[Purfleet]

Morning

I think there has been a few discussions on battery health on here over the last couple of years, but mine is more in relation to the battery gauge in the car.

My leaf was bought new in Apil 2018 and has now down 39500, probably averaging 17000 a year with significantly less over the last 6 months. The battery in my car showed about 99% when I got leaf spy and has showed a steady decline with a couple of large drops over the last 2.5 years as we are now on 89.8%.

Whilst i don’t think it is good, I think the Nissan warrant on batteries is 70% after 8 years so roughly about parallel?

The question i have with the gauge is still showing the full bar - I expected it to show a drop at maybe 5% but held off writing this until it got to under 90% as the next reasonable threshold to check

I get that Nissan do not want to show the battery degrading, but it happens, and it does mean the cars range has dropped by 10 miles or so and is therefore relevant to the driver in a fairly low range car - the mark 1 leaf has a 12 stage indicator which shows the health quite clearly.

Has anyone else noticed this kind of thing?

 

[80698]

The bars aren't split evenly. The first bar doesn't disappear until somewhere around 15% degradation, but the ones after that are somewhere around the 7% point. Thankfully the degradation of the LEAF Batteries does slow down a bit after the first couple of years, so you might still have all bars showing for some time to come yet, if you do your best to look after it.

 

[GOSPORT DAVE]

I don’t worry too much about the battery SOH, as all Li battery’s degrade over time. I am more concerned by how many KWh remain on a 100% charge, as read by LeafSpy, as this is the range of the vehicle available to me.

Additionally on a 100% charge, that there is no potentially weak battery cells, good well balanced cells indicates a healthy battery.

The SOH on LeafSpy, is mirroring the NISSAN software and algorithms, who to say that is an accurate reflection, after all, the software in the 30Kwh had form for being over pessimistic and was addressed by NISSAN.

 

[Purfleet]

No i am not overly concerned by it, i actually think the drop is in line with expectations - the point is that the battery is saying 1 (as the car refers to it) but it has dropped 10% and i would expect a drop like that to register on any basic indicator

I am quite happy to keep an eye on the KWH/GIDS on leafspy as my ultimate fuel gauge

 

[GOSPORT DAVE]

Yes, l agree that it is disingenuous at best of NISSAN, to put a battery health gauge in the vehicle that hoodwinks one into assuming that the battery is in a 100% state of health when in fact the battery could be at 86% and ready to drop a bar.

The cynical side of me, thinks that it is purposely designed for dealerships to sell on 3 to 4 year old vehicles that have been returned from lease hire. So they can say a prospective purchaser “ yes, Sir or Madam, the battery SOH is at 100%, the gauge says so”.

To add insult to injury, when you get your car serviced, they give a print out of the battery health gauge reading and tell you all is well, when I fact from LeafSpy we see a clear view of the truth.

NISSAN are not the only manufacturer that are up to hoodwinking, the South Korea manufactures understate the battery capacity so for instance a 64Khw capacity is actually nearer 67Kwh. This meaning battery capacity lose won’t be seen for 3 to 4 years.

 

[Drewby80]

I guess the real concern about battery degradation is whether your likely to reach a point where your car no longer has the range to do what you need per day on a single charge.

It also rather depends on how long you plan on keeping it.

It seems that degradation is as affected by mileage covered as calendar age.

My 40 Leaf is the same age as yours, has done 7200 miles and shows 95.31% according to leaf spy.

On that basis mine would have lost 25% or so by the time it’s covered the mileage yours has.

It’s very difficult to know what causes the most degradation, but I would have thought distance driving at speed followed by a rapid charge would probably age a battery most rapidly in a leaf.

On the plus side of your doing 17k a year so your fuel saving offsets a huge chunk of the depreciation.

If your going to chop it in after 3 years it’s not really going to be your problem.

By the same token if you plan to run it into the ground it’s not going to owe you much either.

How long do you plan on keeping it?

 

[Purfleet]

The reason i bought the car was to drive to London, 50 miles round trip. its also the reason i went for a 40 rather than go for a 30 so after a big of battery degradation and winter it wouldn't struggle to make it comfortably

for the first 2 years it was our main car, and we took it everywhere, but now what with the combination of covid19 and that we have bought a day van for the weekend days out with the dogs we are now averaging about 500 miles a month rather than 1500.

The car is likely to be fine for 95% of trips for the next 10 years plus and I plan to keep a moderate day van/large car for the trips to uni's, weekends and holidays etc so I am not overly concerned with the rate of degradation. If Nissan have set a limit of 70% after 8 years on the warranty, they must expect an average user to get to 75%/80% after 8 years? that is still 100 miles plus and by then the congestion charge discount would have stopped anyway and then it will be a home to station car

My only issue is the health gauge in the car, if you have one it should at least be representative of the battery - and yes I had the battery print out from Nissan after paying 160 quid for a litre of screen wash which said the battery was 100%

 

[Drewby80]

My only issue is the health gauge in the car, if you have one it should at least be representative of the battery - and yes I had the battery print out from Nissan after paying 160 quid for a litre of screen wash which said the battery was 100%

I see your point there, I guess Nissan figure that your average user doesn’t go poking around with LeafSpy and that if that gauge depleted on a linear scale with the battery your average layperson would find that rather alarming.

After all the degradation of a lithium battery is more rapid in the first couple of years and then slows hence the larger step requires for the first block to disappear.

EV’s have been and continue to be difficult for your average user to wrap their head around at the best of times, you only have to look at the questions posed by the noobs on here of which I was recently one and kind of still am a bit wet behind the ears to see how bigger change this is.

On top of that Nissan were the pioneers and were learning as they went along as much as we are for a lot of years.

So I can kind of understand why the battery health gauge works the way it does.