[DRIVING] VW Touran powered by Nissan Leaf [FINISHED]

[johu]

[johu]

More videos will be coming.
For now, some stats

Going to London:
1. stop 170 km, 26 minutes, 20 kWh, 9.31€
2. stop 112 km, 25 minutes, 17 kWh, 9.61€
3. stop 127 km, ? minutes, ? kWh (not registered yet)
4. stop 59 km, 69 minutes, 4 kWh, 2.25€ (AC in lunch break)
5. stop 52 km, 240 minutes, 13 kWh, ?€ (AC over night in car park, limited to 4 hours)
6. stop 76 km, 38 minutes, 23 kWh, 13€
7. stop 75 km, ? minutes, ? kWh, ?€

Going back:
1. stop 120 km, 37 minutes, 20 kWh, ?€
2. stop 130 km, 22 minutes, 16 kWh, 10.27€
3. stop 75 km, 41 minutes, 21 kWh, 10€ (charger only provided 35 kW)
4. stop 113 km, 18 minutes, 13 kWh, 8.32€ (expensive, so just enough to get me to Germany)
5. stop 76 km, 11 minutes, 9 kWh, 4.13€ (before my night break, just enough to get me to destination)
6. stop 38 km, 47 minutes, 23 kWh, 11.25€ (next morning after AC charging had failed over night)
7. stop 100 km, 19 minutes, 13 kWh, 6€

Distance Kassel - London: 720 km
Total km driven: 2019 km

You can see how little energy difference there is between charging for 40 minutes vs. charging for 25 minutes. It makes sense to stop somewhere between 60-70% and keep the stints a bit shorter. Unless you have something to do at the charging site. The quickest average rate was 49 kW on the 5th stop of the return journey.

Had little luck with public AC charging. In Europe it has become common to add a blocking penalty after 4 hours, so over night AC charging is not possible/not financially viable. I think the policy should exclude the night hours because who wants to get up in the middle of the night and unplug? And who are you blocking the charger for at night time? Also AC chargers wouldn't always accept RFID cards they meant to accept. Stupid.

Otherwise charging was entirely trouble free. Except one Tritium HPC in Dover they all worked great. Towards the end of the journey I needed a couple of tries until charging started at the Fastned stations. Not sure why.

[SciroccoEV]

You caused quite a spike in my consumption!

[Aragorn]

What is limiting the charge rate on the longer sessions over 70% SOC? Is the pack overheating?

I found with my LEAF30 even with fairly high battery temperatures it would keep charging fairly quickly upto around 90% SOC after which it dropped off a cliff. It would run full power to around 80% (~45kw) then taper from 45 to low 30's from there to 90%. After that it really dived.

[Aragorn]

You caused quite a spike in my consumption!

Screenshot 2023-05-01 220755.png

TBH thats impressively low even with the spike! With solar and a battery i rarely dip below 10kwh a day! When i'm charging its usually over 30.

[johu]

What is limiting the charge rate on the longer sessions over 70% SOC? Is the pack overheating?

I found with my LEAF30 even with fairly high battery temperatures it would keep charging fairly quickly upto around 90% SOC after which it dropped off a cliff. It would run full power to around 80% (~45kw) then taper from 45 to low 30's from there to 90%. After that it really dived.

The 30 kWh Leaf for some reason has a nicer charging curve than the 40 kWh. It allows 70 kW till 45%, then 50 kW till about 60%, 30 kW at 70% and then it drops until it reaches like 12 kW at 90%. If you plug in at higher state of charge it is different and allows more power even at 90%. It seems they don't want to stress the battery with prolonged high charge current.

TBH thats impressively low even with the spike! With solar and a battery i rarely dip below 10kwh a day! When i'm charging its usually over 30.

Was thinking just that! We charged for 3 hours or so - thanks for 7 kWh

[Aragorn]

Ah interesting, the so-called "rapid-gate" 40kw leaf. I guess your using the original LEAF 40 BMS so its following the same curves.

The start of the thread mentioned paralelled 24kwh packs, i presume that changed at some point, i've not yet read thru the whole thread!

[johu]

Paralleling never happened, couldn't be bothered. With the fan and exhaust tunnel cooling there is no more rapid-gate.

[SciroccoEV]

TBH thats impressively low even with the spike! With solar and a battery i rarely dip below 10kwh a day! When i'm charging its usually over 30.

I have a total of about 4kW of PV and 5kWh of storage with a 2.5kW inverter.

The only EV I currently have in use is the 2007 AC G-Wiz with 14 modules from a 2011 Leaf. This does about 500 miles per year of local running around. A significant proportion of the winter load is the dehumidifiers running in the workshops.

I've exported as much as 20kwh a day in the past. Looking at adding another couple of battery modules.

[johu]

[johu]

One thing that bugs me is the battery degradation. I bought the pack with 92% remaining capacity and over the roughly 30000 km I've used it this dropped to 86%. It seems the fast charging is killing it because I see no drop over many 1000 km of day-to-day use but whenever I do the larger road trips (like the London one) with a lot of fast charging I do loose 1 or 2% of capacity.
Loosing 6% every 30000km means I'd be down to 80% after 60000 km driven at which point I'd think about swapping a new pack in. I was hoping it could stay in for 200000 km.

Oh well, gives me an excuse the swap in some newer generation cells in 2 or 3 years.

[johu]

Just checked the dimensions of ID3 modules and it seems the 55 kWh pack would easily fit in the fuel tank space in 2 layers:

Will wait and see which offers come up in the coming 2 years.

[arber333]

Just checked the dimensions of ID3 modules and it seems the 55 kWh pack would easily fit in the fuel tank space in 2 layers:

Will wait and see which offers come up in the coming 2 years.

Very good! You have to be carefull though as the fuses inside those modules are rated to 750mA. I need to cut off the corners of one module now as i managed to burn some fuses there...
I now have 8x ID3 12S modules and i intend to put them in Peugeot. My design showed i could easily install 6 modules in front battery box which would only leave 2 modules to put in the back.
The idea is to fit those modules onto a flat alu plate carrying structure. This way modules would be firmly mounted onto both sides of the plate which would leave me to install the plate into the front box onto its mounting points. Of course an engine hoist would be needed for that as the whole pack would weigh close to 200kg!
But the benifit of that configuration would be to easily cool the modules through the alu plate of the sandwich.

On the other hand 12S modules are becomming scarcer as Poles are selling them to Ukrainians en masse to use them for solar.

[johu]

I'll stick to the Nissan battery until prices drop. How much did yours cost and what is a good place to get them?
You're saying the cell taps are fused with 750 mA? That's pretty good actually, just means extra care when playing around

[arber333]

I'll stick to the Nissan battery until prices drop. How much did yours cost and what is a good place to get them?
You're saying the cell taps are fused with 750 mA? That's pretty good actually, just means extra care when playing around

I got them through a guy i know in Poland. I paid 550€ per module with the BMS cables. It seemed a really good deal at the time. Now the price has gone up and they are harder to get.
I am afraid they are now linked to the conflict just by way that they are reconfiguration free as they come. 6KW8 12S module can be used for solar directly and wire additional modules in parallel.

[johu]

Wow, that is a good deal, 80€/kWh

Today I tested some charging, I have different soc limits for AC and DC charging now. DC charging I usually don't want to limit in case I'm doing something while charging but AC charging should be limited to 80% or so. Before I always needed to remember to raise that limit.

I used rich mans charger for the heck of it and it charged nicely at 10 kW (well, the power is not really steady...)
Decided to record the charge power limit (cell temp was 20°C and rose to 25°C). 70 kW till 50% then hitting 50 kW at 60%

Didn't manage to transfer the proper screenshot to my phone.

[Aragorn]

I bought my LEAF30 at ~40k miles and its battery health was around 92%. Over 2 years i did a further 30k miles in the car. Towards the middle of that period it lost a bar, dropping to the low 80's, then recovered after a nissan BMS update putting it back to 12 bars and high 80's. By the time i sold it it was back down to 84%, though still on 12 bars it was evidently about to lose one again.

I think its just par for the course with those batteries.

Oddly, lots of rapid charging would often raise the reported SOH for me. I didnt rapid charge the car very often, but the few long trips i did do, the car gained a % or so, only to slowly lose it again after returning to normal wallbox charging.

[arber333]

.
I used rich mans charger for the heck of it and it charged nicely at 10 kW (well, the power is not really steady...)
Decided to record the charge power limit (cell temp was 20°C and rose to 25°C). 70 kW till 50% then hitting 50 kW at 60%

Didn't manage to transfer the proper screenshot to my phone.

Someone warned me about liion cells straight charging from autotransformer (120hz) and charger with no pfc function. There was a study about negative effect of jagged current delivery of charger with no PFC. I will try to find it again and post it here... That is why i dont use my 3phase EMW charger anymore.

[johu]

Did a top speed test yesterday, here's the result

If you know which gear I was in and what ratio that is you can spoiler yourself, otherwise wait for the video

What I concluded is that top speed is quite high in comparison to other production cars but it can't be sustained very long, as motor temperature suggests. That's probably down to my tightass cooling system.

[johu]

[celeron55]

What do you think is a reasonable maximum temperature for the motor?

In the Previa, I have have the battery and motor/inverter coolant loops running in parallel through the big original radiator. The problem then becomes in high speed summer driving (e.g. 120km/h uphill at >25°C) that the motor starts heating up the battery. The motor stays quite happy, but fast charging becomes impossible. Of course in Finland this never happens for long enough periods to matter, I only know because I drove that fast towards the alps from Germany 10 days ago or so.

[johu]

I'm not even sure the reading is correct, after the experiment the metal was maybe 40°C while the gauge still said 65°C or something. Of course the sensor is in the windings but by then the temperature should have travelled to the outside.
Anyway, high temperature industrial motors are specified for 170°C. So still some headroom. Regardless the absolute value I was more worried about the rate of change.

[arber333]

...

HAH! Road rage indeed. Really informed test.

Myself i managed to test Mazda to 180km/h using measly 28kW motor and transmission. But only for 30s or so then motor temperature rose to 150deg!!! Motor was ACIM air cooled .
The Pug was also tested to 180km/h. Be warned i have OEM gearbox and at that speed motor RPM was over 12000RPM!
However i had the car opened at 140kW and Leaf motor was game for more speed no overtemperature detected. I stopped out of sanity.

[celeron55]

The Leaf motor is a permanent magnet motor though. I don't think the magnets can handle 170°C.

[Ev8]

Cool video, shame we don’t have any delimited roads here!