2016 Leaf larger 30kw battery

ei9go

http://insideevs.com/2016-nissan-leaf-get-25-larger-battery/

cros13

ei9go wrote: »

http://insideevs.com/2016-nissan-leaf-get-25-larger-battery/

I spoke to someone in Nissan, they told me off the record that upgrades will be offered for existing Leafs and that the price will be attractive.

Might be worth it for some as it's a 25% bump in range over the current Mk1.5 battery. A mk.1 should see 30-40% increase in range.

ei9go

ei9go wrote: »

http://insideevs.com/2016-nissan-leaf-get-25-larger-battery/

Bet ye to it !

Rumour has it that the 2015's have the extra capacity already but has to be "unlocked" highly doubt that now myself but another rumour is that the 2014+ longer battery life could be attributed to the extra capacity but hidden as a very large buffer.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=95605151

"10,108 Kms Today !

Battery check says no loss in capacity what so ever. Still 66.6 AH in the battery, 67 when I got it. A few weeks ago it said 64 ah so it varies a little now and again.

Almost 700 Euro's not spent on petrol in the prius @ 60 mpg.

If I were to have paid for all the leccy it would have cost me 220 euro's at night rate but I've got a lot of free leccy from the fast chargers when I top up at on on the way home or at lunch.

Because of shift I would sometimes charge during the day when I come home from Nights so I'd have to charge at the full rate.

If I were to hazzard a guess I would say I spent a lot less than 220 euro's on leccy due to the public charge points.

There is strong evidence to suggest Leaf 2016 model will have 30 kwh which sadly for me is enough to get me home without a fast charge. However how much of that 30 kwh will be usable is anyone's guess.

Some are now thinking that due to the seemingly much longer life of the 2014+ batteries that there is some kind of change or perhaps the 30 kwh is already available and that masks some degradation because the battery electronics may report only 21 available, that's a significant buffer.

One thing for sure though, there is some change from 2011-2014.

Great car though, still absolutely positive I will never again buy another ICE car of any kind !!! "

cros13

So the original person I talked to was in Nissan corporate. It's still unsure whether they are going to offer upgrades in some markets, and unsure what the timescale is (following up I was told it might be as late as the Leaf II launch) and the only indication of price is that they want to make it "attractive" for existing owners to upgrade (I think to keep the 2nd hand prices up.).

This is what I got back from someone in Nissan Ireland:

I haven't heard anything yet.
I would doubt there would be any batteries available as there would be going into all the production cars.
As I said I doubt there will be an upgrade program but that's just my opinion.

I think he's correct. Even if Nissan Motor Co were to offer an "upgrade" Nissan Ireland and Nissan dealers don't want anything to do with batteries.

You can't even have your battery replaced in Ireland if it degrades to the point it's reached 70% end of life. You can in most of the E.U and North America.

Nissan Ireland have to buy the batteries from Nissan Motor Co and they won't do this with no 2nd hand market for batteries at this time. Nissan Motor Co should have some recycle program. I know the ESB are looking into used batteries for storage sometime in the future.

One really good way to use the batteries would be to support the fast chargers or when multiple fast chargers are used on one site, or when fast chargers become twice as powerful, it would reduce the strain on the grid.

But as always there is a severe lack of will power to drive any program like this and for renewable projects like micro generation, there is also absolutely no political will power in Ireland to offer incentives for micro generation. I think it could create a lot of jobs.

I doubt there will be an upgrade because they can't meet demand as it is and what would they do with the old batteries ? and you can't upgrade the old pack because you can't mix older and newer cells, especially cells with different capacities.

And I doubt the capacity is hidden in the 2014+ leafs even if it was they won't unlock it if the batteries are holding up so much better than the 2011-14 leafs, it could be that the 2014+ leafs have some modifications to the chemistry to make them more robust.