How disappointed should I be that Nissan did not include liquid battery cooling on the Leaf E-Plus?

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Lothsahn said:
johnlocke said:
The real problem here is that Nissan picked the wrong chemistry to start with. The problem haunts them to this day. Higher average temps cause more rapid degradation in both the 24 and 30 KWH batteries. The jury is still out on the 40 KWH battery but the evidence so far doesn't look good. It will be another year before we will be able to say if the 40 KWH is really any better or worse. It does look like there's a problem fast charging the 40 KWH battery during road trips. NIssan will continue to use the same chemistry simply because it works ok in their primary markets ( Europe and Japan). Nissan USA has repeatedly ignored customer complaints and failed to act except under court duress.

Honestly, I think the real problem is that while they've kept the battery size the same, they refuse to sell upgrades. If people could buy a replacement 40 kWh battery for the 24 kWh original cars, I don't think there would be the negative attention that they're getting right now. They've already figured out how to fit 60 kWh in basically the same size. Also a possibility for a future upgrade, but Nissan likely won't do it.

Tesla's got goodwill because they make their cars better via constant software updates and improvements. Nissan has a huge opportunity here to set a precedent that their cars will get better when you buy a replacement battery in ~10 years after the original purchase, but there's not currently the will to do that. It's not even hard--they just have to design a BMS to talk to the older VCM protocol, and reprogram the VCM to update the GOM.

Both of you discuss points that I think are worth making. I just wish it was possible for each of us to raise issues and mull them over and occasionally to disagree without quite this extent of (sometimes arguably off-the-mark) brow-beating.

As to future-proofing the Leaf, yes, I thought so around 2012, and I may have said so, and still think so now. It may not be as do-able as you lay out, but IMO there would be value to NIssan and its customers to trying harder in this area. As an example, I think alliance member Renault in France did more to explore the question of battery upgrade/replacement. I don't know the pros/cons of how that turned out.
 
I'd still like to know how to start a poll on this topic. If I have to re-join in order to get it started I will, but nobody has yet been able to tel me with certainty that joining will let me set up a poll.
 
jlsoaz said:
I'd still like to know how to start a poll on this topic. If I have to re-join in order to get it started I will, but nobody has yet been able to tel me with certainty that joining will let me set up a poll.

I just looked all over the site, and I can't find a "Start A Poll" option anywhere. I suspect it was dropped a while back, as I also don't recall seeing a site-generated poll.
 
Lothsahn said:
Honestly, I think the real problem is that while they've kept the battery size the same, they refuse to sell upgrades.
Of course you think so, you bought a used LEAF with a degraded battery, presumably for a song. It is more than a little presumptuous to say that what serves your self-interest is good for Nissan. And consider this: If Nissan did have an inexpensive, low friction upgrade path, you would not own that car because it either would have stayed with the original owners or it would have been sold for a much higher price.

All car companies are forward looking and want to sell their newest and greatest, not get bogged down with yesterday's customers. This is particularly true when it comes to growth companies with products in flux. There is a thin line wherein past customers do not turn into detractors because their purchase turned out to be a bad choice, yet they are keen to swap into an improved product. When it comes to cars, my opinion is that the car has to maintain its original functionality for about 15 years with market average costs.

Fundamentally, LEAFs fail overall because they are junk-grade after 5-8 years. Look around you -- what do you see ? People who leased or bought cheaply due to regulatory demands, or people like you and me who bought highly depreciated junk. That is no way to run a business. This forum is over represented by the bottom feeders. The LEAF ecology lacks a healthy food chain.
 
SageBrush said:
Of course you think so, you bought a used LEAF with a degraded battery, presumably for a song. It is more than a little presumptuous to say that what serves your self-interest is good for Nissan. And consider this: If Nissan did have an inexpensive, low friction upgrade path, you would not own that car because it either would have stayed with the original owners or it would have been sold for a much higher price.

Perhaps, but unclear. I purchased my Leaf for $5500 with the plan to install a $5500 battery within the next year. That makes the total purchase price of my car $11k. Nissan then raised the price of the battery by $2500 without warning. Essentially, I was willing to pay $11k for a car that lasted 5-8 years -- I did not expect to be able to get a battery upgrade. If the batteries in the Leaf didn't degrade, the car would have retained a much higher value.

SageBrush said:
All car companies are forward looking and want to sell their newest and greatest, not get bogged down with yesterday's customers. This is particularly true when it comes to growth companies with products in flux. There is a thin line wherein past customers do not turn into detractors because their purchase turned out to be a bad choice, yet they are keen to swap into an improved product. When it comes to cars, my opinion is that the car has to maintain its original functionality for about 15 years with market average costs.

Fundamentally, LEAFs fail overall because they are junk-grade after 5-8 years. Look around you -- what do you see ? People who leased or bought cheaply due to regulatory demands, or people like you and me who bought highly depreciated junk. That is no way to run a business.

Perhaps, but EV adoption is currently so low that I don't think it's as necessary to get existing customers to swap to a new vehicle the way that traditional car sales do. There are essentially two groups of owners: Those willing to buy new and those that buy based on value (you and I).

As you said, the main problem with the Leaf is that they are essentially junk after 5-8 years. This creates negative buzz from unhappy existing owners and scares away potential new buyers. Any reasonable solution to retain resale value to us second owners thus tremendously benefits the first owners, and therefore, Nissan. My claim is that selling all owners battery upgrades will cause such a rise in resale value that it will be a net benefit to Nissan.

Look at Subaru and Toyota. They specifically demand higher prices for their cars because they have a reputation for high reliability and high resale value. Leaf reliability is on-par, but resale value is not.
 
LeftieBiker said:
jlsoaz said:
I'd still like to know how to start a poll on this topic. If I have to re-join in order to get it started I will, but nobody has yet been able to tel me with certainty that joining will let me set up a poll.

I just looked all over the site, and I can't find a "Start A Poll" option anywhere. I suspect it was dropped a while back, as I also don't recall seeing a site-generated poll.

Ok, thanks for looking around again. I looked around a couple of other places that seem to be related:

http://www.myelectriccarforums.com
http://www.myfusionenergi.com
http://www.myelectriccarforums.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=39

I didn't offhand run across any poll aspect as a user, though it's possible I may have missed it. I'll post one or two additional thoughts in the website discussion area.
 
Lothsahn said:
[...]Look at Subaru and Toyota. They specifically demand higher prices for their cars because they have a reputation for high reliability and high resale value. Leaf reliability is on-par, but resale value is not.

I think low resale value of Gen1 short-range (compared to what was coming) BEVs was almost inevitably (barring an extreme case such as a collector's item) going to happen unless they were future-proofed, or partially future-proofed, in the way you've suggested. In the case of the Leaf, since the initial vehicle had some degradation issues, arguably the issue of the lack of offering of battery upgrade paths was brought more to the fore.

To be fair, Nissan did make an effort to offer some sort of decent deal at the time my Lease came up so that in theory I could have gotten into a slightly longer range Leaf (though still inadequate for my needs). This is not a technological solution, but just to acknowledge the effort.

One might say that the separate effort to issue reasonable-seeming battery replacement pricing and terms was not exactly a future-proofing matter since Nissan declined to offer the ability to upgrade the battery or related (IIRC). Still, I thought it was a measure that could help support the value of the vehicle in the marketplace. You point out that Nissan raised the price on you and others later on (in your case after you had bought the vehicle and planned the replacement) and arguably this sort of abrupt action on a key vehicle component does not help marketplace value retention. I'm guessing they were struggling with some difference between the price their internal manufacturing cost, but whatever their rationale, it doesn't help the marketplace value and arguably harms some of the customer experiences.

After I had the Leased Leaf, when I went to buy a used Volt (while I planned to wait for the higher-quality used ~60 kWh BEVs to come down in price in the marketplace) , I did try hard to get a straight answer on battery replacement cost and terms (particularly would it be new or refurbished). I was a bit frustrated because I ran into some widely varying answers (anywhere from $3k to $18k or more). I'm not sure that any of them came directly from the manufacturer in an official way (company statement, as with Nissan's transparency on these matters at the time), or in an unofficial way (conversation with a dealer). Ultimately I had to settle for sleuthing and impressions. I think some information was that if/when the battery just wasn't any good any more I could get it replaced for something like $3k. This did not seem to be guaranteed new, and I'm not sure if this included labor. I assumed when I ran across this information that it might be on the low side, but I kind of gave up and decided for now, on my budget, if I wanted to drive a PHEV or longer-range BEV here in somewhat-rural AZ I had to also trust my impressions of the testing and commitment that GM had made to preserving the battery, so that's what I did. In the intermediate term the decision has worked out. I'm hoping to trade for a used long-range (probably liquid cooled, but we'll see) BEV before I have to find out too much about how the Volt will act in its old age.
 
jlsoaz said:
I was a bit frustrated because I ran into some widely varying answers (anywhere from $3k to $18k or more). I'm not sure that any of them came directly from the manufacturer in an official way (company statement, as with Nissan's transparency on these matters at the time), or in an unofficial way (conversation with a dealer). Ultimately I had to settle for sleuthing and impressions. I think some information was that if/when the battery just wasn't any good any more I could get it replaced for something like $3k.

This is a good point. For an ICE, the repair cost of nearly every part is known, easily accessible, and parts are available. In most cases, aftermarket parts also exist at lower price points. But for batteries (the most expensive single part of a BEV), these don't exist. This creates a lot of FUD.

When Nissan raises the price of batteries without warning, owners have no other alternatives. If you wanted to buy a battery from Nissan, you have to have a car to install it into and return the current one. I cannot walk into a Nissan dealership and just order a 40 kWh battery, even if I wanted to.

The price and supply uncertainty sometimes make me wonder if I even want to buy another Leaf, despite having an overall good experience with my current one.
 
Lothsahn said:
jlsoaz said:
I was a bit frustrated because I ran into some widely varying answers (anywhere from $3k to $18k or more). I'm not sure that any of them came directly from the manufacturer in an official way (company statement, as with Nissan's transparency on these matters at the time), or in an unofficial way (conversation with a dealer). Ultimately I had to settle for sleuthing and impressions. I think some information was that if/when the battery just wasn't any good any more I could get it replaced for something like $3k.

This is a good point. For an ICE, the repair cost of nearly every part is known, easily accessible, and parts are available. In most cases, aftermarket parts also exist at lower price points. But for batteries (the most expensive single part of a BEV), these don't exist. This creates a lot of FUD.

When Nissan raises the price of batteries without warning, owners have no other alternatives. If you wanted to buy a battery from Nissan, you have to have a car to install it into and return the current one. I cannot walk into a Nissan dealership and just order a 40 kWh battery, even if I wanted to.

The price and supply uncertainty sometimes make me wonder if I even want to buy another Leaf, despite having an overall good experience with my current one.

It's getting kind of out there, but fun conversation I think, so I'll say that I've spent a bit too much time watching and enjoying "Rich Rebuilds"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA

He has done a nice job I think of challenging some of the fear/uncertainty/doubt around repairing a badly damaged Tesla. I wonder if there are others around who have done similar on a Leaf. This is not to advocate turning to those folks as a mainstream answer if one wanted to try to address issues with one's Leaf, it is only to say that I think these questions go beyond Nissan. One thing I noticed in listening to one of the Rich Rebuilds videos was that he mentioned some of the particulars of getting information. If I understood correctly (and I may not have done):

- Massachusetts (? I think it was ?) has some sort of law as to what information manufacturers are compelled to make available to those who want to repair a vehicle. I'm not sure if this also had to do with parts prices and availability.
- I think he pays Tesla a certain amount of money (a few thousand a year? I don't remember) for a kind of full-blown mechanic's level of access to information in order to try to get things done.

Although I may be mistaken, it sounded as though he was crediting the law with at least helping him a bit. Still, he has some strong critical points to make about the Tesla repair process and limitations and issues.
 
jlsoaz said:
It's getting kind of out there, but fun conversation I think, so I'll say that I've spent a bit too much time watching and enjoying "Rich Rebuilds"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA

I love Rich Rebuilds. I agree the interactions he's had with Tesla were very discouraging and turned me off somewhat to them as a manufacturer, but it seems like all EV manufacturers act similar, as we discussed earlier.
 
Lothsahn said:
jlsoaz said:
It's getting kind of out there, but fun conversation I think, so I'll say that I've spent a bit too much time watching and enjoying "Rich Rebuilds"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA

I love Rich Rebuilds. I agree the interactions he's had with Tesla were very discouraging and turned me off somewhat to them as a manufacturer, but it seems like all EV manufacturers act similar, as we discussed earlier.

With respect to costs and hassles of EV repair, both via authorized mechanics or meeting people partway if they want to do some of the work themselves, I think unfortunately Tesla has an issue. Rich Rebuilds has shed a light on this, but it hasn't been all negative, and I think he has made a little progress and has helped Tesla to make a little progress.... not enough, but some. Tesla also unfortunately has issues with respect to overall need for repair on various parts, though I don't know that much about it. With respect to matters of future-proofing via making allowances for not only transparent pricing on equal battery replacement, but allowing for future replacement with larger batteries, I do think it's interesting that Tesla allowed for battery-upgrade on the Gen1 Roadsters, albeit at a very high price.

It's not exactly what we were discussing, but getting back to the thread genesis, I was contemplating why I was so disappointed in various manufacturers other than Tesla from 2011-2018, and it was in large part because in the US markets Tesla stood apart and none of the others got in the game fully. Tesla was the only one with the attitude and execution - to offer a high-quality (including value retention, including some good expectation of battery lifetime curve) true longer-range BEV, and do so with full intent of trying to satisfy as many orders and make as much money on the project as possible, and do so in a way that involved being around for the long haul.

Of the competitors, I set Nissan apart from the others because I think there were signs that it was not playing the same or as many of the compliance-car games - it seemed to intend volume sales, as much as possible. However, I think their sales volumes in the US and around the world were to an extent somewhat of a disappointment to them (whereas for other manufacturers, basically they did not really appear to intend to achieve very large BEV sales volumes, so it was not as much of a big deal..... the Bolt may be somewhat an exception to this late in the time period, .... not sure).

What lessons did Nissan take from this? It's almost 10 years later, and it seems they have finally learned their lesson as to range for the US market and possibly (we shall see) appealing to a much larger addressable market and so possibly achieving much higher sales volumes. (Some of us thought they could have learned this lesson sooner, but at least they have done it.) It just then begs a question of how many years will those longer-ranges last. If they sell people a 200+ EPA mile vehicle in 2019, how many miles of range will be available on that vehicle in 2024? I was looking at my own statement on my .sig of wanting to buy a used 150+ mile BEV and realized I don't know if the used Leaf e+ will qualify. I guess some of it will depend on geography.
 
jlsoaz said:
What lessons did Nissan take from this? It's almost 10 years later, and it seems they have finally learned their lesson as to range for the US market and possibly (we shall see) appealing to a much larger addressable market and so possibly achieving much higher sales volumes. (Some of us thought they could have learned this lesson sooner, but at least they have done it.)
Nissan is and was targeting a lower price point. Rather than a much more expensive car with larger battery, Nissan 10 years was offering a lower price car with lower range that restricted the market to those that could live with a limited range car. Did Nissan make mistakes? Of course. But I don't see how this was a mistake.


Battery prices are and have been rapidly falling. If Nissan had built the car you wanted in 2011, it would have been far more expensive. Roughly 3x the size of battery would have added $30,000 to $40,000 to the car in just battery costs.

I'm very glad I didn't have to buy a much larger battery pack in 2012 at an additional $30k or more. Spending twice as much on a new technology car is something I could not have done. I understood the real range limitations of the early LEAF. Unlike some.

Of course, not what you and others wanted. But you can't always get want.
 
jlsoaz said:
With respect to costs and hassles of EV repair, both via authorized mechanics or meeting people partway if they want to do some of the work themselves, I think unfortunately Tesla has an issue.
Perhaps, but I suspect not for the reasons you say. The historical sky-high costs associated with Tesla repair are from Model S and Model X -- two *luxury* models that are low volume.

It is not reasonable to extrapolate from those models to the Model 3 or the Model Y.

My hesitancy is due to the unusual (for the car industry) pace and approach to innovation. Tesla modifies parts every week of the year. Tesla will have to cooperate to facilitate a used part and non-OEM parts ecology. I think they will but time will tell.
 
Lothsahn said:
johnlocke said:
The real problem here is that Nissan picked the wrong chemistry to start with. The problem haunts them to this day. Higher average temps cause more rapid degradation in both the 24 and 30 KWH batteries. The jury is still out on the 40 KWH battery but the evidence so far doesn't look good. It will be another year before we will be able to say if the 40 KWH is really any better or worse. It does look like there's a problem fast charging the 40 KWH battery during road trips. NIssan will continue to use the same chemistry simply because it works ok in their primary markets ( Europe and Japan). Nissan USA has repeatedly ignored customer complaints and failed to act except under court duress.

Honestly, I think the real problem is that while they've kept the battery size the same, they refuse to sell upgrades. If people could buy a replacement 40 kWh battery for the 24 kWh original cars, I don't think there would be the negative attention that they're getting right now. They've already figured out how to fit 60 kWh in basically the same size. Also a possibility for a future upgrade, but Nissan likely won't do it.

Tesla's got goodwill because they make their cars better via constant software updates and improvements. Nissan has a huge opportunity here to set a precedent that their cars will get better when you buy a replacement battery in ~10 years after the original purchase, but there's not currently the will to do that. It's not even hard--they just have to design a BMS to talk to the older VCM protocol, and reprogram the VCM to update the GOM.
Nissan sells cars not batteries! I suspect that their internal manufacturing costs for the battery are so high that it's not possible for them to sell replacement batteries at a profit. If they sell you a higher capacity battery to replace the one you have that's a lost sale on a new car. It would improve their brand loyalty and lead to future sales but they're not interested in that. They are only interested quarterly sales numbers. There is no technical reason they couldn't offer a high capacity replacement battery. They intentionally make it difficult to do because they want to sell you a new car.
 
johnlocke said:
If they sell you a higher capacity battery to replace the one you have that's a lost sale on a new car.
To a different manufacturer, for the most part. Because there are very few LEAF owners who accept the notion of throwing away a 5-8 year old LEAF and buying another one. This forum has a couple people like that but they are way outnumbered by the people who say "not again." And Nissan collects ill-will along the way.

So why is Nissan acting this way, presuming they are being rational ?
I think one reason is that Nissan does not operate on brand loyalty or word of mouth when it comes to the LEAF; they sell cars to people looking for the cheapest price -- period. No brand loyalty, no brand memory. It is a slam, bam, thank you ma'am relationship on both sides. Once the purchase transaction is concluded, Nissan is not going to eat any costs to keep the car going. I pretty much take at face value that it costs them $6,000 or so to supply a replacement battery pack. And as for an upgraded pack replacement ? There are not enough customers to recoup the R&D involved, so it will never happen.

Bottom line: Nissan discounts goodwill to zero where the LEAF is concerned. The day that the LEAF became a compliance car, the corporate stance was inevitable.
 
SageBrush said:
johnlocke said:
If they sell you a higher capacity battery to replace the one you have that's a lost sale on a new car.
To a different manufacturer, for the most part. Because there are very few LEAF owners who accept the notion of throwing away a 5-8 year old LEAF and buying another one. This forum has a couple people like that but they are way outnumbered by the people who say "not again." And Nissan collects ill-will along the way.

So why is Nissan acting this way, presuming they are being rational ?
I think one reason is that Nissan does not operate on brand loyalty or word of mouth when it comes to the LEAF; they sell cars to people looking for the cheapest price -- period. No brand loyalty, no brand memory. It is a slam, bam, thank you ma'am relationship on both sides. Once the purchase transaction is concluded, Nissan is not going to eat any costs to keep the car going. I pretty much take at face value that it costs them $6,000 or so to supply a replacement battery pack. And as for an upgraded pack replacement ? There are not enough customers to recoup the R&D involved, so it will never happen.

Bottom line: Nissan discounts goodwill to zero where the LEAF is concerned. The day that the LEAF became a compliance car, the corporate stance was inevitable.

LEAF is not and was never a compliance car. Sold around the world, in places without any CARB connection.

I can't buy compliance cars without a long trip. I don't live in a CARB state.

I don't like Tesla's engineering, and I don't like the style of Tesla. I don't like water in the battery case for active cooling. Not how I'd design an EV for in town and commuting. I don't like battery fires.

My other choices? Very few in the past. Hopefully there will be more in the future. My 8080 computer still works, but I don't use it much anymore.
 
johnlocke said:
[...] There is no technical reason they couldn't offer a high capacity replacement battery. [...]

When Nissan finally offered a 30 kWh Leaf, and I think I still had a lease on a 24 kWh Leaf, I called them to see if I could firm up whatever answer I could get on whether I could get an upgrade, and if not, why not? The answer I got, if I recall, was that there was too much complication to installing the then-new 30 kWh pack in the old 24 kWh spot. I don't know that it would have been technically impossible for Nissan to have designed the new pack to be backwards compatible in a more plug-in sort of way, but, by the time the 30 kWh was issued, for whatever reason, the decision seemed to have been made to make that pack not-compatible.... at least not for purposes of a basic/easy dealer-level swapping-in upgrade process that some of us drivers might have paid for.
 
Regarding Nissan's own disappointments:
https://index.qz.com/1237686/nissan-wants-to-sell-one-million-electric-cars-per-year-until-2023/
Published March 27, 2018 | Photo by Reuters/Rick Wilking

"....Nissan failed to reach a similar target in the past. Together with Renault, it aimed to sell 1.5 million units of electric vehicles by 2016, but it only sold about 500,000...."
 
jlsoaz said:
I called them to see if I could firm up whatever answer I could get on whether I could get an upgrade, and if not, why not? The answer I got, if I recall, was that there was too much complication to installing the then-new 30 kWh pack in the old 24 kWh spot.

This is bunk. The physical dimensions are the same. The connectors are the same, except that the 2011/2102 need an adapter, which has already been built for the 24kWh replacements. Mux has shown spoofing the BMS to provide proper 3 digit range estimation for a larger pack. A hacker in Ukraine has mounted a 40 kWh pack in a 24 kWh and shown it driving the expected range of a 40 kWh pack.

All of the pieces have been demonstrated working. Nothing is particularly difficult. The only explanation is exactly what John said: " Nissan doesn't want to. Nissan is in the business of selling cars, not batteries."

My opinion is that Tesla has proven the business model. If you sell upgrades to existing owners and support your product, you generate buzz and excitement. When you produce a defective product and don't support your customers, you have poor resale values, high depreciation, and low NPS.

The assumption is that an owner seeking a battery will be converted to a new car buyer. This is true sometimes, but most will likely not return to Nissan now that competitive EVs exist.

The high depreciation scares away new buyers and raises leasing prices, which are key problems with Leaf sales today.
 
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