Nissan says I can't buy a new battery pack even if I want to

Here is the situation - nearly 55K miles on my 2011. I drive almost all freeway miles about 130 miles a day - 10 bars used to get me 66 miles. It is currently getting me 55 miles. Very soon, I won't be able to complete my commute without stopping for additional charging. I average between 4.3 and 4.6 miles/kwh on the dash at the end of my commute depending on headwind, rain, etc. so I know how to drive efficiently.

I am willing to accept that the range reduction is going to happen. I expected this level to happen at about 100K miles. I don't think at the time of delivery that Nissan had ever said what we should expect other than some level of reduction - I think that came later (the 20 & 30 pct comments).

I have called Nissan and asked about buying a new battery pack. I was told that they are only available for warranty replacement, which apparently I would not be a candidate for. I then asked when I would be able to buy a new battery pack and the CS rep said when the new plant in Tennessee opens and that could be in 2 months or it could be a year. Really? They don't know when their plant is expected to open.

I then commented that even if I was willing to drop another estimated $10K to keep my Nissan car that I spent $30K on, I couldn't and that is how committed Nissan is to keeping a customer. Ridiculous.

My wife just told me to sell it and buy a decent car. I know I can stop and charge up - but with a commute this long already, the last thing I want to do is sit in the car longer at a charging station. Anyone else have suggestions or is this the line Nissan is towing? Now that they have my money do they really not care about keeping a customer satisfied?

In your case (130 miles daily) I would seriously consider selling the Leaf and getting a Tesla Model S instead. The 60kWh version should fill your needs for many many years to come, even with serious degradation. Even the 40kWh would work very well, but not for quite as many years. It is also a much more comfortable (the Leaf is very good though the S is much better) car for long highway commutes.
If you could stretch for the 85kWh version it comes with a 8 year unlimited miles battery warranty.

But delivery is in a year for new reservations so you'd have to reserve one now and drive the Leaf for one more year.

My understanding is the Nissan is required by law to make spare parts available. They can drag their feet while the cars are in warranty, but if push comes to shove, they'll have to set a price and sell a pack (or the individual parts of the pack). Nothing says it has to be affordable, but I think their reticence comes from not wanting to quote a "too high" price at this point. They know their costs will drop as the plant in TN gets going and they want to stall until they can give us a more reasonable number.

never mind ... reading comprehension issue ....

i feel your pain and knowing your personal situation, i think you can probably get thru this winter and be good for the summer so the game plan is to have some resolution in about 11 months and that might happen.

having worked in car business and knowing several that are still in the business, you are literally conversing with a mushroom on the phone who has not the slightest idea what they are talking about.

there was a very lengthy discussion on Priuschat concerning the cost of a traction for the Escape hybrid years ago and it was the exact same situation in that pricing and availability was unavailable and that is all anyone could get from the dealer level.

but... the rub; my Sister is a service advisor for Ford and they had to replace a FEH battery pack less than 4 months after the guy took delivery.

was all warranty and yada but even she did not have access to the cost which if you understood the process service writers go thru is really completely out of the question and also (as it turns out) completely incompatible with the system they need to log the work under.

so to even get the order in the system (to get the part) they had to go to some sort of regional computer guru to input the data so my Sister and everyone at the dealership was completely blocked out of any of the information.

when the pack came in (it took 3+ weeks to get it authorized and less than 24 hours to deliver it after the authorization came thru...) , the basic info was in the computer but the cost was listed as something like 9 MILLION dollars...

but i also believe that the TN battery plant will loosen up the supplies and allow us to purchase pack replacements. it will just take "some" time to get it into the system where people we get to talk to will have some info they can relay

TaylorSFGuy said:

I have called Nissan and asked about buying a new battery pack. I was told that they are only available for warranty replacement, which apparently I would not be a candidate for.

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The real catch-22. One can't buy a battery pack, it has to be replaced under warranty and they don't warranty the battery.

ALLWATZ said:

The real catch-22. One can't buy a battery pack, it has to be replaced under warranty and they don't warranty the battery.

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I'm pretty sure you can buy a battery pack, but you have to get it in the original packaging, which I understand comes in white, red, black and ocean blue.

Your wife is smart.

You ought to unload that LEAF asap. You can then look at a Prius or a Tesla depending on finances and personal interests.

The LEAF battery appears to have about a 50k mile usable lifespan depending on ambient temperatures - some diehards will argue - but, that's the reality for most folks.

We will likely get a better answer re: the battery cost/replacement once Chelsea, etc. progresses. There is no real answer just yet.

TaylorSFGuy said:

I expected this level to happen at about 100K miles. I don't think at the time of delivery that Nissan had ever said what we should expect other than some level of reduction - I think that came later (the 20 & 30 pct comments).

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FYI, my 2011 LEAF manual stated:

"The capacity of the Li-ion battery in your vehicle to hold a charge will, like all such batteries, decrease with time and usage. As the battery ages and capacity decreases, this will result in a decrease from the vehicle’s initial mileage range. This is normal, expected, and not indicative of any defect in your Li-ion battery. NISSAN estimates that battery capacity will be approximately 80% of original capacity after five years, although this is only an estimate, and this percentage may vary (and could be significantly lower) depending on individual vehicle and Li-ion battery."

I interpreted this as "for every year (or around 12K miles), we'd see about 4% loss"... for a LEAF in a fairly standard climate (like mine, near Palo Alto), and operated without much babying (slug driving only, always parking in shade) or abuse (like leaving it charged to 100% for days at a time in the sun).

So, with this bad interpretation... I was surprised to see about 10% range loss in 16 months here, with only 10.9K miles on the LEAF. I expected less. But now, in theory, my degradation will slow down. Right, Nissan? :shock:

Its possible you can purchase form-factored lithium cells that match what the Leaf uses.. then do a bit of surgery.

Its understandable that Nissan does not want that information to get out, it would instantly be trumpeted by BEV haters .. obviously Nissan needs to subsidize battery sales to people like you, they wont have many sales anyways so they wont lose much money.. perhaps a pre-buy plan like Tesla offers?. Perhaps a factory certified rebuilt pack with new cells and tested for $6000, 12 month warranty?

grommet said:

We will likely get a better answer re: the battery cost/replacement once Chelsea, etc. progresses. There is no real answer just yet.

TaylorSFGuy said:

I expected this level to happen at about 100K miles. I don't think at the time of delivery that Nissan had ever said what we should expect other than some level of reduction - I think that came later (the 20 & 30 pct comments).

Click to expand...

FYI, my 2011 LEAF manual stated:

"The capacity of the Li-ion battery in your vehicle to hold a charge will, like all such batteries, decrease with time and usage. As the battery ages and capacity decreases, this will result in a decrease from the vehicle’s initial mileage range. This is normal, expected, and not indicative of any defect in your Li-ion battery. NISSAN estimates that battery capacity will be approximately 80% of original capacity after five years, although this is only an estimate, and this percentage may vary (and could be significantly lower) depending on individual vehicle and Li-ion battery."

I interpreted this as "for every year (or around 12K miles), we'd see about 4% loss"... for a LEAF in a fairly standard climate (like mine, near Palo Alto), and operated without much babying (slug driving only, always parking in shade) or abuse (like leaving it charged to 100% for days at a time in the sun).

So, with this bad interpretation... I was surprised to see about 10% range loss in 16 months here, with only 10.9K miles on the LEAF. I expected less. But now, in theory, my degradation will slow down. Right, Nissan? :shock:

Click to expand...

"and could be significantly lower"

Do you need a battery this week? It actually sounded encouraging to me that in a few months to a year a battery replacement will actually be available.
I would be slowing to 55 max if that made the commute possible and hang on until the battery is available. Going slower takes up way less time than charging L2.
Best of luck.

Herm said:

Its possible you can purchase form-factored lithium cells that match what the Leaf uses.. then do a bit of surgery.

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no, its not possible. if his problems were defective cells, Nissan DOES warranty that. its degradation which will be equal across all the cells in a well balanced pack

If you are willing to pay, why not install Inginers add on pack which would certainly get you through your commute and put less stress on your main pack?

Im tempted to myself.

MrFish said:

If you are willing to pay, why not install Inginers add on pack which would certainly get you through your commute and put less stress on your main pack?

Im tempted to myself.

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that is an option but not sure I would elect to pay $4,000 now and then whatever the cost of the battery pack from Nissan would be in a year or two. $4,000 is a lot of money for a short term temporary fix.

I'm sorry to hear your frustration. If Nissan and Ghosn are truly committed to electric motoring, then why are they not bending over backward to keep their current owners satisfied? We would have continued to buy Nissan electric cars for years to come if they would have stepped up to the plate from the beginning, but I feel like I'm dealing with a law firm, not a car company.

Carlos Ghosn may be committed to EVs, but I get the impression that the Nissan rank and file are not. There are just so many stories about salesmen and service personnel and NO-GAS-EV reps making our lives just as difficult as possible.

It seems like their motto is:

WE WANT THE LEAF TO FAIL!


Just once, I'd like to read a report from someone who took their LEAF to a dealer to get something fixed and was completely happy with the result.

gaswalla said:

Your wife is smart.

You ought to unload that LEAF asap. You can then look at a Prius or a Tesla depending on finances and personal interests.

The LEAF battery appears to have about a 50k mile usable lifespan depending on ambient temperatures - some diehards will argue - but, that's the reality for most folks.

Click to expand...

The reality is TaylorSFGuy has put 55k on his LEAF and (IIRC) by his reports, still has between 80% and 90% of his original capacity. And he has probably saved close to $4,000 in fuel costs, over a prius, since he began driving his LEAF.

His problem is he needs more than the ~70%-80% of "new" capacity he probably will have in another year, as he approaches 100k miles. So if I were in his position, I would probably insist on a price from Nissan, which as others have mentioned, should be their legal obligation.

As another option, what is happening to the batteries salvaged from near-new LEAFs totaled in accidents?

Seems to me you should be able to pick up one of those for a reasonable price, if the labor and other parts(?) required for the swap don't prove too costly.

His original battery, with whatever capacity it has when he does the swap, may still have significant resale value.

DaveinOlyWA said:

MrFish said:

If you are willing to pay, why not install Inginers add on pack which would certainly get you through your commute and put less stress on your main pack?

Im tempted to myself.

Click to expand...

that is an option but not sure I would elect to pay $4,000 now and then whatever the cost of the battery pack from Nissan would be in a year or two. $4,000 is a lot of money for a short term temporary fix.

Click to expand...

But it doesn't mean that you'll lose the supplemental battery if you can replace the main battery later. You'll have a combined extended range, still. So it's really not a short term temporary fix and not all of this is lost when you can replace the main battery. If anything, it'll allow you to prolong the replacement of the main battery until it's cheap enough. For example, if 1 year from now Nissan makes available the main pack for $10K. But if you know that 3 years from now, the main pack will be only $5K, the supplemental pack may help you wait until the main pack becomes $5K before you swap.

Stoaty said:

ALLWATZ said:

The real catch-22. One can't buy a battery pack, it has to be replaced under warranty and they don't warranty the battery.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure you can buy a battery pack, but you have to get it in the original packaging, which I understand comes in white, red, black and ocean blue.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's not a bad idea...

TaylorSFGuy could probably get between $17k-$19K retail for his "12 capacity bar" LEAF, and buy a new 2012 for ~$22-$24k after incentives, right?

And he's got a brand new LEAF, and a fresh battery pack, and is good to go for another ~60 k miles.

That could be his most practical immediate solution.