Silly people who keep their heads in the sand

just remembered the last time somebody told me "all is well" because their "truth" said so:

1. My dad, while pulling an oxygen bottle behind him, will happily tell you how 60 years of smoking a pack or two of non-filtered Pall Mall cigarettes hasn't affected his lungs one bit [hack, hack... ]

2. Boeing said all was well with the batteries on the 787, until the government physically shut them down.

3. Every helmet-less Harley rider will tell how safe they are because they've never personally died... All those other dead people are the exception!

4. Nissan built a battery with no cooling to be used in really hot areas.....

When it comes to current LEAF owners, living anywhere south of the 36th parallel, I can see why they might want to hope against hope. But, for anyone who has not made the commitment yet, I don't understand why, if they live in the southeast U.S or the desert southwest, would consider buying, rather than leasing, given all the information out there on range losses.

After offering terrible lease deals to early adopters, Nissan is, with the current very low money factor, essentially taking all the risk on new leases with very little cost to you. I simply don’t understand why anyone would buy under those circumstances *. Best case, if all the capacity fade models are wrong and the range loss reports are just an anomaly, you can always buy your car at the end of the lease period.


* if you rack up so many miles a year that a lease is not a viable option, and you live in the southeast U.S. or desert southwest, you shouldn't even be considering a LEAF, anyway, until it has had a few more years to confirm its battery is able to handle warm summer temperatures.

TonyWilliams said:

4. Nissan built a battery with no cooling to be used in really hot areas.....

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And I believed Nissan. My wife was skeptical. But I remember very well telling her that Nissan did thousands of hours on testing these cars. I even paid money for quick charge port. :lol:

leafwing said:

TonyWilliams said:

4. Nissan built a battery with no cooling to be used in really hot areas.....

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And I believed Nissan. My wife was skeptical. But I remember very well telling her that Nissan did thousands of hours on testing these cars. I even paid money for quick charge port. :lol:

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Yes, I did the same!!! We were sitting in the finance office, and having not yet decided if I was going to lease or buy, and having given my wife the, "there is NO WAY a big, worldwide company would risk the farm on something that wasn't rock solid" line of BS.

So, if the batteries would good, and there's always a chance that they could pull a GM EV1 lease/crush program, I paid my money. I hedged my bets, however, with the gold extended warranty (note: don't buy these things until the last month or 1000 miles of your warranty coverage, then shop around for the best price.... if you buy it up front, and sell later, they will prorate your refund, even though you already had a concurrent factory warranty... complete BS ripoff).

If you manufacture a laptop computer and less than 1% of them have issues, most people consider it a reliable product. Why is Nissan being held to a higher standard for their cars? What I would like to see on this issue is some balanced discussion. The only time people start putting down Nissan about the batteries are when people who are affected by it start complaining. If we had 100% of leaf owners on this board, even the ones in hot climates, I think you'd find the "battery degradation crowd" would be a small minority.

I guess I'd just prefer to not to read this, anymore...

"I live in Tampa (or Houston or Dallas or Miami or wherever else it normally gets over 90F during the late spring through early fall) and, when I bought my LEAF a year ago, I was told that I'd be able to drive 100 miles on a charge. After only a year, I can barely drive 60 miles on a charge and can't make it to work anymore. The car is, essentially, worthless to me. What can I do?"


Now, if someone lives in a warm climate and wants to take the risk because they believe that they live somewhere that "doesn’t get anywhere near as hot as Phoenix", that's fine. That's their choice. But don't come back a year or two later and complain about how you were deceived and your car is, now worthless and you want Nissan to buy it back or give you a new battery. If you bought before May 2012, that excuse might fly. Not anymore.

Sorry I can't agree. The battery is a major design flaw. We all drank the cool-aid thinking Nissan would take care of us. They advertised 100 miles per charge. We're very ambiguous on charging to 100%. Said quick charging was not a problem. Made no mention about waiting for the batteries to cool down before charging. The list goes on and on.
Do to even get me started on the heater. I have a 15 mi. round trip commute and charge to 80%. After two days I am left with 1 or 2 bars. There is no way I would be comfortable trying a third day. My average speed is 30 mph.
Just because the bad battery design doesn't affect you does not mean it is not a defect. Just pray that you don't get sent to a hot weather climate.

adric22 said:

If you manufacture a laptop computer and less than 1% of them have issues, most people consider it a reliable product. Why is Nissan being held to a higher standard for their cars? What I would like to see on this issue is some balanced discussion. The only time people start putting down Nissan about the batteries are when people who are affected by it start complaining. If we had 100% of leaf owners on this board, even the ones in hot climates, I think you'd find the "battery degradation crowd" would be a small minority.

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adric22 said:

If you manufacture a laptop computer and less than 1% of them have issues, most people consider it a reliable product. Why is Nissan being held to a higher standard for their cars? What I would like to see on this issue is some balanced discussion. The only time people start putting down Nissan about the batteries are when people who are affected by it start complaining. If we had 100% of leaf owners on this board, even the ones in hot climates, I think you'd find the "battery degradation crowd" would be a small minority.

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1% so far.
I am very concerned about charging a battery pack in lower temperatures than is recommended and how well Nissan's cold weather package handles that. As time goes by, I also expect to see the batteries degrade in cars in more normal temperature climates. However, what the future will bring is an unknown. And I will wait to see the results and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

adric22 said:

If you manufacture a laptop computer and less than 1% of them have issues, most people consider it a reliable product.

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I get the head-in-sand argument, believe me. It doesn't affect you, and 99% are great, so there's no problem. Ok, good for you. I've got an idea... you jump on a plane the next time Phoenix LEAF drivers gather there, and you set them all straight!!!! "Just Charge More" !!! I'll get the popcorn.

Here's another idea. Let's get every laptop computer ever made (and a Boeing 787) and park them on a parking lot in Phoenix for a few months in the summer. Report back with your awesome laptop computers.

It's not really the point of this thread to rehash the Nissan battery issue, but the more generic way people don't believe what's so apparent, like global warming. Or cigarettes killing you. Or batteries in LEAFs without a temperature control degrade at a significantly greater rate in hot environments than not.

It's all the same mental response.

Edit: You're right... 1% should be great, what was I thinking? The world should operate planes at the 1% threshold, and only smash one up every 100 trips; or 100 planes. Not a problem. Maybe a nuke technician... eh, 1% go bang, it's all good.

Some things just don't get a 1% margin in life.

Noone will lose their life over some battery degradation that is faster than expected.

Sorry about your Dad. :|

downeykp said:

Just because the bad battery design doesn't affect you does not mean it is not a defect. Just pray that you don't get sent to a hot weather climate.

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I DO live in a hot weather climate, and I have seen no degradation after 2 years. In fact, I've had no problems with my Leaf at all and it has never even been for any sort of repair other than hail damage and some body work. Now one might say that this is just anecdotal evidence, like the guy who is 80 years old and smoked all of his life without getting cancer. But, based on the numbers I'm seeing, the Leaf really is very reliable overall. My leaf is an example of the 99% that are operating flawlessly. I believe the ones experiencing battery degradation are a very, very small crowd that happens to be very vocal and thus often appears to be a larger group than they really are. I'd say it is similar to the anti-ev jerks we see posting on major news sites in their comments section. Based on those comments, you'd think 90% of the population was against EVs but it turns out that they are probably less than 5% but because they are so vocal compared to the average person, they appear to be a larger group.

I am not saying the issue is not real, or that hot weather has no correlation. But I believe had Nissan stepped in and took care of the handfull of vocal people early on, we probably could have prevented several dozen threads on this website and the reputation of the Leaf would be a lot better.

I personally get tired of hearing about it.

I have worked in the computer industry my whole life. I used to do tech support for a major computer manufacturer and so I answered the phone day after day 100 times per day and listened to people complain about the same problems day after day. After a while you might start believing that the products are junk because that is all you hear about and most of them have the same failures. Eventually it hit me one day that nobody ever calls tech support to tell us how great the product is working for them. So we have an unrealistic sense of the reliability of the computers. Sometimes you have to put the numbers in perspective, such as what percentage actually never experience any failures. It is the only way to be objective about it.

Thank you for starting this thread. To be clear, it's not 1%. We had this discussion before, in spades. If you read the PIA study, the most comprehensive and well-administered independent survey to date, you will see that between 10 to 20% of owners see significant range reduction. Of those, about half have lost at least one capacity bar.

I myself have lost about 10% of range in a mild climate, and there are others here with a similar experience. While this would not be a problem if I purchased the car as a city runabout, I too believed the 100-mile talk, and operated the LEAF as my only vehicle.

I wanted to make a statement by purchasing a LEAF, and I did. Although I did not have a good dealer experience, I have no regrets in that respect. I also wanted to support Nissan and their commitment to EVs, and I did my best to deliver on that goal as well, both offline and online. That said, it saddens me greatly that to this day range and battery capacity loss is treated as an unfortunate individual outcome, something that could be traced back to owner behavior or a manufacturing defect.

Nissan has done little to acknowledge that this is the result of the design decisions they took with the LEAF. The lack of active cooling, and the selection of the manganese oxide battery chemistry being chief among them. Yes, all batteries will lose capacity, and virtually all battery types age faster in hot weather. That's a fact of life. Some chemistries, like manganese oxide the LEAF uses for example, are said to degrade faster in the heat than others, such lithium iron phosphate.

With this causality in mind, what is more likely, that LEAFs in Southern climes are losing range faster than others due to heat or as a result of an unspecified manufacturing defect or owner behavior?

This board has done a great job connecting owners, which allowed us to compare notes and educate each other. I believe that it would have been a lot easier to sweep this issue under the rug otherwise.

I was in PHX and meet a lot of people there. I also monitor used/pre-owned Leaf sale there and things are not that great concerning loss of capacity bars. Much more than 1% have loss. Is great because you not affected and affected owners are just complainers. Lets blame them that they drive too much, charge to 100%, QC too much and do not have AC in garage and place of work.

adric22 said:

... I believe the ones experiencing battery degradation are a very, very small crowd that happens to be very vocal and thus often appears to be a larger group than they really are. I'd say it is similar to the anti-ev jerks we see posting on major news sites in their comments section....
I personally get tired of hearing about it.

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All class, eh?

If you're tired about hearing about it, why are you posting about it?

adric22 said:

I believe the ones experiencing battery degradation are a very, very small crowd that happens to be very vocal and thus often appears to be a larger group than they really are. I'd say it is similar to the anti-ev jerks we see posting on major news sites in their comments section.

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Too bad Nissan engineers don't agree with you (and the Phoenix line is based on just 7500 miles per year; it would be worse if compared on a level playing field of 12,000 miles per year):

Firstly, I congratulate Nissan for honestly getting a real car that electric to market - globally

I also get that they chose elements that will be EV's final configuration - manganese based chemistry (which spans form AESC's current chemistry through to future ENVIA style chemistry) and NO fluid cooling.

but it is only the first step, and the progression continues.

There are at least 3 ways that desert climate reliability can improve for automotive batteries

Electrolyte additives, as per the NEC http://www.nec.com/en/global/techrep/journal/g12/n01/pdf/120112.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Increased ratio of Nickel based cathode powder to the Manganese based powder
Increased durability of Manganese cathode http://www.tronox.com/products/lithium-manganese-oxide/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

each of these are better value than liquid based cooling, but they take time to validate for automotive purposes.

therein lies the issue, its takes volume to develop specific solutions, but volume requires specific solutions...

By the time the US specific electrolyte is demonstrated sufficient or not, it will be time for AESC to move to higher voltage Manganese chemistry, later on the move to Li rich Manganese chemistry. Each move basically resets the understanding of how Li Ion react in real life.

ydnas7 said:

therein lies the issue, its takes volume to develop specific solutions, but volume requires specific solutions...

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Yes, of course. I think it's safe to assume that Nissan is already working on the next gen battery, and perhaps even the battery, which will follow after that. Andy mentioned at the Town Hall meeting in Phoenix, that they tweaked the chemistry in 2013, partly in response to the complaints voiced here and elsewhere. Although he was not very specific, it's likely an electrolyte change, and possibly a tweak to the characteristics of the anode, but no one really knows. While they could raise nickel content, I personally doubt that they will do that, due to cost considerations.

I too applaud Nissan for trying to make EVs affordable. There are many reasons why having these cars on the road in great numbers is a good thing. It's safe to assume that everyone here gets that.

That said, it's not the best approach for a large corporation to hide behind statistics, when launching a groundbreaking new product. Yes, the LEAF might have one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings, which is astonishing, something to be proud of, and a testament to the potential of EVs.

This does not mean that serious issues cannot pop up. In fact, given the radical departure from the status quo the LEAF represents, it should be expected that things can go wrong. There are many potential points of failure: the dealer network, post-sales support, quality and integration issues, insufficient or the wrong type of testing, incorrectly projected customer expectations, etc. While it's safe to assume that everyone in the LEAF program at Nissan is hard at work, many might say that it's a wise investment, which could pay off in spades.

I doubt that anyone who purchased a LEAF expected a free ride or a handout. That said, many believed what they were told, perhaps because you tend to trust the word of the 6th largest automaker in the world. After all, their reputation and future sales are at stake.

And that's why Nissan's behavior has been so puzzling. Why would you advertise 100-mile range, if the EPA figure ended up being 73 miles. Yes, you could blame that particular faux pas on the lack of regulation. EVs being new and all. But this did not help things. The LEAF wound up in the hands of heavy commuters in hot climates, who could not make it to work and back after a relatively short period of time. While one could argue that it's their own fault, should they bear all the blame?

And how about another outlier, Steve Marsh in the mild PNW? He believes that his LEAF has lost more range than it should have at 60K, given the information available at the time of purchase. He would even buy a replacement battery, but Nissan refuses to quote him one.

Given this context, the counter-argument could be made that Nissan induced folks, who were not a good fit for the LEAF, not in its current incarnation at least, to purchase it. They presumably did so to increase their sales volume, and to reach the numbers needed to help amortize their investment in this program.

Perhaps that's reasonable to them, but what are you going to tell the unfortunate customer in this particular scenario? Just charge more? Or that their battery is in bad shape, because it wasn't cared for very well, like Mark Perry stated on record? I don't even know how to begin to answer that type of statements.

I think it's fair to say that the industry as a whole is learning how to market EVs properly. They are refining the technology as well. While mistakes will be made, I think it would be good to assume that the manufacturer will try to resolve those amicably, and the customer will not be at fault by default, not unless gross negligence is involved or the consumer did not abide by clearly spelled-out manufacturer recommendations.

It's still unclear, as far as I know, how much of the hot climate effect is due to actual cell degradation vs. the effect of drifting sensors , calibration, and the resulting battery management.

Still hoping that the final word on the viability of air-cooled pack has not yet been heard. It certainly does present some advantages. I love the amount of space in the car and I wouldn't be crazy about the idea of my battery being drained throughout the day for active cooling, using additional energy when plugged in, etc...

I'm still hopeful and trying to keep sand out of my nose.

Nubo said:

It's still unclear, as far as I know, how much of the hot climate effect is due to actual cell degradation vs. the effect of drifting sensors , calibration, and the resulting battery management....

I'm still hopeful and trying to keep sand out of my nose.

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Do, we, the general auto consumer care... which thing is broken? My wife never asked me once if a drifting sensor caused her to hit VLB on her very last drive in the LEAF at 68 miles; she never wanted to drive it again.

Unfortunately, things don't bode well for this chemistry's involvement, LONG before Nissan was pumping them out the factory door. It truly does take a certain "sand" in the ears to suggest the battery chemistry can magically withstand heat with all that is known of this LiMnO2 chemistry.

Why not share with us what the following linked chart means to you. It has nothing to do with electronics or BMS or LBC or sensors or calibration or anything else... just wonderful heat and batteries... a certain battery, actually:

This PDF file posted by Charles Whalen on the Volt forum.

Nubo said:

It's still unclear, as far as I know, how much of the hot climate effect is due to actual cell degradation vs. the effect of drifting sensors , calibration, and the resulting battery management.

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Given the chart Stoaty posted above, a significant loss of capacity is to be expected in Phoenix within the first two years. How that will jive with the individual owner depends on their expectations and range requirements. If they don't drive that much, all will likely be well.

Nubo said:

Still hoping that the final word on the viability of air-cooled pack has not yet been heard.

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Well, sure, if Nissan used LiFePO instead of LMO, we would be hearing a lot less noise from the South. What that would mean in terms of cost and weight relative to today's pack, I don't know. It's difficult to say, when the manufacturer won't even reveal how much the battery would cost to purchase.

Nubo said:

I'm still hopeful and trying to keep sand out of my nose.

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Me too! I wouldn't expect wonders from the current battery though. Sure, it's a vast improvement over lead-acid many EV enthusiasts had in their conversions, and the new stripper model has an almost unbeatable price. Just don't expect 100 miles of range, ten-year life in Phoenix, or heavy quick charging to go without consequences. Oh, and the software and instrumentation in the car have some room for improvement too.