Nissan to announce official Battery Replacement Program soon

[smkettner]

Why would a battery for sale block Nissan from also offering a battery lease?
The problem so far has been that ONLY the lease has been offered. And doing that is unethical and probably illegal too.

Let us look at a total different situation. A landlord offering the house for lease - and not offering it for sale. Is that "unethical" ?

Not the same. If you bought the home and the roof was said to last 30 years. Then you find out roof only lasts 5 years and the only fix is to pay rent on the unique replacement.... you would feel taken advantage of. You may have just wanted to rent the entire house from the get go.

 

[JPWhite]

But, just because you are not getting your choice is no reason to block others from getting their choice i.e. to say they shouldn't offer a lease program unless they offer buy also is "unethical".

I don't have any problem with Nissan offering a battery lease program.
Since that appears all they are willing to do now they should never have sold the battery with the car in the first place.
To sell a product and then refuse to sell replacements is unethical.

To add a bit of perspective.... Nissan had intended to lease the battery even for outright purchasers. However the car would then be ineligible for various incentives at state and Federal levels. Differences in the incentives allowed for a lease in the UK. I believe they found themselves in the position of doing something they didn't want to do, then screwed up the execution of plan B by not thinking ahead to the day when the batteries would in fact wear out. Then Arizona bit them in the posterior; and the rest is history.

 

[thankyouOB]

i stick with june 30 as the day we hear.

 

[epirali]

Why would a battery for sale block Nissan from also offering a battery lease?
The problem so far has been that ONLY the lease has been offered. And doing that is unethical and probably illegal too.

Let us look at a total different situation. A landlord offering the house for lease - and not offering it for sale. Is that "unethical" ?

Not the same. If you bought the home and the roof was said to last 30 years. Then you find out roof only lasts 5 years and the only fix is to pay rent on the unique replacement.... you would feel taken advantage of. You may have just wanted to rent the entire house from the get go.

This would be valid IF the original Leaf warranty had included a battery warranty, or claims for 30 year battery life. It didn't.

I honestly don't know what the legal obligations are for parts/repairs of a given car outside of warranty period. I wonder if it is by state or covered by any federal law.

For example I know my Tesla can be "junked" any moment from a simple failure where parts are no longer available. I am not sure Tesla has any legal obligations for that, outside of bad PR or unhappy customers.

 

[thankyouOB]

John McDonald, a General Motors spokesman, points out that auto makers are required by law to supply parts for the full warranty period. That can be up to five years or 100,000 miles for some GM vehicles. And often car makers or their suppliers continue making parts long after warranties expire, especially for higher-volume models that generate long-term demand for replacement parts. "It's a profitable thing to do," Mr. McDonald says, though he also warns that parts for cars produced in lower volumes may be hard to find.

this was in a discussion of Moss-Magnuson warranty law, which has been discussed here elsewhere.
obviously, the quote doesnt define "supply" or indicate whether leasing the part is included in that definition.

In a normal circumstance, we could assume that Nissan lawyers told them the lease-only plan could be legal. On the other hand, the roll out of the SYB concept last year was so flawed that "normal" doesn't apply.

 

[klapauzius]

Let us look at a total different situation. A landlord offering the house for lease - and not offering it for sale. Is that "unethical" ?

People seem to through around the words "stealing", "Unethical" and "illegal" casually.

I think you are comparing apples to oranges here.

To stay in real estate, this would be more like someone selling me a house with the expectation that I will need a new roof a couple years later. In this really weird reality it happens so that the seller of the house is also the ONLY roofer in town.

When it starts to rain into my living room, the seller/roofer now offers me to replace my roof, but what he proposes is to RENT the new roof to me.

Now the house, that I owned, will be co-owned by the roofer as well.




Of course, in the original contract, this "special" arrangement was never disclosed.
And needless to say, that there would also be no precedent for this kind of behavior.

And yes, that is "unethical", if not borderline "fraud", and certainly would call for a lawsuit.

Edit: This comparison has been made already...funny that everyone thought of the same thing.

 

[klapauzius]

John McDonald, a General Motors spokesman, points out that auto makers are required by law to supply parts for the full warranty period. That can be up to five years or 100,000 miles for some GM vehicles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; says

The 2011/12 Leaf's battery warranty is for eight years or 160,000 km (100,000 mi)

Of course we can assume that a battery with greatly degraded range would still be considered functional, as pointed out in the original warranty, so even if the battery degraded to a point, where the leaf becomes for all practical purposes unusable, the lawyers would deem this part fully functional.

 

[kubel]

John McDonald, a General Motors spokesman, points out that auto makers are required by law to supply parts for the full warranty period.

Federal law requires 8 years for emissions related parts (unrelated to Magnuson-Moss). Outside of that, they are required to honor the warranty for the full warranty period. There's no mention of supplying parts. Technically, Nissan could stock zero spare parts for the LEAF, and just offer refunds or replacement cars to remedy any warranty claims.

Or they could do what they are doing now- maintain a stock of spare parts solely for warranty work, but not make them available for sale.

 

[o00scorpion00o]

Can someone please explain the battery replacement program to me.

Is this this what they now offer in Europe where you lease the battery ?

Will Nissan allow you replace the existing battery in your MK I leaf ?

Why don't they just allow you money for you old battery for a brand new one ? it seems very simple.

These are some of the figures on the new leaf in the U.K on the battery rental program.

The rental on the 15K miles per year plan is $185 pm for 36 monts+ Excess is charged at $ 12.76 per 100 miles.

So over 100K miles and 5 years driving, you'd have 25 K excess miles so 25000 /100 =250 x 12.75 = $ 3,187 excess.

The rental will have cost $ 11,100, so 11,100 + 3,187 = $ 14,278 over 5 years and 100K miles.

After 100K miles you still might not be down to 70% end of life, and may have to drive it another 20K miles, depending how good you are to the battery.

70% is the battery industry standard for end of life but it is too low for a limited range vehicle.

That's a lot of money to spend on the battery rental on a battery, if it were me I'd be fast charging so I would get a new battery asap because @80% you're down a good bit of range already at 70% that car could be useless.

Then there is the question of resale value which I doubt would be worth much anyway after 100,000 K miles. Though at this point is someone really going to spend that money on a 2nd hand car with 100K miles, it would make it as cheap to run an ice.

Will Nissan reduce the rental costs on an ageing battery ?

 

[JPWhite]

Can someone please explain the battery replacement program to me.

There isn't a battery replacement program for LEAF owners who find themselves out of warranty.

So no one can currently explain the program to you, we are all waiting with baited breath on an anticipated announcement of the program. All we can do right now is offer you opinions of what we think will happen and what we want.

You make great points, we'll have to wait to see how well Nissan's ears work.

 

[JPWhite]

Maybe they will offer us all a fuel cell.

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ja...-fuel-cell-cars-a-near-future-reality-2014-25

 

[ericsf]

Can someone please explain the battery replacement program to me.

Is this this what they now offer in Europe where you lease the battery ?

The only program available today for US LEAF owners to get a new battery in their car (except a warranty replacement) is to give up the battery pack they own for a new battery pack they would lease from Nissan. You are correct, this is pretty much the same thing as what EU drivers get. This thread is about the possibility of Nissan announcing a new battery replacement program that would allow us to continue to own our batteries.

 

[dgpcolorado]

The only program available today for US LEAF owners to get a new battery in their car (except a warranty replacement) is to give up the battery pack they own for a new battery pack they would lease from Nissan...

No. Nissan suggested such a program but it was never implemented (and it drew a lot of flak from LEAF owners here). So, the wait is for what sort of actual battery replacement program(s) that will be announced.

 

[o00scorpion00o]

Maybe they will offer us all a fuel cell.

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ja...-fuel-cell-cars-a-near-future-reality-2014-25

Hydrogen consumes too much energy that is better put into batteries.

Governments especially here will tax the hell out of it like petrol/diesel.

Companies who produce it will also get their cut so it will make driving as expensive so most people won't bother changing to fuel cell.

Toyota haven't brought a decent ev to the market because they can't, the premium they charge on the pathetic 4 kwh battery in the plug in prius is pure extortion considering a Leaf battery with 24 Kwh costs about 7500 Dollars.

 

[o00scorpion00o]

The only program available today for US LEAF owners to get a new battery in their car (except a warranty replacement) is to give up the battery pack they own for a new battery pack they would lease from Nissan...

No. Nissan suggested such a program but it was never implemented (and it drew a lot of flak from LEAF owners here). So, the wait is for what sort of actual battery replacement program(s) that will be announced.

Will this new program be for the U.S only ?

Anyone should be able to buy a new battery and trade their old battery. But I bet the problem is there are no programs to deal with spent EV batteries.

 

[evchels]

Will this new program be for the U.S only ?

At the moment, yes.

 

[JPWhite]

Maybe they will offer us all a fuel cell.

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ja...-fuel-cell-cars-a-near-future-reality-2014-25

Hydrogen consumes too much energy that is better put into batteries.

Governments especially here will tax the hell out of it like petrol/diesel.

Companies who produce it will also get their cut so it will make driving as expensive so most people won't bother changing to fuel cell.

Toyota haven't brought a decent ev to the market because they can't, the premium they charge on the pathetic 4 kwh battery in the plug in prius is pure extortion considering a Leaf battery with 24 Kwh costs about 7500 Dollars.

Agreed (with one exception below). I was being facetious :lol: :twisted: .

The Toyota Rav4 ev has had two incarnations over the years and both have been good EV's. Compliance vehicles maybe, but good EV's nonetheless.

 

[BBrockman]

All:

Thanks for your patience as we put the new program together. I just posted details under a new thread.

Best,

Brian

 

[TimLee]

See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17168#p374490" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

 

[BBrockman]

Thanks, Tim.

See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17168#p374490" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.