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

Well, I dropped my 4th bar today. 2016 30kwh built in May or June of 2016. Now with 61,494 miles. SOH had been hovering around 66.25% for a couple weeks. Sometime below, then sometimes back over. In fact, just this AM, it was at 66.71% before work and later 66.41% after work. I had not expected the fourth bar to drop today. Or any day in next few days honestly, but there she went.

Vehicle was always garaged at home and in covered basement parking at work, so did not get some of the temp extremes that some Leaf drivers report. I believe however, that it sat fully charged in the sun from May of 2016 till September, when I bought it. About 70 QC showing on Leafspy. I drive quite a lot of miles at 70-72 mph. And Kansas City can be quite hot in the Summer. Often would see all temp bars except the top two "danger" bars lit up after a QC in Summer.

I'll call my dealer in AM and inquire about their procedure. I cannot be without the car for weeks and weeks. If they ask to keep the car, and not give me a loaner, I will be rather miffed.....

cdherman said:

Well, I dropped my 4th bar today. 2016 30kwh built in May or June of 2016. Now with 61,494 miles. SOH had been hovering around 66.25% for a couple weeks. Sometime below, then sometimes back over. In fact, just this AM, it was at 66.71% before work and later 66.41% after work. I had not expected the fourth bar to drop today. Or any day in next few days honestly, but there she went.

Vehicle was always garaged at home and in covered basement parking at work, so did not get some of the temp extremes that some Leaf drivers report. I believe however, that it sat fully charged in the sun from May of 2016 till September, when I bought it. About 70 QC showing on Leafspy. I drive quite a lot of miles at 70-72 mph. And Kansas City can be quite hot in the Summer. Often would see all temp bars except the top two "danger" bars lit up after a QC in Summer.

I'll call my dealer in AM and inquire about their procedure. I cannot be without the car for weeks and weeks. If they ask to keep the car, and not give me a loaner, I will be rather miffed.....

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Any warranty work should include a loaner car (might be ICE unfortunately) so certainly make sure Nissan is going to pick up the tab on that one. It will be a long path, but you are on your way to a 40 kWh battery that will (so far as we can tell here), last a lot longer and you'll easily increase your range as well, all for the price of waiting.

FYI...
I lost my 4th bar on a 2016 SV at almost exactly 39,000 miles, with a SOH of 65.66%, which is higher than a few estimates of when we'll lost the 4th bar, and lower than many other predictions!

I was expecting to drop that 4th bar somewhere around a 2/3rds of new (or 66.66%), and I was one full percentage below that. This link states 66.25%:
https://insideevs.com/news/326563/battery-capacity-loss-warranty-chart-for-2016-30-kwh-nissan-leaf/

Allegedly, they are replacing it under warranty with a 40 kWh, but supply chain issues have had me holding for 3 weeks or so now...

Will report when completed.

cdherman said:

I'll call my dealer in AM and inquire about their procedure. I cannot be without the car for weeks and weeks. If they ask to keep the car, and not give me a loaner, I will be rather miffed.....

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My 2017 leaf lost her fourth bar a little while ago. The process was painless: the dealer confirmed that everything was correctly displayed, and they ordered the replacement. Took a few weeks, but I had the full use of my car until it arrived. Once it arrived, they put in the new battery and off I went. That took the better part of a full day.

The guess-o-meter showed 196 miles I think on the very first charge. It has since re-learned my driving habits and shows a more typical range for a 40kW battery.

As I documented in other threads, my local dealer was/is a little bit harder to deal with. But, I am hopeful a 40kwh battery pack is coming. Corporate Nissan seems still reasonable. Local dealers seem more variable...

Just curious. On these 2016-2017 30kwh batteries, is the degradation linear, i.e., dies equally over time/miles, or like us humans, once past a certain age, everything degrades quickly?

Well, generally Li batteries degrade most at the beginning of their life and then kind of "plataeu" later. That is why the first capacity bar for a Leaf represents 15% of capacity. (I think, IIRC) So that people don't panic too quickly as the first bars drop. Later bars are 6.25%

But sadly, *some* just don't seem to flatten out. They keep dropping. Temperature plays a role. But also, as a battery pack gets "smaller" through degradation, it also get used more intensively. So if you are using 20kwh each day, thats 66% of a new 30 kwh battery. But its nearing 100% of battery that is a 22kwh capacity. The cells are getting completely discharged and fully recharged every day. Lithium is less damaged by that process, BUT it creates more heat. Heat kills.

That's what I know. I'm hoping the 40 kwh replacement that I hopefully get will give me enough range and years till the rest of the vehicle becomes obsolete.

Skippy said:

Just curious. On these 2016-2017 30kwh batteries, is the degradation linear, i.e., dies equally over time/miles, or like us humans, once past a certain age, everything degrades quickly?

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I don't think there's enough consistency with the packs to really say. There's the folks just above dropping their 4th bars on those model years after following all the best practices and batteries like mine where I'm still sitting at 10 bars (2 lost) without doing much special. For comparison to the above - my 2016 was manufactured 02/16 and presumably sat on the lot collecting dust with a high SoC until i bought it in 04/17. Mine was originally garage kept and charged via TurboCord until 2019 with no QC until 2021. In 2019 i moved and it's been carport kept and I had been doing L2 at the local parking garage until the Eaton unit was more hassle than it was worth and now I'm usually doing L1 there and more QC so I don't have to plug in at my buddy's house unless it's winter. I've had plenty of low battery charge warnings from pushing it to get places and a couple legit turtle modes and as of last year what i call "phantom" turtle modes in cold weather where the car drives normal except for the turtle mode warning (likely indicating cells/modules going bad).

All that being said - it seems like from what I know from reading some of the posts on this thread it's a toss up whether any 30kwh battery is more or less a dud like above despite precautions or like mine where it doesn't seem like it matters exactly what I do and it is generally following Larson's warranty curve for degrading. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/insideevs.com/news/326563/battery-capacity-loss-warranty-chart-for-2016-30-kwh-nissan-leaf/amp/).

Mine seems to generally be tracking this chart on a strictly mileage basis but honestly I didn't start paying much attention until I noticed the 2nd bar drop sometime last year. My dealer is actually pretty good and at the 2020 check up they said it was one of the best 30kwh batteries they had seen, 2021 they were chasing why it started having phantom turtle mode and inexplicably quit doing L1 charging at my buddy's house in winter (outlets are ungrounded but for some reason it charged fine before and quit except for one outlet around the same time the Eaton station started popping faults.) They didn't find anything then but on the other hand i made the mistake of having tow truck driver plug it in there to see if it would L2 charge and it probably got enough charge in there to cover up any weak cells - especially with warmer weather that week. More to follow on mine once I get the battery check up from Nissan in April.

RRLeafEV said:

FYI...
I lost my 4th bar on a 2016 SV at almost exactly 39,000 miles, with a SOH of 65.66%, which is higher than a few estimates of when we'll lost the 4th bar, and lower than many other predictions!

I was expecting to drop that 4th bar somewhere around a 2/3rds of new (or 66.66%), and I was one full percentage below that. This link states 66.25%:
https://insideevs.com/news/326563/battery-capacity-loss-warranty-chart-for-2016-30-kwh-nissan-leaf/

Allegedly, they are replacing it under warranty with a 40 kWh, but supply chain issues have had me holding for 3 weeks or so now...

Will report when completed.

Click to expand...

FYI
I lost my 4th bar on a 2016 SV at
71,062 miles
2020-09-16
SOH = 65.86
AHr = 52.35

I reported it in this thread around that time.

2017 lost it's 3rd bar the end of last summer currently around %70 SOH, it's got 75,000.
My goal is to drop the 4th the end of this summer, the extra range would be nice especially in the cold.

Dang, I feel like I'm missing out. The last time I checked my 2017 S it was at 92.5% SOH. It now has 30k miles and it seems to be one of the better 30kWh packs out there.

While I'd love to get a new 40kWh pack for free I really don't need it and I sure do love the car as-is.

If I could find something I liked better I'd sell it and upgrade - I could still sell the Leaf for a profit on it at this point - but what's the use?

I am a total noobie here, and I don't know how to get all the measurements you all give, but I'm happy to give any information if you tell me how.

I have lost the fourth bar on my 2016 Leaf with 30kW battery, and I'm so grateful to have found you all -- I never would have known that Nissan was replacing these batteries under warranty otherwise. It seems like there is no information out there about this.

I went into my dealer 2 weeks ago, when they said they had to inspect it. After 90 minutes, they said yes, it's eligible for replacement. It would be a few days for them to get the new battery. Then they called and said a few weeks. Now they're saying maybe a few months. What??? I can't use this car to commute without the replacement battery. Anybody else having this problem? Is it a general supply chain issue? Or are they just being difficult? Is there anyone I can contact at Nissan?

cdherman said:

As I documented in other threads, my local dealer was/is a little bit harder to deal with. But, I am hopeful a 40kwh battery pack is coming. Corporate Nissan seems still reasonable. Local dealers seem more variable...

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General supply chain problem. Took my dealer 5 weeks. My dealer insisted on giving me a loaner vehicle for that period of time. Yours apparently not. Glad to have my electric car back with gas over $4

The new 40kwh battery is nice, though not as amazing as I had hoped.

cdherman said:

General supply chain problem. Took my dealer 5 weeks. My dealer insisted on giving me a loaner vehicle for that period of time. Yours apparently not. Glad to have my electric car back with gas over $4

The new 40kwh battery is nice, though not as amazing as I had hoped.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll just be patient then. I don't want an ICE loaner, I'll just have to be strategic about arrival time at work to get a charge to get home!

Better late than never for responding…?? I dropped to 8 bars in about June of 2021. It took NIssan until August to replace the battery pack with a new 40 KwH pack. The range showed 160 miles at first but settled quickly to close to 150 ish. When the bars dropped to 8 the LeafSpy showed the batteries at about 64%. The range on a new charge has remained close too 150+ since replacement and reacts well throughout a drive with only the occasional mismatch of range to go with actual… sometimes showing a much lower number than it should then recovering over a 10-20 further drive. Odd. But overall very happy with the new battery and range. Over 56K miles on the car and approaching 6 years old. With the price of gas these days it is nice to have it!

2016 Leaf wi new 40KwH since Aug 2021
Livermore, CA
56,000+ miles

GaleHawkins said:

johnlocke said:

Dec 1 update. 285 GID's, SOH=78.76%, Hx=52.48%. 83654 total miles, 38725 miles on new battery, 145 L3 total, 31 on new battery, 1654 l2 total, 780 on new battery. I'm driving a lot less now so wear and tear on the battery is less but it's still losing power at about the same rate per month as before. I lost 5 GID's last month even with less driving. It's possible that I will hit 4 bars down before the100K warranty limit. If it continues at the same rate, I'll hit 8 bars at around 94,000 miles. That would give about 50,000 miles on the second battery. If I got a third battery before the warranty expires and it was a 40KWH unit, I might keep the Leaf for a couple more years. Otherwise I'll probably trade it in. It may depend on whether or not the new administration puts new tax credits in place for USA built EV's. It may be a matter of just getting a longer range EV. I don't notice it so much on a daily basis but we were evacuated during the last fire for a week and the problem with daily charging was painfully evident. Also as I lose range on the Leaf, keeping it charged in case I have to make an unexpected trip becomes a requirement. Although the 40KWH would help a lot, It's not enough to fully solve the problem and I still worry about the degradation of the battery over time.

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Thanks for the update. My 40 kWh was about losing about 0.01% of SOH daily. About 4 months ago I started to charging to 100% after 30-60 miles trying to make sure battery temperature was no more than 5-10 degrees over evening temperature. If I got home at 6pm I would plug it in like 11pm so it would charge and chill before the next morning. SOH started dropping about 0.01 every 3 days and the weather was cooling down some.

It got totalled 7 Nov 2020 with SOH at 96.07 and SOC at 89% . 3 weeks later SOH was down to 96.06 and SOC was still at 89%. We stripped off the front cap and all parts in front of motor and got the front end off of concrete so we could test D and R. It was smooth up to near 20 MPH then would start making some noise. The son expected traction control was the noise source so we took it out for 2 mile test drive. It drove out fine but I never got it over 68 MPH.

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Today we picked up our 2016 Leaf SL after another shop color matched the 2015 Leaf SV parts car dash and installed it and the passenger air bag.

It was last charged on the 6th of November 2020. SOH was 96.08. Today 18 months later SOH was 95.70 so I am pleased. The parts car did not have a front camera but now we're going back with some more parts and rectifying that limitation so we will have a front camera.

cdherman said:

General supply chain problem. Took my dealer 5 weeks. My dealer insisted on giving me a loaner vehicle for that period of time. Yours apparently not. Glad to have my electric car back with gas over $4

The new 40kwh battery is nice, though not as amazing as I had hoped.

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What had you hoped for?

cdherman said:

I am thinking I will indeed be getting a new battery at some point, unless Nissan fully tanks and cannot honor warranties......

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I realize this is an old comment, but was this simply a rhetorical flourish, or meant to be taken seriously? I'm not super-attentive to the auto industry, but I haven't heard anyone say Renault-Nissan was in trouble.

They were in serious trouble even before the pandemic. I haven't seen much news on that lately, though, so I suspect that the Japanese government, in combination with their own efforts at increasing profits and reducing costs, have stabilized them for the present.

LeftieBiker said:

They were in serious trouble even before the pandemic. I haven't seem much news on that lately, though, so I suspect that the Japanese government, in combination with their own efforts at increasing profits and reducing costs, have stabilized them for the present.

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I guess I need to read those emails from AutoWeek more closely!