Replacement batteries offered with increased range?

[minispeed]

$6000 to keep a good car going a few years is always a better move than buying a new car. However the people who think like that are smart consumers and probably had thier leaf a while. That means they were fine with an 84 mile range and what it degraded to for a few years. Those people will probably go with used packs, refurbished packs, or packs with aftermarket copies of the leaf cell. Those will go for substantially less than an upgraded capacity pack.

 

[tkdbrusco]

I'd be shocked (pleasantly shocked) if those federal tax credits stayed at $7500 for 7 more years. Nissan is on pace to hit the 200k manufactured in the next few years, which is when the credits phase out under current law.

Is it 200,000 per manufacturer? or per model? If they call the new leaf something else, will it still anew? How about the infiniti model? Would that start fresh as well? I'm been trying to guestimate the sale of my 2015 Leaf is 2.5-3 years for a newer 150mi range model, but the $7500 credit plays a big part in this. If its not there, this would be problematic. If nissan loses the ability to take advantage of this credit, they may need to offer longer range batteries to existing leaf customers in order to keep them around. If I had to chose between a leaf gen2 and another brand in order to keep my $7500 credit, I'd say bye-bye to nissan! Maybe the leaf Gen2 will be under the infinite brand to take advantage of a clean slate on rebates?

 

[johnrhansen]

I always like to look at the bright side of things. Imagine if electric cars take off so fast that Nissan can't make them fast enough. If they made a 150 mile range one for the same price that would happen. Then the used ones might be still worth something and worth retrofitting.

 

[sredlin]

I always like to look at the bright side of things. Imagine if electric cars take off so fast that Nissan can't make them fast enough. If they made a 150 mile range one for the same price that would happen. Then the used ones might be still worth something and worth retrofitting.

I'm not always optimistic, but I'm with you and hoping there will be a suitable retrofit battery coming at a reasonable price in the next 2-3 years when my range may make my 2011 difficult to use for my daily commute. I generally prefer avoiding having car payments and keep my cars a long time simply because new cars depreciate so much that maintenance costs on older cars are usually cheaper than taking out an auto loan for a new car. So I will be looking for a battery pack retrofit and would be happy to simply restore it to the original battery range of 80 miles if it's not cost prohibitive, which isn't necessarily the same as what some folks might consider "good financial sense". In my opinion purchasing any new car never makes "good financial sense", simply because there's thousands of dollars of depreciation the minute you sign for it and drive it off the dealer lot.