2016 Leaf charging limits
jame...@whidbey.com
Our 2013 Leaf had selectable charging limit: choose either 80% or 100%. The dealer said that charging to 100% all the time was ok, would not harm the battery, so that's what we mostly did.
Our '16 Leaf does not have that selectability and has always charged to 100%. We were fortunate to have the first '16 battery fail within about 1% of the warranty life, and only had to wait for a new battery for 6 or 8 months. It is very apparent that the last 10% of charge, from 90 to 100% takes 2-3 times as long as lower 10% sections, which also wasted dollars and electricity over time. And the first 10% used drops fast with hills, and does not permit regen, so the long charging slog from 90 to 100 really more like 5% usable using 2-3 times the usual 10% segment charging cost.
Is there any way to be able to set the charge limit to either 80 or 90% on a 2016 Leaf? If I could select the upper limit easily I would probably switch between 80 and 90 frequently.
I'm happy the new battery is bigger: we can get 150-160 miles out of a 100% charge--in the summer. At current temperatures it's around 130 miles. But the car chassis will easily outlast this new battery so I'd like it to last as long as possible. I think the chassis could outlast four 100k miles batteries which makes the true car lifetime cost New + 3x replacement battery cost+lifetime charging, not forgetting Washington's extra licensing fees. Absent accidents, I think 400,000 miles is a reasonable design and expectation goal for any good chassis running mostly on pavement. Which is also why the motive portion of the design should be easily separable from the cabin portion, a la Ford's announced multi-model skateboard scheme. But that's another subject.
Yes new batteries apparently don't degrade as fast as early Leafs, but once you have a vehicle it's only responsible to make the thing last.
Jim
James Adcock
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 8:09 AM
To: SEVA...@googlegroups.com <SEVA...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [SEVA] 2016 Leaf charging limits
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