The Seebeck coefficient (thermopower) $S$ of the cuprate superconductor La$_{1.6-x}$Nd$_{0.4}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ was measured across its doping phase diagram (from $p = 0.12$ to $p = 0.25$), at various temperatures down to $T simeq 2$ K, in the normal state accessed by suppressing superconductivity with a magnetic field up to $H = 37.5$ T. The magnitude of $S/T$ in the $T=0$ limit is found to suddenly increase, by a factor $simeq 5$, when the doping is reduced below $p^{star} = 0.23$, the critical doping for the onset of the pseudogap phase. This confirms that the pseudogap phase causes a large reduction of the carrier density $n$, consistent with a drop from $n = 1 + p$ above $p^{star}$ to $n = p$ below $p^{star}$, as previously inferred from measurements of the Hall coefficient, resistivity and thermal conductivity. When the doping is reduced below $p = 0.19$, a qualitative change is observed whereby $S/T$ decreases as $T to 0$, eventually to reach negative values at $T=0$. In prior work on other cuprates, negative values of $S/T$ at $T to 0$ were shown to result from a reconstruction of the Fermi surface caused by charge-density-wave (CDW) order. We therefore identify $p_{rm CDW} simeq 0.19$ as the critical doping beyond which there is no CDW-induced Fermi surface reconstruction. The fact that $p_{rm CDW}$ is well separated from $p^{star}$ reveals that there is a doping range below $p^{star}$ where the transport signatures of the pseudogap phase are unaffected by CDW correlations, as previously found in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_y$ and La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$.
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