2011-2012 Nissan Leaf class-action lawsuit finally settled - Autoblog (blog)
Taking it in to dealer to do a battery capacity test to determine if there is some other metric because it sure seems there should be. Not happy with the way Nissan has totally played games with the public on this. I used to charge to 100+ miles range, now barely get 60. That is 60%, but Nissan claims you need 70%, but then use the bars, going from 12 to 9, is not enough, you have to go from 12 to 8. Pretty sure I would never by a Nissan car again. Two things contribute to this: Voltage of the cells and temperature of the cells. The higher the voltage and the higher the temperature, the faster the cell will lose capacity. For your typical lithium-ion cell, voltages of 4. 0 or less are generally pretty good, but once you start getting above that, the rate of capacity loss can increase significantly. 80% is typically around 4. 0V in a LiIon cell, 100% is typically around 4. 2V. For this reason, normally the highest voltage you will see LiIon cells charged to in cars is around 4. 10-4. 15V / cell to avoid the worst effects of capacity loss due... The leaf battery is bad about generating it's own heat. Add 120 degree ambient temps to the temps that the battery produces under discharge, and you're gonna have a bad time, as their chemistry starts experiencing damaging effects at, i'd guess, 160F. Not hard to get the battery to reach that temperature. Source: www.autoblog.com
