Use It or Lose It
Note: This is an update of a previous piece on Our Nissan Leaf’s Traction Battery Capacity. See the original article for an explanation of what this is all about.
The general observation of other Nissan Leaf owners is true that the more you use the Leaf the better the traction battery capacity appears. Whether this is actual improvement in the traction battery’s capacity or just an anomaly of the battery controller’s record keeping is not known. (At least, I don’t know.)
The accompanying chart shows the results from Leaf Spy for two 500 mile round trips (one to Palm Springs, the other to Grover Beach from Bakersfield) and one 60 mile round trip. The two longer trips used 7 to 9 DC Quick Charges. The shorter trip was simply charged at L2 when we arrived home.
Since returning from the recent 500-mile trip, the traction battery’s capacity and the State of Health have both begun a steady decline as seen in the earlier trips.
