ESB Great Electric Drive

TheTurk1972

Deleted User wrote: »

It sounds like more hassle than it actually is, really.

Just think of it like this, you have to give an engine a lot of love and very expensive love at that, between maintenance and very expensive fuel. Batteries and e.v's in general don't need anything like that kind of expensive maintenance or fuel.

Once you buy an e.v really it's not difficult to remember how to look after your battery that doesn't need anything only cheap electricity.

The leafs battery bms will do a good enough job at looking after the battery, but there are simple things you can do yourself to make sure it lasts longer.

My bike battery needs lots of love as it has no expensive bms and I've 16 cells of lipo to look after :eek:

In fact the leafs bms won't have to do much at all if the battery isn't discharged too much and it would mean faster charging assit won't have to balance all the cells.

I will have no problem buying a 2nd hand leaf as there is a device you can get from the U.S that tells you exactly what life is left in your battery, even Nissan dealers don't have anything like it. It's called a "gid" meter. The leaf itself tells you to some degree if there is capacity loss.

There are leafs with over 40 k miles now in the U.S with no issues or loss of capacity which is encouraging and with no maintenance required.

If the leaf could do 100 real miles in winter at motorway speeds I'd have one myself, but we are not far away from that and we shal see what happens next year when they switch to hitachi batteries!

There will come a day in the not so distant future where batteries will be cheap enough so worn ones can be replaced cheaply as your old one has a lot of value still.

But I get a mechanic to look after my car now. I dont want to have to do it.
I just want to start drive and park, and then bring it for a service when it needs it.

And though I was looking at going electric for my next car, i've had second thoughts now, and there is not a chance of me ever buying a second hand electric car now either.
I've done some research on batteries today and they are just too open to abuse by the previous owner.

September1

September1 wrote: »

It is trouble, but in general it is less trouble overall. If you upgrade one day to turbo diesel you could find that they also have all this rituals like cool down, checking oil level, driving faster to clear DPF etc



Did Nissan confirm that GID are that? I recall that they like to vary it's relationship to charge left. You must be having access to manuals that are not only not given to owners, can you share this in PM?

Here is some information as to "gids" or gid meter, there is more information if you do a google mynissanleaf forum search.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7828

Also for Leaf owners this site has useful information.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery_Capacity_Loss

And this

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

People should be aware that only in Arizona has there been reported capacity loss due to extreme heat !

TheTurk1972

TheTurk1972 wrote: »

But I get a mechanic to look after my car now. I dont want to have to do it.
I just want to start drive and park, and then bring it for a service when it needs it.

And though I was looking at going electric for my next car, i've had second thoughts now, and there is not a chance of me ever buying a second hand electric car now either.
I've done some research on batteries today and they are just too open to abuse by the previous owner.

You can only abuse a leaf battery so much as to leave it fully charged all the time, the rest of the time it looks after itself.

A few simple rules,

Try plug in only when the charge is below 80%,

Use the car's charge to 80% function when you don't need a full charge.

Try not use all the battery, which is unlikely anyway.

Seriously, what can I say if those simple basic rules are too much for some people ?

If you need 100% charge use it.

Remember no leaf has reported capacity loss that I have heard that has not been in Arizona and some leaf's have 30-40K miles.

Ireland's cool, but not too cool climate is heaven for an E.V.

September1

Deleted User wrote: »

Here is some information as to "gids" or gid meter, there is more information if you do a google mynissanleaf forum search.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7828

Also for Leaf owners this site has useful information.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery_Capacity_Loss

And this

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

MNL is not official information - this could be invalidated if for weird reason software is different on LHD and RHD LEAFs, and even on MNL there is some evidence of GIDs not being capacity.

September1

September1 wrote: »

MNL is not official information - this could be invalidated if for weird reason software is different on LHD and RHD LEAFs, and even on MNL there is some evidence of GIDs not being capacity.

I wouldn't be too concerned about official information from Nissan.

Their "official" announcement was that the Leaf battery didn't need thermal management in hot climates, now proved wrong. So don't be to concerned about about information being official !

But whatever you may or may not think about the gid meter, my other information still stands about the simple things to do to look after the battery, which has nothing to do with anything only my own experience with batteries and information gained from other battery users. People may or may not choose to do as I have said and may think that Nissan will look after them,

Nissan are hardly going to tell people to only charge to 80% or don't charge unless it's at least 80% etc etc, people would just run a mile !

But you may be choosing to get rid of your car long before the warranty expires and so may not care, but 8 years is a long time for any car and just remember Nissan will NOT cover the loss of capacity through normal use over the 8 years, so in 3 years if you have 60k Miles on the clock and have lost 20% range, that's your problem so you either get rid (if) you start to notice reduced capacity or start researching batteries and battery management systems, (and not just wiki) and start to manage your Leaf battery a little more carefully.