Nissan Leaf: DIY is alive and well??

I have the same problem with my cell phone. In both cases it's important to have an accurate reading of battery charge but it's a difficult thing to meter electrons as you would water. On my cell, I'll have to synchronize the battery with the phone by discharging it as much as I can, remove it from the circuit and then fully charge it. My guess is that you can't do that with an electric car.

Momentum:

you're harming the battery doing that these days. in the old days, NiCd days, that was necessary. the whole point of Li-based batteries, apart from higher energy density, is that you don't have to do that. and indeed, it harms them if you do. as for charging, it's now controlled by chips that track the charging characteristics of the cell through its cycle, and through its life. just plug it in, let the charging chip take care of cell health, and try not to let it drop too low too often.

I'm not doing this to maximize battery life nor do I think that I'm harming the battery by doing a deep discharge. I'm trying to synchronize the cell phone to the battery so I can get an accurate reading from the battery level app. The procedure actually works. My guess is that the majority of battery level apps aren't very reliable.

Momentum:

um, the battery management chip runs the show dude. all your "battery app" is doing is composing a set of pretty bar charts from the chip's data output. unless you think your app can somehow override the management chip's firmware, you're achieving absolutely nothing.

te:

Um, I don't think that I want to buy your crap today. Do you even have a cell phone? As far as I know they didn't have cell phones in 1980. Why don't you just killfile me cause I'm using Google Groups. I'd really appreciate that. Thanks!

You can buy a government surplus electric motor and some batteries and make an adapter plate to hook up the motor to the transmission and install that stuff in a vehicle.Build your own electric car/truck/van.Plenty of Do It Yourselfers have done it before. cuhulin

My thinking is that there could be a charging lanes on roads the will recharge your batteries while you're driving using induction coils in the roads and cars. While you were on the roads, you wouldn't be using any battery power. Cool but expensive, I guess.