How Do You limit charging to 80%???

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Thanks so much LeftieBiker for your reply. Do you follow the 20%-80% suggestion recommended on this site? If so, at 2% per hour, on a level one charger, when the battery gets to 20%, it will take about 30 hours to charge. Did I get that right?

Or it seems that some on this listserv charge to 80% only when their battery reaches to just under 50%...

My apologies in advance if this question is repetitive (I did check previous posts before posting) :)
 
Expressed another way, using L1 charging you can expect to add about 1.3 kWh to the pack every hour. If you average 4 miles per kWh, then you're adding roughly 5 miles of range every hour.

L2 charging is about 5 times faster than L1, so you add roughly 25 miles of range per hour of charging.

Note though that there is a lot of variability with these estimates. However, you can fairly easily adjust by using your actual miles/kWh that the LEAF reports to you. Keep in mind that the efficiency calculation is an average over a sampling period, so if you want an accurate estimate then reset that metric every 3 months or so to account for the impact of ambient temperature and seasonal weather on range.
 
If you're using the Nissan supplied L1 charger for an S, that is 120V * 12A = 1.44kW, There is some loss due to overhead so 1.3kW into the battery sounds about right.

I have a 2017 S so the instrumentation may be a bit different, but if you can find a SOC % display on the dash, that is my preferred readout on the battery. Then just plug it in sometime for X hours and see how much the capacity increases.

For example, plug in at 20% SOC for 4 hours. If the SOC at that point is 25% SOC you can use 1.25% SOC/hour to calculate how long it will take to reach 80% charge.

With a S Plus, I'd figure if you are below 50% SOC you can safely plug it in overnight and not worry about it getting over 80%. L1 is a really slow charge rate for that size battery although that doesn't mean it is not useful. It all depends on your needs.
 
Conce said:
Thanks so much LeftieBiker for your reply. Do you follow the 20%-80% suggestion recommended on this site? If so, at 2% per hour, on a level one charger, when the battery gets to 20%, it will take about 30 hours to charge. Did I get that right?

Or it seems that some on this listserv charge to 80% only when their battery reaches to just under 50%...

My apologies in advance if this question is repetitive (I did check previous posts before posting) :)

Yes, we try to follow the 20-80% rule, although with the 62kwh Leaf it's usually more like 35-75%. 30 hours to charge from 20% is about right.

Expressed another way, using L1 charging you can expect to add about 1.3 kWh to the pack every hour. If you average 4 miles per kWh, then you're adding roughly 5 miles of range every hour.

We have never gotten 5 miles of range per hour, IIRC, in any of the four Leafs that we have charged at home. Our Winter efficiency is more like 3.0-3.5, not 4.0 m/kwh. I've seen 4 miles of range in Summer - maybe a little more. I seem to recall the amount added per hour on L-1 as being 1.2kwh, but I'm not certain - I just got up.
 
... I seem to recall the amount added per hour on L-1 as being 1.2kwh, but I'm not certain...

Yeah, I absolutely ballparked that to account for some losses. It's not important, nor is the efficiency. I just wanted to give Conce some simple math to use for calculating range added per hour...
 
I'm having trouble with this as well, do I really have to manually check the onboard guestimate calc bar and then manually reset the charging time for that night when I get home?

I've tried this and its been hit / miss but if it does charge to 100% and I drive it 2 hours later does it really hurt the battery that much?

I have been using the supplied level 2 charger that has a level 1 adapter plug. I used the level 1 adapter the first week till I wired up an 50amp plug in my garage using 8/3 wire and 50 amp breaker. Since then it will easily go from 20% to 100% overnight if I don't mess with the timer.

I'm thinking maybe I will get a 3rd party level 2 charger if I could find one with an easier setting or app to control it. For example the nissan app I can check level from in the house and tell it to start charging but why can't I just tell it to stop at 80% or manually tell it to stop from the app?

I'll keep reading but sounds like this doesn't exist and I have read mixed info on the new batteries and if it mattes as much as it used to, I have the 2022 SV Plus.
 
I've tried this and its been hit / miss but if it does charge to 100% and I drive it 2 hours later does it really hurt the battery that much?

No, it doesn't. If you were to let it sit for several hours or more at 100%, especially while the battery was hot, now THAT would hurt the battery. All evidence available now indicates that there is no harm to the battery that can be measured caused by what you are doing. Enjoy the car, and try for less than a 100% charge in hot weather.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I've tried this and its been hit / miss but if it does charge to 100% and I drive it 2 hours later does it really hurt the battery that much?

No, it doesn't. If you were to let it sit for several hours or more at 100%, especially while the battery was hot, now THAT would hurt the battery. All evidence available now indicates that there is no harm to the battery that can be measured caused by what you are doing. Enjoy the car, and try for less than a 100% charge in hot weather.

I pretty much agree with this, although perhaps to clarify:

Charge to 100% in the winter if you want to. Try not to let it sit at 100% for much over a couple of hours.
In the summer 80% SoC charge is a good target. If you go over, try to minimize the time at the high SoC.
 
I have been using the supplied level 2 charger that has a level 1 adapter plug. I used the level 1 adapter the first week till I wired up an 50amp plug in my garage using 8/3 wire and 50 amp breaker. Since then it will easily go from 20% to 100% overnight if I don't mess with the timer.

The built-in timer is super easy to set and just leave on- we charge at L2 for 5 hours a night which adds about 35% of battery charge. We charge if the car is below 40-50% and not otherwise unless we need lots of miles the next day. 40% of battery charge easily covers our needs most days and this way the car never exceeds 85% at the most.
 
Thanks for the clarifications, still don't understand why they don't have a stop charging at % charge option and you have to do the math and put in a start / stop time... It seems like a pretty useful option that a company making EV's for so long would have done by now.

I think my summer driving will likely be more efficient as I have not had a car with working ac for like 10 years and when I drive my wife's with working ac I never use it. I do however run the heat in the winter.

So does anyone have a 3rd party charger at home with this sort of functionality? I'm considering adding something like that and keeping the plug that came with it as a backup for travel but does seem to work pretty good as a primary charging system for at home.
 
Nissan got burned in 2013 by offering an 80% "Long Life" charging mode, to which the EPA responded by lowering the range estimate to an average of the two settings. So in 2014 Nisan dropped the 80% charge option, and has never reinstated it in North America. It's as if they are still angry and pouting about the 2013 slap in the face...
 
LeftieBiker said:
Nissan got burned in 2013 by offering an 80% "Long Life" charging mode, to which the EPA responded by lowering the range estimate to an average of the two settings. So in 2014 Nisan dropped the 80% charge option, and has never reinstated it in North America. It's as if they are still angry and pouting about the 2013 slap in the face...

Thanks, that makes sense. kind of like how Tesla got sued in some countries for over the air updating to charge to a set max and it then in theory reduced the range.

I might be searching more on here smart charger options to have more control over how it runs. Also long term I would like to get another EV that will likely be one of the electric trucks coming out in the next few years. That would likely allow level 2 at a higher rate and why I ran my plug with 50 amp breaker and the 8/3 wire. I do like it being an outlet as I can unplug the charger and plug in my plasma cutter when I want to use that.
 
You can get a Smart EVSE that will tell you over Bluetooth or WiFi how much charge it has added, and you can use Nissan Connect (when it's working) to see the current state of charge, but you can't do more than turn the EVSE off remotely when you like - there is not currently a way to either tell the car to stop charging, or to link the EVSE and the car, although people are working on doing that with Arduino-based devices, IIRC.
 
LeftieBiker said:
You can get a Smart EVSE that will tell you over Bluetooth or WiFi how much charge it has added, and you can use Nissan Connect (when it's working) to see the current state of charge, but you can't do more than turn the EVSE off remotely when you like - there is not currently a way to either tell the car to stop charging, or to link the EVSE and the car, although people are working on doing that with Arduino-based devices, IIRC.

The OCPP API can be used to monitor current and turn off the EVSE when the current falls below a set value. Obviously not as nice as 'stop when <this> SoC is reached' but it would stop charging before 100%, which is most of the basic requirement LEAF owners miss today.
 
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