[Slotracer577]

Has anyone found a good way to determine usable battery capacity without doing a full discharge? I know the leaf has a battery life graph.

I think I am now around 50kw total capacity. This is based on usage vs % of battery. Seems a bit early to be down that much as I am only at 34k miles and just over 1.5 years in service. Charged almost exclusively to 85% (nightly) and normally only discharged to about 50%. Never run out, but have been down in the bottom 1-2 bars 3-4 times.

 

[Slotracer577]

I can verify capacity is a lot less than 60kwh now, just not sure how much less. This is a Bolt, not Volt. Last Wednesday I did a 280 mile trip in 10 deg weather and was down to 1 bar left upon returning home. With htr active I was able to input 46kwh charging. Thus from almost empty to 85% charge is in the low 40kwh assuming a 10% ish charge loss. That suggests I have 50 or less kWh available from full charge to empty.

I am lazy and don’t want to run it in the garage with full heat until dead then recharge. I was hoping that there was some method or obd output that can provide battery capacity other than full discharge and charge. If I am really down 16% in 1.5years, which seems high, do I change charging habits for better life or abuse it more to make it fail?

 

[Slotracer577]

Did you have Hilltop Reserve turned on? That will prevent the Bolt from being fully charged.

Yes, it was on, but it stops at 85% or two bars down from full. That should be about 6kwh as there are 20 bars per charge. I started 1 bar from empty and stopped 2 bars from full, adding 43-44kwh. Even if each bar is a full 3 kWh my capacity is now 52-53kwh. If the capacity is truly lower, then each bar is also less, somewhere in the 2.6-2.7 per bar.

Based on my range today of a full charge being 148 miles after doing the same drive in 50 deg weather. I think my battery has degraded, just trying to determine how much without going to the trouble of doing a full discharge.

For reference the difference in range is huge between 10 deg and 50 deg f. Coming home at 10 deg, I barely made it 60 miles to my mid point charger starting with a 3/4 charge. Averaged just over 2m/kWh. At 50 deg, I used about half a charge and was about 3.5m/kWh.