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Post by Phoebe on Jun 8, 2013 14:31:11 GMT 11
I think that's probably the answer, Jim. Even the not so steep hills around here, make a tremendous difference - the one close to home, about 1/2 km can knock 10 kms off my Eco range guessometer, but I only gain 1km in range going the other direction downhill.
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Post by Jim Hare on Jun 8, 2013 14:36:22 GMT 11
Yeah, been doing some research from owners around the world and I am actually in the range, just at the very bottom of expectations.
But I swear we were doing better when we first got it, which is why I'm a bit concerned.
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Post by David on Jun 9, 2013 20:06:17 GMT 11
Jim, I think hills are a definite contributor to range reduction. we went to Royal National Park yesterday, very hilly (up and down) and although range increased on the down hills, it reduced much more going up. Anyway, I did 90km that day and had a range of 11km when we got home. The next day I drove 101km on more normal terrain (fairly flat southern sydney) and had 22km on guessometer. Above all done in D not Eco
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Post by Jim Hare on Jun 10, 2013 13:46:43 GMT 11
Hey David, that's actually good news for me. I have been tempted to try to borrow another LEAF from Nissan for a few days and see if we get the same results.
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Post by Phoebe on Jun 10, 2013 14:03:01 GMT 11
Yep, everyone, beware of hills. You lose an awful lot of range going up and only regain a little bit going down again, so, overall you lose range a lot faster in hilly country than flat country
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Post by mike on May 4, 2014 8:37:28 GMT 11
Here is the KLM range chart. Again, with credit to TonyWilliams from the US Leaf forums Just found this chart on the forum. It's seems to be spot on, referencing the 4 times in the first month of ownership that I've "brought her home on fumes". I'll have to print this table out and keep it in the glove box. Yesterday, I left the house, fully loaded, with 11 bars on long city trip. I don't like to leave at 100% since we would have a long decent without regenerative braking. Stops at the Australia Post & Airport DHL to pickup packages, DFO to pick up new set of heavy dishes, climb to Mt. Coot-tha (300M) for picnic lunch, down to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to discharge the batteries on the kids, stop at the fish market for last night's BBQ & Coles for fruit & veg. Got the 1st low battery warning at about 96km. Heading up the hill, I tested my wife's range anxiety issue by letting off the accelerator half way up the hill and pretending to "run out of batteries"....punched it again when I got the "Oh...No!!!" from the passenger seat. That got me in "least favored husband" status for the rest of the evening. Arrived home with 7km of estimated range, no battery bars and 98km on trip odo. From the table: 126km - .5 bar for 300M ascend / decent = 121km - 19km of reserve - a bit more for being heavily loaded and 16C = Spot-On. Hadn't planned to arrive home that low, but there were several unplanned stops on the trip. Thanks for the resource...Very helpful!!
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Post by Phoebe on May 4, 2014 11:32:29 GMT 11
Yep, we've had that chart on the forum before, but as you are learning, Mike, we all soon get the feel of our LEAF and know what we can and can't do, without the need of a chart
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Post by philcanberra on Jun 12, 2014 0:59:29 GMT 11
Hi all. I just found this site. I usually charge to 100% and lately I've been getting around 80km from a 100% charge. I've even had as little as 52km from a 100% charge. This doesn't include much heavy driving, mostly nice and steady. But where I live in Canberra is quite hilly too. Our leaf has 26,000km on it and nearly 2 years old. Most speed limits here are 70,80,90. Our battery capacity took a huge hit this summer, we dropped from 101.2% capacity to 92.1%. We even dipped down to 89% but winter has seen this come up a bit. I use the leaf battery app on an android (shudder) phone with a bluetooth obd2. But I measure a good ride as being able to hit 50km before I get to 6 bars. If I can do that, then I should get 100km from a 100% charge.
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Post by Feng on Jun 12, 2014 1:50:43 GMT 11
Hi Phil,
Welcome to the forum. I think we might have crossed paths on Facebook before. Just curious what tire pressure you're using, ours is only a year old but isn't far behind you in kms and capacity and we're getting around 110km on 80% and 130km on 100%.
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Post by Jim Hare on Jun 12, 2014 9:16:23 GMT 11
Hi Phil and welcome! As Feng said, that sounds a bit low compared to most of our experiences. We live in a very hilly area so our range suffers, but we get closer to 120KM on 100% and around 100km on 80%. Every drive home includes a steep incline that removes about 5KM of range for a 1KM stretch so I thought I was worst case scenario.
Can you let us know how you calculate 100%? When you say 80KM on 100% do you mean how far you would go if you were to run it to 0% or just how far you've gone when you recharge?
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Post by Jim Hare on Jun 12, 2014 9:20:57 GMT 11
Phil, just noticed your other post about using the heater. If you are cranking the heater full-time I could understand the big range hit. Is this the case?
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Post by philcanberra on Jun 12, 2014 21:14:18 GMT 11
Hi all. Oh sorry. Yes the worst range we have gotten was around 60km or so but that was using the heater, 100km/h and in heavy rain. I find that rain REALLY takes a hit on range.
Just to clarify we generally get around 130ish km on a full 100% charge. As in, we drive 105km get home with 2 bars and estimated 14km remaining. If we don't use AC/heat
I've done many advanced driving courses for work and will never run tire pressure below 36psi. A real eye opener. Especially at 110km/h nearly an extra 4 car lengths to stop when running at 28psi.
Overall my wife and I absolutely love the car.
We got it back from Nissan today and they found the water pump had ceased. Car is running great and heater great again. Our battery capacity was at 91.12% when we dropped it off, now it is back up to 93.92% wow!
After driving the leaf solely for over a year and then hop in a diesel VW loan car, you REALLY appreciate an EV
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Post by EVangelist on Mar 1, 2015 18:00:39 GMT 11
Okay LEAFies, this range question is doing my head in so I propose we do an unofficial experiment and see if we can come up with anything. Here's what I'd like everyone to do: 1. Charge the LEAF to 100% 2. Reset the trip odometer to 0 3. Drive in eco mode until the guess-o-meter gets pretty low 4. Log how many KMs you went, how many the LEAF thinks you can still go, and something about the terrain/driving conditions. We just had our worst range cycle by far. Hopefully just a fluke, I'll log a few more and see. Here's my first entry: 1. Drove 96KM with 11KMs remaining 2. 2-4 passengers, hilly terrain, many extremely short trips, mainly day, no A/C Related to my other recent thread on efficiency over time, I took up this challenge and investigated how good the GOM is compared to actual distance travelled. The answer - for us at least - is the GOM is pretty bad. Very bad even. Maybe it's the hilly Sydney driving. Unfortunately GOM data has to be recorded manually, Carwings does not record when the car is charged and what the GOM reading is at the beginning and end of each trip (that would be a nice thing to add to Carwings). So over the past few weeks I have recorded the GOM values manually (non-ECO GOM value) and reset the tripmeter at each charge. Then drive the car in ECO (mostly) which should give the GOM the most flattering results. The results are attached and the data so far is pretty consistent. The trendline says that the actual km that can be driven is 0.8 x GOM value minus 5 km. So, an 80% charge for us typically shows non-ECO GOM value of 120 km or so. That means the actual distance we can drive in ECO is (0.8 x 120 - 5) or 91 km. And that's driving in ECO!! The GOM value for ECO mode is about 10% higher than non-ECO, so if we took the ECO GOM value the "discount to reality" would be more like 30% than 20%. I'm not sure what this all means. Given the car knows our historical kWh/km efficiency based on actual driving, the GOM should be much better than that.
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Post by quaternary on Mar 2, 2015 19:02:43 GMT 11
Very nice graph. Thanks for sharing.
Certainly the GOM is a much disparaged indicator of range!
With regards your comment: "the GOM should be much better than that" - well if it was better than it is, then it wouldn't be called a GOM (guess-o-meter) - it'd be called something like a URI (useful-range-indicator). But alas, it's not a URI, and so we're stuck with the guessing-GOM!
By the way, I see how you get the GOM value on the x-axis, but how do you determine the actual distance covered? Ie, what's your end point of the trip? Eg, low battery warning?
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Post by EVangelist on Mar 2, 2015 23:10:44 GMT 11
Very nice graph. Thanks for sharing. Certainly the GOM is a much disparaged indicator of range! With regards your comment: "the GOM should be much better than that" - well if it was better than it is, then it wouldn't be called a GOM (guess-o-meter) - it'd be called something like a URI (useful-range-indicator). But alas, it's not a URI, and so we're stuck with the guessing-GOM! By the way, I see how you get the GOM value on the x-axis, but how do you determine the actual distance covered? Ie, what's your end point of the trip? Eg, low battery warning? Hi quaternary, It's pretty simple. When I plug in to recharge at night, I reset the tripmeter to 0. Then in the morning, at the completion of recharge I record the GOM value (around 120 km at 80% charge). Then, at the end of most trips I record the value on the tripmeter and the value of the GOM. I keep doing that until the next recharge - I don't need to wait for a specific end point such as low battery. I typically get 3 or 4 data points before the next charge. An actual example - the GOM reads 120 km after recharge, and at the end of my first trip I travelled 15.1 km but the GOM now reads 90. GOM has gone down by 30 km but I only actually travelled 15.1km. (30,15.1) is my first data point on the graph. The next trip, the tripmeter is up to 32.6 km, and the GOM now reads 71. I have now travelled 32.6 km but the GOM has gone down by 49 km. (49,32.6) is my next data point. (91,68.6) is the data point after that. And so on. Next recharge, I start again. By getting a range of values from both short and long trips, I get the graph above. I've only collected 2 weeks of data so far.
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Post by kris on Mar 3, 2015 14:39:44 GMT 11
I lost a battery bar yesterday. Eighteen months old, 22, 000km & down to 11 bars. Bugger!
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Post by Phoebe on Mar 3, 2015 15:08:20 GMT 11
I lost a battery bar yesterday. Eighteen months old, 22, 000km & down to 11 bars. Bugger!
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Post by empowerrepower on Mar 4, 2015 14:17:05 GMT 11
I lost a battery bar yesterday. Eighteen months old, 22, 000km & down to 11 bars. Bugger! Hi Kris,
That is a worry after such a short time. I get my new Leaf in 3 days, and apprehension about the battery life has been my main concern for what is a great car in many ways. I think that Nissan could be offering better warranties if they really want the Leaf to be a success, something better than the 3+ bars down capacity warranty, although the move to 5 years was an improvement. Bugger indeed!
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Post by hieronymous on Mar 4, 2015 16:04:16 GMT 11
Battery degradation is minimal at 40% SoC or less - rest your car at this level as much as possible. Our cars have been stored at this level. This is enough charge for about 30-35 km. If you don't have a phone app for this, turn on your display and when 3 bars charging appears, give it 10 minutes more. Never charge higher than you need; it is easy to use 80% or 100% as the car provides the means to do this easily, but if it is more than you need then your SoC will rest at too high a level for best battery life.
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Post by Jim Hare on Mar 5, 2015 15:11:35 GMT 11
I lost a battery bar yesterday. Eighteen months old, 22, 000km & down to 11 bars. Bugger! Hi Kris,
That is a worry after such a short time. I get my new Leaf in 3 days, and apprehension about the battery life has been my main concern for what is a great car in many ways. I think that Nissan could be offering better warranties if they really want the Leaf to be a success, something better than the 3+ bars down capacity warranty, although the move to 5 years was an improvement. Bugger indeed!
I don't think it's so much the age as the distance, which relates to number of recharges. For example, we just lost our first bar after almost 3 years and 23k. It's 1 bar of 12 so no real need to panic here. They say if it drops more than 4 bars in the first 5 years then it's a warranty issue, otherwise it's normal wear and tear. This isn't unexpected and completely normal. The hope is that by the time any of us need a replacement they will be so cheap it's a non issue. Plus we have the fantastic option of putting the old LEAF battery in the garage to power the house! It's all good.
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Post by Phoebe on Mar 5, 2015 15:46:36 GMT 11
If you are right, Jim, I won't have any problems for a while as I've only done 5,000ks and charge about once a month
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Post by Feng on Mar 5, 2015 16:12:49 GMT 11
Just curious Phoebe, what does it show when you give it a full charge now? I know it's not meant to be accurate but I think it gives some indicator to battery health. Ours showed 136km this morning. This is after 20 months and almost 40k kms.
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Post by Phoebe on Mar 5, 2015 21:26:22 GMT 11
Last time I charged was 1st March and Fully charged the GOM read 188km, so I guess my battery is pretty healthy even if that is a very rough guess
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Post by empowerrepower on Mar 5, 2015 23:35:54 GMT 11
Battery degradation is minimal at 40% SoC or less - rest your car at this level as much as possible. Our cars have been stored at this level. This is enough charge for about 30-35 km. If you don't have a phone app for this, turn on your display and when 3 bars charging appears, give it 10 minutes more. Never charge higher than you need; it is easy to use 80% or 100% as the car provides the means to do this easily, but if it is more than you need then your SoC will rest at too high a level for best battery life. Hi, this might be ideal for the battery, but having such a short range available in order to protect the battery wouldn't be practical for many of us. Travel plans can change daily, at short notice, and a car needs to be versatile. I guess I think the battery tech needs to keep improving, as EVs must be seen to be practical by potential buyers if they are to take over from fossil-fuel cars.
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Post by markrmarkr on Mar 6, 2015 7:42:15 GMT 11
Okay LEAFies, this range question is doing my head in so I propose we do an unofficial experiment and see if we can come up with anything. Here's what I'd like everyone to do: 1. Charge the LEAF to 100% 2. Reset the trip odometer to 0 3. Drive in eco mode until the guess-o-meter gets pretty low 4. Log how many KMs you went, how many the LEAF thinks you can still go, and something about the terrain/driving conditions. We just had our worst range cycle by far. Hopefully just a fluke, I'll log a few more and see. Here's my first entry: 1. Drove 96KM with 11KMs remaining 2. 2-4 passengers, hilly terrain, many extremely short trips, mainly day, no A/C Related to my other recent thread on efficiency over time, I took up this challenge and investigated how good the GOM is compared to actual distance travelled. The answer - for us at least - is the GOM is pretty bad. Very bad even. Maybe it's the hilly Sydney driving. Unfortunately GOM data has to be recorded manually, Carwings does not record when the car is charged and what the GOM reading is at the beginning and end of each trip (that would be a nice thing to add to Carwings). So over the past few weeks I have recorded the GOM values manually (non-ECO GOM value) and reset the tripmeter at each charge. Then drive the car in ECO (mostly) which should give the GOM the most flattering results. The results are attached and the data so far is pretty consistent. The trendline says that the actual km that can be driven is 0.8 x GOM value minus 5 km. So, an 80% charge for us typically shows non-ECO GOM value of 120 km or so. That means the actual distance we can drive in ECO is (0.8 x 120 - 5) or 91 km. And that's driving in ECO!! The GOM value for ECO mode is about 10% higher than non-ECO, so if we took the ECO GOM value the "discount to reality" would be more like 30% than 20%. I'm not sure what this all means. Given the car knows our historical kWh/km efficiency based on actual driving, the GOM should be much better than that. Mark's Defence of the GOMLast night I forgot to plug in, so when I got in the car this morning, the GOM said I had 70km. Now my trip to work is exactly 20km and normally the GOM drops by 30km by the time I get to work - driving normally. Driving normally means lots of 80-90kph and driving just like other cars. Today I was nervous so I hypermiled - that is very gentle slow driving nothing over 70kph, gentle breaking, thinking ahead. When I got to work the GOM said 51km. So it had dropped by 19km for my 20km trip. My point is the GOM is setup to give you a good guess of your range "assuming you drive conservatively". Why would Nissan set it up this way? Because if you're really interested in what the GOM is saying, then you probably need to be driving conservatively. Most of the time Leaf owners pay very little attention to the GOM. We have less range anxiety than ICE drivers, because we have our routines where we go to work etc, come home and charge over night, and we know we have plenty of charge to do this. The times we pay some attention is when we are doing something unusual, and we give it a lot of attention when we think we may be in trouble. When you think you might be in trouble you should be hypermiling, and in this situation the GOM is quite accurate. So it's a very useful tool when you need it to be.
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Post by Phoebe on Mar 6, 2015 8:47:06 GMT 11
Mark your GOM appeared to be accurate because you had changed your style of driving and it was adjusting. I drive like that most if the time and my GOM is not accurate. It is only accurate on the rare occassion after I've had a trip on the open road at speed and it is adjusting back to the normal me.
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Post by markrmarkr on Mar 6, 2015 10:58:32 GMT 11
I think you have hit on an important point. The GOM is not static. It adjusts to the driving style. When you have a consistent driving style it will consistently overestimate your range available. But having been consistently normal for a while, when I have occasion to hyperhmile, it is accurate.
As you hypermile all the time Phoebe, you are the exception to the rule. Most people don't drive like that.
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Post by Phoebe on Mar 6, 2015 11:09:43 GMT 11
Where I drive normally in Maitland is nearly all 50 kph speed limit, except for one section of about 1km which is considered high pedestrian density and is 40kph, so I don't have too many choices. Anyone in Maitland is similarly confined unless they ignore the speed limits The only times I have driven differently are when I've been on the open road to go to a LEAF meet or to Newcastle to get my LEAF serviced.
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Post by EVangelist on Mar 7, 2015 14:47:45 GMT 11
My point is the GOM is setup to give you a good guess of your range "assuming you drive conservatively". Why would Nissan set it up this way? Because if you're really interested in what the GOM is saying, then you probably need to be driving conservatively. Thanks for your passionate defence of the GOM, but in a way, you prove my point. One shouldn't need to "hypermile" in order for the GOM to be accurate. Thanks to the onboard telemetry, I know our lifetime driving efficiency is 0.142 kW/km. The Leaf has a 24 kWh battery, so with an 80% charge and our driving style, we should get approx 135 km actual range. When charged to 80%, our GOM usually reads between 130 and 135 km in ECO. That is aligned with the efficiency data. Fantastic, tick! The problem is when we start driving. Even accepting that the GOM should be biased towards pessimism (i.e. not overestimate remaining range), and that you may suddenly drive worse than your historical efficiency, the GOM still decreases faster than it should. Based on our driving data to date, the GOM should decrease at 1.08x (i.e. 8% faster) than the actual distance covered in order to overestimate actual range only 10% of the time; or at 1.11x to overestimate only 5% of the time, or at 1.14x to overestimate only 1% of the time. Currently our GOM decreases at 1.30x. The Leaf is a great car, but that's not good enough in my view. The data is there for a better GOM algorithm tailored to each car and how it has been driven, Nissan should use it.
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Post by hieronymous on Mar 7, 2015 15:11:19 GMT 11
My point is the GOM is setup to give you a good guess of your range "assuming you drive conservatively". Why would Nissan set it up this way? Because if you're really interested in what the GOM is saying, then you probably need to be driving conservatively. Thanks to the onboard telemetry, I know our lifetime driving efficiency is 0.142 kW/km. Actually, you don't know this at all. If you calculate efficiency for a conventional car, you use the petrol station receipt for your consumption, not the gauge on the car dash. To calculate efficiency for a Leaf you need to measure what is coming out of the wall. This is interesting and complicated, as it is not linear. At 80%/100% charging I was getting in the car a 90% average of what I was taking from the wall. At 40% charging I am getting 125% in the car of what I am taking from the wall. Unless you meter every charge you can only guess at your overall efficiency.
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