The 62kWh Battery Topic

[SageBrush]

I'm asking you to specify the EV that would have met your 'financial and environmental conservation' standard in 2013:

Price
Performance
Range
Amenities
Size

I'm not sure why you would be asking this.

It should be obvious. You keep saying that no manufacturer addressed *you*, which you stereotype as the 'financial and environmental conservation' slice of the market. I'd like to put numbers on your label.

No WOT needed. Just 5 or 6 words that characterize the vehicle.

 

[GRA]

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

I'm asking you to specify the EV that would have met your 'financial and environmental conservation' standard in 2013:

Price
Performance
Range
Amenities
Size

Ok, well, thanks for making it more clear.

[edited] To move on to the question: I'm not sure why you would be asking this. Have I said (or even thought) that the task any accomplished the task at that time? No, I haven't. On the contrary, I am trying to get across that there is a great untalked-about here, which is that the companies who went after that task, including Nissan, did not (in my view) have as strong reasoning behind this push as sometimes seems to be accepted in EV conversations here and there. Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not a fan of the effort to try to go after the econocar-buying ($15-$25k gasoline equivalent) vehicle addressable market with $40k short-range BEVs. I don't know if I always saw this fully and clearly at the time as there were a lot of moving parts to the discussions, and the American market had been artificially starved of a robust selection of any BEVs at all. To some extent it still is, though clearly that's evolved a bit.

See this post from 2014, especially James Greenberger's remarks from 2010: https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14744&p=369695&hilit=Bottled+lightning#p369695

 

[jlsoaz]

It should be obvious. You keep saying that no manufacturer addressed *you*, which you stereotype as the 'financial and environmental conservation' slice of the market. I'd like to put numbers on your label.
No WOT needed. Just 5 or 6 words that characterize the vehicle.

Please quote back to me where I have said this, or anything like it. If I've actually done that, then maybe I could find a toehoid to respond to whatever it is you are going on about. No idea what "WOT" is.

 

[jlsoaz]

It should be obvious. You keep saying that no manufacturer addressed *you*, which you stereotype as the 'financial and environmental conservation' slice of the market. I'd like to put numbers on your label.

No WOT needed. Just 5 or 6 words that characterize the vehicle.

I should add:

Sometimes I like to discuss my personal wants and needs, but generally I engage in a lot of industry discussion that has nothing to do with those wants and needs. As far as I can recall, my reference to the financial and environmental conservation folks was meant to be a reference to the mistaken (in my view) efforts by the manufacturers to characterize potential BEV buyers as either geeky greens willing to make sacrifices, or as people trying to save a buck, such as on TCO and fuel costs. I don't remember trying to associate this with myself, but maybe you'll be able to quote something back to me which will help me understand whatever it is you are going on about. In any event, I regard the mis-characterization of the statements of others, and projecting onto them things they haven't said or implied, as a pretty unethical thing, and if people do it to me, then I'm not sure how they expect any productive discussion, about anything. My working hypothesis here is that you have some sort of pet peeve, you've projected it onto whatever I've written, and that's what you're arguing with. I can't and won't defend what I don't think and haven't said. (Not to mention that there's no need for the impolite tone).

 

[LeftieBiker]

Sagebrush, I see no evidence whatsoever of what you claim to have been jlsoaz's position(s). You do indeed appear to be building and then attacking strawmen with his name on them. Please stop, and please edit or delete your posts to remove said strawman arguments.

 

[jlsoaz]

See this post from 2014, especially James Greenberger's remarks from 2010: https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14744&p=369695&hilit=Bottled+lightning#p369695

Good post, thanks for mentioning it.

There's some interesting discussion about PHEVs there. I remember the discussions about PHEVs being a gateway drug, but I don't remember who was first, if anyone. Lately I've been trying to mull over PHEVs and what role they serve in the here and now. If we make another 2 or 3 generations of PHEVs before we finally substitute in all BEVs, how much more carbon is that (just to make the cars, not to mention burning the fuel)? If it's really just a bridge technology then how far do we use it? I suppose technically there's some possibility that a zero carbon drop-in replacement liquid fuel for combustion engines finally could be made available, or that some of the engines could be manufactured to meet the situation partway, and that could change the questions around PHEVs and whether they can play a role in a post-carbon effort, but does anyone see any real movement toward this?

Well, so much of the BEV deployment pace seems supply-constrained (for the good BEVs that is, the deployment of the less-good BEVs is probably demand constrained, as it shouldbe), even despite the moderate price of gasoline. The supply of the good BEVs appears in part to be constrained by battery supply, and so maybe that all adds up to PHEVs, with their lower kWh requirements, playing a role for awhile longer.

You quoted James Greenberger.I liked this part:

"....We will sell EVs and PHEVs to folks who bought the Prius, no question. But that is not an economically sustainable market, and it's not a politically sustainable market, because if we find ourselves in five years with a PHEV and EV market that is entirely dependent on wealthy consumers and government subsidies, the government subsidies will go away...."

 

[jlsoaz]

See this post from 2014, especially James Greenberger's remarks from 2010: https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14744&p=369695&hilit=Bottled+lightning#p369695

Good post, thanks for mentioning it.

There's some interesting discussion about PHEVs there. I remember the discussions about PHEVs being a gateway drug, but I don't remember who was first, if anyone. Lately I've been trying to mull over PHEVs and what role they serve in the here and now. If we make another 2 or 3 generations of PHEVs before we finally substitute in all BEVs, how much more carbon is that (just to make the cars, not to mention burning the fuel)? If it's really just a bridge technology then how far do we use it? I suppose technically there's some possibility that a zero carbon drop-in replacement liquid fuel for combustion engines finally could be made available, or that some of the engines could be manufactured to meet the situation partway, and that could change the questions around PHEVs and whether they can play a role in a post-carbon effort, but does anyone see any real movement toward this?

Well, so much of the BEV deployment pace seems supply-constrained (for the good BEVs that is, the deployment of the less-good BEVs is probably demand constrained, as it shouldbe), even despite the moderate price of gasoline. The supply of the good BEVs appears in part to be constrained by battery supply, and so maybe that all adds up to PHEVs, with their lower kWh requirements, playing a role for awhile longer.

You quoted James Greenberger.I liked this part:

"....We will sell EVs and PHEVs to folks who bought the Prius, no question. But that is not an economically sustainable market, and it's not a politically sustainable market, because if we find ourselves in five years with a PHEV and EV market that is entirely dependent on wealthy consumers and government subsidies, the government subsidies will go away...."

Ok, I"ll admit while I get enthusiastic to talk about some of this stuff, maybe I'm getting a bit too far off-topic, I"ll try to figure out how to make it mostly more relevant going forward.

 

[SageBrush]

Still, I also didn't fully buy Nissan's answer in 2010; I was concerned when I saw Nissan seeming to buy too much into the "commuters only travel thus far" thinking. ...

I thought at the time, and still think, that their middle ground answer of going for the economically-minded and environmentally-minded buyers primarily, was tragically flawed..... not quite as badly as the blatantly disrespectful tiny econocar short-range BEV compliance-car efforts that were not going to sell very well in the US, but still, not what it should have been, if they really wanted to make money and build business (IMO).

I mis-read your posts to say that Nissan should have tried to corner the 'environmental, financial' conservative crowd. You think they should have built for the Infinity crowd. Look at this graph from Bloomberg NEF

Let's help Nissan build an Infiniti EV circa 2010:
250 mile range, 3 miles per kWh: 80 kWh
-- Manufacturer pack cost: $90k
ICE level amenities and cost in 2010: I'll guess $30k
Inter-city travel: Not possible, or at 40 kW CHAdeMO until it rapid-gates
Battery degradation: ~ 30% in 5 years
So now we are at $120k manufacturer cost for a car that has limited utility and is a ghost of itself in 3 years. That is an upgrade cycle of every 3 years or so, and depreciation of somewhere in the range of $30k a year... presuming Nissan sold at the marginal cost of production. No profit, and no attempt to recoup R&D.

Call me naive, but I'm not surprised that Nissan did not take your advice.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

I agree that 2010 was not the year for an Injfity rollout. 2015 would have been the time to strike...but they would have had to sell it at a modest loss for the first year or two.

Nissan could have used their dealer network for DC charging, but the problem was that they tried to push 100% of the DC costs down on the Dealers. This could have been brilliant ( but instead became a doomed strategy). With dealer across the country, you would only need to then add a handful of stations to complete coverage. That could have been done with a partner. With a 250 mile EV and a meaningful coverage map, you now have a competitor.

Now what happened was they tried to strong arm dealers into paying 100% of the dc chargers and power for the chargers. Many in large urban areas did it, most rural ones did not. It wasn't worth it to the dealer, especially 5 years ago. With only a 100 miles sunny day max range (at 45mph) ev available, why push harder, it couldn't make the jumps anyway. If you had (in 2015) a 250 mile 60k Infiniti rolling around the country..its a different story. Nissan was probably the only car company that could have given Tesla a run for their money. But they choose the past instead of the future and sold a lot of Rogues for a couple years.

I do give full credit to Tesla here for the vision and execution. Burocratic companies rarely can get themselves to take those sort of Leaps. And a result they die and startups win. It happens over and over. To many 55 year old c suite suits protecting their next year's bonus....honestly at a cost to long term shareholder value.

The upside today is some very value priced EVs from Nissan after all the discounts. So far so good on the Plus batteries.

 

[jlsoaz]

I mis-read your posts to say that Nissan should have tried to corner the 'environmental, financial' conservative crowd. You think they should have built for the Infinity crowd. Look at this graph from Bloomberg NEF

Ok, thanks. I have to work, but I'll put a bookmark to take a look at formulating a considered response later. To at least try to tie this bookmark into thread relevance, when I now look at a 62 kWh Leaf with no liquid cooling, rapidgate and concerns around hot-climate degradation, and I look at Nissan finally moving to the battery size and approach of the Ariya, it just seems worth reviewing where they've been, where they're going, and whether they could have followed a somewhat different path.

 

[SageBrush]

Nissan could have used their dealer network for DC charging, but the problem was that they tried to push 100% of the DC costs down on the Dealers. This could have been brilliant ( but instead became a doomed strategy). With dealer across the country, you would only need to then add a handful of stations to complete coverage. That could have been done with a partner. With a 250 mile EV and a meaningful coverage map, you now have a competitor.

That is not competition, that is a joke.

Remember, your exercise is to build an infinity EV in 2015 for $60k that consumers will buy instead of a Tesla. I think it is fair to say that infiniti buyers prize convenience and comfort. Imagine their response to a car that has to leave the highway to find a dealership with at best one working CHAdeMO plug that fills their car up at 40 kW ... until the car rapidgates.

Would you buy that car instead of a Tesla ?

 

[lorenfb]

I agree that 2010 was not the year for an Injfity rollout. 2015 would have been the time to strike...but they would have had to sell it at a modest loss for the first year or two.

Nissan has not ever been considered a premium vehicle manufacturer, e.g. the very very marginal sales of the Infiniti ICEV.
Given that, attempting to upscale its product line in the BEV market by producing a product such as the Ariya will result in
even lower sales than Leaf 2, thereby further increasing NIssan's losses. To attempt to achieve even a small volume (10-15%)
of Tesla's BEV market share is naive for any OEM automotive manufacturer in the near future, let alone Nissan.

The "proposed" Ariya product is laughable!

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

Forum,

Just to confirm that my battery uptick (from 94.29% to 94.96% SoH) stuck, so still pretty happy about the change. If my flatline is around 95%, guess I am reasonably satisfied with the battery tenacity so far for the car 14 or so months into ownership. (15 since car build)

I think I miscalculated the days, and had put the readjustment at 3 calendar months on my calendar, not 90 days so it likely adjusted completely a few days before the 15th.

On a slight different note, I just noticed that the S+ tires are 205s where the SV+ has 215s. I have seen in a number of forums where narrower tires impact range. I am curious how much impact the tire width has vs. the heavier rim on overall performance?

Separately, Infinity was in its hey day in 2014, so it would have been the right time to take that jump.

 

[salyavin]

On Nissan only ever being cheap cars, the fuga and such were somewhat premium cars, at least back in Japan and was considered acceptable to some of my well to do family there for a while until they went Audi. The GTR which my father in law used to drive was not an economy car either. Otherwise I do agree Nissan has been heavy on economy cars, more so when Carlos came in to try and rescue a failing company and focused on the low end.

On the Ariya I have not got to see one in person but it appears to be a CUV which should mean higher clearance than a Tesla model Y this increases utility for people going skiing or on some slighly bumpy (but not full 4x4) roads. I think the Ariya will get a few buyers who don't care for some aspects of Tesla especially if they still have that tax credit. When they lose the tax credit I agree they will be left with a few percent of the market to play with. I am interested in seeing the Ariya. Your point of trying to change perception from a value (cheap) carmaker to a premium and trying to fight Tesla on a similar price point being an extremely difficult proposition, I agree. Tesla is not the only one Nissan is facing, Kia is putting out some cars that look good if they would scale up production.

 

[lorenfb]

Forum,
Just to confirm that my battery uptick (from 94.29% to 94.96% SoH) stuck, so still pretty happy about the change.

It's in the noise level.

If my flatline is around 95%, guess I am reasonably satisfied with the battery tenacity so far for the car 14 or so months into ownership. (15 since car build)

Dream on!

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

I will...at least for 3 months.

Any other Plus data points out there?

 

[LeftieBiker]

As long as the Ariya has excellent build quality, and the Model Y continues to have glaring build quality issues, the Ariya will sell well enough. No one wants a brand new $50k car that looks like it was wrecked and then put back together with used parts.

 

[WetEV]

Sometimes I like to discuss my personal wants and needs, but generally I engage in a lot of industry discussion that has nothing to do with those wants and needs. As far as I can recall, my reference to the financial and environmental conservation folks was meant to be a reference to the mistaken (in my view) efforts by the manufacturers to characterize potential BEV buyers as either geeky greens willing to make sacrifices, or as people trying to save a buck, such as on TCO and fuel costs.

The target market for EVs was way off. As the last time EVs were common was the 1920's, some in industry thought that the new EVs would follow the same demographics as before.

Upper income married women.

 

[GRA]

Ok, I"ll admit while I get enthusiastic to talk about some of this stuff, maybe I'm getting a bit too far off-topic, I"ll try to figure out how to make it mostly more relevant going forward.

See: https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=31164

 

[webeleafowners]

As long as the Ariya has excellent build quality, and the Model Y continues to have glaring build quality issues, the Ariya will sell well enough. No one wants a brand new $50k car that looks like it was wrecked and then put back together with used parts.

We parked beside a model Y from Alberta today at the Superstore. It struck me how high it was compared to our 3. It’s 39 degrees here today so I stayed in our nice cool car. It looked okay but I have to say overall it didn’t strike me as a “cool” looking car I would buy. It was white and the door handles were black and there was a black “addition” in the wheel wells which I think was probably meant to not make the wheel wells so cavernous. Because of the height it looked like ingress and egress was easier than our model 3 but other than that I didn't see a big attraction. I’ll have to wait till I see the Y beside Ariya it at this point I lean towards the Ariya. I prefer the interior of the 3 or Y though. More spartan and simplistic which I like.