortcomings with best case battery practices.
If the indicated available range drops that's a problem. Doesn't really mater if it's hardware of software if you can't tell the difference. Those of us who have third party software and hardware for monitoring might be able to tell which it is or maybe not (the last BMS update was for software issues that caused even LeafSpy to report lower values) In the end what charging practice you use is likely what you are most comfortable with. Most Leaf owners charge to 100% occasionally to keep the battery balanced. If it keeps the software in line with the actual range, that's good.

Bigger batteries last longer because they are bigger, not because the buffers have increased in size. If you charge the bigger battery half as often as you'ld charge a small battery, it makes sense that the bigger battery lasts twice as long as a small one. And that's before you take into account the facts that the larger battery spends less time at full charge and likely operates at a lower temperature.

The problem with shallow charge/discharge cycles is that although the battery lasts through more cycles, the total energy delivered is lower than with a battery with a larger charge/discharge swing and fewer cycles. I don't know what the ideal range would be but I would guess that somewhere in the 60%-70% range is about right and less than 50% is probably going to hurt more than help.
 
mn4az said:
mn4az said:
mn4az said:
Rather than having folks deal with the crappy formatting I'm keeping my numbers at the below URL. As of now it seems that I am degrading at a faster clip than before the software upgrade. :-( However, that could mean lots of things. By this time next year things could be much different (hopefully) or not (kinda expecting it).

https://1drv.ms/x/s!AmMHBcyzLWAx7IAfhTHs_dPgwtVW6w

No matter what, it's serving it's 9+ year commuter car purpose for us: 3 years of us driving it before the kids drive it 6+ years around town for high school and extracurricular activities.

URL has been updated. Minnesota driver. Dec '15 manufacturing date.

Date: 10/4/2018
SOH: 89.3%
Mileage: 37231

The 100% charge after software upgrade was....

Date: 6/23/2018
SOH: 93.44%
Mileage: 32830

I'm losing ~0.9% SOH every 1k miles. On track for battery warranty replacement at around 84K miles (about 3 years from now at current driving habits). If that happens, I'd be totally cool with a new battery about 5.5 years into the ownership of the car to get me another 5-ish years.

Full blown winter now in MN. SOH improved from 10/4/2018 readings. :eek:

Date 12/29/2018
AHr 71.63
SOH 90.12%
V 395.04
Hx 73.18%
ODO 41034
QC 11
L1/L2 2139
SOC 97.80%
GIDS 327
kWh 25.3

Welp... if finally happened.... Lost my first bar....

Date 10/24/2019
AHr 67,11
SOH 84.43
V 395.01
Hx 62.19%
ODO 50731
QC 13
L1/L2 2588
SOC 97.50%
GIDS 307
kWh 23.8
 
I have been leasing the 2017 Nissan Leaf S. Just recently I lost the 4th bar. Off to the dealership I went to get a new battery. They said that the car was missing some software updates (recalls). After the update of the software i am back to 11 bars (only 1 lost). Is this what other's have experienced?
 
apara said:
I have been leasing the 2017 Nissan Leaf S. Just recently I lost the 4th bar. Off to the dealership I went to get a new battery. They said that the car was missing some software updates (recalls). After the update of the software i am back to 11 bars (only 1 lost). Is this what other's have experienced?


Yes. Read the 30kwh section of my used Leaf buying guide for the long answer:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=26662&p=538030
 
Nice summary. So, it does not sound like the BMS on my car was reset as there is 1 bar missing. So, I will probably wait for a few weeks before making any conclusions and in the meantime try to gauge the mileage changes, if any.
 
If the BMS was reset a couple of months ago the bars would return one at a time, but I assume you didn't have the update that long ago. It's less common for the "update" to restore it to 11 bars - this indicates that you have had real, substantial capacity loss. Hopefully you either have 11 'real' bars or the others will drop again fast. Has your driving range improved?
 
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