What's new for 2020?

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hbv2020

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May 13, 2019
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1
I am considering buying a 2019 SL+. I am wondering if I should wait for the 2020. Will be anything new in the 2020 model?

Thanks
 
Probably not much new in 2020 but the rumor mill says Nissan is planning to unveil a completely new EV 'platform' sometime around the 2021 model year. That could be late of course....

In general, EV tech is changing rapidly. No matter what you buy today, in a few years it will be old tech and the newer cars will probably be more capable.
 
goldbrick said:
Probably not much new in 2020 but the rumor mill says Nissan is planning to unveil a completely new EV 'platform' sometime around the 2021 model year. That could be late of course....

In general, EV tech is changing rapidly. No matter what you buy today, in a few years it will be old tech and the newer cars will probably be more capable.

That is what makes me want to hold off on the much better range (but same car) they have now... I recently took a test drive in an E+ with my 18 y/o son... His reaction? It's our Leaf, only bit zippier..

I am not sure I want to trade in my old (like-new), $9,000 Leaf for a Like-New $44,000 Leaf... They are the same car, and same ride when you drive down the road. There really is no upgrade to get a new one. No reason to buy a new one if your current car's range is what you drive...

I think I will beat my old Leaf until a different platform comes to market... I want a more minivan-like EV - - - like the Mazda 5
 
powersurge said:
I am not sure I want to trade in my old (like-new), $9,000 Leaf for a Like-New $44,000 Leaf... They are the same car, and same ride when you drive down the road. There really is no upgrade to get a new one. No reason to buy a new one if your current car's range is what you drive...

If there is a new platform in the 2021 time frame that should help lower the values of the current plus models. I'm hoping the Leaf Plus resale is a poor as the older ones and I can get a used Plus in 3 years for $15k.
 
Yes, I agree... The old Leafs were a good deal at $20k (after rebates). The new ones are the same car, with greater range....

Definitively not worth $37K (after rebates). From now on, I think I will be a USED Leaf customer...
 
I got my 2018 SV for about 15.5 after rebates, new!

There are a few things I'd like to see beyond the obvious "more range"

Reverse parking sonar / sensors
More than 1 usb! Rear USB too!
Rear AC vents
Cross traffic alert that beeps more than just one lousy time.
Unlock by touching handle (not button on handle)
Premium audio available on SV
Set a charge % to stop at (!!!!)
Powered passenger seat
Bigger Center screen (though plus models are slightly larger)
Better screen interface - its OK. Just OK. My 2018 outback is far superior, with built in APPs, quicker, and much better layout.
DIGITAL Speedometer. There is one page on the left side that has it, so I leave that display on. But look at Kia's design, they always have a digital speedometer up, allowing more flexible use of the other screens.
Two inches more rear legroom.

Plus a few other nitpicks here and there.


Most of these are just things they probably cut back to save some money to afford the battery, but I'd like to see them.
Most other cars have them.

Still, I love our new leaf. And quite honestly, I personally think the 2018/2019 leaf is about the best LOOKING EV on the market. I really like the hatchback design!! YMMV :D
 
I keep searching the web for 2020 info but I always get a ton of hits that SAY 2020 but really are the 2019 plus.
Is it me or did a lot of reviewers confuse the 2019 plus with 2020?

I wonder what the chances are that Nissan adds range for 2020? Phases out the 40 and adds something even bigger?

The 2018 was the re-design year for the body so wouldn't three years bring a mid cycle refresh? What is Nissan's normal cycle?

I personally think the exterior looks fine but as per the previous posts the interior could get some upgrades.
 
I can't see a need for them to increase the battery pack size (more than 60 KWH) for quite some time....

Heck, even Tesla is not increasing battery sizes...

NOW, the direction is for the prices of the 60 KWH cars to drop, and for them to make a different car body which is more in the SUV or MINIVAN direction.....
 
powersurge said:
I can't see a need for them to increase the battery pack size for quite some time....

Heck, even Tesla is not increasing battery sizes...

NOW, the direction is for the prices of the 60 KWH cars to drop, and for them to make a different car body which is more in the SUV or MINIVAN direction.....

I guess it depend on where you live. The 40 pack size is good enough for my daily driving / work. But if I want to go do anything on the weekend, like I did this last weekend, I had to take our outback. I'm OK with that for now but eventually I'd like to be able to take my EV on longer trips. Last weekend's trip was to go hiking, about 90 miles each way, plus about 8000 feet of gain. No chargers anywhere. So I figure I'd need about 300 miles of range to do that in an EV. That would be sweet - when its affordable.

Even the Plus wouldn't have been able to do that trip. Someday though.

But I agree that 2020 won't see more range since the plus just arrived, but I would expect some upgrades on the inside. 12" Screen? Bigger screen's seem to be all the rage right now.
 
danrjones said:
powersurge said:
I can't see a need for them to increase the battery pack size for quite some time....

Heck, even Tesla is not increasing battery sizes...

NOW, the direction is for the prices of the 60 KWH cars to drop, and for them to make a different car body which is more in the SUV or MINIVAN direction.....

I guess it depend on where you live. The 40 pack size is good enough for my daily driving / work. But if I want to go do anything on the weekend, like I did this last weekend, I had to take our outback. I'm OK with that for now but eventually I'd like to be able to take my EV on longer trips. Last weekend's trip was to go hiking, about 90 miles each way, plus about 8000 feet of gain. No chargers anywhere. So I figure I'd need about 300 miles of range to do that in an EV. That would be sweet - when its affordable.

Even the Plus wouldn't have been able to do that trip. Someday though.

But I agree that 2020 won't see more range since the plus just arrived, but I would expect some upgrades on the inside. 12" Screen? Bigger screen's seem to be all the rage right now.

Well, you are expecting to put an insane amount of expectations of mileage on an electric car... If that is your "must have", then you are either not an EV customer, or should have a gas powered vehicle.

You cannot expect to PAY FOR ($$$$$), and CARRY AROUND a massive amount of battery power just for your occasional need....
 
That's why I didnt. Because you are right, range costs money. It serves me fine for now in town but if they add 20 miles every few years it'll get there to where I can use an EV for more.

I expect they will have to add range to stay competitive over time anyway.
 
I agree that price drops are what is needed most. 60 kWh is more than enough for pretty much anybody's commuting needs, but still significantly short of what many would like for road trips. A 30 kWh car at a significantly lower price point would sell, but there are diminishing returns in increasing battery capacity further.
 
Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often. Hardly anyone drives more than 3-4 hrs. at a time. Most people need a break after 3 hrs of driving (or sooner if you're chugging that Big Gulp). 300 miles is the upper limit of what most people need and the bottom end is something over 200 miles for convenience. Since you can charge at home every night and don't need to look for a gas station on the way, something around 150 miles is actually more than sufficient. The only real problem with shorter range cars is going to be battery degradation due to more frequent charging. If you solve that and enable really Fast Charging ( say 5-10 min to 90%) then range is a non-issue. If you can do either shallow discharge or 2-3 days between charging sessions batteries would last a lot longer even in their current form. That's why the trend is toward bigger batteries and longer ranges. Elon Musk has given a range of 1000-1500 full discharge cycles as the lifetime of a battery in normal use. For a 60 KWH battery, that's 200,000-300,000 miles of operation. Even a 30 KWH Nissan battery in a cool climate (Say Ireland) could do 90,000-130,000 miles. A bigger battery isn't necessary for more range but rather to reduce the frequency of charge cycles or to encourage shallower charge and discharge events.
 
Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often.

You need to qualify the above with "American." There were plenty of European and Asian cars in the Sixties that approached and even reached 30MPG. Most had 10 gallon tanks, giving a range of up to 300 miles.
 
johnlocke said:
Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often. Hardly anyone drives more than 3-4 hrs. at a time. Most people need a break after 3 hrs of driving (or sooner if you're chugging that Big Gulp). 300 miles is the upper limit of what most people need and the bottom end is something over 200 miles for convenience. Since you can charge at home every night and don't need to look for a gas station on the way, something around 150 miles is actually more than sufficient. The only real problem with shorter range cars is going to be battery degradation due to more frequent charging. If you solve that and enable really Fast Charging ( say 5-10 min to 90%) then range is a non-issue. If you can do either shallow discharge or 2-3 days between charging sessions batteries would last a lot longer even in their current form. That's why the trend is toward bigger batteries and longer ranges. Elon Musk has given a range of 1000-1500 full discharge cycles as the lifetime of a battery in normal use. For a 60 KWH battery, that's 200,000-300,000 miles of operation. Even a 30 KWH Nissan battery in a cool climate (Say Ireland) could do 90,000-130,000 miles. A bigger battery isn't necessary for more range but rather to reduce the frequency of charge cycles or to encourage shallower charge and discharge events.

It depends on where you live and if you plan to still have a traditional gasoline or gasoline hybrid.

Rivian is targeting 400 miles for a reason - if you are going up in our mountains , you need both the miles and the elevation. Someday there may be fast charging stations in the national parks - but at every forest service trail-head and campground? Probably not.

So the solution is either having two vehicles, having one that takes gas for those trips, or having a lot more range in one of your EV's

In other countries or parts of this country, 150 can do everything. Here it can't. Heck the nearest town is almost 90 miles away.


Now the nice thing is that most families have at least two cars, so replacing one of them with a 150mi EV is a no-brainier. :D
 
danrjones said:
johnlocke said:
Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often. Hardly anyone drives more than 3-4 hrs. at a time. Most people need a break after 3 hrs of driving (or sooner if you're chugging that Big Gulp). 300 miles is the upper limit of what most people need and the bottom end is something over 200 miles for convenience. Since you can charge at home every night and don't need to look for a gas station on the way, something around 150 miles is actually more than sufficient. The only real problem with shorter range cars is going to be battery degradation due to more frequent charging. If you solve that and enable really Fast Charging ( say 5-10 min to 90%) then range is a non-issue. If you can do either shallow discharge or 2-3 days between charging sessions batteries would last a lot longer even in their current form. That's why the trend is toward bigger batteries and longer ranges. Elon Musk has given a range of 1000-1500 full discharge cycles as the lifetime of a battery in normal use. For a 60 KWH battery, that's 200,000-300,000 miles of operation. Even a 30 KWH Nissan battery in a cool climate (Say Ireland) could do 90,000-130,000 miles. A bigger battery isn't necessary for more range but rather to reduce the frequency of charge cycles or to encourage shallower charge and discharge events.

It depends on where you live and if you plan to still have a traditional gasoline or gasoline hybrid.

Rivian is targeting 400 miles for a reason - if you are going up in our mountains , you need both the miles and the elevation. Someday there may be fast charging stations in the national parks - but at every forest service trail-head and campground? Probably not.

So the solution is either having two vehicles, having one that takes gas for those trips, or having a lot more range in one of your EV's

In other countries or parts of this country, 150 can do everything. Here it can't. Heck the nearest town is almost 90 miles away.


Now the nice thing is that most families have at least two cars, so replacing one of them with a 150mi EV is a no-brainier. :D

Again, I really need to say... I think that you are a new Leaf driver, and your expectations are really too high. Just because you may have some specific need, it does not mean that technology needs to deliver...

I suggest you highly appreciate the value of the technical marvel of an electric car that can go 150-220 mile on a battery charge... Never in history have we been able to make a machine that can do that.

Anyone who is dissatisfied with an EV because they cannot to tour mountain ranges through National Forrest wilderness need to readjust their expectations.
 
I think you are mistaking future expectations for current dissatisfaction.
The leaf I bought does everything I wanted and expected it to do, for now.

But I thought this thread was geared toward future expectations.
I fully expect future leafs, as some point, to do even more.

I don't think its unfair to expect even better things in the future.
In fact I'd say it would be wacky to expect them NOT to do better things.
 
danrjones said:
johnlocke said:
Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often. Hardly anyone drives more than 3-4 hrs. at a time. Most people need a break after 3 hrs of driving (or sooner if you're chugging that Big Gulp). 300 miles is the upper limit of what most people need and the bottom end is something over 200 miles for convenience. Since you can charge at home every night and don't need to look for a gas station on the way, something around 150 miles is actually more than sufficient. The only real problem with shorter range cars is going to be battery degradation due to more frequent charging. If you solve that and enable really Fast Charging ( say 5-10 min to 90%) then range is a non-issue. If you can do either shallow discharge or 2-3 days between charging sessions batteries would last a lot longer even in their current form. That's why the trend is toward bigger batteries and longer ranges. Elon Musk has given a range of 1000-1500 full discharge cycles as the lifetime of a battery in normal use. For a 60 KWH battery, that's 200,000-300,000 miles of operation. Even a 30 KWH Nissan battery in a cool climate (Say Ireland) could do 90,000-130,000 miles. A bigger battery isn't necessary for more range but rather to reduce the frequency of charge cycles or to encourage shallower charge and discharge events.

It depends on where you live and if you plan to still have a traditional gasoline or gasoline hybrid.

Rivian is targeting 400 miles for a reason - if you are going up in our mountains , you need both the miles and the elevation. Someday there may be fast charging stations in the national parks - but at every forest service trail-head and campground? Probably not.

So the solution is either having two vehicles, having one that takes gas for those trips, or having a lot more range in one of your EV's

In other countries or parts of this country, 150 can do everything. Here it can't. Heck the nearest town is almost 90 miles away.


Now the nice thing is that most families have at least two cars, so replacing one of them with a 150mi EV is a no-brainier. :D
There aren't any gas stations there either. If you were planning on going to a location like that, you might consider bringing a generator for emergencies. Or you could limp down to the general store or ranger station for an emergency boost. Just like you would bring a couple of jerry cans full of gas for emergencies.

Rivian is targeting 400 miles for towing capacity. Add a 5000 lb horse trailer to any truck and watch the mileage drop. Or add a toy hauler or an rv trailer for similar results. No one vehicle is going to be right for everyone. I drive a leaf daily but I've got a Tundra to pull that horse trailer, haul lumber home from Home Depot. or haul 10 bales of hay from the feed store.
 
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