Overnight test on the leaf, long term capacity question.

njburke

Hi,
I have an overnight test drive on the leaf next week, its for wife commute, 78KM round trip, Naas via N7, south circular to Mater.

The battery is warranted to 70 percent at 5 years. Given the range specified when new 124KM, am I right in thinking the battery should last five years of my wifes commuting.

For the test drive, I'll charge the leaf overnight and off she goes and back (one piece, I hope). What do I need to see on the battery range when she comes back to be confident the leaf will still do the journey when the capacity falls off?

Annual journeys should be 22000 KM.
This has been a very helpful forum in coming to our decision.

Niall

cros13

On the old Mark 1 Leaf (before the battery chemistry changes in 2013) the expected time to 70% capacity in the Irish climate is 10 years at worst. NRC's Mark 1 Leaf has done more than 210,000km as a taxi with less than 11% loss.

On the newer Mark 1.5, my former Leaf (now being driven by my dad) passed 50,000km last weekend, capacity at purchase was 97.6% and more than 50k and 1 year on leaf spy reads between 0.9 and 1% capacity loss over the period.

axe2grind

njburke wrote: »

What do I need to see on the battery range when she comes back to be confident the leaf will still do the journey when the capacity falls off?

Bear in mind that one's driving style has a big bearing on range, so you will get more out of the battery compared to the one off today.
Also winter range is substantially less.

But you will have 78km range in depths of winter in a few years time

cros13

axe2grind wrote: »

Bear in mind that one's driving style has a big bearing on range, so you will get more out of the battery compared to the one off today.
Also winter range is substantially less.

But you will have 78km range in depths of winter in a few years time

TBH, I never got less than 100km even on the motorway at 120km/h in -5 weather. Best actual distance in summer was 156km. Are you saying km when you mean american miles?

njburke

Thanks all,
It seems there is plenty of margin on the capacity so nothing to worry about.
So far so good.

Niall

The MK 1.5 leaf has without doubt some altered battery chemistry and not a single soul outside of Nissan or NEC who make the cells for Nissan know anything about it which is really killing me, I love to know all the advances in battery tech.

Check out my thread where about the U.K taxi that has done over 100,000 miles now and lost only 10% capacity.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057444984

This taxi has 1,788 fast charges and 7,249 normal and it's really a great achievement for Nissan and NEC.

MY PCP contract allows a max of 25,000 Kms per year so that would be 6.4 years worth of driving.

However after this the car is still very usable with a 10% loss so at this rate no reason it couldn't easily see 200,000 miles.

The MK I didn't like too much fast charging especially when it got hot but it doesn't seem to impact the MK I.5 battery and I wonder if there weren't so many fast charges would the 100,000 mile taxi have lost less capacity ?

Another U.K First Gen Leaf driven By Nikki Gordon Bloomfield has now lost her 2nd capacity bar, around 20% loss after 73,000 miles.

https://transportevolved.com/2015/04/14/staffcar-update-after-73100-miles-our-nissan-leaf-loses-its-second-capacity-bar/

Most people ask me how do I find the limitation of electric cars and I tell them the only limitation for me is the PCP contract mileage @ ,25,000 Kms isn't enough so I have to restrict driving it !!!!

thierry14

Good thread,

My wife does a similar journey and I have wondered what are the actual savings vs a similar category diesel car over 5 years.

Say a Seat Leon 5dr 1.6tdi 21k ( 55mpg motorway driving )?

Has the leaf become viable for your above average commute of 75km - 100km per day?

GreyDad

I have a 130-140km commute which I'm doing in a 47mpg diesel Octavia Scout and it's costing me far more than I'm comfortable with even with fuel prices as 'low' as they are now - well over £2k per year. If I did it in a Leaf (2014 used Acenta say) I'd pay half the cost of the car off in 3 years in fuel road tax and maintenance savings alone. I have to do long distance business trips every week or two and in principle this would pay off even faster.

I have no charging facilities at work though but if I did I'd probably swap out to the Leaf without a thought. Having said that most of the journey is motorway and there are fast chargers available along it so I don't have any particular concerns about range over that distance. From a cost point of view though its a no-brainer and the further you go the more economic sense it makes.

GreyDad

GreyDad wrote: »

I have no charging facilities at work though but if I did I'd probably swap out to the Leaf without a thought. Having said that most of the journey is motorway and there are fast chargers available along it so I don't have any particular concerns about range over that distance. From a cost point of view though its a no-brainer and the further you go the more economic sense it makes.

You need to make sure that if you do make business trips that you think whether the extra charging time will make much of an impact to your time and sanity, winter rapid charging a cold battery can take 30 mins to get from 20% to 80%.

remember also that ideally you charge only to 80% because after this charging is too slow to be much of a use Versus time so you need to realise that you'll then be driving with 20% less range.

thierry14

thierry14 wrote: »

Good thread,

My wife does a similar journey and I have wondered what are the actual savings vs a similar category diesel car over 5 years.

Say a Seat Leon 5dr 1.6tdi 21k ( 55mpg motorway driving )?

Has the leaf become viable for your above average commute of 75km - 100km per day?

I'm driving around 140 Kms per shift in the Leaf. All I need to make it home is about 8-10 mins on the fast charger but because Naas is such a disaster I avoid it most of the time now. So I charge at Newlands Cross over lunch.

It takes about 20 mins to get from about 44%-80% and I get home with about 20-25%.

At Naas I would get there with about 30-34% and 50-55%% is enough to get me home with about 20-25% battery. 10-15 mins top up.

after 12,000 Kms the leaf over nearly 6 months has meant on average I've saved 133 PM on Petrol @ 60 mpg average in the Prius.

I'm not driving as much to work on shift as I was in the Prius when I was on regular day work. And last year I was driving further to work.

That's about 150 PM saved including motor tax and not including savings on servicing.

The Leaf requires a "service" once a year or 50,000 Kms and my Nissan dealer put a "next service" on my windscreen for 15,000 Kms which was very, very sneaky thing to do and I'll be having words with them over this.

It's hard to calculate the electricity usage without a monitor directly on the charge point and I get free top ups at the fast chargers + when I come home from working nights I've to charge at peak rate during the day.

Based on my average of about 18 kwh/100 Kms according to the car or 16.5 as it is now in the milder less windy weather , but for arguments sake lets say 18 kwh over 12,000 kms

If I were to charge at night the the cost is about 8C/Kwh on the package I'm on with Bord gais, can't remember now what it's called. But these are the calculations.

18 Kwh/100 Kms , so you need to know how many 100 Kms are in 12,000 so divide 100 into 12,000 = 120.

Then multiply 120 by 18 kwh = 2,160 kwh for 12,000 Kms based on "my" driving style etc.

So 2,160 Kwh, add to this the charger inefficiency which is about 10% = 2,376 Kwh multiply by the cost of leccy @8 cent = 190 Euro's or €31.60 PM.

But this isn't exact for me because I have to charge sometimes during the day. but for anyone who has very predictable commutes and works days then this is a good example of what the Leaf will cost over 12,000 Kms. And I don't drive too easy.

I also get a lot of leccy at the fast chargers which I can work out sometime exactly how much.

One other thing, we use the night leccy to run the washing machine, dryer, and now this time of year to heat the water saving a good bit more.

Hope this post wasn't too long ?

GreyDad

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You need to make sure that if you do make business trips that you think whether the extra charging time will make much of an impact to your time and sanity, winter rapid charging a cold battery can take 30 mins to get from 20% to 80%.

remember also that ideally you charge only to 80% because after this charging is too slow to be much of a use Versus time so you need to realise that you'll then be driving with 20% less range.

Point taken about winter driving reduction - same with an ICE car by the way, in the recent very strong gales and heavy rains I saw a 20% fluctuation in diesel consumption... except you have more tange to start with so it's not as noticeable.

I can modify my long distance business driving needs by taking the train more where possible, which costs about the same as driving for one person and is generally more 'green' - certainly going to London I always do this.

I think the question is more can I reduce the need to drive those distances to the point where I just hire a car for the day or keep a standby basic ICE car just for this purpose?

If I was doing all long distance business travel it would be so much simpler because I'd be into company car territory and haggling over what colour Tesla I could have

njburke

@thierry14
My wifes current commute of 78K roundtrip is done a 1.6tdi diesel, its 3 years old. I estimate the fuel saving to be 1500 annual.

Another strange thing about the leaf is the fact that US price is higher than it is here, I've have never seen that before.

GreyDad

Are you taking into account the government EV incentives? They vary state by state in the US and they give them via tax breaks rather than a cash discount off the buying price as in the UK (and presumably Ireland?). So in the US they pay full list price for the car but claim the incentive back via their tax returns over a period of years, which is arguably a better way to do it.

njburke

@Greydad.
Cheers for that that would explain it.
I saw a website listing the average paid price for the leaf at a little over 28K$ or 25K€.
With Nissans scrappage deal and the SEI grant, an SV works out a little over 21K€. I see those as a Manufacturers incentive a government incentive.

Anyway, for us when I work through the numbers the cost of ownership on the leaf isn't that much more than persisting with the 3 year old skoda fabia. Which was a little surprising.Oh, I'm not trading in the fabia, we have an older car which we'll trade in.

GreyDad

njburke wrote: »

@Greydad.
With Nissans scrappage deal and the SEI grant, an SV works out a little over 21K€. I see those as a Manufacturers incentive a government incentive.

Is that before or after VAT? We were back in our local Nissan dealer yesterday (!) and of course they were trying to get is to buy a new one, which I told them is probably not on. Anyway, A 2015 Acenta with 6.6kW charger is currently just under £21k inc VAT and including gov rebate and promo discount. I think this may be more than either the US or Ireland. Can't remember if the SV is the same as the Acenta or the Tekna in the UK (??). Add another £2k or so for the Tekna (I'm vegetarian so not too fussed about leather seats )

Anyway, for us when I work through the numbers the cost of ownership on the leaf isn't that much more than persisting with the 3 year old skoda fabia. Which was a little surprising.Oh, I'm not trading in the fabia, we have an older car which we'll trade in.

Oddly, we also have a 3-4 year old (1.2 petrol) Fabia, plus a diesel Scout. We can't decide which one we'd trade in as they're both a similar value. Arguably the Scout is the more useful long distance vehicle but I fear diesels are going to be taxed and priced off the road over the next few years in the Gvmnt's new found environmental zeal.

It would all come down to what we could get for a trade in value, or sell it privately - I was hoping to get £7k or so for our car and buy a used Leaf for £12-14k, but that may be naively optimistic Over 3 years the cost diff would be equivalent to (current fuel+road tax)+£100/month based on the mileage my wife does but she'd get a newer, larger, higher spec and more environmentally friendly car out of it.

njburke

njburke wrote: »

@thierry14
My wifes current commute of 78K roundtrip is done a 1.6tdi diesel, its 3 years old. I estimate the fuel saving to be 1500 annual.

Another strange thing about the leaf is the fact that US price is higher than it is here, I've have never seen that before.

I doubt very much the U.S leaf costs more than Ireland considering there is usually no tax on goods there.

The MK I leaf was 10,000 Euro's cheaper in the U.S than Ireland because of the extortion taxes we have to pay.

njburke

Acquired a leaf today, so I guess I have some skin in the EV game. Charge point being fitted on Monday.

Congrats Niall !!! what spec did you get after ? year etc ? can't remember if you said already.

njburke

gggggggg@ Mad lad,
been reading here since about christmas, your posts in particular.

We got a red pearl SV, with 1500 KM, registered in Feb this year.
Black interior.
It has a few extras such as, wind deflectors, a solar spoiler, theres some teflon I think on the seats and paint protectorant, tough coat he called it.
Dealer was a pleasure to deal with, couple of email exchanges, fairness on both sides, I think, anyway.

I think the car didn't work out for the first owner and he was happy to have a customer who knew the product. Interestingly he sold both the S/H leafs he had in stock this morning, the other was an XE. He's bringing them up on Monday along with an electrician, so I guess they'll do two charger installs, deliver and bring back down two small diesels.


Niall

Excellent stuff ! hope I helped in your decision making, you won't regret it I don't despite having to charge daily, after 6 months I gave up looking for the work charge point that they said was being installed.

What part of the country are you in by the way ?

Bed time up at 6 am.

njburke

Naas.

We never got the time to do the overnight test drive, drove it today on a similar profile round the M9 and Kilkenny.
I knocked on a neighbours door who has one for a similar commute as my wife, all good.
My wife logged her mileage over the last six weeks, she never exceeded 100KM in any one day.

Benny_Cake

Congratulations! A lot of people seem to be going for the red pearl.

I live in Naas myself and most Sundays I have a trip to the city centre and back. No issue with range at all, when I get home we usually head off to do shopping and a few errands and even after that the battery isn't empty. So it should be perfect for your wife's commute.

Padraig Mor

njburke wrote: »

gggggggg@ Mad lad,
been reading here since about christmas, your posts in particular.

We got a red pearl SV, with 1500 KM, registered in Feb this year.
Black interior.
It has a few extras such as, wind deflectors, a solar spoiler, theres some teflon I think on the seats and paint protectorant, tough coat he called it.
Dealer was a pleasure to deal with, couple of email exchanges, fairness on both sides, I think, anyway.

I think the car didn't work out for the first owner and he was happy to have a customer who knew the product. Interestingly he sold both the S/H leafs he had in stock this morning, the other was an XE. He's bringing them up on Monday along with an electrician, so I guess they'll do two charger installs, deliver and bring back down two small diesels.


Niall

Is that the one in Kilkenny? I enquired about buying it a little while back, but the trade in he offered was ridiculously low, even against the 'retail' price.

Getting my own Monday 6th!

GreyDad

njburke wrote: »

Acquired a leaf today, so I guess I have some skin in the EV game. Charge point being fitted on Monday.

Very nice Looks very close to what I think my missus wants. We hope to be buying August sometime.

njburke

@ padraig mor
How long ago was that?
I was looking at either a new one from belgard with a POS as a trade in, what were you trading in? Diesel fabia might be easier to move on down there.

Only one more sleep
Niall

Padraig Mor

njburke wrote: »

@ padraig mor
How long ago was that?
I was looking at either a new one from belgard with a POS as a trade in, what were you trading in? Diesel fabia might be easier to move on down there.

Only one more sleep
Niall

About a month ago (it was €21k then). Offered €2500 for my 2005 3 litre Lexus against the retail price, which is inflated €1500 compared to the cash price - so realistically €1000, and that's before any negotiated discount. Given that I just sold it yesterday for €3500 privately, he wasn't really at the races!

I had been considering going back to him once I sold mine privately, so you bought it just in time! If it had the cold pack, I'd definitely have chased it.

BTW I presume the coating is GardX, which my dealer bundles in a 'protection package' for about €1000 over 3 years PCP. It's an insane rip off at about €400 list price, but great to get it for free and should provide some protection for a while. Might be worth checking with the dealer if the car was originally purchased with a similar package (I wouldn't be surprised) - down here, it also includes gap insurance (tops up insurance payout to full invoice price if you write off the car) and cosmetic insurance (they fix small scratches and grazes for free). AFAIK both of these non transferable and would stay with the car. It may be a different package with your dealer of course, if it was part of a package at all. I can scan you the brochures if you want.

njburke

Mhm, I can understand why you didn't let the Lexus go that price. I keep an eye on the luxobarge thread from time to time.

Given what I know now, I'm still happy.

njburke

Is the cold pack the heat pump?
What's it do? Chill the cabin or the battery?

njburke

njburke wrote: »

Is the cold pack the heat pump?
What's it do? Chill the cabin or the battery?

Cold pack is the heated seats and steering wheel.

GreyDad

Thought you could only get that on the Tekna with the leather seats?

Dexter1979

GreyDad wrote: »

Thought you could only get that on the Tekna with the leather seats?

Leather, yes. But the cold pack is also a optional extra on the SV (Acenta).

njburke

There is a company in the states that do a very nice set of leather seats about $800 for a full set.

The nissan dealer in Dublin was offering non factory leather for €1750.

GreyDad

Heated seats/steering wheel are not options on the current UK Acenta's - just checked. At least not the 2015 models.

Different in Ireland? Or pre-2015?

Benny_Cake

GreyDad wrote: »

Heated seats/steering wheel are not options on the current UK Acenta's - just checked. At least not the 2015 models.

Different in Ireland? Or pre-2015?

If the Acenta is what is sold as the SV here, the cold pack is definitely an option, I have it in my SV. A very nice option to have and not a lot extra.

njburke

The leaf was delivered yesterday and the skoda is sadly no longer with us. Minor glitch with home charger, the electrician did a neat install but the charger is faulty. There is no power exchange between car and charger so the box is to be replaced.
I plugged it into our neighbors home charger with our cable and everything works as it should.

Dealer came up last night and we charged at Tesco, he will loan us a grannycable until our charger is repaired/ replaced.

Other than that, wow!

Great news, the wait is finally over !

Well wear ! Don't be taking up the Naas fast charger on me now !

njburke

We may share it for the time being, until the solenoid is repaired on our home charger.

Got an urgent phone call from my wife yesterday, she was stuck at the lights and could not engage drive, stuck in neutral:-) the lights had changed twice, solution of course was to keep her foot on the brake then select drive.

We're learning.

njburke

njburke wrote: »

We may share it for the time being, until the solenoid is repaired on our home charger.

Got an urgent phone call from my wife yesterday, she was stuck at the lights and could not engage drive, stuck in neutral:-) the lights had changed twice, solution of course was to keep her foot on the brake then select drive.

We're learning.

if you are used to an automatic ICE car you would also need to press the foot brake to put the car in Drive !

Oh well.

njburke

@ mad_lad, Well she has only driven my automatic a few times, creep takes a bit of getting used to as does not using the left foot.

Will keep an eye out for you at the Tesco charger, or pm me and I'll nip down some evening.

Niall

Yeah no bother, I'll be there in the morning on the way home around 8.20 ish if you're knocking around.

Padraig Mor

[Deleted User] wrote: »

if you are used to an automatic ICE car you would also need to press the foot brake to put the car in Drive !

Oh well.

My transition to the Leaf should be pretty easy as not only was I driving an automatic, it also had its parking brake in the exact same 'clutch' position.

njburke

@mad lad. Leaf and Mrs will be in the city by then.
@parfait more , yep the parking brake has been on once or twice too, I'm guilty of that. It's like an American car or older mercs.

Will it roll if the parking brake is not on and the leaf is not powered?
Probably time I read the manual, there are lots of little features on it I keep finding.

Is there a cheat sheet on the web?

Padraig Mor

Padraig Mor wrote: »

My transition to the Leaf should be pretty easy as not only was I driving an automatic, it also had its parking brake in the exact same 'clutch' position.

Same as the Prius, I remember driving my first Automatic, DSG TDI horrible laggy box at that time, don't know if it's improved but I remember my left foot wandering over to the brake pedal in search of a clutch that wasn't there and hit the brake very hard LOL .

njburke

njburke wrote: »

@mad lad. Leaf and Mrs will be in the city by then.

No bother will catch ye again.

njburke

I had defender for 13 years, every time I went to change gear in an ordinary manual car I would sweep the left hand about a foot away from the gearknob. Muscle memory, I suppose.

Oafley Jones

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Same as the Prius, I remember driving my first Automatic, DSG TDI horrible laggy box at that time, don't know if it's improved but I remember my left foot wandering over to the brake pedal in search of a clutch that wasn't there and hit the brake very hard LOL .

Curious about this. DSG boxes can suffer brain farts the odd time but the dual clutch nature means they shouldn't lag and they're phenomenally quick. What car and and what engine.

What car has a hard on for anything Volkswagen/Audi !

The early DSG's were crap, laggy and hunting for gears. Dreadful, give me a CVT for smoothness any day !

The DSG in my Brothers A4 TDI Quattro is definitely better, my old DSG was a 2006 so a good few gens behind, but compared to the leaf even the A4 is laggy any ICE would be.

One of the problems with the A4 is the many different driving modes which is a pain in the ass, all this crap for efficiency then throw in start stop and I'm glad I don't have to drive a diesel automatic any more, or any diesel/petrol. !!!

njburke

One of things I like about the leaf is the smoothness of the power delivery. My rover 75 has a 5 speed jatco 506e gearbox, it works well with the m47 diesel engine provided the MAF and few other ICE components are all working well. It takes a bit of effort to maintain performance in a diesel engine, stuff comes up,EGRs foul etc.

The expectation I have with the leaf is that performance should remain constant over say 3 -5 years, battery capacity aside.

I had a good look round the motor bay in the leaf today compared to the rover. Mrs wanted to know why the diesel was still hot even though it had been parked up for an hour and we had just driven in with the leaf but it was cool to the touch.

Yes the Leaf is always cool to touch, the pipe from the heat pump for the heater in winter is the hottest part. and in summer the return pipe for the AC.

You can feel some heat at the back of the Motor near the reducer gear at the bulkhead but other than that it runs cool and efficient most of the energy used ges to moving the Leaf rather than in the combustion process and friction in an ICE.

The leaf should drive as good in 10 years !

njburke

10 years would be nice.
It's not as well built as the rover is though, I know it's light weight,rover is 1680 kg. Then again the rover does say 40 mpg, which is say 11 euros per 100km.

Leaf has just finished a topping of charge with the granny cable, it shows 168km range in normal or 177km in economy.

Is this true? Does it learn it's commute profile?

We charged at Tesco to 130km range from 28km range ( I did an errand in it after my wife's commute and we let it run down to see the warning indicator)

njburke

njburke wrote: »

10 years would be nice.
It's not as well built as the rover is though, I know it's light weight,rover is 1680 kg. Then again the rover does say 40 mpg, which is say 11 euros per 100km.

Leaf has just finished a topping of charge with the granny cable, it shows 168km range in normal or 177km in economy.

Is this true? Does it learn it's commute profile?

We charged at Tesco to 130km range from 28km range ( I did an errand in it after my wife's commute and we let it run down to see the warning indicator)

In warmer weather the battery can store more energy than in winter with a cold battery. Nissan chose to exclude battery thermal management because of the complexities and costs involved. A warmer battery also charges a good bit faster. There is a battery heater in 2012+ Leafs to prevent the electrolyte freezing but this turns on only at -17 and off at -10 Deg C. fast charging will warm it up a bit.

So your range indicator will show more range in Summer than winter. Unfortunately for us, Ireland is a hell of a windy place and it's nearly always windy, not breezy but windy and this has a good impact on range winter or summer.

I've seen 110 Kms on the display at the height of winter but I don't drive too easy and that readout is based on previous driving. But by 110 Kms I would want to be actually plugged in charging. But I could get the range down to 80 Kms if I drove hard enough in winter , cold air is also denser creating more drag.