Leaf 1.5 - early models showing battery loss

oinkely

Hi All,

Just checking if anyone has noticed this. I'm on the lookout for an early model 1.5 so late 13 and have noticed a few recently popping up on autotrader UK with one battery bar loss.

It's common for the first gen to have one or two battery bars lost but far less common to see in the gen 1.5. I've noticed two late 13 gen 1.5s with a bar loss recently, while there are numerous reports of super high mileage ones with no degradation.

I wonder if it is a time issue, ie, time is almost worse than mileage for degradation? The two that i saw were not very high mileage, around 40 to 60 k miles.

Any thoughts?

zilog_jones

Traditionally with Li-ion technology, they have a limited shelf life - even if they're never used they will degrade over time. Also, storing for long periods at a high state of charge may lead to faster capacity loss, so it's possible that lower mileage cars may have been left in this state more often.

There was a battery chemistry change on MY15 cars (the Lizard battery) so maybe the late 24 kWh battery is even better than the original improved battery.

My 152 at 69k currently reports SOH of 98 percent so not near dropping a bar yet anyway.

zenith90

My experience is that the mk1.5 Leaf battery is markedly more robust than its predecessor and may prove to be more resilient than the larger 30 and 40 kWh variants.

My understanding is that the lizard battery from 2015 onwards focused on improving heat resistance in response to issues in the US i.e. unlikely to be a major concern for UK or Irish based cars.

My 132 Leaf with 50k miles on the clock is showing all 12 bars.
The last LeafSpy I ran at the weekend showed 95% SOH.

Of course, it is obviously possible that there are batteries out there showing significant degradation, likely as a result of mis-management (Kept at 100% and/or 0% SOC for extended periods etc.), as zilog alluded to.

ELM327

My 2014 1.5 leaf 24kWh
100k on the clock, 92% SOH.
I still see it on Plugshare so it's still going strong!

oinkely

Yeah, my experience with the mark 1.5 has been as above, no significant loss really. Just been searching for the next leaf recently and seeing a few late 13s, definitely mark 1.5, with a bar gone. Didn't see any when I was last looking in September.

Equally, finding the bargain is getting very hard now too. They are few and far between.