Aftermarket 12kWh add-on

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yoyofella

Well-known member
Joined
May 26, 2011
Messages
101
Location
San Francisco, CA
I am very interested!

link to the upgrade

link to article

What Enginer has done is develop a method of tapping into the Leaf's high voltage power system, to add additional battery capacity. Kit installation does not cut any wires, and the car can be returned to stock state at any time. The company claims it does not void the Leaf's warranty.

The kit consists of a large box containing a 48 volt lithium-iron-phosphate battery pack, and a DC-DC converter to step the voltage up to what's necessary for the Nissan Leaf. The box does take up room in the trunk area. The 4 kilowatt-hour model weighs 160 lbs, extends the driving range by 20 miles, and costs $3,495. The 8 kilowatt-hour model weighs 260 lbs, extends the driving range by 40 miles, and costs $5,495. The 12 kilowatt-hour model weighs 360 lbs, and costs $7,495. Enginer's battery pack is rated for 2,000 charge cycles. We should note that the miles of driving range Enginer quotes is similar to the "100 miles of driving range" that Nissan claims, when in fact the EPA certified range of the Leaf is 73 miles. That is to say we should expect the actual range extension to be less than the figure Enginer quotes, and the actual range extension will depend on driving habits.
 
the fact that it can't be quick charged is a bummer. long distance trips is where I run into range issues and quick charging frequently really adds time to a drive. a 130 mile pack would make a trip to Portland or Vancouver much faster with only one quick charge necessary. curious as to why the range of the 12kW pack isn't listed.
 
GaslessInSeattle said:
the fact that it can't be quick charged is a bummer. long distance trips is where I run into range issues and quick charging frequently really adds time to a drive. a 130 mile pack would make a trip to Portland or Vancouver much faster with only one quick charge necessary. curious as to why the range of the 12kW pack isn't listed.

It looks to me like these will be available within a years time. The only difference is the car will have a Tesla emblem on it instead of a Nissan emblem.

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/battery" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh yea and it will cost about 50k instead of 30k, but whats a few dollars among friends.
 
edit: didn't realize this was already in Range extender thread (though I think aftermarket battery upgrade deserve it's own thread).

yoyofella said:
I am very interested!

link to the upgrade

link to article

What Enginer has done is develop a method of tapping into the Leaf's high voltage power system, to add additional battery capacity. Kit installation does not cut any wires, and the car can be returned to stock state at any time. The company claims it does not void the Leaf's warranty.

The kit consists of a large box containing a 48 volt lithium-iron-phosphate battery pack, and a DC-DC converter to step the voltage up to what's necessary for the Nissan Leaf. The box does take up room in the trunk area. The 4 kilowatt-hour model weighs 160 lbs, extends the driving range by 20 miles, and costs $3,495. The 8 kilowatt-hour model weighs 260 lbs, extends the driving range by 40 miles, and costs $5,495. The 12 kilowatt-hour model weighs 360 lbs, and costs $7,495. Enginer's battery pack is rated for 2,000 charge cycles. We should note that the miles of driving range Enginer quotes is similar to the "100 miles of driving range" that Nissan claims, when in fact the EPA certified range of the Leaf is 73 miles. That is to say we should expect the actual range extension to be less than the figure Enginer quotes, and the actual range extension will depend on driving habits.
 
I feel I really need to chime in here. I would not use this product under any circumstances in a Leaf.

I used to be an installer for Enginer and I like their product and like what they are trying to do. But lets face it, their products are unreliable. Pretty much everyone who has ever had one of these in their Prius has experienced 2 or 3 failures. Enginer is always quick to send a replacement part and honors their warranty, though.

Here's the problem. If you have this product in your Prius and it stops working (which it will, guaranteed) then you will just end up burning more gasoline that day and for the next several days after until your replacement part arrives. In the Leaf, however, it is a different story. If you work 100 miles away and you plan to use this product for more range so that you can reach your work, then what happens when it breaks? Not only are you going to run out of juice and be stranded, but you won't even be able to make the journey to work again until the part arrives.

If you need more range my advice is get a Volt, Tesla, or Rav4, or whatever..
 
adric22 said:
I feel I really need to chime in here. I would not use this product under any circumstances in a Leaf.

I used to be an installer for Enginer and I like their product and like what they are trying to do. But lets face it, their products are unreliable. Pretty much everyone who has ever had one of these in their Prius has experienced 2 or 3 failures. Enginer is always quick to send a replacement part and honors their warranty, though.

Here's the problem. If you have this product in your Prius and it stops working (which it will, guaranteed) then you will just end up burning more gasoline that day and for the next several days after until your replacement part arrives. In the Leaf, however, it is a different story. If you work 100 miles away and you plan to use this product for more range so that you can reach your work, then what happens when it breaks? Not only are you going to run out of juice and be stranded, but you won't even be able to make the journey to work again until the part arrives.

If you need more range my advice is get a Volt, Tesla, or Rav4, or whatever..


This is good advice seeing as I didn't know about the Prius battery mod issues. However, I for one wouldn't use gas, spend more money or get a car that isn't available in my area. However, I may be smart enough to not use this to guarantee my ride to work either. I think this would be my anti-range anxiety cure. That way, if it does break, I can still make it somewhere. So thanks again for the solid advice, sir.
 
This sounds like a terrific option, and could make all the difference for some drivers whose LEAF doesn't quite have the range for their commute.
I may consider it in a few years if my 55mi freeway r/t becomes a challenge (or requires me to get EV's a bad reputation by slowing traffic!).

How does this work with the LEAF's display? Does the car include the additional capacity in the projected range?

We know reduced capacity = fewer capacity bars (but still max 12 charge bars), so what does increased capacity do?... presumably 12 capacity bars, but will the charge bars stay on 12 for many miles, or will each bar now represent ~1.7, 2.0, 2.3 kWh ?

Shaun
 
gbshaun said:
We know reduced capacity = fewer capacity bars (but still max 12 charge bars), so what does increased capacity do?... presumably 12 capacity bars, but will the charge bars stay on 12 for many miles, or will each bar now represent ~1.7, 2.0, 2.3 kWh ?
It just feeds extra power into the main battery. The Leaf will not understand where the power is coming from.

In the Prius, the typical setup will pump power right into the main battery terminals which means it will flow through the current sensor in the battery pack. The Prius would allow a certain amount of amps (I think around 14) before producing an engine trouble code. If you had a scangauge you could actually see the amps change when turning on or off the enginer kit. So the car was aware of the power, but didn't know where it came from.

In the Leaf, I would imagine it would be pretty similar. I would suspect the leaf will drain power much more quickly than the enginer kit could possibly replenish. Which means all it would do is slow the progress down of your battery depletion. You would simply get slightly more miles from each bar of power.

As to how the guess-o-meter would respond to this is anyones guess. It would depend on whether the leaf would take the extra power it sees going into the battery (assuming the Leaf has a current sensor in the battery pack) into consideration when making its estimate?
 
So - what does the extra 180 lbs do for the rear suspension? Is the Leaf now a 4 passenger auto or do you need to beef up the suspension?
 
I hope the "TS" in the spec sheet for the batteries doesn't mean "thundersky". The picture in the spec sheet looks a lot like a thundersky cell. Those cells have had a bunch of problems in the past---maybe they have some modern manufacturing equipment and quality control in their Chinese battery plant now, however pictures of the plant from a few years ago looked pretty dismal. That being said, it seems like the pack voltage is 48 volts (if I am reading the sketchy information correctly)---It would take a heck of a high current DC/DC converter to get the 48 volts up to the LEAF pack voltage. For example the Prius' DC/DC converter only needs to about double the pack voltage.
 
Enginer Auxiliary Battery Pack Questions.

1) I have the two Nissan/Panasonic Level 1 cordsets upgraded by EVSE Upgrade to work off 240/208 VAC. One of the units is set to 12 amps and the other to 16 amps. With an Enginer Auxiliary Battery Pack installed when I charge using the upgraded EVSE what is the total current that the Leaf try to draw? On the 12 amp. unit is it 12 amp. for the Leaf’s charger plus 5 amps. for the Auxiliary charger, 12 + 5 = 17 total? And on the one that is 16 amp. is it 16 amp. for the Leafs charger plus 5 amps. for the Auxiliary charger, 16 + 5 = 22 total? Or does the system behave itself and draw no more that the EVSE equipment says it can supply?

2) When the Leaf is charged to 100% does the Auxillary pack start charging the main battery (1C is about 4000 watts ) right away? What if one turns on the Leaf when it is 100% charged and it sits in the driveway waiting for their spouse for 10 to 15 minutes. Will the main battery get overcharged? What is the algorithm that the Auxiliary pack uses to supply juice to the main pack?

3) It says that an experienced installer should take no more that 2 to 4 hours to install. Does any know what they are charging?

4) Is there anyone who has installed one of these units want to chime in and tell us about your experience with the product?

5) I have been unable to find any reliability information (other than from “adric22”) on Enginer’s products. Do others find that Enginer’s products fail 2 to 3 times a year? When EVSE Upgrade modified two of my Nissan/Pansonic L1 EVSE units they have worked flawless. I have charged some 300 plus times at approximately 10KWh per charging session (around 3 hours per charge).
 
dickson31955 said:
So - what does the extra 180 lbs do for the rear suspension? Is the Leaf now a 4 passenger auto or do you need to beef up the suspension?
Yeah. Go grab a friend and sit on the trunk of your Leaf. If it's anything like the Prius that extra mass will quite appreciably sink down the rear suspension. I wouldn't want to drive like that indefinitely.
 
The 4 and 8kWh packs are available for the LEAF, but the 12kWh one is not. The Plug In America page has been corrected to reflect this. Maybe a correction to the thread title here would help avoid confusion.
 
yup, another $20K for double the range and TMS and a much larger, faster and fancier car that will presumably hold it's value longer... at the rate the Leafs are depreciating it may very well become a break even just with respect to the value of the battery, and that really can't be good for the Leaf... a lot of the folks who have shelled out the cash for an early Leaf can probably come up with the extra $$ if it means peace of mind and higher overall customer satisfaction. Nissan has got to be feeling the nips at the heel!

KJD said:
GaslessInSeattle said:
the fact that it can't be quick charged is a bummer. long distance trips is where I run into range issues and quick charging frequently really adds time to a drive. a 130 mile pack would make a trip to Portland or Vancouver much faster with only one quick charge necessary. curious as to why the range of the 12kW pack isn't listed.

It looks to me like these will be available within a years time. The only difference is the car will have a Tesla emblem on it instead of a Nissan emblem.

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/battery" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh yea and it will cost about 50k instead of 30k, but whats a few dollars among friends.
 
QUOTE: "The 12 kilowatt-hour model weighs 360 lbs, and costs $7,495."

This seems worthwhile. You can get Tesla-like range of their bottom level car (~150 miles) but without the $60,000 pricetag. Has anyone done this? Got pictures?
 
i still woder if anyone has done this? What is your experience. I can get batteries for 200dollar/kWh that i would like to use for this purpose. i'd like to add 24kWh that will weigh 200pounds.
 
Here's a fun post where Valery from EMW showed his 38 kWh add-on battery for the Rav4-EV. Clearly such a thing is technically possible if you have the expertise and wallet to make it happen, but as yet there are no off-the-shelf solutions. I'm pretty sure Enginer is now defunct.
 
I think that the Leaf has become a kind of toy that people seem to like to play with to "soup up" like teenagers who are trying to make their mopeds perform like a motorcycle... Are people interested in dumping $8K on top of the price of their cars for a little extra range? The car runs on electricity, the most common utility in the world, and there are Free Chargepoint.com chargers everywhere! I think the Leaf is perfect at this time because the range of the battery is the size that you will actually use its full capacity everyday. When you pay extra for extra range, you are paying for POTENTIAL to go farther, carrying more weight, but if you don't use it every day, it is being wasted.

I look at it like --- If I have a 1 AH battery on my cordless drill that I use for a half hour a day. It works for what I need to do, and charge it for the next day when I am done with it. I could pay a lot more for the POWER of a 5AH battery, but I am wasting it if the only benefit is that I don't have to charge it everyday. I love my Leaf, and if I needed a non-stop range of over 100 miles, I would not have bought it. I have said in other discussions, let's all enjoy the marvel of technology that we, the few, are enjoying over the 99% of drivers on the road... The age of "Petroleum Man" will soon be over...
 
Petro man will not be ending any time soon. If you want to hurry his death, then support a 300+ real world range BEV. That is what it will take. I was the first to order a Leaf in the state of GA and the second to accept delivery. I loved it so much I bought it off lease when the time came. And yes, as it is, it handles about 98% of all my trips, but only about 25% of my yearly mileage. At least once a month I need to take an ICE to where I'm going. I can't even take it to the airport to catch a flight. Now it seems that the next stage will be a 200 mile range and that might do it, but I still think you need an honest 3 hr driving at interstate speeds to 30 min recharge time to make the car main stream. Now that means an 80% range of 210 miles plus a 15 to 20 mile buffer. And then a free recharging network like the superchargers which the Leaf cannot use. Oh and by the way, there are a total of ZERO L-3 rapid chargers within Leaf range of middle GA (Macon/Warner Robins/Perry)
 
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