Do electric cars exist?

[SageBrush]

As you said in a previous comment, it takes you 10-15 minutes to charge up for two hours of driving in your 3. I don't know how fast you drive, but let's say that's 30 kWh. At 50 kW, charging up that amount should only take an upgraded LEAF 35 minutes - about twice as long as your Tesla.

Your arithmetic is off.
For my Tesla Model 3 LR I can average 180 kW for the session needed on a V3 Supercharger to drive 130 - 140 miles in two hours in non-adverse conditions.

A Gen1 LEAF would be lucky to average 40 kW, and I think it will be closer to 35 kW

 

[SageBrush]

For one thing: the Leaf's 96S battery never reaches 400V (4.17V/cell) as it limits voltage to about 4.10V/cell at 100% charge.

Indeed. The lion's share of the charging between 10% - 80% occurs at 3.6 - 3.7 volts per cell. This is why I wrote that the average pack voltage is in the range of 360 - 370 volts. The Amp taper begins in the 40-50% SoC range. Even if we are generous and presume an average 100 Amps for the session the average power will be 36 - 37 kW.

This number crunching is only meant to emphasize the general problem with updating one aspect of a car: the other outdated tech drags down the value proposition when compared to its new(er) competition.

 

[Lothsahn]

No. I just replaced the battery in mine to the tune of $3500 out of pocket. Increasing the range for $17k when I'm able to get 60 miles that works for 90% of my driving isn't worth it.

I also lack a QC port, so I can't use the car as a long-distance car no matter how much I want to. So there's really little benefit of a 70 kWh battery over a 40 kWh battery. My longest local trip is 90 miles highway, roundtrip. Currently, I just use my ICE for that.

Now, $10-11k for a 40 kWh battery? I'd do that if I had the original battery. That 150 mile range would cover *all* of my local driving needs.

 

[SageBrush]

^^

For me the magic number is about $80 - $120 a month ($1,000 - $1,500 a year) to extend use.
Thinking about this a little more, I suspect that a lot of my objection to the OP schema is an attempt to make my LEAF *more* than what it was when I bought it. It is perhaps not obvious why that is an obstacle. It happens because I chose the car to meet a personal use case, and an update offer that does not meet my use case tends to be poor value.

This is why people tend to ask for 24 - 30 kWh: that is the car that worked for them. Any attempt to turn a 24 - 30 kWh LEAF into something that it is not (big battery notwithstanding) tends to be perceived as poor value.

 

[Anonymous]

SageBrush,

I appreciate your corrections. As for the charging rate on an upgraded Leaf, I think you may be misunderstanding it a bit. The current tapers much earlier the higher your initial charge rate - if you charge at 0.2C, for example, you won't taper until you hit 95% or so. The original Leafs charged on CHAdeMO today all taper for two reasons: thermal management and pack size.

If your (80 kWh?) Model 3 can handle (thermally and cathodically) an average of 180 kW for the first 80%, ending at roughly 50 kW, a 70 kWh Leaf with almost identical chemistry and slightly less cooling should certainly handle a third of that average with no problems. Provided the 55 kWh Model 3 can average 180kW, the reality is even more obvious.

 

[golfcart]

I would personally NOT pay $17k for that service. Too much money to spend on an old Leaf with a dated chassis, mediocre performance, slow DC charging, terrible resale, and suspect styling. The 1st gen Leaf is a great value as an around town commuter car but I wouldn't spend a bunch of $$ to try and make it more than that.

 

[Anonymous]

Thinking about this a little more, I suspect that a lot of my objection to the OP schema is an attempt to make my LEAF *more* than what it was when I bought it. It is perhaps not obvious why that is an obstacle. It happens because I chose the car to meet a personal use case, and an update offer that does not meet my use case tends to be poor value.

This is why people tend to ask for 24 - 30 kWh: that is the car that worked for them. Any attempt to turn a 24 - 30 kWh LEAF into something that it is not (big battery notwithstanding) tends to be perceived as poor value.

Interesting point. Do you think your ownership of a long-range EV (Model 3) affects your choice at all? If your Model 3 was a comparably-priced ICE, my guess is that you'd be willing to pay at least $1500/year to have 280 miles of Leaf range instead. Most people are paying 3-4x that much just to finance/lease their Teslas (and 2019 Leaf Pluses).

Even if you bought a 2017 or 2018, just to minimize miles, you'd still be on top financially (in Colorado, to the tune of >$15k) with an upgraded Leaf. The 1st-gen restriction is basically arbitrary since most 2018/19 owners are happy with their car as it is.

 

[SageBrush]

Thinking about this a little more, I suspect that a lot of my objection to the OP schema is an attempt to make my LEAF *more* than what it was when I bought it. It is perhaps not obvious why that is an obstacle. It happens because I chose the car to meet a personal use case, and an update offer that does not meet my use case tends to be poor value.

This is why people tend to ask for 24 - 30 kWh: that is the car that worked for them. Any attempt to turn a 24 - 30 kWh LEAF into something that it is not (big battery notwithstanding) tends to be perceived as poor value.

Interesting point. Do you think your ownership of a long-range EV (Model 3) affects your choice at all? If your Model 3 was a comparably-priced ICE, my guess is that you'd be willing to pay at least $1500/year to have 280 miles of Leaf range instead. Most people are paying 3-4x that much just to finance/lease their Teslas (and 2019 Leaf Pluses).

.

The problem here is that the Model 3 is a full ICE replacement while the 280 mile LEAF is not due to the poor charging. This becomes a Goldilocks moment: the 280 LEAF is way more than what I bought my LEAF for but it is not a Tesla replacement. I bought the LEAF knowing that it would only be used as a local commuter. You can turn it into an over-spec'd local commuter but you cannot make it into an ICE replacement. The upgraded LEAF is more than I wanted and at the same time not enough to cover my other use cases.

Unstated so far is that I bought the LEAF *cheaply* to cover a limited use case. Paying a lot for an upgrade that does not change my use case for the car is not attractive.

 

[LeftieBiker]

^^

For me the magic number is about $80 - $120 a month ($1,000 - $1,500 a year) to extend use.
Thinking about this a little more, I suspect that a lot of my objection to the OP schema is an attempt to make my LEAF *more* than what it was when I bought it. It is perhaps not obvious why that is an obstacle. It happens because I chose the car to meet a personal use case, and an update offer that does not meet my use case tends to be poor value.

This is why people tend to ask for 24 - 30 kWh: that is the car that worked for them. Any attempt to turn a 24 - 30 kWh LEAF into something that it is not (big battery notwithstanding) tends to be perceived as poor value.

I think that going for a 40kwh pack for a reasonable price is better than trying for the less than 90 or barely 80 mile range you seem satisfied with. I agree that $17k is just too high, but $12k for a 40kwh pack (with a real warranty) that makes the Gen I Leaf the car it should have been would likely succeed.

 

[davewill]

Are we just quietly assuming that this magic battery will fit in the same space as the existing one and weigh the same, or are we talking about losing interior space and significantly increasing the weight as well? If the car loses utility as well, the idea gets that much worse.

I agree with the rest that trying to turn an old LEAF into a 200 mile EV is too ambitious when used EVs are becoming more available in this niche. Better to concentrate on a 30-40kWh replacement that would be more moderately priced. Get those old LEAFS to go 100 miles real world range, and you've got a solid car for lots of uses.

 

[SageBrush]

^^

For me the magic number is about $80 - $120 a month ($1,000 - $1,500 a year) to extend use.
Thinking about this a little more, I suspect that a lot of my objection to the OP schema is an attempt to make my LEAF *more* than what it was when I bought it. It is perhaps not obvious why that is an obstacle. It happens because I chose the car to meet a personal use case, and an update offer that does not meet my use case tends to be poor value.

This is why people tend to ask for 24 - 30 kWh: that is the car that worked for them. Any attempt to turn a 24 - 30 kWh LEAF into something that it is not (big battery notwithstanding) tends to be perceived as poor value.

I think that going for a 40kwh pack for a reasonable price is better than trying for the less than 90 or barely 80 mile range you seem satisfied with. I agree that $17k is just too high, but $12k for a 40kwh pack (with a real warranty) that makes the Gen I Leaf the car it should have been would likely succeed.

I agree with 40 kWh since it will let the car last a long time for the duties it was originally bought for. The problem, as OP has explained, is that a small pack does not cover the R&D

 

[Nubo]

I'd love to extend the range of my 2015 LEAF, but $250/kWh is just too much for a pack two or three years from now, even if support, safety and operability were assured.

 

[johnlocke]

Problem with a smaller battery is that it doesn't last long enough to justify the cost of replacing it. You have to charge it too frequently and as the battery inevitably degrades, range still becomes an issue. 40KWH is not big enough to cover loss of range and you could buy a used low mileage 40KWH Leaf for not much more than $17K and still get the warranty. You might get away with 50KWH but the sweet spot is still around 60KWH.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd love to extend the range of my 2015 LEAF, but $250/kWh is just too much for a pack two or three years from now, even if support, safety and operability were assured.

$17k is the theoretical price today. Two or three years from now, a 60 kWh upgrade could cost as little as $10k - but someone has to pay for the development costs, the sooner the better.

johnlocke has the right idea about capacity. Lifetime increases mostly linearly and a little bit exponentially with capacity, assuming you aren't hammering the battery at 100% throttle the whole day.

A 40 kWh pack also lacks the "wow" factor. If you can't do better than the cheapest Tesla, why even bother?

 

[Anonymous]

Are we just quietly assuming that this magic battery will fit in the same space as the existing one and weigh the same, or are we talking about losing interior space and significantly increasing the weight as well? If the car loses utility as well, the idea gets that much worse.

Those are indeed the conditions of this hypothetical and are indeed actually physically possible. The car would weigh perhaps 50-150 kg more, but that shouldn't be a dealbreaker.

SageBrush - I disagree. The buried premise of this hypothetical is that 60/70 kWh turns the Leaf into a ICE nearly-replacement, and for a decent proportion of people (certainly moreso Leaf owners) that premise is not unreasonable. For a Tesla owner, it probably is, but they already paid handsomely for a road-trip capable EV.

Sure, on a road trip you'll spend more time at a DCFC, but that doesn't mean a roadtrip would be impossible or even inconvenient. Based on some napkin math, a 70 kWh Leaf could manage a Cannonball run in under 80 hours no problem. The fastest Tesla run is about 48 hours and the fastest ICE run about 35, by comparison.

There's a difference between the "cheap 1st gen Leaf" you have in mind and the comfortable, optimized 2014-2017 that many enjoy today. The cars have genuinely improved.

 

[drhlee1]

I agree with everyone that has posted so far, $17K is way too much to be spending on a car that is a few years old. I just leased a 2019 SV Plus with sticker price of around $41K in September, below is the cost if I were to buy it from Nissan today:
Down payment: $3500
October Payment: $325
Cost to buy the car from NMAC: $25,478.19 (buy off price is $23,321 before tax)
NMAC Acquisition Fee: $300
Dealer Doc Fee: $400 (guess, not sure how much it is)

Total cost if I went to buy the car now: $30,003.19
After CA, PGE and Local Rebate: $25,703

This is for a 62 kWh Leaf with 3 year full manufacture warranty and a 8 year or 10,000 miles warranty on the battery and can accept higher DCFC charging rate. The 62 kWh Leaf has way more power, automatic emergency braking, e-pedal, radar cruise control, Apple CarPlay and a nicer dash board and other improvement. I did not buy the Tech Package, so I don't have the Pro-Pilot assist.

Compare to the $17K for the 70 kWh battery and $6K for the used Leaf which comes out to $23K. I would sell the old Leaf and buy a new one for $25,703.

How about sell an upgrade kit so we can put more efficient electric motor or electronics into the Leaf? Kind of like kids sup up their Hondas or Toyota, but we can sup up our Leaf by making it more efficient and squeeze more miles out of it.

 

[SageBrush]

Problem with a smaller battery is that it doesn't last long enough to justify the cost of replacing it. You have to charge it too frequently and as the battery inevitably degrades, range still becomes an issue. 40KWH is not big enough to cover loss of range and you could buy a used low mileage 40KWH Leaf for not much more than $17K and still get the warranty. You might get away with 50KWH but the sweet spot is still around 60KWH.

40 kWh can degrade 50% and be the car that a person was happy with when new-ish.

 

[Anonymous]

I also lack a QC port, so I can't use the car as a long-distance car no matter how much I want to. So there's really little benefit of a 70 kWh battery over a 40 kWh battery. My longest local trip is 90 miles highway, roundtrip. Currently, I just use my ICE for that.

If your car magically grew a CHAdeMO port, what price do you think would be appropriate for your ideal ICE-replacement battery?

drhlee1: Many people don't have access to the incentives you get in CA. Your car is unlikely to do well on a cross-country roadtrip longer than 700-1000 miles due to the lack of thermal management (but what do I know). Your math checks out, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

Motor or inverter or regen upgrades are so complex and safety-critical, compared to the battery, that even a basic hardware upgrade would probably be over $25,000. People who could afford to soup up their Leaf can probably afford a Tesla.

 

[SageBrush]

SageBrush - I disagree. The buried premise of this hypothetical is that 60/70 kWh turns the Leaf into an ICE replacement

Now exposed, and we will have to agree to disagree. As does the market -- just look at LEAF sales in the USA.
@drhlee has nailed this: your hypothetical's competition is the LEAF+ or the 40 kWh LEAF, depending on use case.

The 40 kWh LEAF is cheaper;
The LEAF+ is not much more expensive for a new car with (somewhat) upgraded electronics. Certainly the 200 Amp throughput has value for long day trips*.

*Remember the Nissan song: "No more than one charge a day keeps rapid-gate away."

 

[Anonymous]

SageBrush - I disagree. The buried premise of this hypothetical is that 60/70 kWh turns the Leaf into an ICE replacement

Now exposed, and we will have to agree to disagree. As does the market -- just look at LEAF sales in the USA.
@drhlee has nailed this: your hypothetical's competition is the LEAF+ or the 40 kWh LEAF, depending on use case.

The 40 kWh LEAF is cheaper;
The LEAF+ is not much more expensive for a new car with (somewhat) upgraded electronics. Certainly the 200 Amp throughput has value for long day trips*.

*Remember the Nissan song: "No more than one charge a day keeps rapid-gate away."

The Leaf Plus is not an ICE replacement - primarily due to its lack of thermal management. The missing TMS has been a dealbreaker for more people than I think Nissan can even imagine, but even so I'm afraid many people who have taken the Plus as one will learn the reality the hard way.

Taking a Plus across the country just once at a reasonable pace (3-4 days) would cause something like 3-5% degradation, right off the bat. Do that six or seven times and you're instantly at 80% state of health.

40 kWh can degrade 50% and be the car that a person was happy with when new-ish.

I don't know if there's a comment in the thread that fewer people would agree with.