Nissan Leaf vs FFE cold weather range comparison

[klusters]

Hello

Just a quick update on the direct comparison of range of two cars in our family. I have a '12 Leaf and my wife a '12 FFE. I was able to drive my wifes car for the better part of January. I would drive both cars to work, which is a 40 mile round trip commute, non highway, with minimal amounts of hills. Stay around 30-40mph Tires fully inflated, heat the seats, but no blower motor ventilation used.

Keep in mind we are in NJ and the weather was at or below freezing in January. The Leaf can safely handle 1.5 roundtrips of my commute or about 60 miles before I reach one bar. I expected the FFE to get the same result.

Not even close. The FFE can handle 2.5 roundtrips before reaching a low battery warning. In fact when I hit 100 miles on a single charge the conditions were freezing rain with the temps in the low 20's.

I expect the two to have similar range once the weather becomes more mild. But so far very impressed with FFE's the cold weather results

 

[thait84]

The active thermal management really helps.

 

[user 3729]

That's outstanding. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Hokus]

Silly question but how do you keep the windshield from fogging up? Here in Washington the defrosters pretty much are needed every morning... even if you turn them on and off like I do. It just gets too foggy. If I open the window a crack my head freezes.

Thanks.

 

[user 3729]

I bet this stuff would work! (NPR Link)

Edit: The stuff isn't transparent when dry, but it's an amazing video to watch.

 

[jeffand]

Are the cars parked outside, or in a heated garage?
I think one of the reasons the Focus did better on the in the EPA rating was due to the better tuned regenerative breaking system. Nissan may have fixed this problem in the 2013 model year. Nissan also added an active thermal management system like the FFE. The problem became evident in areas that experience 90F heat during the summer. The owners of Leafs in Arizona and Texas have experienced significant range reductions. The Leaf should of had this from the get go. This may be the reason they but only a 3.3 kilowatt charger due to concerns about battery heating. Now that the new Nissan Leaf offers a battery thermal management system they now offer a 6.6 Kw charger. :idea:

 

[Fluke]

Are the cars parked outside, or in a heated garage?
I think one of the reasons the Focus did better on the in the EPA rating was due to the better tuned regenerative breaking system. Nissan may have fixed this problem in the 2013 model year. Nissan also added an active thermal management system like the FFE. The problem became evident in areas that experience 90F heat during the summer. The owners of Leafs in Arizona and Texas have experienced significant range reductions. The Leaf should of had this from the get go. This may be the reason they but only a 3.3 kilowatt charger due to concerns about battery heating. Now that the new Nissan Leaf offers a battery thermal management system they now offer a 6.6 Kw charger. :idea:

I had not heard that the Leaf was getting a battery thermal management system, could you point me to where this was announced? I saw that it was getting a new heating system to improve winter range, and the 6.6 kW charger, but didn't see anything about thermal management in the press release.

 

[user 3729]

The Leaf certainly did not get a thermal management system. The 2012 model got some resistive heating elements in the pack, and 2013 tweaked the cell chemistry to cut costs, and that's it as far as the battery goes.

The FFE has a recirculating coolant loop with active heating and cooling.

 

[jeffand]

Nissan is apparently doing some upgrades to the battery pack were the new cells are going to be more compact. This should free up room to add a thermal management system. The fact is I can't find the link were I read it. Nissan is really not commenting on the sticky issue, or even omitting the issue exists. Thermal issues are the likely reason why Nissan only recommends quick charging once a day. This allows time for the battery pack to cool down. Not having an active thermal management system especially with a faster 6.6 Kw charger is asking for trouble.

 

[user 3729]

I don't expect the current body style Leaf will get any real thermal management. This was a design decision from the beginning. Nissan engineers didn't feel active thermal management was worth the expense, complication, and the additional space it would occupy. They have defended their decision for years.

The new cells for 2013 are physically the same size, but they have more cost effective chemistry and the modules themselves have a new case that is lighter, but physically the same size as the older ones. The new modules are drop-in replacements for the old ones. Just lighter & cheaper.

Adding thermal management along the lines of Ford, Tesla, or GM would require a substantial re-design. The battery warmer introduced in MY2012 was in the works before the 2011 Leaf entered production. I'm pretty sure I remember Mark Perry talking about it in 2010, along with other cold-weather features that were introduced late, like the heated steering wheel.

 

[jeffand]

The Ford Focus electric doesn't have a heated stearing wheel. The heated seats are quite nice. I start out on setting 5 (high) first. Then once warmed up, back down to 1 or 2 on the heat setting.

 

[klusters]

The cars were kept outside. I think that played a big role in it. The Leaf just can't keep the battery warm when on the charger.

My window fogging up solution: keep a squeegee in the car and wipe the down the window. I've since begun to use the defroster for brief periods, but in jan it was not used

 

[Sasparilla]

The Leaf certainly did not get a thermal management system. The 2012 model got some resistive heating elements in the pack, and 2013 tweaked the cell chemistry to cut costs, and that's it as far as the battery goes.

The FFE has a recirculating coolant loop with active heating and cooling.

If you go over to the My Nissan Leaf forum you can find out more details, its actually worse than it sounds for the Nissan guys. The battery heater kicks on at 14f or lower and brings the battery temps up to 17f and then turns off - its basically just a battery so cold it won't work preventer - it doesn't bring the Leaf battery up to a good working temperature (hard to understand why they didn't at least offer that as an option to the driver via the touch screen).

Nissan also took the rare earths out of the electric motor magnets and in real world testing over on that forum with 2 new 2013's and 2 newish 2012's the 2013's went about 8 miles less in initial range (when the batts are the best) - rather disheartening over all - but Nissan did add a Heat Pump for the heater which supposedly will be much more efficient for heating.

No TMS has been added to the Leaf...god help Nissan if they don't fix that for Gen. 2.

 

[jeffand]

The Nissan Leaf blows air threw the battery pack to provide cooling. They did this to reduce complexity and cost. The 2013 Leaf did get some minor changes to the battery pack. As to what Nissan exactly has done, I don't know.

Does the Ford Focus Electric have a heat pump? To get this to work one of the things you could do is reverse the compressor direction.