Maybe it’s just me, but I am not really happy about Nissan's current battery warranty: I have tried to “baby” our Leaf’s batteries as much as I could, but last September at 38k I lost my 3rd bar in sunny S CAL and with the math on what you all have been posting about the loss of bar 4, it will be close, but most likely off by a couple of weeks or months ( my 60 months are over in June, just before the relentless summer heat )
The warranty as it is, seems unfair to me: as close to loosing the 4th bar yet not anywhere close to the 60000miles and from all you reporting here, it seems fair to say that ALL early batteries are degrading faster than they were to be expected ( via Nissan original marketing ) in warmer climates. Wether or not they do to exactly within the warranty terms ( cutoff at 60 month or 60000miles) just does not seem right.
My suggestion is, to allow for a replacement of the batteries at a discount, the earlier you need it the bigger the discount for these 1st generation batteries, something like this:
New battery warranty replacement plan:
loss of bar 4 at 60 month or 60.000: free of cost
loss of bar 4 at 65 month or 65.000: 75% discount on replacement
loss of bar 4 at 70 month or 70k: 50% discount,
and so forth…
I am no numbers guy, the details need to be worked out, but you get the idea...
To me this would not only seem more fair but also more ecologically responsible, which is one reason I wanted to be an early adopter. The present warranty - on the contrary - gives you an incentive to "mistreat" your batteries just to make it for a free replacement. But that is not what I believe, any of us really wanted.
A discounted warranty option would give responsible drivers a much better reason to keep their cars running as long as possible on the original set of batteries.
And it would also make Nissan into what I want to believed they wanted to be: The first really committed car company to make electric work!
But again: maybe that’s just me? What do you think?
If there were enough of us, maybe there'd be a way to campaign for this...
The warranty as it is, seems unfair to me: as close to loosing the 4th bar yet not anywhere close to the 60000miles and from all you reporting here, it seems fair to say that ALL early batteries are degrading faster than they were to be expected ( via Nissan original marketing ) in warmer climates. Wether or not they do to exactly within the warranty terms ( cutoff at 60 month or 60000miles) just does not seem right.
My suggestion is, to allow for a replacement of the batteries at a discount, the earlier you need it the bigger the discount for these 1st generation batteries, something like this:
New battery warranty replacement plan:
loss of bar 4 at 60 month or 60.000: free of cost
loss of bar 4 at 65 month or 65.000: 75% discount on replacement
loss of bar 4 at 70 month or 70k: 50% discount,
and so forth…
I am no numbers guy, the details need to be worked out, but you get the idea...
To me this would not only seem more fair but also more ecologically responsible, which is one reason I wanted to be an early adopter. The present warranty - on the contrary - gives you an incentive to "mistreat" your batteries just to make it for a free replacement. But that is not what I believe, any of us really wanted.
A discounted warranty option would give responsible drivers a much better reason to keep their cars running as long as possible on the original set of batteries.
And it would also make Nissan into what I want to believed they wanted to be: The first really committed car company to make electric work!
But again: maybe that’s just me? What do you think?
If there were enough of us, maybe there'd be a way to campaign for this...