What am I doing wrong? 2013 Leaf 28k 10 bars

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Lothsahn said:
cwerdna said:
With my current '13 Leaf SV, I'd definitely say that the the heater is inferior to that of all ICEVs I've ever owned

Interesting. My 2011 warms up in 3 minutes (far faster than any ICE), and has very adequate heat. I'm comfortable 4 minutes after starting the car.


Especially interesting since you have the liquid-based heater and he has the faster, direct to air unit. Does it get really cold where you live?
 
LeftieBiker said:
Lothsahn said:
cwerdna said:
With my current '13 Leaf SV, I'd definitely say that the the heater is inferior to that of all ICEVs I've ever owned

Interesting. My 2011 warms up in 3 minutes (far faster than any ICE), and has very adequate heat. I'm comfortable 4 minutes after starting the car.


Especially interesting since you have the liquid-based heater and he has the faster, direct to air unit. Does it get really cold where you live?

It's Missouri, so nothing like Canada or anything, but it's usually 32-40F in the winter. Sometimes it can get as cold as 10F.
 
Imagine a heater that uses half the power and heats up twice as fast, and you have the '13+ SV and SL heater (until 2018, when the heatpump was made optional).
 
I wonder if cwerdna has a blown PTC heater unit in his. It's a common failure and if you have the heatpump, you may not notice. A number of people have reported that issue.

Here's someone just today on Reddit who posted about how their Leaf heats up fast:
https://www.reddit.com/r/leaf/comments/dyrqan/i_love_my_leaf/?st=k36jac8s&sh=f218c772

LeftieBiker said:
Imagine a heater that uses half the power and heats up twice as fast, and you have the '13+ SV and SL heater (until 2018, when the heatpump was made optional).

I always use the heater disable switch ( http://raglanelectricbikes.co.nz/store/#!/Nissan-Leaf-G1-Range-Extender-Heater-Control-Switch/p/86463715/category=0 ) in "low" mode. I still think the car still heats up fast. I can't imagine how a 2013+ would be...
 
This thread needs to be moved to its own topic. Anyway, I had the chance to test the 'Alozzy scenario' this evening. It's a cold (mid thirties F), rainy night with very high humidity, so I ran heat and A/C at the same time, while watching the energy monitor for all systems (which, BTW, is accessible only from the infotainment screen menu, for some reason).

<drum roll>...

They screwed up the climate control display, and it does indeed show a big drop in energy usage when the A/C and Heat are on together. This can't be possible for the reasons I listed above, so some Nissan firmware programmer goofed. I suspect that when both modes are engaged, the energy monitor stops 'seeing' the drain for the PTC. It was showing less than 500 watts total draw for climate control, and that likely isn't possible for resistance heat alone, much less for resistance heat and A/C.
 
Interesting, thanks for checking that out LeftieBiker. Frustrating, when the energy usage stats can't be relied upon as a basis for trying to maximize range.

Are you certain it's impossible that, when the set point is higher than the ambient temperature, that doesn't in turn trigger the reversing valve on the heat pump and thereby change it from cool mode to heat mode?

I've always assumed that's the way the system worked because it seems like a simple and elegant design.
 
The whole reason for having separate Heat and A/C buttons is to make the system obey you, unlike the 2011-2012 Leafs, where you got to choose "On" or "Off" and a set temp, and the HVAC made the rest of the decisions, at least about heating.

I found another piece of evidence of the glitch in energy reporting this evening: when the heat is already on and I turn on the A/C for defogging, there is no change at all in the range estimate. It would normally drop by about 2 miles when the A/C is switched on. The car just doesn't seem to realize when both are in use at once.
 
If your heater can't hit 6kw on the energy monitor screen, you have a blown PTC. You'll notice this when your heater doesn't melt the vents a few moments after turning it on like in my 2013 SV :mrgreen: . Mine failed under warranty back in 2016 and replaced. First sign of failure, heater only hits 1.5kw power usage because it's all heat pump. Second sign if partial failure, energy usage max at 3kw, then your PTC is partially blown. Without warranty, it's expensive to fix.
 
After reading this topic, I don't think you are doing anything wrong. For nearly 7 years I charge mine to 100% daily, QC hundreds of times, L2 thousands of times, drive until battery hits maximum temperature bars and goes turtle mode until it cools down and drive it like I stole it. 60k miles later, still at 10 bars and still my daily commute car, towing car (trailer hitch), etc. By all accounts battery should be dead. Just drive it like a car, I never baby mine and been happy all these years.


Spacedogb said:
Hello everyone,
I have been lerking around the forum for several months and I purchased a 2013 Leaf from CarMax in May. The car was purchased and lived its life in Northern VA until I purchased it. I got it with 22,000 miles. It had 11 bars upon purchase. I have never quick charged and I always plug when i get home. I charge on 110v and usually activate charge when i get home and only charge to 80%. I have a 8 mile drive to work and usually top back off to 80% while at work on the 110v charger. I used to use the charge timer but i was unable to get enough range in the time allotted. I recently started using the app to activate climate control. Last night it was freezing temps and this morning i got up and lost a capacity bar and I'm down to 10 bars at 28,241miles. Ive been searching and I can't find a definitive answer as to if I'm doing something wrong. Thanks in advance for any response and yes I've searched the forums lol
 
You bought the car with 22,000 miles on it and you don't know how the previous owners drove the car. More than likely they drove it hard and prematurely damaged the cells in the battery pack. We had the same experience with a 2011 leaf that we bought. It was still a great car, but because of being driven hard the cells were damaged and we paid the price for it.
It is important to understand the nature of lithium batteries. Yes, Nissan uses an exotic chemistry, but all in all it is pretty good. The major fault that Nissan has is NO COOLING SYSTEM!!! In fact the battery pack in a leaf is sealed completely! No air can get in to cool the cells and there is no liquid cooling to pull heat from the cells. They cool by convection only! If you are going to drive a leaf you need to keep that in mind or you will continue to damage the cells. Keep an eye on that battery temp. gauge especially in hot weather and be careful how you charge especially with the fast dc chargers. They do raise the temp in the cells that is just the way it works current going through the battery creates heat. I sold my wife's 2011 after she had driven it for a little over a year. She put 18,000 miles on it in about 16 months. It had 9 bars when we bought it, but almost at once it lost down to 8. I taught her how to drive the car and how to charge it and she lost no more bars of battery while we owned it.
Lithium's by their nature do not like to be fully charged. They especially do not like to be charged to 100% and then left there to slowly discharge. On our 2012 we can choose to set the charge timer so that it only charges to 80% and that is what we do for over 90% of our charging. Only if we are going out of town and need the extra range do we turn off the charge timer and charge to 100%. Also keep in mind that lithium's do not like to be discharged below 20%. This will also damage them. Unfortunately the software in the 24kw leaf only reserves the bottom 2kw of the battery pack, this is not enough to prevent damage. If you are going into those two bottom bars of the "fuel" gauge often you are slowly damaging the cells by over discharging them. I have taught my wife to consider those bottom bars as an emergency supply of "fuel" only. Only a couple of times over the last 48,000+ miles has she dipped into those.
When we do go out of town we have to use freeways and 4 lane highways. We have learned to go a little slower and WATCH THE ENERGY SCREEN!!!! If you learn to read that screen it can give you a wealth of information. If you strive to keep your discharge rate down to about 1c (which is the amp rating of the cells) you will not do any damage. For instance if you are pulling 10kw on the screen you are actually drawing about 25 amps (power in watts divided by voltage) which is well under 1c. The lizard pack in my wife's car has 60 amp cells in it. Earlier 24 kw packs had a lower energy density but still over the 25 amp rating. Keep that in mind as you drive. Yes, the car can burn up to 60 or 70 kw, but to do so for any length of time will damage the battery pack badly!
 
Spacedogb said:
...
I have never quick charged and I always plug when i get home. I charge on 110v and usually activate charge when i get home and only charge to 80%. I have a 8 mile drive to work and usually top back off to 80% while at work on the 110v charger.

i have seen lithium cell datasheets which have a chart showing the fade or decay in cell capacity as a function of the number of cycles, i.e. charge cycles. Tests are typically made using full charge and discharge cycles, but my reading of this data is that every time you plug in to charge counts as a cycle.

My guess is that you are taking life out of your pack by charging for no real reason. There is no need to always maintain 80% SOC and especially not twice a day. You are adding 2 cycles a day where you could probably get by with one or two in a week.

i've never seen a datasheet for laef cells but would think this test was done for them also. It would be interesting to see the graph.
 
Tests are typically made using full charge and discharge cycles, but my reading of this data is that every time you plug in to charge counts as a cycle.


My reading of it - and I believe that this is the majority opinion - is that partial charges are partial cycles, and charging cycles that stay in the 'sweet zone' of 25-60% count for just a small fraction of a cycle. Charging to 100% and then running it down to 10% - that is a full test cycle equivalent. That is how some Leaf taxis and other Leafs have done so many "cycles" while losing so little capacity.
 
Can you please get your units right? Please see https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=520169#p520169.
evas2012leaf said:
Unfortunately the software in the 24kw leaf only reserves the bottom 2kw of the battery pack, this is not enough to prevent damage.
Energy and battery capacity are measured in kWh, not "kw",

evas2012leaf said:
The lizard pack in my wife's car has 60 amp cells in it. Earlier 24 kw packs had a lower energy density but still over the 25 amp rating.
What are 60 amp cells? Again, battery capacity is measured in kWh. You mean 24 kWh here.
 
reviewing scientific journals for research findings and conclusions, e.g. washington.edu
Passive SEI layer growth is a major contributor to capacity fade in Li-ion batteries used for EV and PHEV applications. The majority of SEI layer growth will occur during charging. While fast charging creates undesired stress and temperature affects among other degra- dation problems, it will limit the amount of direct SEI layer growth in comparison to slow rates. Additionally, CC-CV charging will increase the amount of charge stored within a battery for a single cycle, but over the entire cycle life of the battery will decrease the total amount of usable energy from the battery for drive cycle cases.

During daily cycling most EVs do not experience a 100% DOD of their batteries. Cycling at smaller DOD from 100% SOC will in- crease the amount of SEI growth per mile driven compared to 100% DOD cycling. However, cycling at small DOD at lower starting SOC (eg. starting at 50% SOC and cycling to 0% SOC for a 50% DOD) will decrease the amount of SEI layer growth when compared to 100% DOD mainly due to the lower battery potential during cy- cling. While cycling at lower SOC may be beneficial for reducing SEI growth, it is not advisable for actual EV and PHEV use be- cause it causes underutilization of the battery capacity over each cycle.
 
According to Jeff Dahn, a cycle is a cycle. Partial cycles add up to full cycles. Three 33% to 66% cycles add up to one cycle. The leaf battery is never charged to ultimate capacity (4.3 vdc per cell) anyway. Charging is stopped at 4.11 vdc per cell intentionally. A standard full discharge cycle is 4.3 vdc to 3.0 vdc. In the Leaf the discharge cycle is limited to 4.11 vdc to 3.2 vdc by design. Below 3.3 vdc, there is little power left in the battery and the discharge voltage curve falls off rapidly. Most people never come close to full discharge anyway.

A standard li-ion battery might be expected to last 300-400 cycles at a full discharge cycle. Turns out that for every 70 mv you lower the upper limit, battery life doubles. At 4.11 vdc as the upper limit, you could expect about 1500 cycles before the battery degrades too far to be useful. Leafs actually get that in cool climates. Nissan didn't account for degradation at higher temps though. The lack of a TMS in the leaf battery pack was a cost cutting measure that causes Leafs to significantly degrade in hot weather.

Lowering the upper limit to 4.0 vdc does improve battery longevity somewhat but the effect of lowering the upper limit still further is marginal.
The reason that lowering the upper voltage works to improve battery life is that the anode swells significantly as the battery approaches full capacity which causes mechanical stress.
 
johnlocke said:
According to Jeff Dahn, a cycle is a cycle. Partial cycles add up to full cycles. Three 33% to 66% cycles add up to one cycle. The leaf battery is never charged to ultimate capacity (4.3 vdc per cell) anyway. Charging is stopped at 4.11 vdc per cell intentionally. A standard full discharge cycle is 4.3 vdc to 3.0 vdc. In the Leaf the discharge cycle is limited to 4.11 vdc to 3.2 vdc by design. Below 3.3 vdc, there is little power left in the battery and the discharge voltage curve falls off rapidly. Most people never come close to full discharge anyway.

A standard li-ion battery might be expected to last 300-400 cycles at a full discharge cycle. Turns out that for every 70 mv you lower the upper limit, battery life doubles. At 4.11 vdc as the upper limit, you could expect about 1500 cycles before the battery degrades too far to be useful. Leafs actually get that in cool climates. Nissan didn't account for degradation at higher temps though. The lack of a TMS in the leaf battery pack was a cost cutting measure that causes Leafs to significantly degrade in hot weather.

Lowering the upper limit to 4.0 vdc does improve battery longevity somewhat but the effect of lowering the upper limit still further is marginal.
The reason that lowering the upper voltage works to improve battery life is that the anode swells significantly as the battery approaches full capacity which causes mechanical stress.


The above is different from "Tests are typically made using full charge and discharge cycles, but my reading of this data is that every time you plug in to charge counts as a cycle." I don't agree that you just add fractions of cycles, regardless of their 'depth', but I'll admit that it may be right. I don't see anyone agreeing with you that any charge, no matter how short or shallow, counts as a cycle.
 
LeftieBiker said:
johnlocke said:
According to Jeff Dahn, a cycle is a cycle. Partial cycles add up to full cycles. Three 33% to 66% cycles add up to one cycle. The leaf battery is never charged to ultimate capacity (4.3 vdc per cell) anyway. Charging is stopped at 4.11 vdc per cell intentionally. A standard full discharge cycle is 4.3 vdc to 3.0 vdc. In the Leaf the discharge cycle is limited to 4.11 vdc to 3.2 vdc by design. Below 3.3 vdc, there is little power left in the battery and the discharge voltage curve falls off rapidly. Most people never come close to full discharge anyway.

A standard li-ion battery might be expected to last 300-400 cycles at a full discharge cycle. Turns out that for every 70 mv you lower the upper limit, battery life doubles. At 4.11 vdc as the upper limit, you could expect about 1500 cycles before the battery degrades too far to be useful. Leafs actually get that in cool climates. Nissan didn't account for degradation at higher temps though. The lack of a TMS in the leaf battery pack was a cost cutting measure that causes Leafs to significantly degrade in hot weather.

Lowering the upper limit to 4.0 vdc does improve battery longevity somewhat but the effect of lowering the upper limit still further is marginal.
The reason that lowering the upper voltage works to improve battery life is that the anode swells significantly as the battery approaches full capacity which causes mechanical stress.


The above is different from "Tests are typically made using full charge and discharge cycles, but my reading of this data is that every time you plug in to charge counts as a cycle." I don't agree that you just add fractions of cycles, regardless of their 'depth', but I'll admit that it may be right. I don't see anyone agreeing with you that any charge, no matter how short or shallow, counts as a cycle.
I never suggested that any charge/discharge no matter how shallow counts as a cycle. It counts as a fractional cycle. My point is that shallow cycles still add up and that limiting the depth of discharge may not be as useful as some claim and that limiting the max charge to less than 80% may not improve battery life.

In any case, this may be moot if Dahn's research is accurate. Minor changes in the anode composition and electrolyte could result batteries that could last through 3000-4000 cycles with less than 10% degradation. Batteries could outlast the useful life of the cars they are installed in.
 
You apparently didn't mean what you wrote the way you wrote "but my reading of this data is that every time you plug in to charge counts as a cycle." My feeling is that only substantial charging counts, but this is more gut feeling than based on hard evidence. This opinion is shared by many others in the electric bicycle community, and is based on often long ownership of smaller lithium packs.
 
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