Nissan Leaf

[NeilBlanchard]

It is kinda' fun to do this, once in a while.

[NeilBlanchard]

Driving 100+ miles on a charge in warm weather is becoming routine:



Corrected for tires, this is 104.88 miles / 21.9kWh = ~4.79 miles per kWh or 208.8Wh/mile or 161MPGe.

[gasstingy]

Neil,

Great job on your 4.79 miles per kWh! Any concerns on running the battery this low?

IIRC, shallow cycling a battery usually results in a longer service life. OTOH, it is great to see that someone who knows how to drive for economy can beat the EPA results by a noticeable margin.

[NeilBlanchard]

Since mid 2014, Nissan has been using the so-called lizard battery, and I think that so far, these are fine. They also stopped including the charge to 80% option. I am following this on MyNissanLeaf.com and so far NOBODY has had any noticeable battery capacity loss with the lizard cells.

Any Leafs sold in cold weather areas, have a battery heater - which is used during charging to keep the battery warmer than it would be just from charging. Apparently, charging when the battery is too cold is the main issue with the current battery.

[wdb]

Thought you might like to see what I discovered in the parking lot at work today. Hopefully the owner doesn't mind!

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Since mid 2014, Nissan has been using the so-called lizard battery, and I think that so far, these are fine. They also stopped including the charge to 80% option. ...(snip).

Does that mean they're now allowing full (100%) battery recharging...and the possibility of 'over' charging?

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Does that mean they're now allowing full (100%) battery recharging...and the possibility of 'over' charging?

Of coarse not, otherwise there would be flaming leaves all over.

100% means nothing except in DIY situations.

[dhanson865]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Does that mean they're now allowing full (100%) battery recharging...and the possibility of 'over' charging?

100% on the leaf dash isn't 100% of the cell voltage limit. They fudge the dash numbers at the top and bottom of charge.

You can bet that 15% to 85% are really 15% to 85% but I don't bother to figure out were they start fudging since I have a 2012.

Anyone with a 2013 or newer just has to compare SOC% on the leafspy app vs SOC% on the dash and they'll know when the two diverge.

[NeilBlanchard]

The nominal battery capacity has always been 24kWh, and the actual usable capacity is and has been ~22kWh. Nissan has decided to not use all of the 24kWh in order to try and meet the longevity goal.

With the battery cells they used up until early 2014, they included a software option (user controlled on the touchscreen) to stop charging at 80% (or ~17.6kWh), in order to keep the battery capacity longer. If you needed to drive farther, then you could occasionally let it charge to 100%.

Now, with the latest battery cells (sometimes called the lizard battery because it works better at higher temperatures than the earlier battery cells), they have removed that user option to limit your daily charge to 80%.

I hope this clarifies the situation. We will soon see the 2016 Leaf, that is rumored to have a 24kWh battery pack in the Leaf S, and a ~30kWh pack in the SV and SL models. The strongest rumors are that it will have a 105-110 mile range; and the smaller battery will keep the ~84 mile range it has now.

Then, with the 2017 Leaf, we should see a completely new car, and a completely new battery pack that will have 200-250 mile range. Nissan says they will beat the Chevy Bolt EV in range, and release date, and even in price.

[dhanson865]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The nominal battery capacity has always been 24kWh, and the actual usable capacity is and has been ~22kWh. Nissan has decided to not use all of the 24kWh in order to try and meet the longevity goal.

With the battery cells they used up until early 2014, they included a software option (user controlled on the touchscreen) to stop charging at 80% (or ~17.6kWh), in order to keep the battery capacity longer. If you needed to drive farther, then you could occasionally let it charge to 100%.

Now, with the latest battery cells (sometimes called the lizard battery because it works better at higher temperatures than the earlier battery cells), they have removed that user option to limit your daily charge to 80%.

I hope this clarifies the situation. We will soon see the 2016 Leaf, that is rumored to have a 24kWh battery pack in the Leaf S, and a ~30kWh pack in the SV and SL models. The strongest rumors are that it will have a 105-110 mile range; and the smaller battery will keep the ~84 mile range it has now.

Then, with the 2017 Leaf, we should see a completely new car, and a completely new battery pack that will have 200-250 mile range. Nissan says they will beat the Chevy Bolt EV in range, and release date, and even in price.

I'm not sure if this is a direct reply to me but there are some parts of your post I feel the need to clarify for anyone else that might read this.

Nominal Capacity and usable capacity are not exactly the two figures you stated on a car by car basis or MY by MY basis. I'll leave that for another thread as it the data to discuss that isn't worth trying to put in a simple reply. If you want to read up on it I can start to link you to the mynissanleaf forum threads between 2012 and now and you would have to read hundreds if not thousands of posts to get it all. If you want to use shorthand and say they are about that amount, go for it but there is much evidence to disagree with those numbers.

Cell type has nothing to do with the presence or absence of the 80% charge option.

The 80% charge option was removed to deal with EPA range estimate because the rules of range on the Monroney sticker say that if you give two charge options you have to average them unless there is an acceptable default option (and it gets complicated with the unless on what is considered an acceptable default option).

Tesla actually dealt with that by allowing a slider that set the desired charge level over a broad range and defaults to 90%. Nissan didn't want 80+100/20 to = 90 so they deleted the 80% option. Even then deleted or not the 100% option is to a set cell voltage limit and isn't going to be 100% SOC exactly. It will be closer to 95% for most cars and may be less.

Coming cars, later this month we expect a 30 kWh pack in the 2016 MY to be revealed (already leaked with pricing by several dealers but not announced officially by Nissan yet).

Anything said about the Gen 2 Leaf that may be the 2017 MY or 2018 MY is too far in the future to bother paying attention to "claims". We'll have plenty of time and press chatter and forum chatter to argue relative specs and merits of comparison between now and then.