2018 Leaf 2.0 Issues / Safety concerns

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borugee

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 15, 2017
Messages
50
Location
Dallas TX
I got my new 2018 Leaf and overall very good car, and love driving it and here are my thoughts after driving 1000 miles. There are lot of concerns / issues that Nissan need to pay attention and address.

What is good ;
1. Enough power to Get up and go.
2. ePedel is excellent
3. More range than the old Leaf
4. Good information / Dashboard

Disapointed
1. Dedicated USB slot or SD slot for music. (No more CD player on SV, SL). One USB available, that is required for car play.
2. Crappy ev-app. Always times out. Need improvement.
3. No Memory seat. No passenger power seat



What is not good ;
1. Car telematics is very slow to respond. You need to check your battery status from your phone, lot of time, phone app will timeout. (Need lot of improvement).
3. Pro-Pilot is not reliable (More details below)
4. Automatic emergency brake don't work when needed (More details below)
5. Quick charge don't work as advertised. (More details below)





Pro Pilot / Adaptive Cruise control issues
Safety Concern : When we are driving with adaptive cruise control on, and if we come across a stopped car in the lane (Ex. RED light), leaf will not slow down, it will most likely not stop and crash. Seems to work ok, if Leaf was following another car, and if that car stopped. This may be due, to LEAF adaptive cruise control system cannot detect fast moving objects. I have tried, 2, 3 times, and car do not seems to stop, I had to hard brake. This can be a safety issue, and I hope Nissan will address this soon. (Confirm if others experience the same).

Propilot is not reliable, even when there are good solid lane markings, it cannot keep in the middle of the lane, especially in sharp turns. In those sharp turns, no slow downs, car will cross lanes while pro-pilot is still active. At least if pro-pilot should give up saying I cannot negotiate the turn. (We expect, if Pro Pilot light is green to keep the lane and Brake if there is any object in the lane, if it is not doing that, I believe this is a safety concern and should not be allowed on roads.

Automatic Emergency Brake
This is again, do not seems to work as expected. Not sure if this is when the car is going above 50mph (I have seen somewhere that car can stop only if speed is below 50mph). This is hard to test, as car will crash. But my testing tell, that this is something that do not work. When car has adaptive cruise control car better apply brakes if it see something in front. But my guess is that car don't seem to see what is in the front. However they seems to work when car is following another vehicle, and when vehicle in front is stopped suddenly.

Quick Charge is slow
Quick charge slow down after about 60% of charge, used to be around 80% on Leaf 1.0 on a warm day. That means, we have to wait longer to charge the car. In a long trip, if you want to charge 2nd time, battery is already warm from the 1st QC, and 2nd QC is going to be 2 times slow.
Some charging stations charge by minutes of charge, these stations, Leaf 2.0 customers will be paying 2 times money to charge from those charging stations where they charge by minute.
 
I haven't read the '18 Leaf's manual to see if the issues you consider to be safety issues are known documented limitations.

If you have safety concerns, I'd suggest trying to report it officially to Nissan corporate (not a dealer, unless you think they can effect repair). Make sure it's a ticket in Nissan corporate's system. If they have no solution, file a safety complaint w/NHTSA at www.safercar.gov.
 
cwerdna said:
I haven't read the '18 Leaf's manual to see if the issues you consider to be safety issues are known documented limitations.

If you have safety concerns, I'd suggest trying to report it officially to Nissan corporate (not a dealer, unless you think they can effect repair). Make sure it's a ticket in Nissan corporate's system. If they have no solution, file a safety complaint w/NHTSA at http://www.safercar.gov.

Thank you and I will try to talk to Nisaan first. I wonder if my car is defective. Is anyone else noticing similar symptoms?
 
There is a known problem known as #RapidGate.
40kWh Nissan Leaf does not have active cooling.
As soon as battery heats up to 40*C, charging speed is reduced drastically (50%), so around 22kW.
But it should be able to finish whatever charging cycle it is doing without slowing down.
So if you arrive with 35*C battery and charge for 60 minutes, it should charge at max speed,
even if temperature tips 40*C. If you restart charging, then speed is immediately cut in half.
Usually, people should get one full driving cycle (200km) and then one full charge (60 minutes)
without limitations. In case of cold weather, one more 60 minutes charge (non-stop driving-charging).
In case of 20+*C weather, likely second charge will not be possible at full speed.

What surprises me is that you get slower charge at 60%. That has not been confirmed by others.

AEB definitely works in scenarios it is required to work. I think it is limited in speed (minimum and maximum).
It is very close to collision. You can't safely try it out with real cars.


New 40kWh battery BMS has at least some degradation protection (it was required by battery manufacturer for
warranty claims, 30kWh had almost no limitations and rapid degradation was also a problem).

40kWh Leaf should be able to travel 200km + 150km in one shot. And it pretty much can't do 600km in any weather
with reasonable charging speed inbetween.
 
I just finished a 450 mile round trip from Monterey to Lake Tahoe and back in a 2018 LEAF, and didn't experience any QC issues that were different from my 2011 or 2014 LEAF. Sure the charge rate slows down as the battery approaches capacity, but all BEVs do that.

I made it from Monterey to Lake Tahoe with essentially 2 and a half QCs and back with the same amount. The longest leg was 168 miles on one charge. Remember that the 2018 has 2 years of free QCs so costs by the minute are irrelevant. The car performed fine, I went from sea level to 8,000 feet with no issues. Going on a trip like this was certainly an edge case, and for the once or twice a year that I might take a trip like this, I felt that the LEAF was completely capable.

We have done this particular trip many times in the past with our regular car and it usually takes about five hours with lunch and bio breaks. In the LEAF it took an extra hour because of charge stops, which in my mind was an acceptable increase.

I am impressed by Pro Pilot, it is one of the best systems available today, and really outshines systems from other manufacturers. But it is not self driving, and if you just think it will do everything for you, it won't, you still need to pay attention.

I would not recommend any BEV for routine long distance trips over 200 miles, but for the occasional trip it is fine.
 
QC is slower than 30 kwh pack but if you look at charge received, it is not slower than 24 kwh LEAF and it has almost double the range.

AEB; I don't know if mine works and I do not intend to find out. In a situation where the car thinks a collision is possible it gives warning beeps. Beeps I have heard at all speeds including speeds under 20 mph if E Pedal is not sufficient to stop the car.

As soon as I hear the beeps, I hit the brakes. I am simply not willing to wait to see if anything "automatic" happens. The warning is more than enough for me.
 
I took three different 2018 Leafs out for drives during a Canadian Media Launch Event a couple of weeks ago. Engaged ProPilot in all of them and they all stopped the car automatically in traffic. It is a bit nerve-wracking to trust the system initially, but once you see how it performs, then you know what to expect.

As pointed out, PP is not a replacement for driver control, just an aid. Still need to pay attention and have hand(s) on wheel.

I did not experience any issues in the three models I drove (1 SV and 2 SLs).
 
kennethbokor said:
I took three different 2018 Leafs out for drives during a Canadian Media Launch Event a couple of weeks ago. Engaged ProPilot in all of them and they all stopped the car automatically in traffic. It is a bit nerve-wracking to trust the system initially, but once you see how it performs, then you know what to expect.

As pointed out, PP is not a replacement for driver control, just an aid. Still need to pay attention and have hand(s) on wheel.

I did not experience any issues in the three models I drove (1 SV and 2 SLs).

What you are describing is ACC. It works in conjunction with AEB and its a bit conservative. AEB alerts have gone off in my car dozens of times but no braking yet (will NOT gain that level of trust. The warning is all I need :) ) I like the fact that it will alert me when the de-acceleration of E Pedal isn't sufficient enough. I like the challenge of gauging stopping distance and AEB allows me to push the boundaries.
 
Phatcat73 said:
I haven't used a CD player in over 6 years. I either stream, use satellite or pull from my phone.

Can burn a CD with mp3 songs to play from CD. Less hazzle than pulling songs from Phone.
 
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