Considering a battery replacement.

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albion

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2016
Messages
9
Location
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Hey all. I've had my 2013 SL leaf now for about 4 years. Bought it used in 2016. Since the loss of my forth bar I've been in the market for a newer used leaf. Then the wife brought up a battery replacement instead. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my 2013. It has all the features I could want except for the higher range battery.

What's the cost of a replacement battery? New or Salvaged. I'm reading that the average cost of Li batteries is about $137/kWh, is that accurate? How many hours does it take to install? What is the cost of the 24 -> 40kWh or 24 -> 62kWh conversion kit? Are there any costs I am missing?

Do you think I am better off looking for a 2018? How do I check the battery health on the newer models?

Thanks!
 
There have been a handful of successful battery replacements with used packs from accidents but in general you are SOL.
Presuming you can find a used pack you like (a BIG if) , you also pay for transport, mating hardware, and installation. For your trouble you get a pack without warranty and a ready excuse for Nissan to tell you to pound sound.

$137 / kWh is the cost companies like GM or Nissan pay for cells. You will pay a LOT more, along the lines of $400 per kWh in a new pack. Nissan offers the 24 kWh pack for ~ $7,000 - $8,000 installed. It is new but we are never sure how long the pack has sat on a shelf so you accept the risk of reduced capacity from the get go.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I also have a 2013 LEAF and I don't expect it to survive a worn out battery.
 
albion said:
Hey all. I've had my 2013 SL leaf now for about 4 years. Bought it used in 2016. Since the loss of my forth bar I've been in the market for a newer used leaf. Then the wife brought up a battery replacement instead. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my 2013. It has all the features I could want except for the higher range battery.

What's the cost of a replacement battery? New or Salvaged. I'm reading that the average cost of Li batteries is about $137/kWh, is that accurate? How many hours does it take to install? What is the cost of the 24 -> 40kWh or 24 -> 62kWh conversion kit? Are there any costs I am missing?
Normally I would say: search the forums as there are several (good) threads on the subject...but today is your lucky day.
I felt exactly as you did (I love my Leaf), so I recently did a battery upgrade/replacement and wrote a story about it (https://www.electricauto.org/blog/keeping-your-nissan-leaf). In round figures, I spent ~$12k (plus taxes/fees) on the salvaged car, but everything else is in the story. It's not for everyone, so there is also a website with a (growing) list of folks who are able to do what you are looking for (https://nissanleafbatteryreplacement.com/).
Hope this helps and good luck on your journey!
 
More often than not, people on these forums neglect to fill out their location - wish the mods would make that mandatory...

Anyways, searching through the OP's old posts, it appears he/she lives in Wisconsin.

These guys might be able to source and assist the OP with a battery swap:

https://www.evpowers.com/contact-us/

Worth a phone call to find out...
 
alozzy said:
More often than not, people on these forums neglect to fill out their location - wish the mods would make that mandatory...
+1 on the bolded part.

I asked for this in 2012 (https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=9260) and I'm sure I've asked for it numerous times after that... Sigh.

Before you spend too much $ on the car, keep in mind the cost of used EVs. Used Bolt prices have actually gone up at https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mdId=36274172&mkId=20053&page=1&perPage=100&prMx=30000&rd=99999&searchSource=PAGINATION&sort=price-lowest&stkTypId=28881&zc=00001, it seems. You'd be getting something w/a 60 kWh battery and 238 mile EPA range rating. And, unless it's really high mileage, the EV bits would still be covered by the remainder of its 8 year/100K warranty (from original in-service date). See page 321 of https://my.chevrolet.com/content/dam/gmownercenter/gmna/dynamic/manuals/2017/Chevrolet/BOLT%20EV/Owner%27s%20Manual.pdf, for example.

If your '13 Leaf isn't past the 8 year/100K battery defects warranty yet, it will be soon. At that point, the only remaining warranty would be for seat belts.
 
Stanton said:
Normally I would say: search the forums as there are several (good) threads on the subject...but today is your lucky day.
I felt exactly as you did (I love my Leaf), so I recently did a battery upgrade/replacement and wrote a story about it (https://www.electricauto.org/blog/keeping-your-nissan-leaf). In round figures, I spent ~$12k (plus taxes/fees) on the salvaged car, but everything else is in the story. It's not for everyone, so there is also a website with a (growing) list of folks who are able to do what you are looking for (https://nissanleafbatteryreplacement.com/).
Hope this helps and good luck on your journey!

Great article. It answered a lot of questions. Did you at all consider an older more heavily used battery? How many hours did it take to make the exchange?
 
albion said:
cwerdna said:
If your '13 Leaf isn't past the 8 year/100K battery defects warranty yet, it will be soon.

Wait, 8 year? I thought it was a 6 year.
See pages 5 and 10-11 of https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2013/2013-LEAF-warranty-booklet.pdf. The capacity warranty (covering gradual capacity loss) ended at the 5 year/60K mile mark (whichever comes first).

I don't know where you got 6 years from.

I should rephrase/add to my earlier statement. Consider selling your Leaf and buying a used EV w/more capacity instead. You might be better off than going w/these unsupported upgrade paths and what warranties you might get w/them.

Sorry, Leftie. I didn't know who to direct it to. In general, I would like the location field to be mandatory.
 
You can send a message to Mike using the "Contact Us" link at the top of every page. He's pretty busy with all of these related forums, but he'll read it eventually. Maybe I'll also bring it up in the Mod forum.
 
albion said:
Stanton said:
Normally I would say: search the forums as there are several (good) threads on the subject...but today is your lucky day.
I felt exactly as you did (I love my Leaf), so I recently did a battery upgrade/replacement and wrote a story about it (https://www.electricauto.org/blog/keeping-your-nissan-leaf). In round figures, I spent ~$12k (plus taxes/fees) on the salvaged car, but everything else is in the story. It's not for everyone, so there is also a website with a (growing) list of folks who are able to do what you are looking for (https://nissanleafbatteryreplacement.com/).
Hope this helps and good luck on your journey!

Great article. It answered a lot of questions. Did you at all consider an older more heavily used battery? How many hours did it take to make the exchange?
I don't know why you would go to all that trouble/expense for an older more heavily used battery...so no.
It took me ~4 hours to do the electrical (CAN-bridge) work, and ~4 hours to do the actual battery swap (paid someone else to do that). I did them on separate days (and did the CAN-bridge first), as the battery is pretty much worthless without the bridge, and if I really screwed up the bridge install I wouldn't have been able to leave my driveway. In the end, I had a good experience (I'm an engineer, but not a "car" guy), but the stakes are high as far as "car repairs" go.
 
I have a 2015 I bought used Oct 2017. It was off a 3 year Lease and bought at auction by a LEAF flipper in California. It came with 12 bars, clean, no damage, complete, but after 6 months dropped to 11 bars. It stayed there for three years. It dropped to 10 bars 6 months ago. At this point I have had it for 3.5 yrs. I plan on keeping it for as long as it is practical. It is a second car for grocery runs and errands. If I can get another 6.5 years (10 yrs of use) and sell or trade it in for something more than salvage with the original battery it will be a success. I estimate at that point it might be 8 bars and 50-60 mile range? So between now and 2025 I will likely sell it and be done with electric cars altogether, unless a Kona, Mustang can be had at a reasonable price. I will never buy an electric car that does not have active battery pack cooling. In fact this may be my first and last electric car....

Again this is a second car, so I am not in the market for a battery pack with a solid 80 mile range. My DREAM would to get a 40KW pack to replace the 24KW. I think that is possible without too much heart burn, with conversion kits and advice available. Oh part of the dream is get this low mile pack cheap... So that is unlikely.

BTW I asked Nissan about a battery replacement right before I went out of 5 yr battery warranty. It was with parts, labor, tax $9000. That is for a 24Kw pack and no chance they would put in a 40Kw pack.

The other option I considered is rebuild the original pack with the best original and replacement cells I can get. My pack cells are all fairly well matched, none are failed, but some are stronger than others. Right now I am at about 80%. Years ago I saw people parting LEAF packs out. People use them for solar cell power or other non LEAF projects. Of course time and effort and ability to find good individual cells at a good price is also a long shot. Plus the removal, disassembly and reassembly of the pack is a big job,

I have looked at salvage auction sites and have been tempted to buy a wrecked LEAF.... I could part it out and keep the battery pack. However you don't know the history of the pack. Also I know of people who bought wrecked Tesla's years ago, in hopes of getting the battery, only to find out it was gone, already removed. Then the hassle of parting it out and selling the parts is time consuming. However it could be the path to a cheap battery.
 
gmcjetpilot said:
So between now and 2025 I will likely sell it and be done with electric cars altogether, unless a Kona, Mustang can be had at a reasonable price. I will never buy an electric car that does not have active battery pack cooling. In fact this may be my first and last electric car....

The 24 kWH packs were made with an older chemistry formulation & the 40 & 62 kWH packs are holding up WAY better in terms of degradation comparatively speaking. Not to mention the lager capacity means less need to fully charge & less amperage draw per cell under all use cases so with 11 years of history its clear to me that the 24kWH cars are merely early adopter victims in terms of the technology and the difference between lab accelerated wear and real world use cases.

I do agree with you that active battery cooling is absolutely required for a principally hwy speed used car & for long distance to enable high current and repeated quick charging but for local driving IMO it's superfluous.
 
interesting comments.

ive only had the most recent generation of Leafs'

I am on my third ones as I burn through miles on my lease really quickly.

i have turn in my last two with under 32k miles on them and they do a battery test every year. My last one had a 98% battery effiencey at 32k miles (62k version SV+) . not sure if they drop off quickly as it gets older or not but seemed pretty good...
 
Well your in luck. I replaced my wife's 2012 leaf battery at my local nissan dealer last year with a brand new battery..24kw I assume since the max range shows around 103 miles on a full charge. She loved the car so much it was worth the $10,000. Total out the door cost. Best of all it comes with that new 8 yr 100k mile battery warranty. I live in las Vegas.Nevada. it is interesting to know that they originally told me that I was gona get upgraded to a 40kw pack but that never happened. But the 24kw pack is fine for my wife's local driving.
 
I want to replace my pack as well, but my local Nissan dealer wants nothing to do with me or Leaf. I was basically told, "Your Leaf is old and you didn't buy it from us, therefore it's not our problem. If you try to replace the pack through us we will charge you at least $15,000 to $20,000 to replace it." That was a few years ago. I can't imagine how much they'd try to charge me now considering the supposed supply chain issues and labor shortages.
I really love my Leaf and the diminished capacity hasn't been a major issue yet. However, it's just a matter of time before it becomes one and I'm really upset that nothing has come along in the past few years to deal with it. I figured as EVs became more popular (and I know we still have a ways to go on that front), we'd see more options for dealing with dying batteries besides "just get a new EV."
 
Just as an FYI, there is this pack for sale locally. The ad states it is a 24kWh but the wheels in the picture show the donor car to be an SV and I thought 2016 SV's came with the 30kWh pack. The ad states 12/12 bars, which is possible but unproven.

As much as I'm tempted by the price/condition of this battery, I just don't need it and have no use for it at the moment. If someone else could use it I'm in the area and willing to facilitate within reason.

https://denver.craigslist.org/pts/d/englewood-leaf-battery-motor-and-parts/7390500266.html
 
I got a used 2013 that I knew had a deteriorated battery that I thought might have enough range for local errands, but it was really too limited. So I contacted EV Rides in Portland, Oregon, USA and got the battery replaced with a 90% 40 KWh (so, 36 KWh) that is working fine. I had to get the car trucked from San Diego, California.

They offered a variety of battery capacities and deteriorations.

There is another company that apparently does the same thing on Bainbridge Island in Washington state.
 
Interesting. Do you mind sharing the cost to truck the car from San Diego to Portland and back?

My 5 bar 2011 range is not so good.
 
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