[Paul]

Does anyone else get this uneasy feeling sometimes?

We're a one-car family with our Nissan LEAF. Unless we plan a long journey we tend to hover around 40-60% charged and the car has an hour on charge most evenings to top up from the previous day's activities.

But I have to admit that sometimes I feel really quite uneasy when I give it a second's thought. Having a car that, if emergency called, has only 20 or 30 miles range in it does make me feel a little "odd".

In an ICE, EREV etc I could just get up and go, but in the LEAF, I'd have to make it to a CHAdeMO and go from there, not exactly ready for any urgent calling.

Yet this has never actually happened to me, not once.

So why, after a year of LEAF ownership, does this still feel weird? And I am alone?!

 

[jonnobris]

We are a one car family too and have a usual pattern of charging to 100% letting it get to about 20% and charging to 100% again, probably twice a week. We only got 3.3 kw chargers so even an hours top up will give IRO 15% charge. For us personally any family emergency will be either 20 miles away or 200 miles away. As the latter couldn't be achieved easily in the leaf anyway we would have to hire/borrow an ICE car at short notice.

But saying this I do think it is part of the mind switch that EV driving requires. That ability to just get in the car and go wherever we want whenever we want, knowing that we can refill with fuel in 5 mins is so entrenched into us that to break that mindset takes time.

We are nearly 10 months into Leaf ownership and have yet to make a long trip, outside our 'comfort zone'. For me its the unreliability of the external network that makes me feel uneasy. We are going on holiday in October and taking the Leaf, only because the we have charging at our destination and will require on,y 1-2 rapids on the way.

So, no you're not alone. I think the 'uneasiness' will be related to different things for different drivers.

 

[JAMES MURPHY]

Does anyone else get this uneasy feeling sometimes?

We're a one-car family with our Nissan LEAF. Unless we plan a long journey we tend to hover around 40-60% charged and the car has an hour on charge most evenings to top up from the previous day's activities.

But I have to admit that sometimes I feel really quite uneasy when I give it a second's thought. Having a car that, if emergency called, has only 20 or 30 miles range in it does make me feel a little "odd".

In an ICE, EREV etc I could just get up and go, but in the LEAF, I'd have to make it to a CHAdeMO and go from there, not exactly ready for any urgent calling.

Yet this has never actually happened to me, not once.

So why, after a year of LEAF ownership, does this still feel weird? And I am alone?!

What is the limitation that leads to charging for only an hour?

 

[Paul]

What is the limitation that leads to charging for only an hour?

No limitation, it's simply more than enough for day to day travel (6.6 kW charger).

 

[Grumpy-b]

Why wouldnt you leave the car charged? The issue of leaving the car partially discharged is an issue for long term storage of Lithium variation cells. There is no point in not charging the car if its in general use and not long term storage. The car will continue to bleed itself down due to the parasitic loads on the car, so if you are unlucky you could have a car thats unusable. But keep it mostly charged and its a usable vehicle and if you charge on E7 then you can exploit the best energy price as well, rather than have to charge on peak power tarrifs.

 

[jontracey]

Does anyone else get this uneasy feeling sometimes?

Not so much in the last 48 hrs, however with my Leaf I was always ensuring it was plugged in every night, and found myself planning ahead on days at the weekend to see if I needed a middle of the day charge

With the tesla its more a case of "ah 150 miles is enough for a couple of days" no need to plug in

 

[Mark Sanders]

Surely, the longer a Li battery is kept nearer 50% soc, (cf 90%) when charged, the better it will last ??

 

[Paul]

Why wouldnt you leave the car charged? The issue of leaving the car partially discharged is an issue for long term storage of Lithium variation cells. There is no point in not charging the car if its in general use and not long term storage. The car will continue to bleed itself down due to the parasitic loads on the car, so if you are unlucky you could have a car thats unusable. But keep it mostly charged and its a usable vehicle and if you charge on E7 then you can exploit the best energy price as well, rather than have to charge on peak power tarrifs.

Because I have no need to. It's never left flat or "in the red". Sometimes though it will get low due to a busy day, and the hour overnight will give us a decent enough range for about town, and it will build up night after night.

It's just on those low days it occasionally feels "odd".

If it fully charges I loose the benefit of brake regeneration and I wouldn't have any benefit of popping in to use the local free rapids and grabbing a drink when passing. Seems needless to charge any longer than an hour a night with the "fast" charger at home.

 

[Paul]

Surely, the longer a Li battery is kept nearer 50% soc, (cf 90%) when charged, the better it will last ??

That was my understanding, but as I only intend to keep for two more years it's not a MAJOR consideration, but still I'd sooner do anything I can to preserve range over the coming two years.

 

[flipper]

That was my understanding, but as I only intend to keep for two more years it's not a MAJOR consideration, but still I'd sooner do anything I can to preserve range over the coming two years.

Isn't this precisely what the optional 80% charge limit was designed for?
My situation is different (I need to fully charge every night) but if I were you I would set the 80% limit and just plug it in every night - that way you don't have that niggling doubt, but you're also not unnecessarily charging to 100%.

 

[Paul]

Isn't this precisely what the optional 80% charge limit was designed for?
My situation is different (I need to fully charge every night) but if I were you I would set the 80% limit and just plug it in every night - that way you don't have that niggling doubt, but you're also not unnecessarily charging to 100%.

I think the point I'm making is that in reality there's absolutely ZERO need for this niggling doubt or uneasiness I sometimes feel.

My current charge patterns are absolutely perfect for our usage, it's easy and convenient and allows the ocassional free top-up on the road. When I plan a longer journey I want a full charge so I just disable the timer and let it go to 100%.

But it just feels odd.

Not the typical "range anxiety", which I don't really get going out of bounds, but a sort of "what if lightning struck, should I be worried", completely unreasonable doubt. And really it's only because it's not like an ICE where there's no risk of that ever happening. Three minutes at the petrol station that's a mile away and I'm good to go wherever.

 

[Grumpy-b]

Life of the cells seems to be extended if they do not go through a full discharge , charge cycle. Not trying to keep them at 50%. If you charge from 50% every day rather than from 0% every two days then the cells will last longer. The 80% in fast charge mode is really a way of reducing the liklyhood of the cells going high voltage under charge. On lifepo4 (others the same) cells nearing their full capacity or from around 80%, if charged at say 10amps will get more overall power flowing into the cell than pumping it in at 40amps, as the voltage difference required to drive the higher current through the cells will cause the cells to get into their high voltage range, and cause charger shut down. If you dont charge the vehicle but have to use it at the lower range, taking it down to a low % charge then you will do more damage to the cells and reduce their overall life.

 

[Paul]

Life of the cells seems to be extended if they do not go through a full discharge , charge cycle. Not trying to keep them at 50%. If you charge from 50% every day rather than from 0% every two days then the cells will last longer. The 80% in fast charge mode is really a way of reducing the liklyhood of the cells going high voltage under charge. On lifepo4 (others the same) cells nearing their full capacity or from around 80%, if charged at say 10amps will get more overall power flowing into the cell than pumping it in at 40amps, as the voltage difference required to drive the higher current through the cells will cause the cells to get into their high voltage range, and cause charger shut down. If you dont charge the vehicle but have to use it at the lower range, taking it down to a low % charge then you will do more damage to the cells and reduce their overall life.

Sounds like I'm doing it right from all perspectives then, apart from this little anxiety gremlin who pops up once in a while!

 

[Brian Stanier]

We normally charged our Leaf to 80% every night regardless. But in winter that was marginal for (say) an emergency trip to our son's up in Pennines and impossible if there was a diversion in place. Likewise longish trips up into the Dales or Moors always involved some range anxiety when pushing the Leaf envelope. Which is why we switched to an i3 Rex after three Leafy years.

 

[tim_battersby]

I come at this from a slightly different approach to charging than Paul i think (though i can see how his logic works well for him).

I guess I should say at the outset that I don't need to worry about having any 'emergency' anxieties as we have 2 cars and the wife's car usually has more diesel than I have kW.

So my charging routine works around the car and me. I use a local station with 7kW chargers, so when work takes me on a rail trip somewhere I let the charge run as low as 20 miles range (station is 15 miles away) so as to make full use of the free charge.
On other days I use Zoe for a direct 'commute' of between 50 and 100 miles each way. But with my nearest rapid chargers being a heafty 40-odd miles away at wetherby (heading south) and Durham (heading north) I always make sure that I leave home after a full overnight charge.
So my car tends to show pretty wild variation in charge levels through the week and during day and night. At any time it might be sitting on the drive with as little as 10% or at 100%.
No different to the diesel car I suppose - except that i can add 7kW an hour day or night whilst the car is on the drive.

For me I may love the car and derive a small amount of satisfaction from cost effective charging strategies. But in the end, it's also just a car. I expect it to do the same stuff my previous cars have done, and it does. I don't care about the car being fully charged or almost empty - if the batteries can't handle that then that is Renault's problem, not mine.

And if all else fails, none of my cars have ever had a blue light and siren and I use these for emergencies!

 

[Lee Howard]

But saying this I do think it is part of the mind switch that EV driving requires. That ability to just get in the car and go wherever we want whenever we want, knowing that we can refill with fuel in 5 mins is so entrenched into us that to break that mindset takes time.

I feel like the EV refuelling mindset needs to be less like that of an ICE car and more like that of a cell phone. In other words, when I leave the house I unplug it, take it with me wherever I need to go, and when I return home I plug it back-in. If I happen to be going away and not be able to return before my cell phone battery dies, then I take the charger with me and charge wherever I am at when I need it.

I know that destination charging is really in its infancy, but I really think that's where things need to go... along with the EVs to have enough charge capacity (or extended-range capacity) to get them from point A to point B.

So I recognize the fact that my thoughts don't necessarily jive with reality today. But I think that's where things need to go. For me in the Volt that's very close to how it is already, though... with a very rare fuel-up on petrol.

 

[Eunicholas]

I only charge up once in the week on Friday, as I only do about a 100 miles in a week, I only charge to full if I'm driving to my girlfriends 76miles and I top up there for 15min and head back. But I have the same feeling as Paul some times

 

[Garry TheBiz]

I agree with Lee. We've only had our Kangoo for just over a week now, but we use the same strategy as mobile phone. Top up every time we're back at base, most times we're leaving fully charged. We don't charge overnight (Van is secluded, but not in a private location, so we don't want to risk someone meddling with the cable). So if we've had a lot of calls the previous day, the next day we may be leaving on half or 3/4 batteries, but then we plug in again in between each call, and it slowly tops up throughout the day in between calls.

 

[richtrash]

I try to keep mine charged up so I have the maximum range available if necessary, in the cold weather I can pre-heat without reducing the range and it's so nice to get in a warm or cool car.

I only charge using the supplied brick so it can take many hours to charge which I usually do overnight.

 

[Paul]

It's a year (almost exactly) since I started this thread.

I don't feel uneasy like that any more, can't remember the last time I did. Odd really, just adapting I guess.