Saturday, August 2, 2014

July 2014 Drive and Degradation Report

Ok, I thru in the "D" word to attract higher readership!  But then again, I am now only seeing a maximum 22 kwh available on a full charge even with the full 284 GIDs and 67.36 ahr so if every other number is max'd out why am I seeing less available capacity?


Well back in the "old" days I was seeing 22.7 kwh available. Then it settled on 22.5  then 22.2 and now its been at 22.0 since the first week of July.  The decline does roughly correlate with the rise of the temperature as Summer approached which when considering the appearance of adjustments made on the 2011's by the BMS, I have to think that is a possibility here as well.  And warm it has been. the big drop did happen the same week we hit the 90's for the first time this year as well.  One thing that did happen on Tuesday. This happened after a 26 min QC (needed all of it!) which also saw just over 3 hours on two different L2's that day along with 90º.  


8 Temperature Bars!! First time I have seen this in 3½ years of LEAFing.  In fact, the only time I ever saw 7 bars was after my 3rd QC of the day in my 2011 on a near 100º day. I now strongly suspect the TB scale has changed or the 2013 packs heat up faster


Now up until this past week (which included only one  QC but commutes of 174.3,  121.0 and 124.5 miles) I thought it was degradation until I saw this.

Like say what?? How am I back to the maximum 67.36 ahr and the maximum 284 GIDs but not the maximum available kwh ?  Something is up here! So the "final" word on degradation is... Stay tuned!

Anyway for the month of July, the Corolla drove 113.1 miles for an estimated cost of  $10.18.  This is an estimate since the last time gas was purchased was June 28th and the Corolla still registers more than 3/4th of that fill up.  Haven't gotten my pay stubs yet but the current rate is 40 cents a mile so if its the same I will get roughly $43 or so since all of the mileage I drove for the month is reimbursed I dont think. Remove the $31.25 for insurance and the car did pay off some of its ROI last month.  This does mean the Corolla wins the cheapest transportation of the month award!

BUT

The LEAF drove 1969.4 miles (nearly half of that in the last 9  days of the month!) for an estimated total cost of $40.95 or 2 cents a mile. This includes $6.75 in public charging fees.  Work reimbursement to be determined but definitely getting caught up.  Not sure if I mentioned this or not but its looking like I will  break even on ROI (IOW, no cost to drive the LEAF after work reimbursement) about the Middle of November!



2 comments:

  1. I suspect that with the battery pack heating up from summer temperatures and quick charging, the capacity is registering higher than it likely actually is. Must be due to resistance or lack thereof at higher temps compared to the "loss of capacity with cold temps". If I were to speculate, I would bet that the "Lizard Battery" wouldn't have erroneously high capacity readings when hot.
    ~Martin in Vermont

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    1. That could be true and if the erroneous reading is done purposefully to protect the battery, I am ok with that. Now this week with less driving (including two local jobs) I am now seeing less available Kwh (21.2 yesterday) but also with lower GIDs with 276 yesterday. So obviously a different thing going on here. Now this could be first real sign of a capacity loss but as always, we have to continue to record data daily and see what the long term trend is

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