The Market will Respond to After-Market Battery Demand

[TomT]

Actually, it is the opposite. AC is about ten times more lethal to the human body than DC. This is one of the arguments that Edison used in his argument for DC rather than AC...

To work on the Leaf battery pack, your electrical skills have to up to dealing with 400 volts DC, which is a bit worse than 400 volts AC.

 

[FairwoodRed]

Well we will see where my capacity lies at 5 years 100k miles. It would have well paid for itself in gas savings by then and I can just throw the car away at that point of by them they havnt had some break through

I don't know where your car is located (location being the biggest factor in degradation), but I'm in Seattle, which is considered to be the best for battery life. I drive a similar amount (22K miles a year) and I'm 2.5 years into ownership. I can't see anyway that I will be able to get 5 years out of my leaf. My capacity loss is about 18% right now and my effective range is in the high 50's during my "winter". I need 52 for my commute.

I hope that your range holds out better than mine, but I don't think your expectations will match reality. I also hope you have more than one ownership backup plan. Mine was to just replace the battery, but I failed to consider that it might be prohibitively expensive, or not available at all.

 

[smkettner]

I see fuel savings of $200 per month over my F150 and I don't see break even until close to ten years LEAF ownership.
My only hope is to get a new longer lasting battery under warranty. Otherwise it might be back to driving the gas hog.

 

[GregH]

I see fuel savings of $200 per month over my F150 and I don't see break even until close to ten years LEAF ownership.
My only hope is to get a new longer lasting battery under warranty. Otherwise it might be back to driving the gas hog.

Some day the the $7500 Federal subsidy and $2500 California subsidy will go away.. I wonder how the economics will play out for future prospective EV drivers?
Looks like the F150 is about 17mpg? So if gas is $3.80 that's $0.22/mi?
For a friend at work I just dug up some old Edison bills and concluding I'm paying about $0.03/mi to drive the Leaf.
Of course a 50mpg Prius would be about $0.075/mi (and last 10 miles without needing a new battery). Of course who knows what gas will cost 10 years from now.
I guess we can just cross our fingers that over the long term, batteries keep coming down in cost and gas keeps going up.

 

[fotajoye]

I can just throw the car away at that point

I don't think that's a good idea. I believe in a good month I can round up $30 if you want to sell it. BTW, is it black like mine? My wife really likes black, that way we could have twin black Leafs...won't that be swell? (ha)

 

[fotajoye]

For those of you who plan to keep your car and replace the the battery(cells), there is hope as the following link suggests:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEHs3X75IDo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[markus]

There is currently a growing industry to refurbish Prius batteries (do a search on ebay) and this is done by using salvaged cells either from wrecks or from battery packs that were replaced. While this does not produce a "new" battery it does get the car back on the road for a small fraction of the cost of a new battery. Lithium based batteries tend to fail in a cascading way, one cell gets weaker than the rest and then starts to opperate outside of the 20% - 80% comfort zone. The weak cell then degrades at a much accellerated rate. This is agravated when the battery is run closer to its limit and the weak cell becomes the limiting factor for the entire pack.

I have extensive experience building Li-ion battery packs for e-bikes (the last one I built used 210 cells recovered from failed Makita battery packs). The Makita packs use use 5 pairs of cells in series and typically I recover 8 good cells from a "bad" battery pack. I AM NOT suggesting that Leaf batteries could be refurbished with salvaged drill batteries. Rather I am pointing out that, unless the failure is environmental, our battery packs will usually fail with one or two bad cells which could be replaced and get you back on the road.

I'm not sure and certainly someone will correct me but I think our packs are made up of 96 modules, each having 3 pouch cells. The 3 cells that are in parallel in the module will fail together but the modules could be removed from the pack, capacity checked and bad modules replaced with salvaged modules that are close to the others in capacity.

 

[fotajoye]

Markus:

There are 48 modules at 2p2s.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Battery" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The trouble is sourcing the cells controlled by Nissan.

 

[markus]

Icey roads are a good source of salvage parts! We have been in full winter driving for just over a month and I have had 2 narrow misses already where the person sliding through the intersection would have hit me hard enough to total my car. That would yield a full set of batteries that are still at 12 bars. In the case of single module failures that will repair over 40 other batteries.

P.S. Thanks for the battery detail.

 

[KJD]

Copart.com has a few LEAF listings. Might be a source for batteries and other parts.
http://www.copart.com/c2/homeSearch.html?criteriaType=detailedSearch&returnPage=home&searchType=HOME&filterBaseLabel=Automobile+NISSAN&filterCode=&freshRequired=true&oSearchByType=Y&vehicleType=V&startYear=2011&endYear=2014&make=NISS&model=LEAF&titleGroupCode=&location=facility&stateFacility=*&zipPostalCode=&mileageRange=99999" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[nosuchthing]

Ultimately American ingenuity will prevail over Nissan's shortsightedness or indecision.

 

[electricfuture]

I am getting ready to test Nissan's battery warranty. I have 12 bars showing at 31,000 miles 2011 Leaf #4205 and only a 55 mile range at 68 deg F in San Diego. This is ridiculous. The "upgraded software" it seems was written to protect Nissan from below 9 bars warranty replacement program. At the start of the day it shows 10 bars but moves up to 12 after only a couple of miles. So they keep you focused on the number of bars (warranty) and not on actual degradation.

I took a picture of the dash and will request a warranty replacement in writing. I had a cell check done 4 months ago and 2 cells were at the minimum per their spec as shown on the printout. I suspect those 2 cells are now below spec.

The only way to protect yourself is by periodically requesting the individual cell check and ask for a copy of the printout.

Concerning buying the battery from Nissan - this was covered elsewhere. You cannot. They have an internal cost of about $2800 but that is for warranty replacement reimbursement to the dealership - not for retail customers.

 

[nosuchthing]

My feeling is they will offer battery when they're ready with it, featuring different chemistry. They don't have it yet and are loath spending money on old tech that they know has failed them.

 

[fotajoye]

My experience dealing with car dealerships is they are much like dealing with insurance companies. Expect them to say "No" to your initial claim then be prepared to prove your point and make a lot of noise to Nissan. Negative media PR and a positive profit on every sale is their greatest worry. I hope I'll 100% wrong on this and you have better luck than I've ever had with dealers and car makers.

I like Tesla's approach; no dealers between you and the maker and a policy of not making large profits by replacing parts.

In any case, good luck and I believe most of us support your effort.

 

[markus]

I took a picture of the dash and will request a warranty replacement in writing. I had a cell check done 4 months ago and 2 cells were at the minimum per their spec as shown on the printout. I suspect those 2 cells are now below spec.

How good were the best cells? Were the 2 bad cells just slightly below the rest? I am wondering about the median condition of the cells in the pack, For example after Nissan replaces your pack, would there be salvagable cells in your old pack or are the ones that are not "failing" just above failing.

When I disassemble a dead Makita drill pack 8 out of 10 cells will capacity test above 95%. I have observed this with any quality lithium drill pack, I don't even bother with cheaper drill packs any more because they have fewer cells that even function and those are usually below 50% capacity.

 

[thankyouOB]

I am getting ready to test Nissan's battery warranty. I have 12 bars showing at 31,000 miles 2011 Leaf #4205 and only a 55 mile range at 68 deg F in San Diego. .

is that true range to lbw on the road, or what you show on the dashboard's GOM?

 

[TomT]

I don't understand this... Are you talking capacity bars or fuel bars? Are you saying that whichever it is starts at 10 and then jumps to 12?

At the start of the day it shows 10 bars but moves up to 12 after only a couple of miles.

 

[markus]

Actually, it is the opposite. AC is about ten times more lethal to the human body than DC. This is one of the arguments that Edison used in his argument for DC rather than AC...

To work on the Leaf battery pack, your electrical skills have to up to dealing with 400 volts DC, which is a bit worse than 400 volts AC.

Edison's argument was actually that high voltage AC (which allows for long distance transmission) is more lethal than his relatively low 110V DC. In his demonstrations he would use 6600V AC compared to 110V DC. Everything I have read indicates that, at the same voltage DC is far more lethal.

 

[DaveEV]

How good were the best cells? Were the 2 bad cells just slightly below the rest? I am wondering about the median condition of the cells in the pack, For example after Nissan replaces your pack, would there be salvagable cells in your old pack or are the ones that are not "failing" just above failing.

When I disassemble a dead Makita drill pack 8 out of 10 cells will capacity test above 95%. I have observed this with any quality lithium drill pack, I don't even bother with cheaper drill packs any more because they have fewer cells that even function and those are usually below 50% capacity.

Outside of rare cell failures, there appears to be very little variation in the capacity of the LEAFs cells, even after lots of capacity loss. Quality control appears to be very good overall.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

Concerning buying the battery from Nissan - this was covered elsewhere. You cannot. They have an internal cost of about $2800 but that is for warranty replacement reimbursement to the dealership - not for retail customers.

Where are you getting this $2800 figure from? Is that on the books somewhere between the dealer and Nissan? I'm not sure it has any direct correlation to the cost of a new battery...