Nissan Leaf after 100,000 km

Electric vehicles are much simpler to build than their conventional counterparts, which makes them less service-intensive and less likely to fail. At least that’s what logic dictates. Of course, because they are simpler than the others, they can still spoil. I recently received the 40kWh Nissan Leafem I’m currently using on April 19, 2018, and within days the mileage hit 100,000km so it’s time to review its condition and the amount of problems I’ve had over the years.

We took care of the car like a male egg, but soon got into trouble. The garage door hit the rear windshield, hitting the windshield wiper so hard it broke the glass. A Tesla handler (György Zambelly), who dealt with Nissan Leafs at the time, fixed it in no time, so it’s like it’s in its new age.

The first year, I took it for warranty repair due to three problems. The first time I started clicking something in the first structure every time I started forward or backward. The problem can be solved by tightening the screw approximately. It processed in 5 minutes and seemed to be a typical problem for that initial series. This car comes from early production of the new shape Leaf, and I suspect one of the factory settings for the torque wrench has yet to be fine-tuned. The most annoying thing was that the two rearview mirrors were squeaking like crazy as they got in and left them. We waited for it to finish at first, but eventually they were replaced. Absolutely unnecessary since the squeak has been there since then I finally turned off the mirror motor so I didn’t have to listen. I’ve decided to solve it with WD40 a few times already, but it’s not important that you take the time to do it. I also chose to turn it off because with the remote heating started, if the a/c was still active when the car was opened, the mirrors wouldn’t open. This is a repeatable software bug that I also reported to the manufacturer, but no fix was received.

However, the most serious problem was that the center display did not turn on unexpectedly one morning. The car was running fine, nothing could be done except on the center display. In the end, the head unit was replaced, which unfortunately means the loss of all telemetry data so far.

Even for the purchase of the car, I bought 5 service packages suitable for service for HUF 123,799, and I used the first unit of them at a mileage of 30,000 km. The sheet must be serviced every year or every 30 thousand kilometers, for me, the first two times were tied to the kilometer. The second flight of 30,000 km was completely calm, and the service was visited due to the second examination just before the outbreak of the epidemic. At that time, some recovery operations were also carried out, including updating the BMS software. Manufactured before May 2018, the Leafek was built with earlier software that limits charging performance more if the battery gets too hot than software that’s been in production since then.

From here, service visits are becoming more frequent again. In the midst of the biggest heat wave in August, it turned out that the climate wasn’t cold because the valve dumped gas in the system. The defect was corrected in the warranty by replacing the specified section. Then winter came, and on a cold evening on the way home, the charge suddenly began to drop. The level dropped at such a rate that it was questionable whether I could park in a safe place on the highway. Then, as I slowed down, the charge came back close to the previous level at about the same speed. I reported the error, the car was checked but no anomalies were found. The problem was called up in the summer of 2021, when the BMS was replaced in the battery pack (an early version, not surprisingly). The problem hasn’t happened more than once anyway, so after replacing the BMS, I felt reassured that this was resolved as well.

Why place an order, since we hardly have cold winter days. But this sometimes happens, and the first time, the paper reproduced the error.

In the video above (taken before replacing the BMS), it is clear that when accelerating, the voltage in each cell is much lower than the others, but there are also 2-2 cells in the middle and end of the row that stand out amazingly from the others. In February 2022, Nissan service finally decided to replace the first battery unit (4 cells) for the warranty, but that did not solve the problem either. Because of the warm weather, it’s hard to articulate the problem at the moment, but the video below clearly shows that cell 2-2 in the middle and end of the row, which was astoundingly weaker a year ago, still doesn’t move with the others.

In everyday life, the above is not a problem, but at a cost close to 0%, the predictability has deteriorated a lot. It is also possible that there will be an unexpected stop on the highway at the expense of this (a few kilometers in front of the charger, it is 0% lower than before – barely 160 km without driving on a cold highway). The battery pack has been checked by the service center, but as long as they can’t fix the error with their own software, they can’t get a warranty repair. You may have to wait until winter to move forward.

4 years and 100,000 km

As you can see, the four years were not completely eventless. Except for the aforementioned discharge, it didn’t leave me there (once the charger stopped 20m into a new age, but it was entirely my fault) and I had the pleasure of using it. The phenomenon of fast gate due to multiple charges of lightning strikes is something that exists, but since I rarely travel more than 300-400 km per day (in fact, it is very rare for me to charge lightning), I don’t feel anything outside of he-she.

I already made a video about the light leather/faux leather interior. It is still in good condition (except for the injury it caused due to negligence), although the pattern printed on the leather is slightly eroded in several places.

On the other hand, the crack does not crack, and its color does not go away anywhere. I’ve cleaned more thoroughly 4-5 times in four years, so it didn’t require much attention either. I didn’t regret asking for it at all.

But it is clear that everyone is wondering about the state of the car battery now. After the first 50-60 thousand km, I thought the sustained and predictable decline observed in the previous paper (24) should be expected for this species as well, but between 50 thousand and 100 thousand, the curve appears to have flattened in just over two years. Battery life has been reduced by only 2.27%. At the age of four, Leafem 24 was already at 82-83% after 80,000 km. The car hit 100,000 km with a full load of 50%. I covered 108.8 km on a 100% charge and expected another 120 km while the Leafspy still saw 19.5 kWh of power in the battery (not all of which could be used). Given the 54.3% charge rate seen by Leafspy, the battery can in principle store another 35.9 kWh of energy, which is something to be treated with caution. The bar chart below shows how the first four substituted cells stand out from the rest of the cells in the sleep state. This is not a problem in practice.

After 100,000 km, the battery is still 91.12%. In the figure below, the jump was due to the replacement of the BMS, as the cells were not yet known when the new controller was installed, so it was thought to be 99%. It took approx. 10 thousand km to see its real condition, but in comparison with the BMS before replacement is almost. 1% higher level approved. Roads of 200-210 km can still be walked smoothly on one bridge in perfect weather, but in winter you should already install a few minutes of embankment on these roads. In our life, this is so rare that some shipments in a year can be a good fit. Of course we were with him in Transylvania a few times last year, but the 2x400km road is no longer a challenge with the fullness of the day.

We originally planned to use the car for 3 years and then switch to another car. However, she has proven so successful that she has no one to succeed her yet. In the meantime, I also set the ProPilot system with the help of CommaTwo, so it overcomes the vast majority of the boring part of the daily traffic under constant supervision, but completely independently. Honestly, this ability is what most test cars lack.

How many or how many service visits and problems? Combined, they look a lot, but they haven’t looked serious in four years. Most of the flaws weren’t really critical, just replacing the head unit would have been a flaw if you had to pop out of your own pocket. There is also no doubt that a 4-year-old battery should not suffer from such problems, and it is also not a good idea to not find a satisfactory solution to the problem of diseased cells in a year and a half. On the other hand, the low battery deterioration is a very pleasant surprise, as you expect that at the age of 8-10, even after 200-250 thousand kilometers, the battery condition will be much higher than 80%. Hopefully, what will happen to the diseased cells will be revealed by winter at the latest.