Nissan Leaf

[reddy]

At 2 years, 9 months I still have 12 bars on my Leaf as well.

I can't see any loss of range, but I rarely charged to 100%.

If I was buying a used Leaf, I'd probably want to know where it was garaged (i.e. Arizona vs North Dakota) and if the original user charged to 80% vs 100%.

Since the latter is not something you could know, having the battery warranty helps.

IMO, cars off lease are more likely to have been charged up to 100% frequently. As a participant on mynissanleaf.com , many users would post to the effect of "I'm leasing so I'm going to charge to 100% every night".

 

[strider]

Except they still have to stop and charge over and over, in the heat, which is one of the worst situations possible for the pack. So even though they won't spend much time sitting in the heat without charging, they'll still be sitting in the heat when charging.

Sure but how many days/weeks/months are they doing this? For an owner who drives to work, car sits in the the sun all day, then drives home, charges at night, repeat 250 days/year. That is a LOT of hours at high temp. Clearly more hours at high temp than they tested else they would have worked to mitigate it.

 

[Dave EV]

I see. Thanks for the info. That might be good in Texas as well.

Yes, definitely. If it performs as it has been claimed, it should cut down on the rate of capacity loss everywhere. The only place the battery appears to be meeting Nissan's claims on rate of capacity loss are cool climates like the Pacific Northwest.

 

[surfingslovak]

IMO, cars off lease are more likely to have been charged up to 100% frequently. As a participant on mynissanleaf.com , many users would post to the effect of "I'm leasing so I'm going to charge to 100% every night".

Good to hear that your battery is doing well. Would you be at liberty to share your LEAF's mileage? For what it's worth, 80% vs 100% charging has not been demonstrated to be of any significant benefit. If you look at the data from the field, LEAF owners with comparable mileage and age of the vehicle in the same location tend to lose capacity bars at nearly the same point of time, regardless of their charging habits.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope -- but I'd speculate each would get over 100k miles, possibly more. They were being driven basically 24-7 -- so easily 1000 miles per day (assuming ~40-50 mph avg speed, plus time for fueling stops). The vehicles I saw testing went into production as 2011 models -- and were not disguised (this facility is not visible from the road -- lots of burns and hedges purposely in the way).

Thanks for that. For what it's worth, I have seen significantly lower total mileage in some test vehicle, and was curious if you had any other data or direct observation.

I got to drive a couple laps on the road course -- which has turns copied from various tracks around the world (like a decreasing radius corner copied from Sears Point / Sonoma Raceway), plus sections simulating certain streets and interstates from around the US -- with one "lane" of the track being nice smooth finish, and the other lane with all sorts of different conditions -- a stretch with a lot of manhole covers, another with potholes, and one with lots of freeway expansion sections). I didn't get to drive, but was a passenger on about 10 laps of the high speed banked oval too -- that was an experience!




They may have been charged indoors...

Yes, my understanding is that the test was geared towards accumulating as many miles in a short period of time as possible. So in essence, this was a cycling test in a hot climate, and not necessarily a reflection of the stresses the car might be exposed to during normal operation in Phoenix. These vehicles spend about 85% of the time just sitting, not charging and not driving.

But isn't part of the Leaf's problem in places like AZ is what happens when the car is NOT driving?

Exactly; I was simply looking for more data points. It looks like calendar aging was not properly field-tested, but it might have been simulated in the lab. This is quite elementary, and battery aging based on different geographic location has been researched and reported at various conferences. NEC, Nissan's partner in the AESC joint venture, has put out the following report, for example.


Lifetime Extension for Lithium Ion Batteries

 

[ggies07]

Here are the specs for the 2014 LEAF. I don't have one, but for those that do, what do you think? It looks like there is a little more range, no?

Nissan Announces U.S. Pricing for 2014 LEAFâ„¢ - Nissan Online Newsroom

 

[ChadS]

I don't think there are any changes for 2014 that will affect range.

However, they did remove the "charge to 80%" feature. That means the EPA will no longer average the 80 and 100% settings to determine the rated range (which was a poor decision as it hid information). So the EPA rating will be higher.

Which is good as far as it encourages people to check out the Leaf. But bad if they expect they can really rely on the EPA range. I don't know why some people think they can rely on EPA range; everybody knows you can't rely on EPA mpg estimates...

 

[Rifleman]

The current way the EPA reports range produces a completely worthless number. Nissan decided to play their game, and make it so they only have to give the highest number (Tesla did this too). I cant say I blame them, they dont make the rules.

I cant think of a more useless number than the average of the normal charge an a range charge. It does not tell you how far you can go every day, and it does not tell you how far you can go if you need every mile your car can give you. I am not sure what the EPA was thinking when they came out with that standard.

 

[Dave EV]

However, they did remove the "charge to 80%" feature. That means the EPA will no longer average the 80 and 100% settings to determine the rated range (which was a poor decision as it hid information). So the EPA rating will be higher.

Which is curious. How did Tesla get around this issue? All information on lithium batteries implies that storing a battery fully charged is bad for it, yet the rumor is that Nissan did not find a substantial difference in rate of capacity loss regardless if customers used 80% vs 100% charge mode. The lack of regen on a 100% charge is really annoying though. That reason alone is enough to start at a lower SOC if you don't need the extra range.

Which is good as far as it encourages people to check out the Leaf. But bad if they expect they can really rely on the EPA range. I don't know why some people think they can rely on EPA range; everybody knows you can't rely on EPA mpg estimates...

People have to be told that the EPA number means distance until empty as in - the car will no longer move. Then figure in some buffer (the LEAF's first warning comes on with about 12 miles range remaining with typical driving). Then factor in capacity loss (20% after 3 years appears to be typical for the LEAF unless you live in the Pacific Northwest or other cool area).

So 84 * 80% - 12 = 55 miles range. And that's about what I get now after 2.5 years before the first low battery warning in nice weather driving conservatively. A couple more years and that number will be down to the mid 40s, or about half the advertised range.

This is going to kill the LEAF as LEAFs age unless Nissan figures out how to both improve the durability of the battery and increase the range.

 

[gaswalla]

yep... the main number for LEAF range is: what is the range after 2 years of ownership?

 

[ChadS]

The LEAF and the Toyota RAV4-EV are the cars that (as far as I recall) were subject to the average-of-two-charge-points EPA rating rule. Very shortly after that happened - but (again, if I recall correctly) before Tesla shipped a new model year that might require an EPA check, Tesla changed the firmware to have a charging slider rather than a default 90% charging setpoint. Apparently that doesn't trigger the EPA averaging rule.

Which makes me wonder why Nissan didn't just add a slider to the LEAF...

Nissan hasn't released much of their internal data, but tomsax's Plug In America battery survey for the LEAF didn't find any correlation between degradation and charging to 100%. (Nor for using DC charging, nor for a bunch of other factors...miles and high ambient temperatures seemed to be the only significant factors in LEAF range degradation).

 

[ggies07]

Which is curious. How did Tesla get around this issue? All information on lithium batteries implies that storing a battery fully charged is bad for it, yet the rumor is that Nissan did not find a substantial difference in rate of capacity loss regardless if customers used 80% vs 100% charge mode. The lack of regen on a 100% charge is really annoying though. That reason alone is enough to start at a lower SOC if you don't need the extra range.


People have to be told that the EPA number means distance until empty as in - the car will no longer move. Then figure in some buffer (the LEAF's first warning comes on with about 12 miles range remaining with typical driving). Then factor in capacity loss (20% after 3 years appears to be typical for the LEAF unless you live in the Pacific Northwest or other cool area).

So 84 * 80% - 12 = 55 miles range. And that's about what I get now after 2.5 years before the first low battery warning in nice weather driving conservatively. A couple more years and that number will be down to the mid 40s, or about half the advertised range.

This is going to kill the LEAF as LEAFs age unless Nissan figures out how to both improve the durability of the battery and increase the range.

Well there ya go, this is the reason why these EVs and future EVs need to be over 100 miles of range. For people like me that drive 63 or so round trip for work each day, after a couple of years of capacity loss, we will still need to hit that round trip number.

 

[Dave EV]

yep... the main number for LEAF range is: what is the range after 2 years of ownership?

As ChadS states, it depends primarily on where you live (average temperature) and how many miles you drive it.

Stoaty on the MNL forum has developed a surprisingly accurate model that estimates battery capacity remaining after time/miles based on where you live. You can download it from here and play with it:

Battery Capacity Loss - MyNissanLeaf

Which makes me wonder why Nissan didn't just add a slider to the LEAF...

Many LEAF owners (myself included) wonder the same thing, as often we might want to charge less than 80% - like 70% or 90%.

Nissan hasn't released much of their internal data, but tomsax's Plug In America battery survey for the LEAF didn't find any correlation between degradation and charging to 100%. (Nor for using DC charging, nor for a bunch of other factors...miles and high ambient temperatures seemed to be the only significant factors in LEAF range degradation).

Yeah, surprisingly DC QC isn't a huge factor in deciding rate of capacity loss for the LEAF. There is a INL study currently underway testing 4 LEAFs - 2 are only charged via L2, 2 are only charged via DCQC. The DCQC cars are losing capacity faster than the L2 cars, but it's not huge - perhaps 10-20% faster, but miles on the vehicles is the #1 factor (and temperature given the small amount of capacity loss between 10-20k miles compared to 20-30k and 30-40k mile intervals - it appears that the 10-20k miles were done in the winter).

Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity - Full Size Electric Vehicles

Stoaty's battery aging model does not keep track of QC usage, either.

 

[gaswalla]

I'm a prior LEAF owner from San Diego... I had over 20% degradation after 20k miles.. I live on the coast, not a hot climate at all.
Nissan and the leaf fanboys can keep touting how great the car is, but Nissan is doing the EV movement a disservice by selling a car with horrible degradation knowingly. Apparently, my 20k in one year was excessive use by Nissan's Leaf standards.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I'm a prior LEAF owner from San Diego... I had over 20% degradation after 20k miles.. I live on the coast, not a hot climate at all.
Nissan and the leaf fanboys can keep touting how great the car is, but Nissan is doing the EV movement a disservice by selling a car with horrible degradation knowingly. Apparently, my 20k in one year was excessive use by Nissan's Leaf standards.

It is a truly great EV by 2014 standards (sub-$40k, sub-100 mile range) with a really serious issue with battery degradation. We knew that for sure on September 15, 2012 after the range test in Phoenix.

Nissan is absolutely aware of the issue now. Whether it is adequately resolved in the future is open to speculation, but regardless, it's still a reasonably priced EV that can go 30-40 miles in virtually any condition.

You can recognize the LEAF's limitations and shortcomings and still be a fanboy!

 

[cwerdna]

Nissan Sells 100,000 LEAFs, Captures 48% Of Worldwide Market To Date

 

[aqn]

The Leaf is built on the Renault-Nissan B0 platform. B0 (B-zero) is a stretched wheelbase version of the B platform. It is because of this platform sharing that the Leaf can be built in the same assembly line in Oppama as the Cube, Juke, and Tiida/Versa (Japanese market, NA market Versa is built in Mexico and the new NA version is now on a second gen "V" platform).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_B_platform

File this under "flagellating an expired equine": there is no evidence that the LEAF is based on the B0 platform and not an independent brand-new platform. Renault-Nissan's own documentation for the B0 platform does not list the LEAF as a variant:
B-PLATFORM | Blog of RENAULT NISSAN Alliance
http://blog.alliance-renault-nissan.com/sites/default/files/platforms-and-interchangeable-components-b-platform_0.pdf

Also, in the youtube video cited, the Nissan spokesman said, at 0:41:19:"...some of the suspension components were shared with the B platform..."
[unintelligible]
"...Versa... now again, the platform itself, if you think about it, is... the actual wheelbase of this car is six inches longer than a Versa, so it's not [speaker's emphasis] a Versa. At all.
"
Again, no claims of the LEAF being a B0 platform variant.

 

[772]

Saw this story about Nissan selling Leafs to Bhutan:

Bhutan, Nissan partner on electric cars - Yahoo News

It's good to see that EVs can be practical choices even in countries that aren't so well-developed. Bottom line: No one wants to depend on foreign oil imports.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

Saw this story about Nissan selling Leafs to Bhutan:

Bhutan, Nissan partner on electric cars - Yahoo News

It's good to see that EVs can be practical choices even in countries that aren't so well-developed. Bottom line: No one wants to depend on foreign oil imports.

Fantastic! The beauty of that country will no longer be soiled by auto emissions.

I hope that the two lumbering giants next door wake up and see the light. Unfortunately, their electricity generation sources are inadequate and far from clean.

 

[Calvin.K]

So.. I went to my Nissan dealership today, asked a sales rep if they had a Leaf his response was a quick "no, but I could order you one" :frown:then I asked if they were thinking about installing a CHAdeMO and his response was "what is that?" I went on to explain to him what it was, he had it confused with a level two charger. After a half an hour of talking I just asked for a job application I figured hey I already know more about cars (or at least electric cars) then they do and I'm still in college and only 19.

 

[MikeL]

Nice, Calvin! Do It ! We have a someone at a Nissan dealer here that is their "LEAF guy" he's good, and responsible for dozens of sales/leases.

Pro: you get to put people in cool new EVs
Con: you work at a car dealership! :wink: ML