LEAF Plus 5 Year Review

 On November 16, 2019 I drove my 19 month old 2018 S 40 LEAF to Everett WA turning in my 3 year lease early in exchange for my 2019 LEAF S Plus. It was literally the car I had been waiting for since I began my EV journey in 2007. 

I had already known from the 40 kwh LEAF that this extended range version would be the first LEAF (after 4 tries!) that would be worth buying so I had decisions to make.  Should I just buy it or lease it then buy it out? I was turning in my 2018 early because I was offered the upgrade for the same monthly lease payment I already had. So I ended up taking the lease complete with hefty lease incentives, etc but for the first time, I opted for a 2 year lease because

Interest rates had been low...for a long time and I was afraid they were going to go back up before the 2 year time frame was up but I was prepared to end the lease early and buy it out if that was going to happen.  As luck would have it, 2 years wasn't too late to take advantage of great loan terms so I was able to finagle a 1.25% loan on the buyout.  Add to that, the reduced sale price, EV sales incentives for WA State, I was on track for a total out the door price all in under $30,000. 

Driving History

For the first 2½ years, my commute was 26 miles a day mostly 4 days a week.  I was also in the middle of a project that took me to Seattle 1-2 time a month that lasted just over a year. 

Then I dropped to 11 miles a day 5 days a week on a job change for 1½ years before a shift change made it 11 miles a day 4 days a week. After a recent move, I am now at 16 miles a day 4 days a week. 

Starting the 2nd week of December, I will be going back to a 5 day workweek making my commute about 82 miles a week. I also do food delivery (off and on over the past 5 years) currently 4 to 15 hours a week.  I plan to end the time clock from my reality in 13 months so the delivery thing is simply research for what to do when I suddenly have 50+ hours of extra time on my hands every week. 

Charging History

During my "free charge" days (Note; the 2019 only came with a $250 credit at EVgo but the 2018 still had the unlimited 2 year charging at a few different providers) that ended Feb 2020. The $250 credit had to be used in a year so I finished it December 2020. During that time, my SOC  ranged from 10ish to 75%.  I was generally hitting the DC station twice a week on my first and last shift of the week since I drove right by the EVgo station in DuPont. 

When the free DC ended, I then slid into the EVCS upgrade phase which meant free DC charging at the old Environment/Webasto (and probably a few others I have forgotten) station until it was upgraded which added another year or so.  Because the station was on the opposite side of town (I consider Olympia Lacey Tumwater as one entity) I probably only covered ¼ of my total charging there. 

I also used the many free level 2's around town but this was also quite seasonal. During Summer, I was covering over a third of my needs but that dropped to probably less than 10% during winter.  Movies at Capital Mall was a frequent thing when my Son was younger and they had free stations although only was able to find a vacant plug about half the time. 

When the weather was good, my goto was the stations at DOL in Lacey due to it being adjacent to the Chehalis Western Trail where I frequently biked. 

In fall of 2023, Puget Sound Energy started a TOU pilot program for EVers which I naturally signed up for which dropped my average costs to charge to around 6 cents/kwh.   Setting the car to charge 90 or 210 mins per day covered all my needs easily to the point that even at the lower charge, daily charging wasn't always necessary. 

But then the move happened. Building owner sold the building and new owners terminated everyone's leases to move in their extended family. 

After a few months of hanging out with relatives I found a place where all utilities were covered in the rent but now only charging at 120 volts.  So that is where I am at now.  The weather is just now starting to turn and my car has never lived outside before but parking in the garage would be difficult due to a narrow drive and the 90 degree angle of the garage door opening soooo... We shall see although I might "make" parking in the garage work depending on how it goes. 

Maintenance/Repairs

I see a lot of statements on how EVs require no maintenance so here is my "proof" that there is a cost  involved. Be it optional or not is an individual choice. 

Thru out the 5 years, the only regularly scheduled maintenance items were tire rotation which I did myself every 5,000 miles and cabin filter swaps which I did after one year and 6 months thereafter. I did reuse them a few times simply soaking them in soapy water then a good rinse and air dry. 

Cabin Filters

I bought a 4 pack online for $29 and also bought 3 from a Seattle LEAFer turned Teslatonian for $5 each and was given a handful (This actually started back on the 2016 I had and not sure how many I have received over the years?) In any event; total cost $44 so far. I still have one unused one but my current one has never been washed so it will last another cycle or two and I have 2 that have only been washed once so they will be rotated in a few times as well. Should be good for another 2 years at least. 

Traffic Cam

I already had one (billed to my 2013) which was ok but didn't transmit to my phone so I had to swap out SD cards to save anything. Wasn't a big deal since I had 3 cards in the car  and it took all of 3 seconds to switch them out but decided to go bigger.  Paid $170 for a front/rear  wi fi version with a remote turn on feature.  It had theft/accident detection but that required a subscription which I did not continue after the free trial period.  There was an extra $40 for the battery pack required for the remote turn on. 

Touch Up Kit  

$83.44  which was a 3 step refinish process and it worked very well for small scratches that went to metal but then I got a bumper scratch unattended and one I did myself. In both cases, the plastic was involved and I completely botched that up.  Later I found out that plastic needs surface prepping before any painting can be attempted.  So that project was on hold but...

Accident  

On August 6, 2023, I was headed home from work on Willamette Drive in the inside lane approaching the roundabout on Marvin and Britton Parkway with the intent to continue straight onto Britton Parkway when the car in the outside lane next to me attempted (illegally) to exit the roundabout in an effective left turn to get onto I-5. The collision was unexpected and didn't even know what the other guy was doing until he hit me.  

The driver could speak no English, was from Paraguay and had been in the country for 2 weeks. Had no license, no insurance and was driving home in a car he had just bought. I was forced to file under my uninsured motorist claim which included a $100 deductible. 

Then came the cascade of failures.  I was tasked with taking and sending pix to my insurance company who then decided the damage was $2900 and offered me a cash settlement. I declined. They also determined that damage to the passenger door was existing even after I disputed the decision claiming damage was done by the offending driver's side mirror. 

So I scheduled a visit with collision shop and they spent 30 mins taking dozens of pictures advising an estimate within 3 days.  A week later, I called them to find out what the estimate and was called back 3 days later and was told that they were forwarded the estimate from the insurance company and would be using that one instead. 

I then told them about damage to the door and how it happened and they later confirmed it was new damage and added it to the claim. I also told them about the passenger front wheel which was visibly bent out from vertical roughly 1½ inches.  The insurance company only allowed for an alignment which I knew to be completely wrong. 

Well the car drove fine. No vibration, no nothing and even did 4 trips to Seattle and back during all this.  So I take it to the shop with a 5 day repair time estimate and get my rental which my uninsured motorist would cover for 30 days "hoping" it would be long enough when they discovered the additional problems.  It wasn't. The more they looked, the more they found despite my telling them all this in advance.  Most of the estimate was remove, repair, repaint and install. I told them that several components could not be repaired but they stuck to the insurance company estimate. In the end, nearly ALL of the estimate was overridden. 

7 weeks later, I drove my car home "nearly" complete. They didn't have the wheel hub cover in yet and advised they would call when it came in.  I called them 30 days later and the person handling the job wasn't in. I never received a call back.   I ended up paying $423 out of pocket with the $100 deductible and for car rental services because all the credits (with other entities) and uninsured motorist only covered 30 days, etc ran out. 

I was able to recover $190 but have yet to recover the remaining balance from the other party. 

Door Handle

My door handle sleeve started working loose in late 2023 but was able to baby it for several months since the separation was only a few millimeters and  I was able to snap the handle sleeve back into place for a few months but eventually that stopped working as well. Fix was a tube of JB Weld Quickset.  Set time 5 mins, cure time one hour.  Cost $8. 

Since this was done only 2 months ago, I have yet to claim this as a success but for now, its working. 

Tires

On October 24, 2024 after 59,654.6 miles, I replaced my OEM Ecopias with the Ecopias from Costco for a cost of $701.60 which included installation, etc etc etc... Interestingly enough, despite being the same tire according to the sidewall, the OEMs are rated at 55,000 miles while the Costco versions are rated at 70,000 miles.  Even weirder was the fact that Costco also had the 55,000 mile version but they were more expensive (by less than a buck a tire) so... yeah, easy decision...

I do realize that tires could have been had for $200 less than what I paid but I wanted to maintain as much range as possible and I have seen no evidence that any other tire can match the efficiency of the Ecopias. There is a trade off and for people who practice a certain driving style where emergency braking is visited frequently, you might consider a tire with better wet road performance.  

Driving Methods

Despite the greater range, I always drive to maximize efficiency. I use a combination of D, B and N in ECO mode.  E Pedal is too hard to control and while it uses a small amount of friction braking, it simply is not an efficient way to drive.  For the non plussers, ECO B regen levels were increased slightly over the 40 kwh version making speed control via regen easier in radical traffic (which is nearly all the in my area) Now my driving style is based on my personal abilities and I do realize E Pedal can be worthy but it simply required too much concentration to achieve the levels of efficiency I wanted. Shifting thru various drive modes was much easier and yeah, in many situations, I am constantly shifting... 

Now one pedal driving is appropriate in certain traffic situations but after extensive trials using it and the scheme mentioned above, my lifetime average has moved from 4.35 miles/kwh to the current 4.68 miles/kwh.  Now part of that increase is due to smaller tires from wear.  So I will update this section Nov 2025 after a summer on the new tires but the difference in efficiency is double what the change in tire circumference would suggest so....  One other thing to mention.  For whatever reason, my ability or simply desire to tolerate cold isn't as robust as it used to be which means for the first time I can remember since living in Michigan, I blast the heat on my entire commute to and from work and I am not even in the coldest part of Winter yet... 

Battery Stats

Like every car I've driven since Thanksgiving Day Weekend 2003, I have tracked daily mileage and performance metrics. For the LEAF, this included logging LEAF Spy stats as well.  Now, I could tell you after 6 months, I was on pace to have less than 30% SOC by 100,000 miles, less than 60% after a year or... wouldn't drop below 85% by 1.5 million miles if only using degradation rates between year 2 and 4 but that would only add to the hysteria I see on SM daily...so ignore all that. 

Below is a chart logged roughly every 1,000 miles with mileage, ahr and SOC readings with degradation trends extrapolated to 100,000 miles. Pix is clickable if you want a bigger version. 

Below is a chart of annual readings taken every year on November 16. 

Interesting to note that my loss over the last 4 years  of 4.2% SOH doesn't match what I lost in the first year of 6.65%. Its also the year I drove the most miles since I was still involved in the Seattle project. 

The first year, I did over 1800 kwh of DC charging, less than 400 on year two but over 1000 on year 3. 

The first year was a few roadtrips, vaca and what not but mostly charging to 70ish %  but since I was on a 30 min time limit, on my Seattle trips I would do 20ish mins going depending on the time and 30 mins on the same station in DuPont coming home.  Heat buildup was so minimal, I even blogged about how well Nissan had mitigated the heat issue which I later found out to be a bit premature. 

The 3rd year, I DC'd a lot because of a lot of road trips where heat was always a thing but still kept SOH  below 80ish most of the time but there were days that I was doing 3,4 or even 5 DC sessions sooo.. yeah a bit warm here and there and all but one happened during the hottest part of the year. 

So did DC increase degradation? Heat?  Well based on the chart above, the answer is a less than obvious No.  It was the  2nd largest degradation period but...

The problem with annual snapshots is they don't show what happened during the year. The 3rd year odo reading ran roughly from 28K to 39ishK and the 100,000 mile extrapolation chart shows a decrease in degradation rates (rising line) during that time period.  What the chart missed is the fact that 2 of the 4 adjustments for that year were either positive or near zero. The largest drop happened at the beginning of the year which meant less road tripping since most of it was done during the hottest part of Summer. 

There there was year 4. By far the shortest distance. In case you don't remember, my job  took on a multi million dollar expansion with a goal of doubling the capacity of our most efficient system. This was a major construction undertaking and a massive disruption to the daily demands of supplying the healthcare industry.  In many cases, we had hard daily deadlines to meet and which equated to a lot of overtime to the point where I spent the better part of 5 months doing nothing but working and recovering from work.  But it was also the biggest overall jump in capacity for the pack. 

But a more interesting picture is shown on the chart of the actual adjustments. Adjustments happen every 90ish days and you can determine when yours will happen by your build date.  This should clue you into the fact that your driving habits are only part of the equation. 

Things to note here. The green highlights increases in capacity or no change. There is also the 7/2022 adjustment that was a small drop in there as well.  This illustrates that heat may not be the big bad Wolf everyone seems to think it is.  In the Pacific Northwest, we do get very hot weather but only for a short period of time. If this chart indicates the effect of hot weather, then we need to look at the adjustments that happen in October which in my case, covers early July to early October. As we can see; of the 5, only the first one and last one were down. The other 3 were positive twice and one no change. 

The other thing is year 4 which again was the easiest year for the LEAF due to work and we see minimal use of DC, just over 8,000 miles driven and 3 positive adjustments.  But year 5 does not continue that trend. 50% more miles driven due to 3 long trips and slightly more DC use but again 10/2024 is the lowest decrease despite modest DC usage. It was also 8 days in Bend OR where the temperature was much hotter than Olympia and the car did not benefit from a garage the whole time either. 

Conclusions

This entry may not be complete. There is other data I wanted to present but that would delay the post likely by several weeks due to lack of upcoming free time.  It has always been my contention (along with the scientific community) that "living in the middle" is the best practice for longest battery life. But that doesn't alway mesh with managing a convenient life.  As we know, life is anything but convenient so every little bit helps and I succumbed to this several times  either taking advantage of free charging or simply choosing life over SOC management. In either case, this maybe part of the reason that my practice has yet to show clear results of the benefits to the health of my pack. 

I thought after 5 years, it would be but apparently Nissan has built a more resilient cell than I had expected.  But I am confident the data will prove me right so expect a "I told you so" blog maybe as early as the next few years. Of course, it could be longer but with the uncertainty of Chademo, that is always a wild card  that can show up at any time. 

I am thankful my area has chosen to support Chademo on a greater level than most including 3 new locations in my area all within the past year. 

Here is the newest. Picture taken September 6, 2024 at Lacey Athletic Center

The other factors is my goal to end my time clock existence a year from now. The car will be paid off next July. My food delivery income will increase with more free time and I expect to cover the entire cost of the car; lease payments, purchase costs, interest, insurance, tab renewal fees and fuel by 2026 Q3.  I am not gonna lie. It would be  VERY hard for me to not blog about that! ;)

To Dot or Not To Dot...

 For the 2nd time in 3 years, I was in the middle of a forced move due to new owners evicting me so family members could move in. This happened at a time that could not have been worse. A recent $250 excursion to Costco, a long put off purchase of a few pieces of furniture which meant double the amount to store or get rid of, etc. 

I was simply not prepared. To complicate matters, I will be eliminating the time clock from my existence in less than 18 months which was when I was going to move anyway taking several months to evaluate and re evaluate what I was keeping, tossing and most importantly; where I would be going next. 

But all that went out the window so back to temporarily staying with relatives (the same one as before actually) while I search. This meant no home charging so again, on the lookout for reasonable charging alternatives. Like last time, I had run out my purchase incentives so getting a reasonable bang for my buck was a top priority along with convenience. 

So I put out my plight on Facebook and received a suggestion to sign up with Blue Dot which was a type of finance company that provided discounts for EV charging and also required an EV to sign up with them. But the key attraction was 30 cents/kwh for both EVgo and Chargepoint!

I figured I had nothing to lose so sure, why not? I would give them a try so signed up and deposited funds on the books and took off on a trip to Bend Oregon to see my niece get married. 

I had also signed up with EVCS on their $9.99 a month plan. The one charger that is somewhat local to me isn't very convenient since its in Tumwater which isn't too far away but far enough away that its nit common that I would be in the area. They have "stuff" but for the most part, we have the same "stuff" so why go there when it was quicker and shorter to go here. But EVCS has a monster presence in Oregon so thought it was a good idea to have them as a backup. 

So off we went on our 300 mile journey to the Eastern Side of the Cascades with... 75% charge.

A bit down the road, we were looking ok for our first stop down the road at The Ridgefield Cafe  to fuel us and the car. 

For whatever reason, Ryland only eats hard boiled eggs so I got 4 eggs over easy. This charge went only to 85% and used most of my allowance from EVCS (9.99 a month for first 30 kwh then 39 cents/kwh after.  A fair deal. 

Plusses here; Service was fast but it was a Thursday so was expecting it to be. We plugged in, ordered, ate and were back at the car in 30 mins 42 seconds gaining 22.5 KWH. A near perfect charge stop on both ends! 

So off we went and after that big breakfast, I needed a nap. Keep in mind, we were on the road by 9:30 AM but I had gone to bed at 4 AM but I had it covered! 

Next stop; Mill City Oregon a place I had used before on our 10 Fall Hike at Silver Falls State Park which I also blogged but that was mostly pix with only a dash of EV added. But this would be the first test of the Blue Dot app. We arrived and as always, we had our choice of 4 of 4 stations. Now you know why I like this place! 

I launched the app, plugged in and hit charge now and...nothing. App kept spinning. I then realized I had very poor cell service here. Since it was a Chargepoint, using NFC would have automatically activated my Chargepoint app and I would not have gotten the discount. Mind you the other reason I like this location is off peak rates are 30 cents/kwh but it was way too early in the day for that.  

So after an extensive back and forth with chat support complicated by cell service bouncing between 5G, 4G and...well ZERO G, it was getting rather time consuming and we were in full sun and it was pretty warm. I finally gave up, and decided to chance what little range I had left (just under 40 miles) and move to the next station EVCS that was just under a mile away.  Now that I think of it, there were other reasons why I liked this stop. Needless to say, my first impression of Blue Dot wasn't good. 

So 2 mins later, we plug into the lone EVCS station and it pretty much works exactly as advertised. I also notice I am back on 5G... but even that didn't matter as the store across the parking lot had wi fi so I was covered either way. 

Again we were in full sun but the store had a full variety of food so ice cream it was! This proved to be a disastrous decision as we were walking back, I was stepping over this 10 inch curb only to realize about halfway over that it was actually a 12 inch curb and I literally fell flat on my face throwing my phone onto the pavement in the process. The phone not only survived but came out of it without a scratch. My face wasn't nearly so lucky. 

 The charge gave us 21.36 kwh costing $5.41 putting a total cost on the trip of $15.40 after adding in the $9.99 subscription cost. 

This was more than enough to get us to Bend which also had a few Blue Dot "enabled" stations we could try. The location downtown near the river we checked out twice in our 5 days there but it was generally full of Teslas using adapters so not much going on there for us but the Hyundai dealership was a few miles closer to our Air BnB and it was always available. 

So I pull in and there are 2 stations, one blocked by a dealership gasser (weird...) but the other one was open and naturally its the handicap spot but... plug is a plug so I launch the app, plug in and hit start charge with a small sense of dread and the car started charging so fast I can't say it took more than 3 seconds!  Impression level is on the rise! 

Did I mention you get a sign up bonus making your first charge pretty much free with a $10 credit covering the first 33 kwh?  Made me wish  I had run the SOC down more but I wasn't sure how much driving I would be doing and didn't want to charge up too much either so only grabbed 25.11 kwh in 37 mins. 

But that was more than I wanted as Blue Dot doesn't have termination of charge in the app so it must be done at the station...something I have no experience doing. I always terminated thru the Chargepoint app.  So I attempted to stop the charge but sunlight combined with a less than responsive touch screen made it very difficult to stop,  Several times I got the stop charge button to appear but couldn't activate it. Eventually a salesman noticed me and came out and was able to get the charge stopped but even he had issues. 

As it turned out, the location was nearly perfect for the many events we attended being pretty much in the center of things sort of. This was my first trip to Bend since the mid 90's and I easily say I didn't recognize much simply because IT WASN'T HERE! The Bend I remember was surrounded by farms and 90% of the town was within a mile of the river.  The Bend we were in now was a sprawling network of housing developments, shopping enclaves and restaurants connected by the multitude of roundabouts that has transformed the town of Bend not only into of city of 100,000+ people but now they had a "metro" area exceeding a quarter million people! 

Over the next few days we charged 17.53 kwh for $5.25, and 10.01 kwh for $3.00

On the last charge, we were doing a wind up of the weekend celebration surrounding my niece's wedding and only wanted enough charge to be able to plug into the Air BnB at 10 amps 120 volts using the modified EVSE I got so many years ago. It was after 8 PM and the dealership was abandoned. So plugged in, launched Blue Dot and started charging away. Although the place "seemed" closed, the lobby lights were all on and I had to pee so I walked in, used the bathroom and walked out and there was obviously no one in the building. By now, it was getting pretty dark so wondering if someone forgot to lock up? 

Either way, when I reached the SOC I wanted, I noticed that the screen had been cleaned and now the touch response was perfect! It was also after sundown so guessed that helped. 

BUT... the other thing that caught my eye was off peak charging was only 21 cents/kwh and I thought I would be paying much less than 30 cents/kwh since the Blue Dot app mentioned 20% off charging rates so 20% off the 30 cents? That would be awesome! 

But, not to be. Blue Dot still charged me 30 cents/kwh so moral of that story is check Chargepoint pricing for a possible lower off peak rate. FYI; I don't think I have seen any station in WA do this but it seems to be common in OR. 

The next morning, we finally got out of town after eating a MONSTER breakfast at a great local restaurant in Bend. Decided to take the more direct route home up 97 and crossing the Cascades on highway 26 thru the Mt Hood National Forest. 

Was hoping to make it to Vancouver but personal needs dictated an earlier stop so it was the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Hall near Portland instead. Several Chargepoints that were immediately responsive to the Blue Dot app. These stations were new or "new looking"  and the touchscreens worked easily. 

This would not be the case for the station closest to my temporary home; Fast Fuel in Olympia. At just over a mile away, I thought it would be a great place to charge but there are two stations but only one appears on the Blue Dot app and it went thru 4 days of being off line for some reason necessitating a Charge Point charge at least once.  During the time it was not communicating with Blue Dot the stations were unused and functional thru Chargepoint so....

But these stations were older and the touchscreens beat up so I quickly realized my only option to terminate the charge was flipping the breaker which was conveniently located near by and unlocked. I did check thru the Charge point app and both stations were off line for only a few minutes at most.  Obviously, this would be a problem if someone else is charging on the other station. 

Plusses; 

Cheap especially in WA where the better prices are 10-15 cents  per kwh higher w/o a subscription plan.

Availability;  Having access to EVgo and Chargepoint gives make finding a location  easy

I should add that the Blue Dot app provides discounts and perks covering all kinds of other things but I have not really looked into those and I will unlikely be using any of them as I have those perks thru other financial vehicles so... 

Negatives; 

Interface. Blue Dot has no control of the station thru the app.  This is an obvious problem since the entire process has to rely on cellular service. Chargepoint uses NFC so they are perfectly operational in cellphone dead zones. Blue Dot wont work. 

Money; Some see this as negative but I don't.  Chargepoint currently just charges my credit card for every charge I get.  I have no balance on their books, etc.  This is not how I remember Chargepoint working in the past but that is how it works now.  EVCS is the same way. 

Recommendations;

At 30 cents/kwh if you rely on public DC charging frequently, this is a very good deal but doesn't eliminate the need for a backup charge plan as my trip proved. I started with $100 on my account and still have $81.57 left so it will be a while before my Blue Dot adventure ends but I think its a worthy app to investigate. Some have reported great success will no issues so its very dependent on the network you have to use. 

LEAF Plus 3 Year Review

Another year down!  Still 12 bars, still well over 200 miles of range and still no real definitive information as to best battery management options so still sticking with the "live in the middle" ideology for the foreseeable future or until the range is not covering my needs forcing a higher average SOC.   I don't expect to have the car that long. 

For the 2nd consecutive year, I have changed commutes but unlike 2021 where I added nearly 2 miles, I have more than halved the drive to 11 miles but at 5 days a week verses the 25 miles 4 days a week.  Since I have more miles to "play with" I have revisited gig driving. This I have done several times in the past most notably in my 2016 S30 when doing property inspections not to mention that it coincided with my auditing days which required a LOT of driving.   

Before it was just a cash grab at the beginning of the pandemic when big bonuses were offered for completing the first however many deliveries but now looking at it as a possible retirement gig.  I know me well enough to know that I will not be able to do nothing during retirement and I won't have enough money to keep me busy traveling and whatnot so this does the double duty of getting me out of the house and providing some extra cash at the same time.  But despite that extra driving, my distance driven still dropped over 2021. 

 I negate the base charge because it also applies to gassers and I don't have anything to do with them. I take the total of the various credits and divide by the total of kwh used for the month and subtract that from the cost of each kwh.  All the tier two rates are applied to the LEAF obviously so its all about how much tier one charges to add. FYI; I only hit tier two 3 or 4 months a year generally. 

I only took two relatively long trips over 500 miles taking advantage of the free 30 day EVCS trial. Although never had any issues getting a charge, I was less than impressed.  New machines are nice but question the investment into 50 KW (120 amp) machines when most will do better including my Plus. 

This resulted in public fees only from checking out new stations or simply ones that were "out there" so got away cheap last year. This year my costs will "skyrocket" percentage wise which isn't hard when you start from penny (notice no plural there? :) )  due to less access to public charging. 

My common goto was Volta which doing movies at the mall but those stations have been taken over likely by employees who are parked there all day but primarily not charging.  A survey of cars there over 3 weekends revealed 3 cars (of 6 charging stations) there every Friday AND Saturday along with 2 repeats so....

The other common freebie EVCS in Tumwater had been a bit less convenient due to changes in habit mostly but the location has now been upgraded to add CCS but has been dark going on 3 weeks. Not sure what the delay is since it was slated to not be a faster station so no utility work required? 

So, all of the above pushes me above 1 cent per mile cost for the first time since 2016. A penny was easy because during most of that time and I was under a penny up until October but the last 3 months is what pushed me over with zero charging sessions at Volta except one which actually wasn't (more below) 

2023 ensures I will make a strong bid for 2 cents a mile. For those with PSE, you probably already know so this won't be news but for the first time in SEVERAL years, we are seeing a major rate hike that started the first week of 2023 raising tier one rates nearly 2 cents/kwh to 11.0488 cents/kwh which is just under the old tier 2 rates (11.2693) 

So for the impatient (I am pushing your limits aren't I :) )  Here is the base numbers; Data is calendar year which is a change from previous which used my Nov delivery date. 

From the dash; 

miles; 11481.3

Total kwh; 2390.06

Miles/kwh;  4.8

From the home;

Total charging Cost;  $134.89 

On the road; 

Public fees;  $3.77

Cents/mile;   1.21

AC; 362.356

DC; 892.01

Degradation; ahr - 2.73   SOH 1.55%

NOTE; I reset my trip computer every morning before setting out so miles is from whatever it says and it always jives with Trip A which is also reset daily. Trip B is reset monthly and is off 1-2 miles from the sum total of Trip A. 

Total kwh is simply miles driven divided my miles/kwh.  Public AC is derived from increase in kwh using 90% efficiency or what is received (if available)  so 10 kwh gain means 11 kwh received for stations like Volta.   DC always has a display of what was received (for me any way) 

Total charging cost is home use and public charging fees including subscription costs (had none this year) but may not be actual money spent during the year. In this case; part of the public charging fee was taken from a prepay account from Blink which I actually "years" ago. I don't remember what year but "know" is wasn't 2021. 

What doesn't show; 3 months with less than 10 kwh public charging. Also MANY very short AC stints at Safeway, etc on Volta, not recorded so actual cost is lower but not significantly so. 

5 months over 5 miles/kwh (June to October) with September (5.39) and October being my best months (5.28) just nudging June (5.23)  IOW; AC does make a difference, just not a big one ;) 

Worst month; January 3.92 miles/kwh.  Also ZERO DC charging. Wondering if the higher efficiency DC charging provides was enough to push me below 4? But then again, prob an anomaly as 2nd worst was last month in December at 4.23 miles/kwh due to minimal out of town driving for the month. 

So now the question becomes; "Am I really helping myself by maintaining a tight SOC control over the car?  

Answer; Not really enough data to say for certain but the physics of Lithium says yes its helping.  So the question morphs into "Is it worth hassle verses just plugging it in?" 

First off; I don't understand the perceived inconvenience of SOC management. Its pathetically easy to do but my commuting needs are less than 10% of my range which makes it easy. I was a proponent of "charge it every day even if only for an hour" and still stand by that but I am not driving far enough to need even an hour.  So I have been simply plugging it in for a few hours a few times a week now. 

During my dashing gig driving, I started out with the goal of using only free electricity to dash and as it stands, I did do that despite 2 months I didn't charge publicly at all. I am only dashing a few hours twice a week which added up to less than 3400 miles (over 9 months)  but have abandoned that plan foreseeing it becoming a hassle to simply plug in that much and electricity is too cheap to hassle with it. 

But the other side of the answer is "how much damage am I doing by fulling charging it twice a week and taking all week to run it down?" which is likely the 2nd most popular charging regimen?  Its this reason why I keep bugging you people to post your LEAF Spy stats.  With the Gen 2's adjusting the data every 3 months, its my hope that with 2-3 years of adjustment data, we can start to discern trends.  So far, only a few of you have provided that much. I have a LOT of people who have given me 2, 3 or even 5 shots but that is nowhere near enough. 

Do the math; 4 adjustments a year for 3 years is 12 data points; I only have 3 people who have provided that much with 3 more trending to provide that much (they haven't had their car long enough then) 

Do be aware that I collect EVERY LEAF Spy shot I see on social media so you don't have to wait for me to ask! Now tagging me will help me notice you quicker ;) 

So for those 40kwhers who have a commute that exceeds 50% of their "optimal" range, it is a hassle to maintain an SOC range?  If so, tell me about it because I don't see that either. Realize when I got my 40 kwh, I was still doing the auditing thing averaging 50 to 200 miles a day with 100+ happening at least a few times a week and the distances changed daily. Even with all that, it was a minor thing to manage SOC and I complicated things a LOT by first doing free public DC charging (or AC if it was at the client's location)  

E Pedal!! Or, maybe B ECO!!..or maybe D?

 There seems to be a growing resentment from the LEAF community from new drivers slowly realizing that E Pedal is not very efficient.  Its not hard to understand how they got that impression since E Pedal is capable of regen levels more than 50% higher than B mode. More regen means more range recovered, right? But that is a two sided street and you won't like the view.   So why do we have E Pedal and what is the best mode to drive in for best range?   To answer that, we have to clarify several different mitigating factors and even after addressing those factors, the key takeaway will continue to be YMMV. 

E Pedal

E Pedal was added to the Gen two LEAF when launched in 2018. It enables one foot driving where you could conceivably drive all day without moving your foot from the accelerator only touching the brake pedal to start the car.  E Pedal does this by a combination of increased regen approaching 60 kW and friction braking which can bring your LEAF from 40 mph to a complete stop in less than a block.  The amount of friction braking varies by SOC and speed. At street level speeds, friction braking kicks in at  low speeds only so its mostly regen slowing you down.  The only exception to the rule is when the SOC is high enough that regen is limited.  Friction braking increases at high SOC to make the "drive feel" consistent.  If you had an older LEAF (or a new one) fully charged, you know that the car seems to move a lot faster until some of that charge is used up. This is due to little/no regen and the considerable difference in how the car drives can be a bit disconcerting to some. 

B/D

D mode is probably the closest "drive feel" to a normal gasser. Car is responsive, only slows a bit when foot is removed from the accelerator, etc.  It has the lowest level of regen which means you maintain your speed longer. At 40 mph, it will take you just over 3 blocks to slow down to "idle" speed. 

B mode can be looked at as "2nd gear" in a gasser. Regen is stronger and you will feel a "sluggishness" (which isn't really possible in an EV BTW...) or heaviness when driving. B mode will take you to idle speed in just over a block. 

In both D and B, you must engage E Pedal or friction braking to come to a full stop. 

Efficiency

EVERYONE has an idea of what efficiency means and how to achieve it but only a handful do so why is that?  First off, regen is NOT your friend. 

Regen is like that credit card in your pocket. It is very handy and convenient when you need it but as we all know, too much reliance on credit will get you in trouble. Regen is the same. Yes it puts some of that charge back into the battery but at the expense of velocity; velocity that will use more energy than regained to recover. IOW, its a no win scenario. The house always wins and that is due to gravity. Gravity takes from the charge coming from the battery and takes from regen going to the battery. Of course, manual friction braking should never be used unless absolutely necessary. 

Now that we know what not to do, what do we do? Maintain velocity!  After all you didn't get your car to park, you got it to go, so whatever it takes to go is your goal. 

Negotiating Traffic

Above we talked about the different drive modes and how quickly they can slow you down. ALL of them would be just fine (actually not totally true and we will get to that) if you were the only car on the road. Well, that isn't going to happen so our efficiency goals are challenging in that constant changes in traffic conditions means constantly reevaluating the best drive mode. 

When I brought my 2018 home in February 2018, I was an E Pedal fanatic. It was awesome especially in the stop and go traffic I dealt with daily on I-5 but soon quickly realized that the high regen made driving efficiently difficult without a very high level of concentration to my driving.  At the time when I was doing daily phone conferences for work, etc. that was simply too hard for me to do.  It was then that I decided to make a goal of driving an entire month w/o touching the brake pedal. The only real way to do that was manipulating regen to match the flow of traffic. I haven't accomplished that goal yet and July 2022 is out of the running but I did make it to the 20th one month so I am confident it will happen! 

Anticipation

Expanding my "empty road" comment.  Even without traffic controls or traffic, drive mode still matters and the biggest reason is its difficult to maintain a steady flow of power without actually thinking about it. Now, we all know its easy to do for a bit because we have all done it.  But try doing that for an hour or even 10 minutes. Its tough!  So for most of my driving, I am in D mode (ECO is ALWAYS on simply because there is no good reason to turn it off) because its the lowest level of regen and so those tiny slips of the foot means just a small regen hit instead of the very large one E Pedal provides. 

Cruise Control

Cruise control is a way of maintaining pace with traffic. You can bump your speed up or down in one mph increments as needed. So its a convenience thing but its not very efficient.  When the car slows due to small slopes in the road, the car will slow ever so slightly until it gets below its setpoint then overly accelerate to return to the set speed. IOW, its not very smooth. Unlike ourselves who can feel very small changes in velocity and increase power slightly to compensate, the car cannot. ACC is the same times 10. 

Now, I have used CC a few times especially when I was in the middle of something like a call or whatever during very light traffic but I tend to avoid it for the most part. I live in an area where traffic flow is not consistent aggravated by complete disregard for the "stay right except to pass" law.  So its a constant changing of speeds. 

Scenarios

Remember the final takeaway YMMV and that applies to everything here.  This includes what I am about to explain because I can only give you my experiences based on my local driving conditions which will be different than yours. 

A typical drive on the streets, I am doing 40 mph, I see the light 4 blocks ahead turn red, I know its weight controlled and there will be about 6-10 cars in front of me so what do I do?

I immediately shift to N because it maintains the most speed and requires least amount of work so yeah, I am lazy but in random uncontrolled observations, it also seems to get me higher numbers so...  Two blocks away, light turns green. I remain in N now going 35 mph. My hope is that the traffic will clear the light and I will pass thru the light at 25-30 mph using no regen at all shifting back to D.  During this time, my surrounding aura is happy, everyone is happy.  Life is good. 

Same scenario above but this time its a major intersection during a busy time of the day which means a longer light cycle which means no chance of maintaining most of my velocity. Light turns red, I am 4 blocks away, I immediately reduce acceleration to maybe one bar slowing to 25 mph then shift to N.  Aura is crashing! People around me are in a championship race to see who wins the "I spent the most time stationary at a stoplight" contest. Cars start zipping around me only to slam on their brakes to stop behind a line of cars still sitting at the red light.  I now have just under a block to go to get in line at the light and it turns green, I shift back to D or sometimes B if the line of cars is long enough but eventually ending up in D. My goal is to have the intersection clear as I roll up at very low speeds generally under 10 MPH but that only happens about half the time so E Pedal is engaged if a full stop is required. Aura starts to climb. My fellow drivers are piling up stationary seconds at the light; all is good. 

Big Hills

Being on the coast means everything runs downhill to the water. Since Olympia sits at the southern apex of Puget Sound and traffic flows around its eastern shore, I am facing major slopes in 3 different directions.  Now, most of this is all about knowing the area but when coming to a big hill, regen is unavoidable simply so how to take the greatest advantage? 

My process is actually probably not the best way as I tend to slow down all the way to the "maximum" legal speed limit which again affects the color of the local aura in a bad way, shifting to N which allows a quicker acceleration back to illegality then bounce from D to B to N as needed.  The big current hits from doing this is not a good thing for the battery as it will last longer. Realize you are pumping power equal to DC charging speeds albeit for shorter periods of time.  There are a few hills that have major arterial intersections at the bottom so traffic slows way down. In those cases, its generally less N and trying to stay in D so regen is lighter. 

The Choice Is Yours

All this may seem unnecessarily complicated and it is otherwise there would be no challenge. The next issue to consider is will all that shifting wear out the tranny? Well, no tranny so no tranny to wear out. But there is a drive shaft to the front wheels but that is NEVER disconnected even when in neutral so wearing it out? Not too likely. 

Now the key takeaway here is there is no single process that works if you are trying to maximize your efficiency. Conditions are constantly changing and each drive mode is designed to fit a very specific role.   The other key takeaway is that this is what works for me. You may decide to stay in a drive mode and simply control power flow to minimize regen. That does work but takes a lot of concentration, more concentration then I have. Others may find it easy to maintain that steady foot so its really all about doing what works best for you. 

Finally, I hesitate to present these numbers simply because there are too many variables to consider. I am a power miser during Winter, toggling defrost as needed, chilling ALL the time (but still comfortable) so my efficiency is higher in Winter than most because of me, not the car.  But my 2018 I had a LT average 4.72 miles/kwh over 25,185 miles.   Now my Plus is a bit of a different story as the extra range simply put my mindset into a situation where I felt like saving range on the freeway was no longer a thing so I became a criminal exceeding the speed limits by a "gross misdemeanor" margin quite frequently; something that VERY rarely happened in my previous four LEAFs.  

Naturally that caused a drop in efficiency and at 35,000 miles on the Plus, I am at 4.48 miles/kwh but have exceeded 5 miles/kwh two months in a row and expect no different for July despite the HUGE increase in A/C use. 

FYI; I admit to a bit of tongue in cheek in describing the scenarios above especially the "racing to red" stuff.  But one thing I have noticed is that a lot more gassers are doing the slow roll from light to light like me. Really started noticing it a few months ago. I wonder why? 

LEAF Plus 2 Year Review and Degradation Update.

 Birth day; Ahr 176.09 SOH 99.79%

One year; Ahr 164.28, SOH 93.13%

Two years; Ahr 162.57, SOH 92.16

6 month loss; Ahr 8.01, SOH 4.54%

1st year loss; Ahr 11.75, SOH 6.66% over 14,669.2 miles

6-12 month loss; Ahr 3.74 SOH 2.12%

2nd year loss; Ahr 1.71  SOH .97%  over 13,012 miles

For the impatient, I started with the pertinent data. See a trend here? Granted, its only 2 years so might be hard to interpret. How about a picture? 

The chart tracks Ahr/SOH readings every 1000 miles taking time out of the equation. Instead of tracking actual readings, I extrapolated the numbers to what they would be if the current rate of degradation was maintained to 100,000 miles.  I did this to create a visual representation of the rate of degradation which makes the data much easier to interpret. 

To put it simply; 

If the slope is flat, the rate of degradation is not speeding up or slowing down. 

If the slope decreases, the rate of degradation is increasing. 

If the slope increases, the rate of degradation is slowing down. 

As you can see, after 6 months (7099.8 miles), the rate of degradation has been constantly slowing down. It had been my plan to predict when the degradation curve would flatten and show data to support my prediction but my ability to gather info from other Gen 2'rs has not been as fruitful as I had hoped and instead of delaying this post (2 year anniversary was Nov 16, 2021) any longer, I decided the data collected will be used for a separate topic. 

 I drove 14,669.2 miles the first year, 13,012 miles the 2nd year. I am just under 30,000 miles as of now. If I were to assume the rate of degradation over year 2 from here on out (which we already know is not true) then my numbers at 100,000 miles would be Ahr 153.16, SOH; 86.66%. IOW, it would be a monumental challenge qualifying for a warranty pack.  Of course, time is also a factor so the projected numbers assume annual mileage of 13,012 miles matches year 2 as well. 

Price of Gas

Like before, I seek out free charging when its convenient for me and generally its a lot during Summer but not nearly as much during Winter.  This year has been different because EVCS is offering free charging thru out the Chademo ONLY West Coast Electric Highway until upgrades to CCS/Chademo (Yeah, that's right. Chademo lives!) are complete at which time they will offer WCEH special pricing. No info on that but the $20 unlimited plan is not likely to survive this change. 

I am also lucky enough to have 3 Electrify America stations in town where all the Chademos work; an increasing rare occurrence it seems.  So a visit or two on their free holiday weekends is almost a given. 

Because of this, I almost maintained a balance of public charging with AC winning at 871.147 kwh over DC's 720.4539 kwh.  All the AC was free while DC racked up $28.05 in charges. The "real" total is higher due to money on various accounts used but that money was spent long ago so not counted here since...well, the expenditure did not happen in 2021. 

On the home front only $154.95 was spent to charge the LEAF.  My highest cost per mile happened in Feb and for a few reasons and yeah, it was weather related.  We had a huge snowstorm which meant February also had the lowest efficiency at 3.86 miles/kwh, lowest amount of free public charging (37.46 kwh) and home cost all tier two electrical rates. Despite all that, I still managed an "eye watering" 2.58 cents per mile (Yeah, its gasser eyes that are watering) 

Speaking of weather, the 2nd lowest public charging use was June. This was a bit of a shock to me.  My free AC charging mostly falls into two categories.  Volta while at the movies or the mall and Telsa SC while biking the trail.  SC Lacey has 4 Chargepoints that provide 2 hours free charging when Target is open and it borders The Chehalis Western Trail.  Biking is not only good exercise but for me, its Zen for the mind so when the weather turns good, I am on the trail 3-5 days a week so lots of opportunities to grab some free electrons.  

But this past June was when we had our all time heat wave and it was a doozy. With temperatures well over 100º, I wasn't about to hit the trail or much of anything else for that matter.  During the heat wave, we had temperatures in excess of 30º above normal so it was all about hiding my LEAF from the heat in my "not so cool" garage but better than sitting in a parking lot during the hottest part of the day! 

From the heat to the cold, we just finished up a severe cold streak that included temps in the mid teens and nearly a foot of snow. Because it was so cold, snow and ice dominated the weather for nearly 2 weeks.  Despite all that, I ended December averaging 4.0 miles/kwh but was primarily on the strength of a trip to King County and a disabled vehicle in the middle of the 405 that pushed my efficiency to 4.6 miles/kwh.  My average over just the last week of December was 3.4 miles/kwh including a 2.4 mile/kwh day which consisted of mostly doing donuts around town as work was canceled so had some free time. 

2021 Expense Summary 

Miles; 13,254.6

Fuel cost (including public charging fees);  $189.00

kwh used; 2919.01

Miles/kwh; 4.54

Cents/mile; 1.38 (Due to deposits with various public charging vendors, my true cost "this" year was less) 

Maintenance;  ZERO

Upkeep (Car wash, fluid replenishment, wiper replacement, etc); $168

Tab Fees (includes custom Seahawk plates, park access and some other stuff I'm probably forgetting); $328.25

Title Transfer fees and sales tax;  $382.09

BMS

Nissan's BMS is designed to be user friendly which is a politically correct way of saying no thought processes, no options, no nothing. Then they made it worse by removing their one and only custom charge setting without an explanation and naturally we filled in the blanks as to why. So when I relay my manual BMS processes, this the typical response. 

"I never know when I might have to go somewhere so we plug in immediately when we get home so our car is pretty much fully charged all the time. We like it that way. Ready to go."

"I have charged to 100% since day one and my battery is just fine. I have only lost one bar in 50,000 miles" 

"Charging to 100% all the time is ok because the batteries are designed to be charged that way. That is why Nissan removed the 80% setting. It is simply no longer needed" 

I could go on for days and back when we didn't have 100 miles of range and few public charging options, a lot of the concerns were quite valid.  But the attitude persists with 200+ mile ranges and MUCH more charging options. Nissan doesn't help with their hidden capacities, very early dire warnings to plug in, etc. But that is how cars work. My Prius gas light came on about 3/16th of a tank. In a 500 mile car, that is nearly 100 miles. But we Americans tend to run out of fuel on a very regular basis so manufacturers will not be changing any time soon. 

So I take it upon myself to control the SOC range I spend the most time.  Despite this, my full charges increased from 2020 to 9 in 2021.  Now you know how many longer road trips I did...almost. I had more than few leaving home at far less than 100% SOC but that was due to where I was going, what I was planning and time frame targets, etc. But ultimately, my goal is "living in the middle" SOC range that is. 

How much I am helping my pack will likely take years to partially quantify. There are too many variables to driving style, location, terrain, weather, etc to compare my pack's stats to others (another reason I started the database of other LEAFers which was to be able to use THEIR PACK DATA) but I can say a few things that apply "most" of the time. 

**Location doesn't matter nearly as much as previous packs which is most notable in the "not quite Hell" areas where its hot but not extreme but even in extreme areas like Phoenix, Gen two packs are doing much better. 

**High milers benefit.  Most over the degradation curve drive  A LOT. By a lot, I mean over 30,000 miles a year.  On the flip side, very low milers are riding below the curve although that is not as predominant and an early indicator says those who started out low on the degradation curve are gradually catching up to the pack. 

** Time based degradation seems to have taken on a much greater role and the quarterly BMS adjustments seems to put an emphasis on that. For those unaware, unlike previous LEAF packs, the battery stats namely ahr and SOH do not bounce up and down several times a week like the gen one packs did.  Now the numbers would slowly drop but every 90 days or so, the numbers would change dramatically gaining or losing   chunks of rated capacity.  For lack of a better term, I labeled this phenomena as "The Adjustment" 

The Adjustment 2021

In my 2nd year the adjustments were kinder. MUCH kinder.  Unlike the 4 in 2020 which were all drops, 2021 was a split with 2 drops, 2 increases with the overall change of nearly zero. (-.09 ahr, -.05 SOH) leaving only the downward drift between the adjustments to account for the year's capacity drop which was also better in 2021 so very much a win-win or simply the BMS learning my habits and needs and adjusting accordingly?  The answer to that is a mystery to me so I am going to data dump ya and you can make your own conclusions. 

Now that we have 2 sets of numbers to look at, some interesting statistics.  First off, can't say how invaluable LEAF Spy is for this kind of stuff. I have archived EVERY LEAF Spy session covering all 5 LEAFs I've had (realizing of course LEAF Spy wasn't here in the early days of the 2011 and 12's) so being able to go back years to look for a specific data point is simply awesome.  Below is a spreadsheet on the adjustments and it seems like every time I update it, I add more stuff to it. Not sure if the stuff is pertinent or helping to obscure the obvious but at least I can and LEAF Spy is the reason why. 

First the chart

Adjustment Change Log

As always, you can click on the chart for a bigger, easier to read version. Ok, most of the headings are self explanatory so what I have going here

Adj Length; How long the adjustment lasted

Days bet adj;  Should be obvious if you understand my abbreviations; days between the end of one adjustment and the beginning of the next

ahr and SOH change; Change during the adjustment

ahr daily and SOH daily;  Change between adjustments

The rest of the data is how I charged between adjustments. Trying to see if too much DC was a bad thing. As you can see, I went way overboard on both options and basically determined its not what you charge with, its how you charge.  A lot of DC is probably fine as long as you are charging to a reasonable level. In my case, my target SOC was generally 70% which basically kept the batteries surprisingly cool. More on that later.  When collecting LEAF Spy data from other Gen 2's, I found no change in degradation rates based on the amount of DC charging. Maybe it was a change in NCTC or simply the additional range made it easier to pass up stations but hardly anyone relied even moderately on DC charging.  Now more than a few of you will say DC charging is bad since that is also when I lost most of my capacity but my loss is not out of the ordinary even among people who DC'd rarely if at all so keep in mind, there is a lot  more data going on than we see here. 

Notice the date drift?  More evidence its closer to a 90 day cycle than quarterly. Will need another year though to verify. 

Interesting that I have had two one day adjustments both in October? One up, one down. 

Speaking of the Oct 2021 adjustment; the gain only brought me back to even when considering the daily losses. Started the adjustment period with an ahr of 162.68 and ended with 162.66. 

My largest negative adjustment was January of both years. This is a time of year where I generally drive less. Makes me think the car is hiding capacity from me to protect the cells maybe? More on that later. 

In all metrics; Year one was much more severe than Year two. 

Loss during adjustment;  

2020 ahr; 8.79.       2021 ahr; .09%

2020 SOH 4.98%.  2021 SOH; .05%

Loss between Adjustment;

2020 ahr; 2.77.        2021 ahr; 1.57

2020 SOH; 1.62%  2021 SOH; .92%

So the real question now becomes will it continue to improve in year 3 or stay consistent? 

**NOTE**

Not all numbers will jive with the above due to offsets of years, adjustments, etc. Top section is "birthday" stats based on the November 16, 2019 delivery date.  These numbers here based on adjustments with the projected build date of approximately October 25, 2019. 

Niggles

Ok so the car still has quirks. Listed below in no particular order. Only mentioned because...well, its a reality. Nothing here really matters a whole lot to me. Its like my phone. It doesn't always stay in its lane but the road is empty so not a priority for me. We all have our levels of acceptance so YMMV. 

Steering wheel volume controls randomly do not function. Never lasts more than a single power cycle and ! still have the old school knobs which always work so guessing I have to say...Glad it aint a Tesla! But then again, they probably use an entertainment system with a higher degree of reliability. 

When playing SAT radio, I will see random reboots of the center screen that I can just about predict to the second. Doesn't matter. With constant signal drops, its a bit irritating to listen to so I have passed on the last half dozen freebie periods. I will say Amazon Prime music seems to work quite flawlessly.  Most of the time, I am listening to news radio anyway. 

Air flow changes on its own. Seems to happen a lot more during Summer with A/C then any other time of the year so wondering if its simply a bad circuit design or insufficient ventilation causing issues due to heat buildup although I can't say that I have had experience with OEM equipment that even needed ventilation?  Who knows?  But it happens. 

Huggables

As the years roll by, I have lost perspective on a lot of reasons why I love EVing. But the horrors of the alternative comes crashing back immediately after cranking up a smoke machine.  With 3 distinct drive modes, driving has become a bit more fun. Its become a challenge of mine to go an entire month without touching the brake pedal one single time. (after startup of course) I am approaching my 4 year anniversary of E Pedal (2018 delivered February 16, 2018) and have yet to make it although I did make it past the 20th 3 times. 

The Drive

My driving style has morphed during that time as well going from nearly 100% E Pedal to B Eco to the current D/B Eco. My change was encouraged by talking to John, a 2015 LEAF owner who rolled 200,000 miles on his original 24 kwh pack with 11 capacity bars.  

11 BAR 2015 LEAF with ORIGINAL BATTERY PACK! 

And no, there is no typo in that last statement. Its a monumental achievement and so understanding how he did it was a no brainer.  He charged to 100% every night at home, charged to 80% on DC to make it home every day.  So what was his secret?  Well due to his location, it was better to take the state highway to work than I-5 which would require driving thru a half dozen daily bottlenecks.  The state highway was also a bit shorter but slower. Speed limit was 55 but slowed to a crawl driving thru every small town on the route. He admitted it took a bit more time but was also a much less stressful drive. 

This got me to thinking on what effect higher regen and the accompanying higher level of power to regain speed had on the rate of degradation?  We all know that cycling is a factor and one charge cycle rated as 0 to 100% so two 50% charge/discharge cycles is one cycle, 3 charging sessions adding 25% is one cycle, etc. 

So my year 3 experiment (actually started last June) will be minimizing regen as much as possible. This means my primary drive mode is D Eco. I still use them all including N but the one thing I realized during my driving is I am constantly evaluating other drivers and predicting what they are going to do which causes me to completely remove my foot from the accelerator frequently for no more than a split second and I was doing this a lot. Since D has the flattest regen profile, I figured a smaller hit to the pack has to a good thing, right? 

Projects for 2022

The big thing will be the driving style adjustment but when doing random experiments, I stumbled across other observations I will be repeating to see if its a fluke or simply an unnoticed fact of life. 

One thing will be charging efficiency and how it relates to SOC.  I saw a rather drastic variance on DC charging efficiency as the SOC rose. Efficiency would start out quite high but in charting a DC charge curve on EA one day, I noticed that my ability to predict the time EA would flip over on the Kwh counter was rather flawed. I kept missing it and couldn't understand why.  So looking at the data later, I found that at high SOC, the charging efficiency was dropping significantly.  I hadn't noticed because I so rarely (like nearly NEVER!) DC above 90%.  So will be charting that to eliminate random car flukes, LEAF Spy data, batt temps, and whatever else I can think of. 

Of course my pursuit of RapidGate continues. I didn't have a good chance at that last year mostly due to EA's dumbing down Chademo to 120ish amps.  When 200 is possible, its hard to quantify if you can't stumble across a 200 amp machine conveniently located in the right spot.  My Tahoe trip was derailed by wildfire although we did do the 10 Falls Hike in Oregon during REALLY hot weather but apparently it wasn't far enough and we did spend the night (although the overnight low was in the upper 80's) which probably made the difference. Even a few side trips home the next day didn't really matter. I will say I was surprised at how well the pack managed in 100º temps at 70 mph though. 

HELP!!!!

Still need more LEAF Spy participants! The only way I can make this work is I need the same person to submit several data points over YEARS. Anything else is simply interesting.  So thank you if you have been submitting shots on a regular basis...all 5 of you...Yeah, only 5 of you. 

Another thing is if you have been saving your logs on Dropbox or something, you can pull out significant data and post them as well. 

Date,  ahr, SOH, HX, miles and L1/L3 count and I can work with that.  Doing this gives us a better picture of how driving style, climate, location, and charging habits affect us. John is a perfect example that none of us really knows where the ceiling is. Did he simply win the traction pack lottery or is he the reason he has done so well?

Until next time! 

EVing The Pacific Northwest

The summer travel season is in full swing but unlike past years, the new concerns along with smoke and AQI, is new public charging station owners. The West Coast Electric Highway was a program that was supposed to cover travel of EVs on the West Coast. But California had budget issues, other priorities, etc. so they kinda went off our their own leaving Oregon and Washington. So a network of 44 stations in Oregon and 12 in Washington was built, changed hands several times and for a while, Webasto was the gatekeeper and did a decent job. Up time was normal, repairs fairly quick, customer service was responsive.

Webasto is now EVCS

Well, all that changed last year and no one knew why. The WA stations performed well for the most part, but large sections of OR fell into disrepair with some stations broken for several months. What we didn't know at the time was the Webasto was getting out of the public charging game. They ended up selling their stations to a new company EVCS who had launched in 2019 and had stations in a handful of locations all in California. But unlike Webasto, the changeover has been slow, repairs even slower but more shockingly; EVCS doesn't have a good grasp of the actual condition of their stations or the customer experience especially in WA. I was able to contact the EVCS's WCEH manager who was apparently under the impression that we were charging issue free which was far from reality. During a brief part of the changeover process that just happened a month ago (sale completed last winter) "Pay with Plugshare" became inoperable. When it was relaunched under EVCS, it was wonky, billed for failed sessions, etc. In many cases, even a remote reset of the station by Customer Service failed to resolve the issue. It was only after some email tennis that I was able to relay the issues we were having. But it has become clear to me that we end users need to start a dialogue with this new company or they will not have a complete picture of what is going on? So if you have an issue on the EVCS (formerly Aerovironment/Webasto) network, comment it on Plugshare AND email the EVCS manager responsible for communications on the WCEH; email: charlieb@evcs.com

Plugshare Plugshare Plugshare! 

Call me sentimental but Plugshare has been with us since the beginning! Sure there new apps for roadtripping but none of them does as good a job advising us ahead of time on station reliability and best charging options. So yeah, its my go to for EVERY trip I take.  Now, I consider myself to be both savvy and cheap which is a great combo for an EVer but lately even I have not been keeping up with the new charging options available to me.  Free charging has been around since day one but new options are popping up every day including a gem I discovered in Astoria OR; EV Connect.  They have a DC and AC station located at Clatsop Community College that was fast AND FREE. I didn't get over 46 kw while charging (supposed to be a 62.5 Kw machine? ) but pack was in the mid 100'sº F so maybe a bit of Rapidgate (although that seems doubtful) 

Although I downloaded the app and everything "seemed" to work, scanning the QR code only immediately got me a "station down for maintenance" message. So, I unplugged. Station says "Plug available" I plug in, prompted to scan fob or use app and... same message. So I called customer service hoping for the best, expecting the worst and...

With no other customer service interaction coming remotely close, it was THE greatest interaction I have ever had!  EV Connect is small, only has a few stations right now but I am hoping they grow and maintain that level of service. FYI; I was able to call them and get the charge started faster than most Webasto stations take to connect! 

Oswald West State Park

I recently transferred from my old work location to a brand new facility a few miles farther up the road.  (actually quicker since its an easier more direct route off the freeway) So our first day was this past Sunday and as we all know, supply line logistics has been a major challenge due to trucker shortages and despite working for what is likely the best logistics company in the World, we were not immune.  

So the product we were expected to have on hand had not quite materialized. In fact, we had ONE item. Now this will be the largest Hazmat FC in the entire network...eventually, but not today.  So the next sensible thing to do was to do our basic orientation, a few classes and then give us the rest of the week off WITH PAY! Naturally, this meant some free time had to be used and fast! 

Now, truth be told, this trip was already planned and despite my efforts to get definitive info from EVCS about the WCEH subscription availability, I heard nothing. But the plan was for Thurs (my normal day off) but smoke predictions made me push it to Wed not to mention 100+º temps predicted. 

So we hit the park taking the Cape Falcon Trail to check out the water.  Now the trail is a 2.5 mile out and back to a viewpoint overlooking Treasure Cove and had modest elevation gains so by all accounts, an easy hike.  

A bit of up and down but the real challenge was high humidity, a "warmer" day and roots!  This should be called the "Roots Trail" as it covered well over 90% of the trail and made footing tricky. One guy fell hard right in front of us.  Luckily there was no service except near the viewpoint or I would have broken my ankle for sure with no one to blame but Facebook! 

This is what most of the trail was like root wise. Size wise, it was generally only 2-3 feet wide so walking around the roots wasn't an option. 

Despite the challenges, it was a gorgeous hike and we only passed 2 groups going in, a half dozen going out. 

Here is a glimpse of our destination. Its the grassy top of the point in the background

This is a temperate rain forest so the ferns and Salah was everywhere. 

And the view?  Worthy!

EV Stats; One day, 345 miles, two DC Sessions Zero cost. 

Ledbetter State Park, Long Beach Peninsula WA

Release the beach!  As we all know, the Washington coast was all but a pipedream for many EVers due to lack of charging for day trips. PLENTY of options mostly free for campers and anyone staying overnight but for a quick there and back? VERY few options.  One key sore spot was Grays Harbor Washington; "The Gateway to the Pacific"   Well that all changed when Electrify America finally started working in Aberdeen.   So this hike was all about testing the range of the LEAF Plus to see how much it had lost and I found it really hadn't lost much at all. 

Ledbetter State Park is at the very end of the peninsula anchored by Long Beach WA and had a "coast to coast" hike that I thought would be fun so off we went! 

Now this was the day "after" the free charging weekend EA offered for the 4th of July and despite getting a notice on the 2nd of July that the stations were live...they weren't. Now with a plus, it didn't matter. There were several other stations I could hit by simply returning home thru Oregon instead but that wasn't the plan so I decided instead of driving to the hike and back to Aberdeen with less than 20 miles of range left, we stopped in on the way out adding 20 miles to the trip.  Sure enough, the "day after" the freebie ended, the station finally went live.  Nice one EA! We know what you did there!  So after grabbing my 4 kwh (to cover that 20 mile detour) off we went.  

Now the park is a bit..."isolated" and getting there was easy enough but then we turn into the park entrance and the double lane road ended about 200 feet later turning to a single lane with random "wide" spots. IOW; it was a one lane road and a narrow one at that! 

We finally get to the parking lot about 3 miles in and there are a few options and all the hikes are short so we decided to do the forest hike which merged the Bay Loop then the Burberry Trail. A decent adventure! 

So off we went on the Forest trail and it was like ALL sand and dead trees which is generally sign of Tsunami's. Salt water kills the tree so fast, they don't have time to do the normal decaying process so they turn a bleached white.  Not only was the sand hard walking (just like a beach!) it was dry and loose which made it tougher but the play was swarming with mosquitos! I can't remember the last time I got a mosquito bite in WA. They are just not an issue most of the time!  But they were insane here.  

So after doing a quick detour at the first opportunity, we hit the beach. Now this is a national protection sanctuary for the Snowy Plover nesting grounds but there were marked pathways that allowed us to access the beach so off to the Pacific we went! 

You can see the off limit boundaries using the white sticks in the background. 

It was a nice breeze and 60º.  A perfect day for a nice hike. FYI; mosquitos 

hate wind cause they can't fly! 

Although we could not invade their territory, they

had no issues invading ours!

After a walk along the beach, it was time to head east to the "other" coast. 

Notice, its dirt here? Also much less mosquitos! 

The "East Coast" viewing Willapa Bay. 

All in all, a decent hike despite the casualties reaped by the mosquitos. Coast to Coast in a day! Always something worth bragging about! 

After that, it was back up the "trail" (we only passed two cars!) and back to civilization. Because of the earlier stop in Aberdeen, we didn't need a whole lot to get home taking in 9.82 kwh.  

EV Stats  One day  294.9 miles  2 DC's $5.59
 

Big Creek Trail Lake Cushman Olympic National Forest. 

Now this was unplanned and kinda tossed together. Since it was only 156 miles roundtrip, no public charging was needed. This hike has actually been on the bucket list for a while but was waiting for my Son to be a bit older first. I think he still hasn't forgiven me for the Sequim Spit Hike (which is the longest spit IN THE WORLD totaling just under 12 miles RT) when he was 11. Since he was 14 now (and taller than me) I figured it was time and having the day off with pay didn't hurt either! So Tuesday, off we went.  As mentioned, this was a bit more of a challenge but ended up being milder than expected. The Big Creek Trail itself is a 4.5 mile loop with modest elevation but that would be boring so we elected to hit the viewpoint which was a mile out and back and an extra 750 feet. 

With detours, we ended up going just under 8 miles. Because it was on a Tuesday and before the heatwave, it was much nicer with temps only in the 70's for most of the hike. There was also a lot of shade and the humidity was a lot lower.  Big Creek serpentines down the side of the Olympic Range so there was MANY bridges.   

Question; Why can something so blue, be so green?  

Answer; Lake Cushman is a man made lake with Lake Cushman Dam providing green hydroelectric power to Mason County.  The powerhouse is in Hoodsport which is a town perched rather precariously on the banks of Hood Canal.  Part of the reason the dam was there is erosion control along with generating power.  Parts of Hoodsport is literally only 50 feet wide with steep rocky cliffs on one side and Hood Canal on the other so losing "any" land wasn't really an option for the area.  Plus, you have to admit it did make for a pretty awesome recreation area. 

EV stats; One day;  156.3 miles starting with a full charge. ~ 102 miles remaining

Ten Falls Trails; Silver Falls State Park, Sublimity Oregon

If there was ever a MUST DO, this is it. Reputed to be one of the best waterfall view hikes in the entire United States, I just had to see for myself and it did not disappoint. Again, a loop but over 7 miles in length (varies from 6.8 to 7.8 miles because some falls had short detours for better view and WE TOOK EM ALL!)  

The trail varied from very wide to a few creeps around ledges but there was never much of a sense of danger. Railings were in "most" places and footing was excellent.  Despite the obvious abundance of water near by, the trail was solid and dry. This trail is open all year round which is a good indication of how well the trail is maintained. We met several volunteers who walk the trail constantly making sure no one get in trouble or is doing things they shouldn't be.  Very well marked! 

Because of the length of the drive (nearly 200 miles one way) and the extra time I wanted to take on the hike, we drove from Olympia and spent the night in Sublimity which was about 10 miles away.  We did drive past Sublimity to Mill City, another 20 miles or so to charge and like WOW! 

Mill City Oregon 

Out in the middle of haystack,  Christmas trees, logging and NOTHING else was a gleaming EV Oasis!  4 62.5 KW DCs and a level 2 to boot and CHEAP!  At 18 cents/min (before 4 PM) it was a very good deal. We picked up 26.748 kwh for $6.22 or 23 cents/kwh. Not too shabby.   The best part was driving 205 miles and still having nearly 60 miles of range left. That was a bit surprising! 

140 amps is decent speed. Max'd out at 54 KW

The Hike! 

Only posting a few pix because of the crazy volume.  If you Facebook, here you can view a LOT more. 

Intro

Part 1

part 2

Part 3

The South Falls

One of the best parts of the hike was the trail running behind the falls. Here is an example. FYI; pictures here do not do justice to the amazing views on this hike in any way!  The number of professional (or VERY well equipped amateur) photographers out is indicative of how beautiful this park truly is. 

good example of the many railings and other protections built in but as mentioned, not always the case. 

Some of the ponds below the falls were at least 20 feet deep but so clear you could still see the bottom

The North Falls like the South Falls had a trail that ran behind but the North Falls fell over a HUGE block of Granite that had a natural undercut creating an amphitheater like enclosure. Despite taking several pictures, it was impossible to capture the grandeur of the scene. 

Now the temperature was predicted to be over 100º but cloud cover saved us so it never got above the mid 80's. In anticipation of the heat, we were on the trail by 8:30 AM so finished before 2 PM.  After a stop in Salem for lunch, we charged up at Portland International Airport on the EVgo and headed  home. 

EV Stats; 2 days,  473.7 miles 2 DC sessions, $13.54 

Of course, this is but a small part of what I did this summer but you get idea!