Battery Upgrades are very possible

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Thank you very much for sharing this dala, it's very interesting, as are your other videos as well, it's nice to see that concrete options exist to keep those cars on the road!

On newer AZE0 models, do you need to drill the battery support brackets?

I have been thinking of doing this kind of upgrade for quite some time, but it's impossible to find a used battery where I live (France). Or at least I don't know how to search. I contacted some scrapyards, but they don't have Leafs.
How did you find your used battery?
 
kebin said:
Thank you very much for sharing this dala, it's very interesting, as are your other videos as well, it's nice to see that concrete options exist to keep those cars on the road!

On newer AZE0 models, do you need to drill the battery support brackets?

I have been thinking of doing this kind of upgrade for quite some time, but it's impossible to find a used battery where I live (France). Or at least I don't know how to search. I contacted some scrapyards, but they don't have Leafs.
How did you find your used battery?

The newer AZE0 model does not require any drilling of the rear supports. It is very difficult to find the packs nowadays, since more and more people are starting to search for them, so they tend to sell the same day the crashed vehicle enters the lot. Maybe look into something like pro-LOX in the NL for buying a pack?
 
How much is your 22 to 32 adaptor cable and can bridge plus shipping to the United States?
 
Great video, very well explained and, other than figuring out how I would lower and raise the battery pack, seems easier than I thought it would be. Fantastic that you were able to keep this old LEAF on the road for your customer, there's finally hope for a reasonably priced upgrade!

The hard part, where I live, would be sourcing a reasonably priced 40 kWh pack. Not even sure where to begin with that hunt, but hopefully that will be easier in a few more years, when my 2013 no longer has adequate range...
 
alozzy said:
Great video, very well explained and, other than figuring out how I would lower and raise the battery pack, seems easier than I thought it would be. Fantastic that you were able to keep this old LEAF on the road for your customer, there's finally hope for a reasonably priced upgrade!

The hard part, where I live, would be sourcing a reasonably priced 40 kWh pack. Not even sure where to begin with that hunt, but hopefully that will be easier in a few more years, when my 2013 no longer has adequate range...

It's odd because where I am, the opposite is true where my area is awash with leaf packs, 40 and 62 kwh from salvage vehicles. Maybe I should start a shipping business :mrgreen:
 
Marktm said:
Dala said:

Dala - if I changed the 24 kWh Lizard pack in my 2012 leaf to a 40 kWh pack , would the required changes result in the bidirectional CHAdeMO protocols to be available?

No, the bi-directional chademo is afaik a function inside the VCM.

All I know is that there is a CAN-message that is sent on AZE0 Leaf, (on the EV-CAN, 0x1F2 from VCM), that is broadcasting if "PCS_Connector_Detection" is in Vehicle-2-Home mode. This is not present on the ZE0 Leaf, and that is probably why the early models don't do bidirectional chademo without an VCM update. Again, this is all speculation, I might be wrong!
 
knightmb said:
alozzy said:
Great video, very well explained and, other than figuring out how I would lower and raise the battery pack, seems easier than I thought it would be. Fantastic that you were able to keep this old LEAF on the road for your customer, there's finally hope for a reasonably priced upgrade!

The hard part, where I live, would be sourcing a reasonably priced 40 kWh pack. Not even sure where to begin with that hunt, but hopefully that will be easier in a few more years, when my 2013 no longer has adequate range...

It's odd because where I am, the opposite is true where my area is awash with leak packs, 40 and 62 kwh from salvage vehicles. Maybe I should start a shipping business :mrgreen:

:lol: :lol:

Your perspective is warped, Step away from the factory!!
 
Has anybody used this service/website to purchase a wrecked Leaf...for it's battery pack?
https://www.autobidmaster.com/en/
Seems to me it would be a good source of (Gen 2.0) 40kWh/62kWh battery packs (based on the trim level).
 
I always got out bid. I would find the most crashed car possible that appeared to still have an intact battery and I always got out bid.
I just couldn't bring my self to pay $8,000 or $9,000 for a wrecked car.
So if you have 10 grand burning a hole in your pocket you can get one.
40kwh cars were the same way for a few years, then when the 62kwh cars hit the wreck auctions it cut the price of 40kwh batteries in half very quickly.
So just wait till the next bigger battery comes out?
 
I am seen a couple hints that the 2021 range might be incrementally higher. Do we think battery capacity is going up, or just efficiency (or neither).

The first UDDS tests for the Leaf Plus had a slightly bigger battery than the final production (maybe 2 kWh more) version. While that wouldn't give you too much (7-8 miles), it would at least make you feel like the car was advancing.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
I am seen a couple hints that the 2021 range might be incrementally higher. Do we think battery capacity is going up, or just efficiency (or neither).

The first UDDS tests for the Leaf Plus had a slightly bigger battery than the final production (maybe 2 kWh more) version. While that wouldn't give you too much (7-8 miles), it would at least make you feel like the car was advancing.

small changes happened every year. Chemistry "was" always being tweaked. It remains to be seen whether Nissan thinks they have a viable pack now?
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
I am seen a couple hints that the 2021 range might be incrementally higher. Do we think battery capacity is going up, or just efficiency (or neither).

The first UDDS tests for the Leaf Plus had a slightly bigger battery than the final production (maybe 2 kWh more) version. While that wouldn't give you too much (7-8 miles), it would at least make you feel like the car was advancing.
I've read (but not verified) that Nissan has played over the years with the voltage range represented by "0" and "100" percent SoC. That is not progress, it is a mixture of marketing and trade-offs between usable battery range and degradation.
 
SageBrush said:
DougWantsALeaf said:
I am seen a couple hints that the 2021 range might be incrementally higher. Do we think battery capacity is going up, or just efficiency (or neither).

The first UDDS tests for the Leaf Plus had a slightly bigger battery than the final production (maybe 2 kWh more) version. While that wouldn't give you too much (7-8 miles), it would at least make you feel like the car was advancing.
I've read (but not verified) that Nissan has played over the years with the voltage range represented by "0" and "100" percent SoC. That is not progress, it is a mixture of marketing and trade-offs between usable battery range and degradation.
True if chemistry is static. Different chemistries have slightly different operating ranges.
 
The wall power to the pack was 2kWh higher in the first test than the current 62 battery. I was guessing Nissan wasn't sure they were going to hit the 200 mark, so had an even more stuffed battery case just in case. Once they were sure they were over, they backed out some of the capacity...unless it was just a voltage play.
 
There's been a few distinct changes over time, chemically:
- Pure LMO on the initial packs (e-bike chemistry, essentially), very forgiving on charging/discharging current but very bad cycle life
- Al-doped LMO still on gen1 packs, but late in the game (2013ish?), charges to 4100mV/cell now
- Retuned BMS on gen2, no apparent change in the actual battery chemistry, charges to 4130mV/cell
- NMC on gen3 (30kWh), charging to 4180mV/cell
- Higher nickel content NMC on gen4, Li-HV tricks to get a fair bit of extra capacity by charging further (4220-4224mV/cell)
- Then a set of massive BMS retunes to try to fix rapidgate, mostly by increasing charging speeds at subcritical temperatures
- Then a density increase through slightly thinner packaging/electrodes on gen5 (62kWh) and quite a significant change in the BMS again

Altogether we see about 8 distinctly behaving battery packs through the years. I started off by saying they didn't change things every year, but looking back at this list... yeah, on average every year *something* changed in some significant way.
 
Mux

Thanks for the recap. I have been pretty happy with the performance of the 2 2019 Plus (62) packs we have, but we are not overly heavy drivers.

What are you seeing in your shop around the durability of the 40s and 62s.
 
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