Nissan leaf slow charging

Alan McG

Hi all,

Hoping to get some sage advice from the oracle.

I've just bought a 2012 24kWh Nissan Leaf with 7 bars of battery left. However, I'm having trouble charging it. It charges just fine off the grant lead @2.2kW, but when I go to use the Chademo fast charger it starts at 5kWh and drops to 2kWh within a few minutes. Then I get booted off the charger presumably for bathing too slowly.

I don't have a home charger yet, so not sure how it performs on the 7kW one.

The guy I bought it from said he never used the fast charger (Chademo or home charger). Not 100% sure I believe him, might have been a reason why he didn't use it...

My best guess is the car is limiting the charging due to the cold temperatures, 6C today, but I'm not sure. Maybe the battery isn't happy to take a decent charge for other reasons?

Any advice welcome.

loopymum

If its a 2012 I think the fastest AC charging is 3.3kw per hour even if you have a 7kw charger. But definitely install a 7kw for future proofing.

Your granny cable will be giving you a max of 2.2kw.

Also were you definitely using chademo when public charging? It's the much bigger socket?

What battery percentage was on the car when you started rapid charging? If the battery wasn't low enough it would have a low charging curve as you only have 7 bars & charging really shows down when you hit 80%

Alan McG

Yeah, definitely on Chademo. I thought it might have been the charger so I tried another one, same problem.

Battery was 70%. It made it to 75% before I got booted off. I don't think it should slow down as low as 2kW. Would defeat the whole purpose of the fast charger

slave1

i could swear there was a Leaf for sale last year that seller said could not fast charge……hmmm

Alan McG

There was a great one I saw a couple of months ago, would only fast charge. Not sure how many people would own one of them! Lol

With quite a lot of help from my brother (who is temporary caretaker) I've managed to find out some more info. He hooned it down the motorway to try to heat up the battery, and brought the range down to 16km. He then then tried it on a Chademo. It started at ~30kW but dropped to about 11kW within 5 minutes and then settled at 8kW until the 45 mins charging session was up.

The conclusion is that the issue is largely temperature related, but the car really slow down & restricts charging above 75%.

Let this be a warning to anyone who's thinking of buying a Leaf and taking it cross country in the depths of a relatively mild Irish winter. Unless you hoon it from 75% down to about 10% (~50km if you're lucky!) and have a plethora of fast chargers along the way, you might want to come up with another plan. Me? I think I'll be calling a recovery vehicle to ship it cross country!

slave1

I’d use Leafspy and how see how many fast charges the car got from previous owner, with free charging for many of its early years it’s quite an exception that’s it was never fast charged.

Alan McG

Would the number of fast chargers not show up as battery degradation rather than a charging restriction?

slave1

Leaf spy shows number of DC charging sessions on its header page

slave1

See, 170 QC aka Quick Charges

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118481453#Comment_118481453

My guess is that since the state of health is down to 55-60% that the battery management system is simply restricting high charge rates to protect it.

starting at 70% state of charge would also have a lot to do with it.

Orebro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118482635#Comment_118482635

If you purchase a 2012 Leaf and intend to use it for cross country travel you need your head examined regardless of the weather - this is coming from a Leaf owner!

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118482635#Comment_118482635

No need to warn.

To be honest, you bought the worse EV on the market for cross country travel.

Early Leaf which had a bad battery from the start, degraded to 7/12 bars (58% SOH) puts you in a car with about 60km range to begin with.

Chademo charging at 50kw will slow down at 80% on a normal Leaf with healthy battery so slowing at 70% on yours sounds about correct.