It’ll do low 70s kW on a suitable charger with a fairly empty battery. The Tritium units at Gridserve Rugby will, and Shell seem to be putting more out there too

40kWh Leaf is 50kW charging only.

 

Nissan is saying it will charge at up to 100kW but any YT video I've seen shows no more than 70-70something kW.

Where is Nissan saying this? The current brochure rather undersells the e+'s rapid charging abilities (after some rapped knuckles during 'rapidgate', no doubt). I didn't see any reference to 100kW charging there, or indeed any indication that the e+ charges faster than a standard 40 kWh Leaf. But it does. (70-something, as you say rather than the full 100.)

 

Yes, it looks like Nissan removed from their website information about Leaf e+ being able to charge at a rate of up to 100kW.

 

Nissan's website was changed - they removed the 100kw charger reference, probably to avoid claims that owners never saw over 74kw or less with the 40kw model.

74kw is max but only from a very low soc. My E+ drops to 71kw by 40% and then 60kw and so on down.

This still means it is significantly quicker than on a 50kw charger, where the max rate is 45kw (due to the 125amp charger limit). Its just under 1kw per minute overall.

No idea whether the 40kw is limited to 50kw (45)

It may be worth trying a 40kw on a 100kw rapid because you may then see the full 50kw because the current is not limited by the charger to 125amps. (250amp max )

 

I've noticed that Gridserve have been replacing/upgrading motorway chargers (previously Ecotricity) and they now say that all chargers are 60kW (instead of 50kW previously) (or more for CSS). Would these 60kW Chademo chargers charge 40kWh Leaf at full 50kW speed?

 

I've found the GridServe chargers slower than BP ABB 100kW units in reality (did connect to a 100kW CHAdeMO somewhen). Not terrible - but not the 70kW I've seen elsewhere. I was connected to a GridServe 60kW charger last week and thought it a little slow ~30kWh?

 

That's very disappointing (getting 30kWh on a rapid charger).

 

Rarely does the actual system get explained. All models prior to the 62kwh had two battery strings in parallel. So with the max being 50kw charging, ie 25kWh per string.
The e+ 62kWh has three battery strings in parallel so in theory each sting taking 25kW so resulting in a 75kW charge rate.
In practice the charge rates are maxing at 45kWh and 67 kWh depending on model and charger.

 

Yes indeed, I agree, the 62kWh battery pack has three strings of cells -- and this allows it to charge more rapidly than the earlier (two-string) battery packs. Details at Nissan Leaf - Battery Design

But ... a fastcharger has a maximum-available output amperage. As pointed out by Graeme Hart on the NZ EV Owners Facebook group: "The 62 kWh leaf can't charge any faster than any late model leaf on the Chargenet 350 kw hypercharger as the charger has the older standard Chademo connection. It can charge faster on chargers like the one at Farmer Autovillage in Mount Maunganui."

CHAdeMO 1.0 cables are limited to 125A. CHAdeMO 1.2 allows 400A.

125A*375V = 47kW, which corresponds very nicely to the 44kW max of my 24kWh e-NV200 (until its SOC is above about 40%). And the 300kW hypercharger at Bombay NZ (a bit south of Auckland, Motorway Service Centre | PlugShare) advertises that you'll get only "50kW" from its CHAdeMO plug -- which is within cooee of 47kW. So: Graeme's explanation makes a lot of sense to me.

If you're at a charging station which can supply 200A at 375V, then you could charge a 62kWh pack at 75kW -- which corresponds nicely to Nissan's (amended) claimed max-charging rate for their 62kWh packs.

And... if you ever find a CHAdeMO station which can supply 300A, then you might see a 100kW charging rate... but that'd be a pretty fast charge (above 1.5C) for the NMC cells in a Nissan battery, and there's no active cooling on its pack for the Leaf... so the pack will heat up significantly if this charge rate is sustained for more than a few minutes. I'm therefore guessing that Nissan stopped advertising the 100kW charging rate for the 62kWh e+, after its engineers had revved the firmware in the charging controller to make it possible to take hot-weather roadtrips (without much risk of overheating the battery to the point that it won't take a second fastcharge on the same day).

I have had my share of overheating issues, although to date I have always managed to avoid the dreaded turtle mode from an overheated battery! My preference when charging my 24kWh e-NV200 on a roadtrip is a 25kW fastcharger, because these sessions won't add much if any heat to an already-hot battery. By contrast, a 50kW fastcharge session will heat up its 24kWh battery pack when charging up to (very roughly) 60% SOC; then the chargerate will drop below the point (very roughly 25kW) where the (rather wimpy) active-cooling system on my 2014 ex-Japan e-NV200 will start to make some headway against the heat generated by charging. As always, "your mileage may vary", because there are so many important factors which will affect chargerate curves: firmware version, battery SOH, battery starting temperature, ambient temperature, ...

Nissan LEAF Might Have A Good Fast Charging Curve With Active TMS

The Nissan LEAF was one of the first electric cars with lithium-ion batteries on the market. Overall, it was a good EV, but with a major weak point.

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Nissan Leaf - Battery Design

The Nissan Leaf is perhaps the iconic original OEM BEV. Interesting how it performs against the competition over the years.

www.batterydesign.net