Real degradation 2020 SL+

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Flyct

Well-known member
Leaf Supporting Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2015
Messages
647
Location
Bradenton, Florida, US
Looking at LeafSpy Dropbox download file my 2020 SL+ is loosing 1% capacity every 4 months or about 3%/ year. It seems to be more calendar related vs miles driven related.

12/18/20 SOH was 98.95%
01/24/22 SOH was 95.51%

What are others experiencing?
 
Here are my 2 cars over past 2 1/2+ years. The red is the S+ and the blue the SV Plus.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_fpm0zoA3s6ICGVgco4D_rIK8rd6b2ug/view?usp=drivesdk


The curve flattens in the low 90s SoH.
 
I am convinced that time is the biggest single factor in the decline of Leaf batteries assuming that the car is not in an extremely hot climate and the driver makes some effort to not abuse the battery. I noticed that my 2017 Leaf batter degraded at a pretty regular rate even in cold weather and even when it was not driven for a few weeks. According to Leaf Spy Pro it was down about 17.5% in just two months short of 5 years (lost one bar). To me, that implies that the battery chemistry in the Leafs is behind some of the other cars. I don't see the major problem being the lack of active battery cooling unless the car is driven in a very hot climate or if it is driven hard with multiple quick charges per day regularly.

Traded in for a new S+ that has seems to have pretty constant decline in the 8 weeks I have had it, about 0.04% a week. I realize that is really too short a time to really draw any conclusions about the longer term. Since I mainly drive locally, even if the battery declines 30% to 40% over the next 10 years, it will still meet our needs. That is one of the main reasons that we went with the + instead to the 40 kWh battery. It will still be nice to be able to take on somewhat longer trips for at least a few years.
 
I am convinced that time is the biggest single factor in the decline of Leaf batteries assuming that the car is not in an extremely hot climate and the driver makes some effort to not abuse the battery.

There are exceptions, though, like 2013 "Wolf" and 2015 "Lizard" batteries that still have 11 or 12 bars today. I think that cool climates reduce or even erase the time (aka "calendar") factor in some cases. What you wrote likely applies in temperate climates as opposed to Cool or Hot areas.
 
My 2019 S+ is at 93% and my 2019 SV+ is at 90.6% SoH. The SV+ battery is 4 months older than the S+ .

We do 6-7K per year miles per car.

The SV+ lost 5% first year 2% in second year and 2% in 3rd year.

The S+ sat for 9 months before purchase, so lost 2% in year 1, 4.5% in year 2, and so far lost .5% in last 7 months.
 
bmw said:
Traded in for a new S+ that has seems to have pretty constant decline in the 8 weeks I have had it, about 0.04% a week
I'm pretty well convinced that the continuous small drops in SOH (as reported by LeafSpy) are meaningless, and are probably driven by some prediction algorithm in the BMS. What really matters are the quarterly updates when the BMS does some kind of re-calibration of the actual SOH.. Having watched this over the past year, it seems like the quarterly updates are not instantaneous but take 2-3 days to stabilize.
 
Looks as if you are correct about the small changes in SOH reported by Leaf Spy Pro. For the first 8 weeks it looked as if my S+ was going to loose about 2.5% in a year. Now in just over 9 weeks it has dropped another 1.5%. Car started out when I bought it on 3/7.22 at 99.61%. Now it is at 97.69%. Not very promising. The car was built in 2/22 and had about 160 miles on it when I got it. It appears that the dealer had been keeping the car at 100% with 3 quick charges and several L2 charges. I hope keeping it at 100% for about a month has something to do with the large drop and that it will settle down. I guess that I will have a better idea of what is happening over the next 3 or 4 months.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
I wonder if Nissan had put a small fan to circulate air inside the pack to better equalize temps between cells if it would have improved the overall passive cooling.

I think that if that were the case, we would have seen cells in the centers of the packs degrading much faster than those on the outer sections. That does not appear to have been the case. There is no thriving market niche for replacing the center cells in Leaf packs.
 
Flyct said:
Looking at LeafSpy Dropbox download file my 2020 SL+ is loosing 1% capacity every 4 months or about 3%/ year. It seems to be more calendar related vs miles driven related.

12/18/20 SOH was 98.95%
01/24/21 SOH was 95.51%

What are others experiencing?

My 2020 + was always ticking down SOH by 0.01 daily and just ignored it after a while because it is not linear. Nor should it be used to predict the future as it will slow down as the battery ages. I looked more at the capacity and how far I could drive on a full charge compared to the *sold* range of 215 miles. So far after +43K miles, my full charge range is still +250 miles city (no climate control) and roughly +215 miles (with climate control and driving the speed limit, not 75mph or 80 mph) on the highway if the drive is fairly level and not uphill the entire way. I also QC like crazy and my SOH is still above +92%. I'll probably hit +100K miles in a little more than a year at the rate I'm going. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. :)
 
As of yesterday, my 2018 is at 85.90% SOH. Should be coming up on my next three month adjustment in about 2 weeks. That will be interesting. I have treated my pack very well, but I live in a hot area. Low miles.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
I wonder if Nissan had put a small fan to circulate air inside the pack to better equalize temps between cells if it would have improved the overall passive cooling.

I think there is a cheap and very effective method to lower battery temperature, and one that is improved by highway driving. Use a decent conductive heat compound from the bottom of the battery to the battery cover. Cover the battery cover with 2" fins at a 45 degree angle from the cover center line to the side of the car. There's a lot of surface area making a perfect heat sink. With air flowing through the fins aerodynamic loss would be minimal.

The impact in winter having a cooler battery has to be weighed. But for hot climates all year this has to have some improvement.
 
I was hoping by now there might be an aftermarket battery case that doing something similar. Even Nissan could do it without increasing the costs of build very much.

All that said, at least in the midwest, even now in early summer, my battery sits at 5 temp bars, so even driving a few hundred miles is not of any concern. It's the 500 plus days which require some strategy.
 
Flyct said:
Looking at LeafSpy Dropbox download file my 2020 SL+ is loosing 1% capacity every 4 months or about 3%/ year. It seems to be more calendar related vs miles driven related.

12/18/20 SOH was 98.95%
01/24/22 SOH was 95.51%

What are others experiencing?

UPDATE

6/10/22 SOH 94.68% 12,888 miles on odometer.

It lives in hot central Florida. Charging to 100% overnight in garage when SOC is below 50%

So in 18 months and 12,888 miles I’ve lost 4.27%. Slightly less than 3% per year.

One routine trip we take is 125 miles at 60-65 mph between house and cabin. Remaining range after arrival doesn’t seem to be changed from when it was new.
 
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