Nissan Leaf

peposhi

Well wear, Soarer! It has been long coming

goz83

Soarer wrote: »

Well I've agreed to buy a Leaf. Should hopefully have her collected by Monday at the latest.

Have also ordered the LED pack that kceire linked to in his thread, and a pair of LED replacements for the high beam halogens. Don't know what they'll be like, but in for a penny....

Now to organise a home charger.....

Great news man. No bother with the PMs

unkel

Soarer wrote: »

It came down to money in the end, and I didn't want to be reducing my fuel/tax savings on a big car repayment. So I got her for what I think is a fair price. I can let he know that once money changes hands.

Can't say fairer than that!

And I've said it before, I still think an early Leaf with a good few miles on it and a less than perfect battery for little money can be a great purchase. There's a lot of value for money there. And there is very little depreciation left to do. A smart choice in my book.

Well wear, excellent choice. The mark I cars are really nicely put together and the paint finish is much nicer than in the Sunderland cars.

Soarer

Cheers guys, looking forward to it.

In my own head I'm comparing the reduced range to only ever putting a tenner of fuel into the car. Keep you going for a few days between fill ups.
The ol' fella couldn't get his head around the high miles, asking me if I should go for a lesser mileage one. But I explained it by saying worst case it's the difference between charging it every 3rd night or every 4th night. Might cost an extra tenner per month.
But it'll take a lot of fills to make up the price difference between what I paid and the next cheapest.

Bulbs have dispatched!

A degraded car won't need any more electricity per kilometer (well maybe a few percent due to balancing). The battery just will be able to receive less number of kWh per charge.

unkel

And your expectations of range are low, so you won't be getting any nasty surprises. For all your normal trips the Leaf will be fine. And if you have an occasional longer trip, you know you will have to plan for it. No big issues there.

KCross

Soarer wrote: »

The mileage is high @ 89k miles, and she dropped her second cell back in October, so the range is down. I'm gonna give a worst case range of 80kms.

Do you mean it dropped its 2nd bar?

Once you are comfortable with it drive the battery as low as you can go and then give it a full 100% charge plus a few hours extra for balancing. You might find you get some of that range back as the previous owner might never have fully balanced it or never got the BMS to "reset".

Best of luck with it!

BoatMad

KCross wrote: »

Do you mean it dropped its 2nd bar?

Once you are comfortable with it drive the battery as low as you can go and then give it a full 100% charge plus a few hours extra for balancing. You might find you get some of that range back as the previous owner might never have fully balanced it or never got the BMS to "reset".

Best of luck with it!

The battery can be replaced on a pack by pack basis also

BoatMad

BoatMad wrote: »

KCross wrote: »

Do you mean it dropped its 2nd bar?

Once you are comfortable with it drive the battery as low as you can go and then give it a full 100% charge plus a few hours extra for balancing. You might find you get some of that range back as the previous owner might never have fully balanced it or never got the BMS to "reset".

Best of luck with it!

The battery can be replaced on a pack by pack basis also

Indeed. Typically only a few modules go bad and they'll bring down the capacity. Mike Schooling in UK can repair LEAF packs to 90 percent or better for £1500 with a warranty. I'm sure there are others and it will probably be a sort of a cottage industry going forward. It's for example possible to replace all the battery modules on the Mark 1 battery with the latest spec. He claims that he could even upgrade a 24 kWh car to 30 although it's currently cost prohibitive.

isnottheword

samih wrote: »

Indeed. Typically only a few modules go bad and they'll bring down the capacity. Mike Schooling in UK can repair LEAF packs to 90 percent or better for £1500 with a warranty. I'm sure there are others and it will probably be a sort of a cottage industry going forward.

Is anyone aware of other 3rd party services that have emerged recently in this space? I'm hoping to see a lot more enter this space soon - would give a lot more options to those with ageing EV's.

samih wrote: »

He claims that he could even upgrade a 24 kWh car to 30 although it's currently cost prohibitive.

Yes, I contacted him directly on that - and he said that it can be done but recommended trading up instead. Surely this can get to a point where it would be feasible....sounds rational to me that it would - but I guess there would have to be enough demand for same to drive that.....

As long as the form factor and the voltage of the modules stays the same replacing all the old modules with improved versions won't be a problem. That's the beauty of batteries is that when technology improves you could end up with better car after the upgrade than what it was when it left the factory.

It's down to the price at the moment but once more 30 kWh packs become available from crashed cars etc. eventually it may be feasible to upgrade an early leaf with those. If you had a totally spotless early leaf worth 3k with totally useless original battery and got that upgraded for let's say 3k to 90 percent 30 kWh battery it would be worth doing if the alternative was a slightly newer 24 kWh car for 6k that had itself suffered from some degradation.

cros13

samih wrote: »

As long as the form factor and the voltage of the modules stays the same replacing all the old modules with improved versions won't be a problem. That's the beauty of batteries is that when technology improves you could end up with better car after the upgrade than what it was when it left the factory.

This is one of the great strengths of EVs long term. You could replace the battery with a Back to the Future "Mr Fusion" and provided it ran the same voltage and could supply the current the car doesn't give a damn.

cros13

cros13 wrote: »

samih wrote: »

As long as the form factor and the voltage of the modules stays the same replacing all the old modules with improved versions won't be a problem. That's the beauty of batteries is that when technology improves you could end up with better car after the upgrade than what it was when it left the factory.

This is one of the great strengths of EVs long term. You could replace the battery with a Back to the Future "Mr Fusion" and provided it ran the same voltage and could supply the current the car doesn't give a damn.

In case of leaf the "Mr Fusion" would just need to blatantly lie to the rest of the car that it's a 360 Vdc battery pack and send bogus reports about the cell voltages, health, temparature and the battery serial number. But expanding this it should be possible to construct suitable capacity 7.4V battery modules using for example 2170 cells in 2sNp configuration, fit them somewhere in the car and connect the original BMS to these new battery modules. They could have a much higher capacity than the original modules but as the upper and lower voltage thresholds of the new cells would be identical they would just take ages to charge and discharge for a 24 kWh pack as far as car would know.

Soarer

This car is gonna save me a fortune!

Road tax down from €153 per quarter to €120 per year.
Fuel? God only knows. But surely it'll be €40 per month if I'm putting €80 of diesel in.
I rang my insurance there. Current premium TPFT on the Astra is €456 including work travel. In June, it'll be going up between 12.5% and 20% (they haven't decided yet!). So it'll be between €525 and €560. The Leaf, fully comprehensive, will be €295! Woohoo!

I'm collecting the car Sunday up in Dublin, and will be travelling down to Cork. Where would people suggest would be good places to fast charge en route, given I have (worst case) 3 stops to make?

KCross

Soarer wrote: »

I'm collecting the car Sunday up in Dublin, and will be travelling down to Cork. Where would people suggest would be good places to fast charge en route, given I have (worst case) 3 stops to make?

Example Cork-Dublin in a 24kWh Leaf:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99509620&postcount=12

isnottheword

cros13 wrote: »

This is one of the great strengths of EVs long term. You could replace the battery with a Back to the Future "Mr Fusion" and provided it ran the same voltage and could supply the current the car doesn't give a damn.

I know it makes it a lot harder but is there a possibility then that a change of form factor can be overcome also?

The new Leaf will have a different battery form factor than what is available in the current/previous Leaf.

BoatMad

It's down to the price at the moment but once more 30 kWh packs become available from crashed cars etc. eventually it may be feasible to upgrade an early leaf with those. If you had a totally spotless early leaf worth 3k with totally useless original battery and got that upgraded for let's say 3k to 90 percent 30 kWh battery it would be worth doing if the alternative was a slightly newer 24 kWh car for 6k that had itself suffered from some degradation.

Its more then likely that you can replace like for like, but far less likely you can "upgrade " to higher capacities unless the car company designs the software to handle different capacities.

Gumbo

BoatMad wrote: »

Its more then likely that you can replace like for like, but far less likely you can "upgrade " to higher capacities unless the car company designs the software to handle different capacities.

+1

Didn't Nissan announce recently that their 30kw battery can not be ditties to older cars with the 24kw battery?

isnottheword

kceire wrote: »

+1

Didn't Nissan announce recently that their 30kw battery can not be ditties to older cars with the 24kw battery?

It's the very same form factor so there's no good reason why it can't. What they are saying is that they won't support it. It doesn't mean that it can't be done. The one 3rd party EV service provider that I'm aware of - has confirmed that it can be done (but at the moment, his view is that it's easier just to trade up). I'm hoping that as this EV thing gathers momentum, we will see a lot more 3rd party providers take an interest - particularly around the area of battery upgrades.

We're not going to get much help from manufacturers on this as they want to pimp additional new car sales (albeit that I *think* BMW and possibly Renault (?) have facilitated battery upgrades on some of their vehicles).

Soarer

Morning all.

Just wondering about phone apps for the Leaf. I've searched the AppStore, and it came back with:
LeafSpy Pro (€20)
EVA: Leaf - Connect your Nissan Leaf (free)
LEAF Energy - For The Nissan Leaf

Anyone have any experience of any of the above (I think a few use LeafSpy)? Any recommendations? Especially seeing as the car has reduced capacity.

KCross

Soarer wrote: »

Morning all.

Just wondering about phone apps for the Leaf. I've searched the AppStore, and it came back with:
LeafSpy Pro (€20)
EVA: Leaf - Connect your Nissan Leaf (free)
LEAF Energy - For The Nissan Leaf

Anyone have any experience of any of the above (I think a few use LeafSpy)? Any recommendations? Especially seeing as the car has reduced capacity.

If you want detailed battery info use leafspy.

If you just want the basics like start charging or start heating use EVA.

There is also the Nissan connect app. You can see reports and other stuff in that inc all the stuff that EVA does.

Soarer

Cheers KCross.

Is the Nissan Connect one the one that's registered to your VIN number, and the previous owner needs to deregister first?

Gumbo

Soarer wrote: »

Cheers KCross.

Is the Nissan Connect one the one that's registered to your VIN number, and the previous owner needs to deregister first?

They all require access to the VIN so make sure the previous owner logs in and deletes the car from his account. The EVA app piggybacks on the Nissan site. So if you cannot log into the Nissan site, no other app will work.

I use :

eCar Connect (charger location)
Nissan EV (check in charge status etc)
Have EVA there too but I don't use that. I find the Nissan one just as quick.

You have to create an account on the Nissan You + website and then go to the car and log in etc

If he previous owner cannot remove his car then Nissan will do it for you once you get the log book in your name.

Calahonda52

Take foot off foot brake and it rolls back!

Is this

1. normal on the 2016 Leaf
2. known problem
3. product enhancement

In passing I use leafSpy pro for tyre pressures and battery temperature.

Just used the Nissan connect app on phone to preheat car

I also use Plugshare to check for recent status updates on CPs when am on the road.
I also use zap map on the desktop for route planning, might use Nissan connect now that the TCU is fixed

Gumbo

Calahonda52 wrote: »

Take foot off foot brake and it rolls back!

Is this

1. normal on the 2016 Leaf
2. known problem
3. product enhancement

In passing I use leafSpy pro for tyre pressures and battery temperature.

Just used the Nissan connect app on phone to preheat car

I also use Plugshare to check for recent status updates on CPs when am on the road.
I also use zap map on the desktop for route planning, might use Nissan connect now that the TCU is fixed

It should only roll back very very slightly.
If your in D and on a hill, keep your foot on the brake until you are at a complete stop. Then if you release the brake it will hold itself.

Great launch control workaround

I've been using the Nissan app since I got mine. Find it ok.
I mainly use it to make sure that when I've plugged in, it's still actually charging (work points are temperamental).

You can pre heat or pre cool, but it's worth noting that when you turn the heater on, it will default to what the last temp was when you got out so for example:

Cold last night, temp set at 22. Lock car.
Get up this morning, turn on remotely, it goes to 22. Pity you can't control the temp so you can cool or heat.

Calahonda52

kceire wrote: »

It should only roll back very very slightly.
If your in D and on a hill, keep your foot on the brake until you are at a complete stop. Then if you release the brake it will hold itself.

Great launch control workaround

May have mis written the issue:

Am not talking about roll back on an incline, am in the flat driveway, and taking foot off normal brake, with parking brake on, will allow me reverse out onto the road, with no power required.
It happened this am, I only noticed it when I switched to drive and pressed the accelerator, no forward motion as parking brake was on.

Gumbo

Calahonda52 wrote: »

May have mis written the issue:

Am not talking about roll back on an incline, am in the flat driveway, and taking foot off normal brake, with parking brake on, will allow me reverse out onto the road, with no power required.
It happened this am, I only noticed it when I switched to drive and pressed the accelerator, no forward motion as parking brake was on.

Ohh ok, may try this later and report back.
So with handbrake (footlever) on.
Put in R and see if it goes back?

Calahonda52

kceire wrote: »

Ohh ok, may try this later and report back.
So with handbrake (footlever) on.
Put in R and see if it goes back?

yes, with NO power applied, just put foot on main brake, turn it on, into reverse and take foot off main brake
Thanks

n97 mini

Calahonda52 wrote: »

yes, with NO power applied, just put foot on main brake, turn it on, into reverse and take foot off main brake
Thanks

Have you the foot(hand) brake pressed down to the floor?

goz83

It's not normal. The parking brake should be holding her solid if properly engaged.

Gumbo

Calahonda52 wrote: »

yes, with NO power applied, just put foot on main brake, turn it on, into reverse and take foot off main brake
Thanks

Just tried it on level ground.
Hand brake stopped any movement.

Maybe the handbrake wasn't pressed full down Honda?

Calahonda52

kceire wrote: »

Just tried it on level ground.
Hand brake stopped any movement.

Maybe the handbrake wasn't pressed full down Honda?

Thanks, will look later

Soarer

Operation Crawl Home has been finalised.

I've gone through the ESB chademo charge points from Dublin to Cork, and this is the list and distances I've come up with:

Starting Point (Dublin)
36km
Naas
28km
Kildare
9km
Mayfield
28km
Midway
26km
Ballacolla
20km
Urlingford
36km
Cashel
20km
Cahir
42km
Fermoy
39km
Frankfield
10km
Home

My plan is to saunter down the road at between 80-90km/h. Hopefully that'll be a nice balance between speed and economy.
I'm going to base things on a worst case range of 80km between charges, so that should see things pan out as follows:

Starting Point
73kms
Mayfield
75kms
Urlingford
56kms
Cahir
81kms
Frankfield

The last stretch is the longest, but I'm nearly home at that stage, so I don't mind pushing it.
Once I'm home, the car will be settling in for a life of 20-30km per day for as long as she lasts, so I'll enjoy tomorrow for what it is.

The pain train leaves at 10:20 in the morning! Choo choo!!

Mope

Looks like you are well prepared. Enjoy her

Soarer

Cheers mope.

My drl conversion kit arrived this morning, so I can be changing bulbs while I'm charging!

It's either that or eat Easter eggs!

unkel

Sounds a bit painful, but thankfully only a one-off journey

Good luck!

unkel

Is Midway - Cahir - Home not possible / doable / preferable?

101km, 102km, 91km. Surely that would work driving like miss Daisy (100km/h)?

Soarer

unkel wrote: »

Is Midway - Cahir - Home not possible / doable / preferable?

101km, 102km, 91km. Surely that would work driving like miss Daisy (100km/h)?

Could be.

But I've no idea of what the range is, seeing as it down on capacity.

I'll play it by ear like, but the plan I have is having a worst case 80km range. Anything better is a bonus.

unkel

Aye I suppose better safe than sorry. You've reserved all day tomorrow to do the trip anyway and after that the range of the car is largely irrelevant anyway. Do make sure though at your first FCP stop when you are trying to kill time, to post up here with all your details though, incl. what you paid for the car

Best of luck for tomorrow!

Soarer

Right lads.

Sitting at Mayfield Services filling up the car!

Buying the car went off without a hitch. Seller was a top man, and is actually a relative of someone here on Boards! He doesn't frequent here though.
Couldn't have been more helpful.
Car is spot on. Not in concourse condition, but in overall excellent condition.
Lovely to drive. Reminds me of the Prius, but without the engine kicking in.
Was gonna aim straight for Mayfield, but decided to have a quick squirt in Naas. Was ICE'd at my first charging point! Was another Leaf charging, so had a quick chat about things.
Paid €6k for the car, which included the public and granny cables! He also threw in a brand new heated seat cover that runs off the 12V so I'll save on using the heating!

Overall delighted. Can't wait to get it home and show the kids!

Is there any way to display the current charging rate in the car, without having to read the charging point?

kala85

What year and millage leaf is that

Calahonda52

Soarer wrote: »

Right lads.

Sitting at Mayfield Services filling up the car!

Buying the car went off without a hitch. Seller was a top man, and is actually a relative of someone here on Boards! He doesn't frequent here though.
Couldn't have been more helpful.
Car is spot on. Not in concourse condition, but in overall excellent condition.
Lovely to drive. Reminds me of the Prius, but without the engine kicking in.
Was gonna aim straight for Mayfield, but decided to have a quick squirt in Naas. Was ICE'd at my first charging point! Was another Leaf charging, so had a quick chat about things.
Paid €6k for the car, which included the public and granny cables! He also threw in a brand new heated seat cover that runs off the 12V so I'll save on using the heating!

Overall delighted. Can't wait to get it home and show the kids!

Is there any way to display the current charging rate in the car, without having to read the charging point?

Well wear, Leaf spy pro with the OBD dongle will let you view it. might cost more than the car!

You may also be able to track it on Nissan Connect, which is brutally slow.

ps this might help for those long journeys!!

https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/

goz83

Soarer wrote: »

Is there any way to display the current charging rate in the car, without having to read the charging point?

If you are asking about the percentage if the battery, look to the cluster of 4 buttons to the right side of the steering wheel wheel on the dash....near where an ignition key woukd usually go. The top left button when pressed will scroll through some options. One of them is the battery percentage. I leave this displayed all the time.

What car ICEd you?

Soarer

kala85 wrote: »

What year and millage leaf is that

2011 with 140k kms.

Soarer

goz83 wrote: »

If you are asking about the percentage if the battery, look to the cluster of 4 buttons to the right side of the steering wheel wheel on the dash....near where an ignition key woukd usually go. The top left button when pressed will scroll through some options. One of them is the battery percentage. I leave this displayed all the time.

What car ICEd you?

Land Cruiser.

To be fair, he seemed a bit embarrassed when he saw me pulled across in front of his jeep blocking his exit!

NIMAN

I think social media needs a page dedicated to knobs who ICE charging spots!

We have name and shame for bad parking, no reason why these inconsiderates don't deserve a page of their own.

General question, is it technically illegal to park in an EV charging spot? Can the guards issue a ticket for it?

peposhi

Soarer wrote:

Sitting at Mayfield Services filling up the car!

So it was you I seen earlier on...

Well wear... you got yourself a bargain!

isnottheword

peposhi wrote: »

Well wear...

[Offtopic]Never came across this 'well wear' business until I started checking out this (EV) forum![/Offtopic]

zilog_jones

NIMAN wrote: »

General question, is it technically illegal to park in an EV charging spot? Can the guards issue a ticket for it?

Guards don't issue parking tickets, local authorities do. And traffic wardens generally don't work Sundays.