Cold Soaking Your Old Nissan Leaf at -18°F and Expecting It To Charge Is a Pipe Dream

Not to be pedantic, but just in case anyone isn't acquainted with the term, cold soaking a vehicle basically means leaving it out in the cold for a long time, until its temperature matches the surrounding environment. In our case, the Leafs were left to the freezing elements for two days straight, at a Colorado EV charging station. Upon arrival, they were both left with a 39% battery charge.

The first guinea pig was an old 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with a modest 24 kWh battery pack. Kyle managed to score this EV for no more than $3,700. It's been through some stuff, but it runs well according to him. Also, it barely has over 78,000 miles (125,528 km) on the odometer.

The second unwilling patient was a brand-new Leaf SV Plus. This one is worth a bit more, at $37,135 (MSRP), and boasts a 60 kWh battery, with 214 hp (217 ps), 250 lb-ft (339 Nm) of torque, and has an estimated EPA travel range of 212 miles (341 km) on a full charge. That's 63 miles (101 km) more than the more "humble" 2023 model year S variant.

Back to the 2012 Leaf, at first contact, it couldn't start. It didn't even detect the key, which was just inches away from the steering wheel. Furthermore, even with all the lights turned off, the display was telling Kyle to turn them off. It had some sensor reading issues, to say the least.

In regards to charging, it didn't budge at all. From the outside, the poor thing was making some weird noises, like muffled screams trying to say it wanted to come alive, but simply couldn't.

When he finally managed to jump-start it using the newer Leaf, the display was showing only a 5-mile range on it. Just enough for Kyle to circle around the station with it, in the hopes that it will get its "juices flowing," so to speak. But when he tried to charge it again, the Leaf simply refused to cooperate. For all intents and purposes, the car was completely unusable.

Switching to the SV model, it didn't have any problems lighting up like a Christmas tree upon entry. However, some wires did get crossed, because after being left for two days in the harsh colds of winter, it magically went from its initial 39% state of charge to 43%. While taking it for a spin around the charging "block" as well, it performed as usual. It even went full throttle.

Charging-wise, it didn't seem to have any issues either. After 51 minutes, it gained a total of 53% charge status at a peak of 5 kWh. At the 60-minute mark, the battery was at 55%, with 193 minutes to go until 85%. Oh, and in case anyone was curious, the charging costs were $0.31 per kWh, before tax, at 1:42 AM.

Under normal (and sane) conditions, according to the car's documentation, the SV model should fast-charge from a 22-mile range to a 172-mile range in 59 minutes. Now, you don't have to be a math whiz to tell how hard the cold affects charging when you get from one hour to over four hours.

Now circling back to the old Leaf, dire measures had to be taken. At some point, it simply died beyond redemption (at least for that night). So Kyle had to strap it to the Rivian he drove in, and used brute force to get it out of the charging spot. And no, he couldn't use Neutral because of the bricked battery. Luckily, after a couple of feet of pulling, there was icy snow on the pavement, so that helped a bit.

This is where the experiment ended. While it was entertaining to watch, at least one scientifical conclusion came out of it. And that is the fact that the technology of EVs is getting better as time goes by. In turn, it could indicate that in 10, 20, or even 30 years' time, we might see some spectacular improvements to the personal means of electric transportation.

But as far as the present is concerned, if there is one thing this proved, is that you might not want to leave your EV out for two days straight in -18°F (-27.7°Celsius) weather.

This being said, these aren't the first victims of Kyle Conner's mad science experiments. Barely over a week ago, he cold-soaked a Tesla Model 3 and took it through the wringer as well. That one took 45 minutes just to start charging because it used that time to keep the battery heated at the designed charging temperature.

After this "pre-heating the oven" part, it took another 45 minutes to go from its 35% charge to the set 90% limit. Given the conditions, the process didn't take too long, but it wasn't lightning fast by any stretch of the imagination, either.