Looks like a few 34 Leafs in Phoenix is finding out about the heat and batteries. Nissan's statement below. Link: Nissan LEAF Battery Warranty Update “The warranty is not related to battery capacity. The warranty is related to motor output. So if the battery has degraded to a point where the motor can’t get enough power from the battery, then it’s a warrantable event. But if someone abuses the battery – parks it outside in 140 degrees and all that – and they have 60 percent capacity after eight years, that’s on them. They abused it.” If you park in the sun at work, thats abuse. My only reason for posting this is to alert PIP owners to watch battery charge drops. I'm rooting for all EV's to be the wave of the future. Vern
Logical fallacy. The statement was "...parks it outside in 140 degrees..." not your statement of "If you park it in the sun at work". That may be the same for you, but not necessarily everyone. While some will use this a an issue to ding all EVs, I suspect this doesn't affect most EVs nor the PiP due to different design choices. Passive battery management doesn't work well in extreme temperatures.
is there a scientific way for nissan to diagnose battery degradation as caused by parking outside in 140 degree temperatures for prolonged periods?
I am sure there is. My understanding is Nissan did a large amount of hot weather testing in Arizona. I suspect they focused too much on air temperatures and lab results rather than asphalt parking lot temperatures. They are gathering a half a dozen real world vehicles from people that have experienced capacity loss. The problem may not be the parking of the car on 140 asphalt as much as charging the car in the evening and having it sit fully charged in a garage that doesn't cool below 90. Or starting the charge before the batteries have had a chance to cool down. I hope Nissan will release full details about what they discover. I have seen reports of Arizona Leaf owners hat have had no problems as well. So at least some part of this is affected by user behavior.
Lead Acid 48v battery. Bought Ryboi battery powered lawn. Battery kept die in the shade, air temp 110. Where did you get the 90 degree, your right on. Home Depot first gave use batteries. Then they replaced the Ryobi with a completely new mower. Now my wife keeps the battery in the house on the washer, it seems problem solved. We need as much info input as we can get, I'm not a troll. I'd love to dump $50,000 into a new S model Tesla. Vern
The 90 degree number was just an educated guess, pure coincidence As for the Model S, you really don't need to worry nearly as much as Leaf owners. Tesla uses an active battery management system which does a lot of the things Leaf owners are tring to do manually, automatically. Plug the car in at anytime, the management system will cool or warm (which is what I worry about more) to make it safe to charge the batteries. Standard charge setting is available and is the default setting for charging (80% vs 100% charge). Basically, I have always thought an active battery system made much more sense than a passive one.
Thank's for the reply, Zythryn. Active, passive you've done more reading then I. Kind of like Plug-in supply Plug-In Supply | Plug-In Conversions for Prius and Escape and their active battery pack. Vern
I very much wanted to read up on EV technology before buying one. And have been driving electric for a couple of years now. So a mix of ongoing research, and living the dream When the news came out about the Az leafs, I started doing more digging. News blurbs rarely give you the whole, or unbiased picture. They were awful with the Volt battery fires, awful with the Toyota unintended acceleration, and I suspect they will be just as bad with the Az Leaf battery issues.
