6 Years Later

The Leaf turns 6 years next month. Time for a long due update!

The Leaf has now more than 125,000 km and so far no major issues. With the full warranty long gone, the only out-of-warranty thing that broke and had to be replaced was the driver’s side power window switch. In terms of maintenance, an annual service check is all that takes to keep it running in good shape. While the Leaf is already rolling on its second set of summer tires, the brake pads are still the original ones and the car is yet to need any brake service. Battery capacity has been dropping as predicted by Nissan, (about 4% per year). Leaf Stat now showing an SOH of 76.1%, which translates to about 16.3 kWh of usable capacity.

With lower capacity comes shorter range. Even during the summer, I rarely get more than 120 km of estimated range. Fortunately, thanks to the Province of Ontario, there are now about a dozen DCQC fast chargers installed in and around the Ottawa region, which in practice extended my range significantly. In addition, the Province Quebec has even more fast chargers available at the other side of the border. We can now easily drive to places like Montreal, which used to be a challenge in the past.

ICYMI

Last year was the fifth anniversary of the Leaf’s first delivery in Canada. I gave an interview to The Globe and Mail discussing my ownership experience. Other news outlets like the Green Car Reports and Auto World News also published related stories. By re-reading the interview, here are a few things I would add based on the events from year #6.

Cold Weather

Still no problem driving in the winter but the drop in capacity is starting to take its toll. To complicate matters a bit, we’re moving to a new house next year, about 50% farther from work, so a longer commute with a smaller battery will be more of a challenge. The good news is that there are at least two fast chargers operational right now on the new route, which I’ll be able to use in case of emergency.

Savings

Last year I said the EV rebate in Ontario had gone up from $8,500 to $12,000. Well, now it’s at $14,000! The Leaf has never been so affordable in Canada. On the other hand, the plans for a super off-peak electricity rate overnight haven’t quite caught up yet. Apparently determining the hours for such tariff is a bit of challenge for the province given the fluctuating nature of low demand and negative costs.

Electricity Costs

Our average all-in cost per kWh over the years.

A lot has been said about “sky rocketing” electricity costs in Ontario, but frankly I really haven’t seen anything like it on my bill. I understand residents of rural areas are paying high delivery costs, and on-peak rates are indeed much higher than we were used to pay before time-of-use was in place, but our house is deep inside the city and we put an extra effort into shifting 80% of our consumption to off-peak hours. As a result, we haven’t been really seen a significant increase.

I’ve been monitoring our own electricity usage for years and this is what I see on our bill: Between Jan 2013 and Mar 2017, our average kWh rate (all-in) went up 20.5%. That’s it. About 4.7% a year. While that’s well above inflation, I wouldn’t call that sky rocketing, especially when gasoline can go up the same amount in one week without any warnings.

Reality is, the cost of driving with electricity continues to be very small compared to driving with gas. About 75% cheaper. In our case, it is as if we were paying about 25 cents a litre (instead of a dollar). In places like Quebec, where electricity is cheaper and gasoline is more expensive, the savings are even greater.

Update: The day after I wrote this, I checked the electricity rates at the Hydro Ottawa website and realized it’s election year! LOL As a result, “as of July 1, 2017, your electricity bill will be reduced by 25% on average if you’re a residential consumer. This includes all households across Ontario.” — I re-did all my calculations and we’re now paying the same off-peak rate we were paying in May 2012!

Volt

My biggest surprise is actually how well our 2012 Volt is performing. While our Leaf has lost 24% of its battery capacity, the Volt has absolutely no battery degradation (not that we can notice, at least). This past weekend we went on a long trip and measured how many kWh it would be able to use on a full charge. Over the years, I noticed that this number varies, hovering around 9.7 kWh and 10.1 kWh, while the nominal value in the specs is 10.3 kWh, but we never got that. On the above image, you can see that it still offers the same 10.1 kWh of usable capacity even after 5 years and 93,000 km. Even if you compare it with the official 10.3 kWh, the Volt still has 98% of its original capacity which is very impressive after all these years.

The reason is of course the active thermal management present on the Volt but not available on the Leaf. This is the single most important thing I’m expecting to be introduced on the 2018 Leaf to be announced next month. If the Leaf continues to be air cooled, I don’t think I’ll get another Leaf again.

Future

The Leaf has evolved from a 24 kWh car to a 30 kWh, and we’re now expecting a 40 kWh version (or higher) to be announced next month. The Chevy Bolt was launched late last year with 60 kWh, and the Tesla Model 3 has an 80.5 kWh battery.

We still don’t know when the Model 3 is going to be delivered in Canada. Most likely estimates, for someone who doesn’t work at Tesla and doesn’t own a Tesla, is end of 2018, which is actually not a bad timing for us. The only question is if we’re really going to afford a Model 3 (the word “affordable” before “Tesla” is very relative). The good news is that there will be a few other options available by the end of next year. The Bolt will be more mature, and hopefully have more discounts, and the Leaf may also be an option (assuming not air cooled as per above). One way or the other we have time to decide, and all indications are that both Leaf and Volt will hold just fine until there. Fingers crossed.

 

LEAF Range vs. Temperature, After Two Winters

Last year, I posted my first Range vs. Temperature report after the first winter with our Leaf. As the temperature dropped, you could clearly see a trend going down in terms of range, from about 140 Km in the summer, to 80 Km in the winter. We had a fairly mild winter for Canadian standards that year, and I happened to be away on vacation during the coldest days. As a result, I only had a few trips under very low temperatures and the lowest I was able to record was “only” -22C (-8F), and without enough trips to create a good average.

The second issue was that I didn’t know the car very well and I used the cabin heater a lot. As a result, I ended up not having enough data to show how much effect cabin heating would have on range. So the drop in estimated range was fairly significant as you can see below.

Range vs Temperature covering first winter

Last winter, I decided to make an experiment to test my hypothesis that cabin heating, not outside temperature, is the main factor affecting range in the winter. As the temperature dropped in January, I decided to take one for the team and drive with minimal cabin heating as much as possible, relying mostly on the heated seats, heated steering wheel and a good winter jacket. I also pre-heated the car before each trip, trying to simulate what I would normally do on a long trip. Pre-heating the car means charging for 20 to 30 mins before each trip and also pre-heating the cabin for at least 15 minutes while still plugged in. This procedure heats up the coolant used by the heating system, using grid power instead of battery power.

The estimated range is based on 120 V charging times. I didn’t use the FleetCarma data because I wanted to compare the results with the original baseline from the first winter, which I created before having the data logger.

With all that in place, I got the following results:

Range vs Temp, before and after

By comparing the two charts side-by-side, you can clearly see that I was able to consistently get at least 100 Km of an estimated range and bring the trend line to a flat line, regardless of the outside temperature.

These results confirmed my expectations but I still find it quite impressive. It is as if the battery didn’t care about the outside temperature as long as its own internal temperature was fine. The fact that you’re either charging or driving the car maintains a flow of electrons in and out of the battery which is enough to generate enough heat to keep the battery chemistry warm. The real challenge is how to keep yourself warm, and any passengers you might have.

I only had two trips recorded with temperatures below -23C, but I had to use the cabin heater in both occasions (freezing to death has its limit). One trip was at -25C (94 km range) and the other at -27C (74 km range). For the latter, the thermometer outside the house actually said -29C but I used the car thermometer as a more consistent reference. I added these two data points to the graph below to illustrate that the flatness of the curve breaks down, closer to last year’s trend, the moment you turn on the heater.

One thing these results show is that the cabin heater in the 2011 model is very inefficient. There is hope the 2013 will perform better but it is yet to be tested under the deep freeze (some people expect the performance to be the same when the temperature falls below -10 C).

Some LEAF owners have been successful in installing an internal ceramic heater in the cabin that performs much better than the regular heater. It is also possible to carry a separate 12 V to power that ceramic heater. With such auxiliary heating system in place, I would be very confident that the Leaf could drive 100 km in one charge in the winter regardless of the outside temperature.

Final Thoughts

With winter quickly approaching, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about how the Leaf performs under deep freezing temperatures. Our Leaf already has two Ottawa winters under its belt and we’re getting ready for its third one without a lot of concerns since we pretty much know exactly what the car can and cannot do. So this is how I can summarize our experience with Leaf in the winter so far.

• Range definitely drops but how much it drops mainly depends on how much you use the cabin heater, not necessarily on the outside temperature.
• If you heat up the cabin like a furnace and drive like there is no tomorrow, your typical 140 km range can easily drop all the way down to 60 km or even less. But if you manage to keep your cabin cool, drive conservatively, and use some of the techniques described below, you can still drive 100 km under fairly low temperatures.
• With a short commute like mine (17 to 29 km each way), winter range is rarely a concern. However, if I need to run some errands in the evening, I do need to top off the charge during supper. To me, that’s main difference between summer and winter. In the summer, I rarely need to charge during the day.
• During the weekends, most of our driving is spread out during the course of the day, with many opportunities to recharge at home. For longer than usual winter drives, we take our range extender (my wife’s car).
• Heavy snow fall increases rolling resistance, and heavy freezing rain requires you to run the windshield defrost most of the time. I find these two conditions actually worse than a bone chilling but sunny day.
• There are several techniques you can use to minimize the use of the cabin heater. It is essential to pre-heat the car before you leave, using grid power, and take advantage of the heated seats and heated steering wheels, and keep your winter jacket on.
• The 2013 model has a more efficient cabin heater that is expected to perform better than the one that I have, but its performance is yet to be tested under very low temperatures.
• Range concerns aside, the Leaf is the most comfortable car I’ve ever had in the winter. The extra weight from the batteries and the traction control system make it very safe to drive under heavy snow and slush conditions. It doesn’t have any problem “starting” in the cold, or that heavy and sluggish feeling of a gas car in the winter.
• Finally, being able to charge at work, even from a regular 120 V outlet, makes a huge difference during the winter, for three main reasons:
  • All the energy I spend driving to work is easily recovered during the work hours, so any concern about range only starts after 5 PM.
  • Charging at work keeps the battery warm during the day, improving the car performance during the drive back home.
  • I’m able to continue to charge to 80%, at home and at work, which increases the longevity of the battery pack. Without it, I would probably need to charge to 100% at home every night.

  I hope this helps anyone considering buying a Leaf but is still concerned about driving it in the winter.

Two Years And 42,000 km Later

42,000 km (26,250 miles) and going.

Our LEAF turned two this week. It’s been an absolutely great experience. The LEAF has been performing very well, we haven’t noticed any battery degradation and it’s still a lot of fun to drive, like day one.

Two-year service

This week I took the Leaf for its 24-month scheduled maintenance service at Hunt Club Nissan, the dealership where we took delivery two years ago. According to the maintenance guide, the service should have included replacing the brake fluid, replacing the in-cabin micro filter, rotating tires and a inspecting a long list of items. Interesting enough, absolutely nothing needed to be replaced! Tires were rotated, the battery was tested, items were inspected and that was it. Details below.

Brakes

The brake fluid still looked like new and didn’t need to be flushed. That would have been a costly service that I’m glad the Leaf didn’t need. As for the brake pads, it’s about the same story: We still have a long way to go before we need new ones. That’s one of the best things about regenerative braking. It recovers kinetic energy back into electricity without actually using the regular brakes like in regular gasoline cars. Brake pads are only called into work when the car is just about to stop, or if you brake too hard.

Brake lining after each maintenance service.

Brake pads are recommended to be replaced when they are 1 mm thick. They were first measured at the first 6-month service, when the Leaf had about 10,000 km. Since then, both front and rear brakes only lost 1 mm of thickness. At this rate, I estimate I’ll only need to replace them at 186,000 km (rear) and 248,000 (front). Pretty good, eh?

Cabin Air Filter

Nissan recommends changing the in-cabin microfilter every year. The dealer replaced it last year but the old filter still looked pretty clean. Besides, the replacement cost was a hefty $72. Later I realized you can purchase the filter online (for $15) and replace it yourself. That’s what I did this year but I decided to delay the replacement until after 18 months, to wait and see how dirty it gets.

Tires

The original Ecopia tires are still doing well, given that we only use them 8 months a year (we switch to winter tires during the other 4 months). The tire tread depth on all four tires have dropped from 7 mm to 5 mm (6/32″). The minimum depth recommended for summer tires is 1.6 mm (2/32″) so they still have a long way to go. At this rate, I estimate we’ll need to get new summer tires at 75,000 km.

Battery

The Battery Usage Report, which is a mandatory test required by the warranty, passed with flying colors, or five stars, in all categories (charging, driving and storage). The Leaf still has 12 bars of capacity, which is great. Any drop in capacity at this point is still not noticeable.

Cost

I’ve been keeping track of the Leaf’s performance since day one. In these two years we used 5.5 MWh ($658) of home electricity, plus some trickle charging at work, camping sites and the few public charging stations currently available in Ottawa. I estimate that driving the same 42,000 km with our second car, a Toyota Corolla, would have cost us $4,750 in gasoline, plus $250 in oil changes, plus $200 in additional insurance (yes, our insurance company has a fairly good rate on EVs). In total, we have saved $4,542 so far by driving with electricity, or almost $2,300 per year. Over ten years, which is the amount of time we intend to keep the Leaf, the total savings will probably be enough to buy another Leaf!

Reliability

So far, there were three things that had to be replaced under warranty. The parking brake actuator, the Telematics Communication Unit (TCU), and the power lock in one of the rear passenger doors. Out of the three, only the parking brake actuator needed an emergency service, although I was still able to drive the car to the dealer. The electric power train on the other hand has been working flawlessly.

Maintenance

 After two years, there were only two things I had to replace on the LEAF as part of a regular maintenance: the cabin air filter, which I already mentioned, and more recently, the two front wipers in preparation for its third Canadian winter. The dealer performed the two mandatory annual services that included software updates (no cost). I also chose to perform the optional six-month services in between, mostly because they fall right after the salt-and-sand season we call Ottawa’s winter. The scheduled services cost an average of $136 each (excluding the cabin air filter).

Carwings

What can I say about Carwings? It stopped working again last week. I called technical support, they asked me to check the configuration, like they always do, but the car completely lost two way communication with the network. Sigh…

Charging Infrastructure

Even though there are quite a few public charging stations now in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, they are all Level 2 stations which still take a long time to charge. DC Fast Chargers are still not available anywhere, not even at dealerships like in the U.S. Unfortunately Nissan Canada hasn’t done any effort to get them installed north of the border and that’s particularly frustrating. DC Fast Chargers would allow me to do trips that I can’t do today in any practical way. It would be a game changer for EV adoption but it’s not a vision shared by manufacturers in Canada (other than Tesla, who’s right now is building super chargers at the 401in Kingston).

In conclusion

The Leaf is definitely the car we drive the most in the family. Our second car (my wife’s car), which we also use for longer trips, only drove 17,000 km since we first got the Leaf. In other words, the Leaf drove 2.5x as much as our gas car, showing that we only drive it when we really have to.

We love to drive the Leaf. Even my son is driving it now. That’s why it’s so frustrating to take the gas car on a longer trip that we know the Leaf could do if only the Nissan dealership along the way had DC Fast Charger.

You’re buying gas to warm up the hood of your car

Electric vehicles convert up to 62% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Very little is wasted as heat. I took this picture after a one hour drive during a snow storm here in Ottawa. The snow that fell on the hood didn’t melt. It looks like I was just park outside.

Most people don’t realize this but about 80% of the money you spend on gas is actually lost/wasted by your car engine. Internal combustion engines are very inefficient at converting the fuel’s chemical energy to mechanical energy, losing most of it to engine friction, pumping air into and out of the engine, and wasted heat. You’re basically buying gas to warm up the hood of your car.

Source: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml

The Nissan LEAF, 30,000 Km later

30,000 Km and still driving like new

It’s been 17 months since we first took delivery of our LEAF. Yesterday, as I was driving to work, I had to pull over and take this picture as we had just hit the 30,000 mark. For us, it’s an impressive milestone. I don’t think we’ve ever driven any of our past cars that much in such a short period of time, specially considering most of the driving on the LEAF has happened within the city. For comparison, our gas car only drove 12,000 Km during the same period, which shows that the LEAF is not a good second car like many say, but it is in fact the first car in our family.

30,000 Km also means a lot in terms of savings, for both our pocket and for the environment. Our gas car would have burned at least 2,500 liters of gasoline to drive the same distance, cost about $3,125 at the pump and thrown 6 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. By comparison, the LEAF cost us about $470 in home electricity, without any gas, oil changes or tailpipes.

On a yearly basis, we drove 21,496 Km in 2012, using just $333 of home electricity. That’s $28 per month, or half of a Corolla gas tank, to drive almost 1,800 Km. Overall, we saved $2,150 in gas, oil changes and car insurance last year.

In terms of issues, the electric power train has been working flawlessly and I haven’t noticed any drop in battery performance or range. There were only two issues that required service under warranty and they were both unrelated to the electric power train: the parking brake actuator got stuck and had to be replaced, and more recently, the power lock actuator in one of the passenger doors also had to be replaced. Carwings remains the single most annoying thing on the LEAF. Nothing to do with the car itself, but with frequent outages in the telemetry service.

The LEAF has also proven to be a very low-maintenance car. The only item we had to replace so far was the cabin air filter, a $20 part that you can buy on eBay and replace yourself, though I only discovered that later, after having the dealer change it for me (for $70). Without any oil to be changed, regular maintenance services are only required every 12 months. They cost the same as any regular car, minus $50 because there’s no oil change! Regular 6-month services are optional but I decided to have them performed as well because they happen right after winter for us, and its always a good idea to have things checked and lubricated after all the slush, sand an salt from ‘the Ottawa roads. They are also considered a “minor” service and cost a bit less than the yearly service.

Finally and most important, the LEAF continues to be very very fun to drive! The instant torque, great acceleration, the low center of gravity (for sharp turns!) and all the quietness and comfort make it always a very pleasant ride.

On to the next 30,000!

Monitoring the Leaf performance with FleetCarma

Last month a got a call from FleetCarma asking if was interested in trying one of their products and commenting about it. They told me they saw the information I’ve been posting in this blog and thought I would probably like to use their on-board monitoring application and be able to provide good feedback. When I saw the kind of information I would be able to get with their product, I didn’t think twice before jumping on it.

FleetCarma makes an EV Performance Monitoring Solution that combines a data logger connected to the On-Board Diagnostics (OBD-II) port of the Leaf and a web portal where you can upload the collected data and create performance and monitoring reports. It is primarily meant to be used by fleets but it can also be used by individual drivers like me, interested in monitoring cost and performance. The data logger (called C5 logger) stays connected to the car basically all the time, collecting details about charging, driving, temperature and energy used. Like the SOC-meter, it is capable of decoding the exact state of charge of the Leaf to use in its reports, which gives much better precision than what I’m using right now (the 120V charging time).

C5 Logger

The C5 logger collects and saves all telemetry on a 2GB microSD card, which is large enough to store months or possibly years of data. Every time you get a chance – I do it every few days, you unplug the C5 Logger, remove the microSD card and connect it to a computer using a standard microSD card reader. Then log on the web portal and upload all the data files in it. This will cause all reports to be updated automatically. The more frequent you upload the data, the more up-to-date the reports will be.

Dashboard

The main report is a dashboard showing the overall measurements collected and accumulated by the C5 Logger over time. By default, the report covers all the days you used the C5 Logger in the car, but you can also specify start and end dates. The dashboard has several “widgets” that show different measurements, and tabs that show more detailed information. We’ll look at each one of the widgets separately and analyze some of the most interesting data along the way, before digging into the report tabs.

Distance

The distance widget shows the total and daily average distances driven throughout the monitoring period. I just noticed that my daily average (66 Km) is almost twice my regular commute to work (34 Km). That means commuting is only half of what we use the Leaf for.

Driving Energy

Driving energy shows the “MPG-equivalent” measured during the period, but in metrics (liters per 100 km). I don’t mind MPGe but “km per kWh” would also be a meaningful measurement to show (5.7 km/kWh in our case). This widget also shows the total energy supplied by the battery while driving (283 kWh) and how much energy was lost during the charging process (27 kWh). That basically means 8.7% of the electricity we spend on the Leaf gets lost in the charger. Something for my to-do list: compare these values with the ones measured by my kWh-meter to see how accurate they really are.

Time

The time widget shows a pie chart comparing how much time the Leaf spent running, idling, charging and, well, resting. You can immediately see that almost ¾ of the time the Leaf is basically parked doing nothing. The remaining time is mostly spent charging (21%) and only 6% of the time is actually spent driving. The relatively high charge-to-drive ratio is due to the slow 3.3 kW Level 2 charger of the Leaf, which doesn’t take advantage of the 6.6 kW charging station we have, and also by the fact that about 30% of my charge comes from Level one at work (next widget).

Charging Energy

Charging Energy shows how much I charged in total and how much of that charge came from a level 2 charger (71%, mostly at home) and from a level 1 (29%, mostly at work). This is new information for me, something I was never able to collect by any other means. I only had a rough idea of how much charging I was doing at work and how much that would cost to my employer. Now I know exactly! And as I always suspected, it’s not that much: about $2.50 a week on average. It also shows that the Leaf typically starts the day charged at 80% and ends the day with 50% of charge left on average (though this average has a very high variance, not seen here).

Green House Gas Emissions

The Green House Gas Emissions widget is based on configurable options specified in terms of upstream emissions factors for electricity. I’m using a value of 50 g/kWh based on the mix electricity sources used by Hydro Ottawa during off-peak hours (mostly nuclear and hydro), plus a bit more to reflect some of the charging I do during the day at work. I’m not sure if that’s the most appropriate value to use. If anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know.

Report Tabs

The dashboard is a great summary but the most useful reports are behind the other tabs.

Daily Summary

Daily Summary gives a very good idea of how my actual driving needs fit within the range the Leaf can provide. The dark blue bar shows how much range I can get with the overnight charge at home (remember I’m charging to 80%). The additional light blue bar shows the extra range I get for charging during the day. The red mark shows how much I actually drove that day. This chart is great! It also shows the average outside temperature measured for each day as well as the energy consumed by the 12 V accessories and an “Eco Score” that rates the efficiency of my driving.

State of Charge (Daily Distribution)

The Daily Summary also includes an histogram showing the state of charge distribution in the beginning and at the end of the day. You can see that the great majority of my days start with an 80% charge, and end all over the place but very rarely below 20%, and never below 15% ! Not much range anxiety for me.

Daily Utilization

The Daily Utilization chart gives you a great visualization of our driving and charging patterns. I can see the level 2 charging overnight, the commute to work, the charging at work, and all the errands I did in the evening, including some charging at the Science Museum during the EVCO meeting! (Oct 29 evening)

Notice that I configure the on board timer of the Leaf to charge only after midnight, even though the off-peak rates start at 7pm. This is because electricity demand is still fairly high early in the evening, and thermal generation is still going strong at that time. I prefer to charge later at night when demand is very low, and when the electricity is much, much cleaner.

Trip Details

Trip Details show the start time and duration of each trip, as well as distance travelled, state of charge (SOC) at the beginning and at the end, and the energy consumed. Notice the SOC because this is something you’ll never see on the Leaf display (at least until 2013 J). I’m still puzzled with the first to trips in this report (Nov 17). They covered about the same distance (~12 km) and used the same energy (~2 kWh), nevertheless the SOC dropped much more significantly at the second trip, by almost 12 points compared to 9 points. The main difference between the two trips was the duration, where one took almost twice as long. I suspect that might have to do with a visit to the car wash during the second trip. I regenerated the report just for that day and it showed as much “idling” as driving during that day. The mean temperature that day was 0.6C so I’m not sure if I had climate control on but I was certainly using the heated seat and steering wheel. The extra energy definitely showed up in the SOC but not in Electrical Energy Consumed column!

Charge Details

Charge Details show all charging events for both Level 1 and Level 2 charges (and Level 3 as well, if I had ever charged with the DCQC port…). Details also include charging time and duration, charge energy and loss, and the state of charge in the beginning and the end. I noticed a small glitch though, which may be specific for the Leaf. If you have the onboard charging timer configured and you plug in outside the configured charging time, you’ll see a Level 1 event of 0.0 kW, even if you plug in a Level 2 charger. Something similar happen when you unplug a Level 2 charger after charging is complete. This can be seen in the entry #6 above.

Both Trip and Charge Details data can be copy-and-pasted into a spreadsheet for more detailed analysis. In Excel, you have to do a “Paste Special” and select “Paste as Text” in order to parse the tab-separated columns properly. You can also import the Excel file created in IBM Cognos Insight for even deeper analysis.

How does it compare with Carwings so far?

Leaf owners familiar with Carwings will notice that FleetCarma provides much more information and more detailed and useful reports. One thing that particularly called my attention is that FleetCarma also provides more precise and accurate information compared to Carwings. Here’s an example: I ran a quick test by picking one day (Nov 18) and comparing the measurements provided by Carwings and FleetCarm.

Carwings Report for Nov 18

	FleetCarma	Carwings
Nr of trips	3	3
Travel Time	1:31:06	1.5h
Distance Traveled (km)	93.93	91.8
Electricity Consumption (kWh)	16.94	13.9
Average Energy Economy (km/kWh)	5.54	6.6

The number of trips and the travel time are basically the same, but the 2% discrepancy in the distance travelled is a bit puzzling. I know for a fact that the distance measured by FleetCarma is very precise because measurements of my daily commute are always bang on with the trip odometer. For some reason, Carwings underestimated the distance travelled by more than 2%.

The biggest difference however is in the measurement of electricity consumption. Carwings seems much more conservative while FleetCarma precisely tells the consumption of each trip, which I tend to trust a bit more based on the before and after SOC observed. But the difference is quite alarming: about 3 kWh or 22% lower for Carwings. This makes the energy economy reported by Carwings about 1 km per kWh higher, or almost 20% better than what it actually is!

Conclusions

After using the C5 Logger for about a month, I can say I’m pretty excited with the results it has been able to provide, and they are far superior and more detailed than the ones we get from Carwings. Here are some of the things FleetCarma can do to improve the product even more:

• Streamline the upload process. Maybe a downloadable app for the computer that detects the SD card, uploads all the .BIN files and deletes the LOGS directory (after making a backup on the hard disk). Today these are all manual steps.
• Add Wifi support to the C5 Logger so that it can upload all the files automatically once car is parked at home. No more SD cards, no more computers, and very up-to-date reports online.
• Wifi can also be used to connect to an iPhone/Android phone in the car by enabling Personal Hotspot on the iPhone and have the C5 Logger connect to the Wifi network. This will allow an iPhone app to communicate with the logger and receive telemetry in real time. The app could also communicate via Bluetooth, if the hardware is available, but if Wifi is already there, you can use it instead.
• Add a small display on the C5 Logger to show the current SOC%. Great for 2011 and 2012 Leafs, makes Logger dub as an SOC-meter.
• Add “km/kWh” to Driving Energy widget on dashboard.
• Clarify that “avg start SOC” and “avg end SOC” on the Charging Energy widget refer to beginning and end of the day, not of each trip or charging session.
• Add temperature column to trip details. This will help in monitoring performance vs. temperature more accurately.
• Filter out charging sessions of 0.0 kWh charge. These seem to happen when you plug in the Leaf with the charging timer active but before it is time to charge.
• Add an option to export everything to a .csv file. Include all collected data since the last export. This way we can analyze performance using third-party analytics tools (e.g., IBM Cognos Insight).
• Create a service API that third-party apps can use to report on the monitoring data.
• Add a “favorite” widget right after the login page, so I can jump directly to my car dashboard or to a specific report.
• Auto-select car if “fleet” only has one car (upload page, reports page, etc.)
• Location awareness. Not sure if GPS data is available through the OBD-port. If it is, it would open a great door of posibilites.

In summary, a great product and lots of potential to evolve and become a killer app for EVs!

 

Update: C5 Logger Spec Sheet says WiFi/Bluetooth support is already in the works (Fall 2012).

One-year with the LEAF: Questions and Answers

National Tree Day in Ottawa

I gave an interview to Nissan today about the first year experience with the Nissan LEAF. Because I never manage to say everything I want to say out of the top of my head, I decided to write down what I really wanted to say. It’s not really a transcription of the interview, just an after thought of jotting down of what I said (or forgot to say).

Q. How many Km have you driven so far?  What is your daily commute like?

A. I’m very close to hitting 22,000 Km (21,900 Km right now), with a daily commute to work of 34 Km.

Q.  What excites you and your family the most about driving an electric car?

A. My son turned 16 a few months ago and the first car he drove in his life was an electric car. It’s the next generation and I’m really proud that everything he drove so far, he did it without burning a single drop of fossil fuel.

Q. How has driving electric changed your life?

A. We use the Leaf for 80 to 90% of the time so our second car needs very little gasoline, which reduced our gas fill-ups to less than once a month. We no longer have to worry about wild fluctuations of gas prices, specially before long weekends, and we’re happy that we’re supporting the development of technologies that help the environment, instead of an old industry that is destroying it. Also, the money we spend on electricity supports our local utility company. It stays in the region instead of going to other provinces or even other countries. The Leaf is also very energy efficient and uses electricity that is widely available overnight so we’re glad we’ve been able to significantly reduce our carbon footprint on the planet.

Q.  What features do you like the most on your Leaf?

A. I basically like everything but I can tell you what friends and family who drove our Leaf like the most. Number 1: The silence, the lack of vibration, the car of the future feeling. Number 2: The heated steering wheel. I’m serious!

Q. How real is range anxiety and how have you managed it this past year?

A. It lasted a couple of weeks until I got to know what the car could or could not do. I remember not going on a 100 Km trip because I was afraid I couldn’t make it, and later doing the same trip without any issues. I work at IBM Canada, who’s a big supporter of electric vehicles. The ability to charge at work gives me the piece of mind. My charge going home at the end of the day is the same charge I had early in the morning so concerns about range rarely come up. I could still make it back and forth by charging at home only, but charging at work really took the range anxiety issue off the table. That’s why it’s so important for employers, businesses and local government to work together and promote the deployment of more charging stations and public charging infrastructure.

Q. What was the longest trip you’ve taken with your Leaf so far?

A. 300 Km to Kingston and back, recharging at the Ambassador Hotel overnight.

Q. What is your most memorable road trip with the Leaf?

A. It was a camping trip with the family. We forgot one of the windows down overnight and a raccoon had a party with our food. 🙂

Q.  How much money have you saved since you began driving electric and what have you done with it?

A. It depends on which car I compare with. If I compare it with our second car, a compact sedan, we have saved over $2,000 on gas, oil changes and insurance premiums (it’s 20% cheaper to insure the Leaf). If I compare with the car I used to drive to work (a minivan), then the savings jump to well over $3,000. In one year! These savings were enough to purchase a set of winter tires, and a good quality roof rack and cargo box for camping.

Q. What is the reaction of people when they find out you drive an electric car?

A. They don’t hear it coming. 🙂

Q.  Do people ever stop to ask you questions about your car?

A. All the time.

Q.  What surprises you most about people’s understanding of electric cars?

A. There’s still a lot of misinformation out there so I expect people to be confused. When they come and ask me questions, they’re mostly surprised I can drive more than 150 Km on a single charge. They expect much much less, so they end up realizing an electric car can easily fit their typical day.

Q. What is your advice to those who are contemplating buying an Electric Car?

A. If you’re a family with two cars, like our family, it’s a no-brainer. One of your cars has to be electric. You will use it most of the time, to go to work and to do most of your errands, while still having the other car available for longer trips. It’s the best of both worlds. The savings in gas alone will easily pay the initial investment in a few years. And driving electric is a whole new and gratifying experience.

21,000 Km later

21,000 Km later

We hit 21,000 Km on the Leaf this month and it’s been almost a year since we first took delivery so I thought it would be a good time for a long due update. Overall it’s been a great journey, an incredible experience to be able to drive as much as half the Earth’s circumference without burning any fossil fuel. Not bad for a “range limited” car. So let’s look at the highlights of the experience so far, what went well and the few bumps along the way.

Performance

The Leaf continues to perform like day one. According to the Leaf Range Chart, we’re supposed to have a 2% degradation in battery capacity after 15,000 Km, but that’s something still way to small to be noticeable, and I haven’t noticed any difference really. One of the most recent trips we did was a camping trip, carrying three people, camping gear, a roof rack and a cargo box. We drove 78 Km at speed limit (80 Km/h max) and arrived with 48% of charge left, giving an estimated full range of 162 Km. Temperature was 28 C but dry enough to go without A/C. On a second camping trip, under the same conditions but with A/C on, we drove 122 Km and arrived with 20% of charge left, giving an estimated total range of 152 Km.

Costs

Our hydro bill has gone up $28 a month on average. That’s about half of a gas tank of a Corolla, our second car. The difference is that we drive an average of 1,800 Km a month, mostly in the city, about 1,500 Km more than the Corolla would be able to do with the same amount of money.

In addition, 21,000 Km would require at least 2 oil changes, and the Leaf of course needed none. In total, we spent $326 in home electricity with the Leaf so far. At current gas and oil prices, driving the same distance with the Corolla would have cost us approximately $2,183, resulting in $1,857 of savings. If we add the savings with car insurance (yes, it is cheaper to insure an electric car than it is to insure a regular car), we have saved more than 5% of what we paid for the Leaf. That’s 5% of the full cost of the car recovered in just one year.

Granted, these electricity costs don’t include the charging we’ve done away from home, which were all free. I trickle charge at work, at the Science Museum during our monthly EVCO meetings, and at camping sites when we travel. Most recently, a local shopping mall installed a Level 2 charging station, which is free for customers, and I’ve been there a couple of times. Finally, I also charged at the dealer a few times. It’s very difficult to estimate how much it would cost if I had done *all* the charging at home, but reality is, electricity is  available everywhere and it ends up being provided as a courtesy or as part of a service by businesses, and also as way for employers like IBM to promote the adoption of electric vehicles. I tell my friends at work that even if I tried to squeeze every single kWh from my employer (I don’t) all I would save would be $20 a month in home electricity. It’s just not worth the effort. I only charge to 80% at work, roughly 2 to 3 hours a day mid-peak. The electricity costs for my employer is equivalent to one Tim Hortons coffee a week!

Charging Infrastructure

Since we received the Leaf, there have been two, only two public charging stations installed in Ottawa (Level 2 stations). One by a local shopping mall and another by a local college. That’s about it. Everything else are from dealers, with limited access to non-customers. This is a stark contrast with other municipalities like Montreal and Vancouver. Something really embarrassing for the National Capital. Ontario has also been very slow in developing any program to promote public charging stations, falling behind provinces like BC and Quebec. I was recently interviewed by the Ottawa Citizen about this subject and the article has just been published today.

The Home Charging Station

Not much to say about the AeroVironment home charging station other than it has just worked flawlessly. It is a very straight-forward device so it just sits there, doing its work every night, never letting me down.

Our Leaf recharging at home.

Things that didn’t go very well

There were a couple of recalls and one software update but they were all optional and were able to be scheduled at our own convenience. I did spot one water leak in the trunk, most noticeable after a car wash, but that was also fixed quickly and without any costs. The only mechanical issue I had was when the parking brake woke up stuck at the ON position. The parking brake on the Leaf is electronic, with no physical cables between the parking brake handle and the electric actuator that does the real work. In my case, the light on the parking brake switch started to blink and an alarm started to flash on the display saying “visit dealer”, which wasn’t very helpful since I couldn’t move the car out of the garage.

The “visit dealer” warning

Fortunately Nissan designed an override system to release the parking brake manually, bypassing the electric actuator. The instructions are on the owner’s manual so I won’t go into much details here. After the procedure and I was able to move the car out of the garage and drive it myself to the dealer, despite the audio alarm on the dashboard saying I was driving with the parking brake on. The dealer had to order a new actuator from Toronto, which was shipped overnight. The part was replaced and the car was ready the next morning.

Other than that, there has been absolutely no problem with the power train or anything else mechanic in the car.

Carwings

Carwings has been the only big disappointment of the whole experience so far. It started working well, I was able to review all the telemetry from the car, see the performance statistics, rankings, etc. After a few months the server became very unstable, constantly going down and people on the Leaf community in Canada started to get frustrated. We would constantly lose the ability to communicate with the car via the iPhone app.  The problem was resolved after a lot of complaining, and people were happy again, except that our car would still lose connectivity once in a while. I was also getting gaps in my telemetry, until one day the car stopped sending data completely. It would still download information feeds like Google Maps but would not respond to queries from the iPhone app, send notifications about charging events or upload any telemetry. The issue went all the way to Japan. They collected and analyzed several logs and the conclusion was that they wanted to replace my TCU (Telematics Communication Unit) and have the original one sent to them for analysis. They sent one specialist from Toronto for the operation. They gave me a loaner car and I picked up the Leaf the next day. It felt like a brain transplant but the car was OK.

Carwings connectivity came back online a few hours later and I was able to communicate with the car again. Everything looked ok, emails worked again, until I noticed I was not getting emails for *all* notifications, only for some of them (charging complete events, for example, were never reported). After many back and forth emails with technical support, the problem is yet to be resolved. And things got worse recently when the car stopped uploading telemetry again. So Carwings has been kind of a nightmare. Nissan continues to assure me they’re looking into the issue as hard as they can but I’m yet to see a final resolution. I haven’t heard of any other Leaf owner having this problem so I think I was the lucky one.

Anxieties

Range anxiety only lasted a couple of weeks. After I learned how to plan our day and our trips, and learned bit by bit what the car can and cannot do, it became really hard to get in a situation where I would run out of charge. It hasn’t happened to me yet, and I don’t think it will.

The funniest story I got about range anxiety didn’t come from me but from a friend. We were going on the same car camping trip to a provincial park 120 Km away. That was our second camping trip with the Leaf so I knew I would have enough range to spare. I knew I was going to take the shortest route, but not necessarily the fastest one, so I told my friend the day before that we could leave at different times so she could pick her own route and drive at her own pace (i.e., faster). The next day our friend called us saying she was concerned that we might run out of charge in the middle of the road so she wanted to go together and be there if we needed. 🙂 It took some convincing to explain we had enough charge for the trip and we finally hit the road in separate ways. Needless to say, we got there without any problems, with about 30 Km of range to spare.

New Driver

My son got his G1 driver’s license last month and took his first driving lesson on our Leaf. It was the first time he drove a car in his life, and it was an electric car.

First driving lesson. No gasoline.

What’s missing

One of the things I missed the most in the Leaf is a more accurate battery gauge, one that would show the exact percentage of battery charge. This is particularly important when you’re trying to measure your driving performance during long trips. The 12 bars are simply not precise enough and the dashboard range “guess-o-meter” is not totally reliable. I learned how to use a very convoluted way to estimate a more precise percentage, which involves reading the “120 V charge time” to figure out how much charge is left, but it only gives you a 2 to 4% precision and requires some calibration. Other Leaf drivers went out of the way and developed their own “SOC meter” device, plugged into the car diagnostics bus, but I was hoping Nissan would listen to those early adopters and provide the same functionality in a software update. That would be a very good move, to show that they’re listening. I’m surprised Nissan didn’t take the hint.

The future

I look forward to seeing more public charging stations deployed in Ottawa and Ontario. That will significantly expand our range. I know it’s just a matter of time but it has been a very long wait. I also wanted to see Level 3 stations installed between Ottawa and Montreal, and along the 401. One day…

June report

After we got the KWh meter installed, figuring out the driving costs of the LEAF is so much easier. The charging station consumed 187.6 KWh during the month of June. We’re paying 12.39 cents per KWH (6.5 cents plus delivery and taxes), for a grand total of $23.24. How much did we drive in June, with $23.24? A “mere” 1,512 Km!

That’s $1.53 per 100 Km. At current gas prices, that’s equivalent to having a gas mileage of 1.3 L per 100 Km, or 181 MPG.

Granted, I did some trickle charging at work, so these costs don’t include the incentive my employer gives me for driving an electric vehicle. We don’t have a KWh meter at work so I can only estimate how much difference that made. I’ve been fairly consistent in the way I trickle charge: I leave home with an 80% charge, drive 16.9 Km to work, then trickle charge to 80% again. There were 21 working days in June, so if I take those Km out of the equation I end up with $1.99 per 100 Km, which is still fairly decent “milage” (1.7 L per 100 Km, or 138 MPG). This is also very very close to the 2 cents per Km costs many people estimate.

So in essence, my employer pays for half of my commute. Some people raise an eyebrow when I say that, as if I were “stealing” electricity from my employer, but once they realize the costs involved, they laugh. It’s easy to figure: 16.9 Km times 2 cents per Km, that’s 34 cents per day. So that’s how much my employer pays for half of my commute: about a Tim Horton’s coffee a week! 🙂

Update: Darren Robichaud from Ottawa pointed out the off-peak electricity we pay is actually lower than the one I used (11.58 cents, not 12.39). He sent me the detailed calculations based on all the charges, adjustments and discounts. So my numbers were off by 7%. Here the correct ones:

– 1,512 Km driven with $21.93 ($1.45 per 100 Km, equivalent to 1.24 L/100 Km, or 189 MPG)

– Discounting the trickle charging at work = $1.88 per 100 Km, equivalent to 1.6 L/100 Km, or 147 MPG.

Thanks, Darren!

Range vs. Temperature

I’ve been gathering performance data from the LEAF since day one, but it took me a while to figure out the best way to compile and analyze the data. The main reason is that the LEAF does not display an exact state of charge for the batteries, but only a rough one-out-of-twelve bars charge level, which is not very precise.

It is possible to purchase an SOC-meter (state of charge meter) that plugs into the LEAF’s internal data port and displays a more accurate read of the battery’s state of charge. But more recently, users at the My Nissan Leaf Forum realized there’s a strong correlation between the charging time display, particularly the one displayed for 120V charging, and the actual SOC values, with the relationship published in this chart. The charging times give you about 50 levels of resolution (from 0:00 to 25:00 in 0:30, or 2%, increments) compared to the 12 bars in the regular battery level gauge. You could also use the 240 V charging time (7 hours from zero to full) but that would provide only 14 levels of resolution.

As an example, if the charging time display says it will take 3.5 hours to charge to 80% using a 120 V charger, it means you have 70% usable energy in the batteries. A 4-hour estimate means 68% charge level, and so on so forth.

So I went through my logs and found 148 trips where I had saved the 120 V charging times before and after each trip, as well as the outside temperature and traveled distance.  Most of the trips were from my commute to work (17.1 Km each way), but the average trips were 28 Km each.

For each trip, I calculated the total energy used and estimated how long I could have gone on that trip on a 100% charge. Then I sorted all the estimates by outside temperature and averaged the results for each temperature level. It’s a fairly simplistic method but, given enough samples, it should give us a good picture of the LEAF performance under my driving profile.

Here are the results:

Nissan LEAF -- Estimated Range vs. Outside Temperature

The vertical bars show the estimated range for each temperature. The black line is a linear trendline. Precision is higher between -12C and +12C where 90% of the measurements were made.

Some interesting points to draw from this chart:

• The absolute worst case is 80 Km range on a full charge. This has more to do with use of climate control than with the outside temperature per se.
• The chart shows it is possible to hit the advertised 160 Km of range even on temperatures as low as 5C. This has a lot to do on how efficiently you’re able to drive, even at low outside temperature.
• The linear trend shows a 20 Km loss in range for each 10 degree drop in temperature. In overall terms, a rule of thumb estimate would be:
  •  160 Km @ 20C
  • 140 Km @ 10C
  • 120 Km @ 0C
  • 100 Km @ -10C
  • 80 Km @ -20C.
• Notice that these results are mostly based on short 28 Km trips, where range is usually not a big concern to the driver. On longer trips, you’re more likely to drive more efficiently and go easy on climate control use in order to conserve energy. For example, early this month I was able to drive 125 Km @ -10C on a full charge.

Finally, these results are fairly similar to the ones provided by Ross Redman, who bought the first i-MiEV in Canada. His results were published on a recent article by CBC, and shamelessly reproduced below.

Range of Ross Redman's Mitsubishi i-MiEV

So what’s the practical impact of this drop in range?

In my particular case, it’s very minimal. My regular commute to work is a 35 Km round trip. The longest regular trip I have to make during the week is 70 Km. The only real difference is that I have to plan a bit more, and eventually “top off ” the charge during the day, in the coldest days, instead of just overnight. For me, that’s a very small adjustment to make, and I’m still able to drive the same 2,000 Km a month at a much lower cost to me and to the environment.