On Tuesday 7th July at 7.30pm OREF members Peter Oswald and Neil Kermode presented findings based on some ‘citizen science’ undertaken on Nissan Leafs in Orkney. This was followed by a presentation by and internationally renowned battery expert Euan McTurk on aspects of keeping your EV in good order.
OREF had done an assay on LEAF batteries three times; in January 2018, 2019 and March 2020. From that work some patterns began to emerge showing the improvements in batteries in the cars in each successive generation of LEAF.
In addition a clear correlation seems to have emerged as to negative effect on battery health of too many RAPID charges. However it also shows that the degradation rate of the batteries is far better than the ‘petrol heads’ had predicted with the batteries likely to outlast the cars.
Euan explained why you should seek to keep your battery within the middle of its charge range and not to keep it over topped up by leaving it to charge to 100% all the time.
OREF is extremely grateful to Euan for his presentation; work that can be seen in more detail on his YouTube channel https://www.pluglifetelevision.co.uk/