It's important to note that the 2012 leaf only had about 80 mi of range when it was new. People who are used to modern ranges on electric vehicles might not realize that.
A thing to remember is that a battery swap time is only about three hours due to good initial design. Unlike several 'premium' cars. The LEAF was/is a good car for normal around town driving, I have two.
The car has done really well for 12 years old 159000km and only having 8 bars left from battery degradation , these cars are amazing and cost pennies to run.
This is very cool. We have the exact same model. It is in great condition but the battery has only 6 bars. Guess o meter shows about 70kms on a good day so it is still a very usable vehicle around our town. I was about to invest multi thousands in a new bigger battery, but I might hang on a bit longer until battery prices come down further, and keep my Leaf Spy handy.
Very good show. My experiences similar. We are using a 2014 Nissan leaf and it’s showing us typically 85 miles in the morning sometimes 80 occasionally higher.
2014 has a newer battery chemistry and in my experience they have a much better longevity compared to the 2012. Time has shown them to be excellent. A great car to hang on to.
When Nissan developed this car, it's design parameters was for a city car only. It was never intended to be a highway or long distance car. Indeed, it's launch advertising made that abundantly clear. I have an 8 year old car and the SOH just went down by one bar last month! Still making a genuine 80 to 90 mile range. I use it as a second car, driving around town or to neighbouring towns of around 60 mile range. It is so easy to recharge and come back without any worries and it is so cheap to run, especially as I have solar panels in my house too.
Good video, It's nice to know that the newer batteries will depreciate less and with newer technology and a better understanding of how to look after them things will get better.
It's not only chemistry it's battery size, batteries have a cycle life of between 1000-6000 depending on chemistry, so the bigger the battery, the lower the charging cycles.
Thanks for the great video and your perspective. I apologize if I missed it. I think that the original range was approximately 115 miles. That’s roughly ~49% of the original range after 12 years. My foggy memory is telling me that some 2012 LEAFs had a range of maybe 86 miles then this LEAF would have kept approximately ~67% of its original range. Thanks to you and other channels I have modified my battery longevity protocol slightly and basically keep my average state of charge at ~40% instead of my default 60%. If memory serves what some battery chemists are saying is to make these new adjustments to get a longevity bump from an expected 400,000 miles to an expected 800,000 miles. I’ll never live that long but I’m an obsessive curious guy. Thank you 🙏
Hello, thanks for your comment. I don’t point it out in the video but when I’m showing the “Leaf Spy” screen, at the top of the screen it says “SOH 60.48%” which means the State of Health of this battery is 60.48% of new. This battery would have had around 95 miles of range on this test when new.
The original efficiency (for model years 2011-2015) has always averaged around 4.0 miles/kWh. I'm not certain if the very first Leafs were able to access the entire battery capacity but even if so, they would have topped out at roughly 92 miles of range. I know that 2013 and later models had a 10% buffer leaving just 21 kWh available which allowed for 84 miles of range (this was for U.S. models). We've learned a lot about Leaf batteries since 2011. - Do not charge to a true 100%. Only an issue on 2011-2012 models as the BMS on later models only allows charging to 90% (even though 100% is indicated). - Only charge to 90% (100% indicated) if you intend to use the vehicle immediately. (leaving the battery charged to 100% for more than a few hours will accelerate degradation. Only a little each time but its cumulative). - Try to keep the SOC between 20% and 80% especially if leaving it sit for more than a day. - The Leaf uses NMC battery chemistry which, like most Li-ion chemistries, does not like being rapidly charged (HVDC/CHAdeMO) when battery core temperatures are lower than 32F or above 100F (to prevent Lithium plating within the battery, testing by the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, using a Leaf, determined best charging practice for cold weather charging was to use only Level 1 charging when below 39F) - Google or search for "Cold Weather Issues for Electric Vehicles (EVs) in Alaska" for their in-depth analysis. - Do not drive for extended periods at 80 mph or above (especially with elevated ambient temperatures) as core battery temperatures will quickly rise into the red zone. - The early Leafs were often unjustly derided because of premature battery degradation. It should be remembered that in order to get any usefulness out of such a small battery pack the vehicle needed to be charged far more frequently. Some owners were charging 2 or more times a day and these charges were often from a fully depleted battery to a fully charged state. Doing this quicky used up the battery packs useable charge cycles. This is why larger battery packs are inherently more robust and will last significantly longer as they can go several days before needing to be charged. So, with this particular Leaf getting nearly 100,000 miles out of its 24kWh Leaf is quite commendable. It shows that when properly maintained even a tiny 24kWh air-cooled Leaf battery can easily reach 100,000 miles with plenty of capacity remaining. As well it shows that when properly maintained, a 40kWh or 62kWh Leaf should easily go well beyond 150,000 miles. Good Luck Mr. Greenway and thanks for taking the time to help out the Leaf community. By the way, I hope you have joined the "My Nissan Leaf" forum. A very active and capable group of owners dedicated to keeping these incredible cars on the road.
92.3km is just over 57 miles. Apparently the test was 40mph in nice weather which should have achieved about 125 miles when new, so this is about half the original range even though the SOH is 8/12 bars Personally 57 miles is more than enough for most of my driving. Would it be worth getting a car with more range for the handful of times I potentially might need it? Probably not
It never had 125 mile range when it was new. The test cycle was totally unrealistic, and with the new WLTP cycle it is more like 90 mile range when new anyway.
Hx value is very low, as soon as you put strain on the battery it probably cant handle it well. By just driving 40mph you are not putting alot of strain to it. Drive 60 mph and see how far you will get. Probably the fast charging is very slow compared to factory values. Also when the battery needs to work harder you will see an increase in battery cell difference in leafspy.
you did not state ambient temperature during the test which plays a huge factor in range. here in Alberta, Canada. range is cut in half or more when we hit -10C or lower. summer is ok.
Don't QC. You say it is a city car then you can slow charge AC. I have seen 2012 Leaf in NZ for sale with 250,000kms 8 Bars. My car is at 8 bars with 41,000km so my car could last me along time yet. I only travel 25kms / day and I slow charge for free at shopping mall while having coffee or purchasing from shops in the mall
Dude who do you talk to. EV batteries are wattantied fir 10 or more years.... Would they offer 10 plus years if they were only good for 2 or 3 years... Dude serriously you can't be that .......can you?
Thanks for your comment. That was just a bit of sarcasm on my part. There’s lots of “internet experts” telling me that I shouldn’t buy an EV because the battery needs to be replaced regularly at great expense. My goal with this video is to prove that theory wrong, even after a battery warranty is expired.
