Nissan Leaf

Mope

I was never big in to this all auto this and auto-that... I like driving, but the idea that car can do this type of driving in unknown conditions, basically learning on the go is truly amazing

GatsbyGal

I am driving to Dublin next week from Galway and hoping to drive in our gen. 1.5 leaf. I've done the journey once before and we were advised that time that three stops was standard.. Ballinasloe, Kilbeggan and Enfield. I'm hearing that the charger in Ballinasloe is acting up so we may have to bypass it. Do you think we could comfortably make it to Kilbeggan without having to charge in Ballinasloe and Athlone or am I just asking for trouble not stopping in either of these locations?

n97 mini

GatsbyGal wrote: »

I am driving to Dublin next week from Galway and hoping to drive in our gen. 1.5 leaf. I've done the journey once before and we were advised that time that three stops was standard.. Ballinasloe, Kilbeggan and Enfield. I'm hearing that the charger in Ballinasloe is acting up so we may have to bypass it. Do you think we could comfortably make it to Kilbeggan without having to charge in Ballinasloe and Athlone or am I just asking for trouble not stopping in either of these locations?

Where in Dublin are you coming from? I can make it leaving Leixlip with ~100% to Kilbeggan comfortably on about 70%. I don't use the M4 (thus avoiding the toll and the FCP at Enfield), instead I use the old road. Driving at 120km/h zaps the battery so why pay for motorway speeds if not using them.

isnottheword

GatsbyGal wrote: »

I am driving to Dublin next week from Galway and hoping to drive in our gen. 1.5 leaf. I've done the journey once before and we were advised that time that three stops was standard.. Ballinasloe, Kilbeggan and Enfield. I'm hearing that the charger in Ballinasloe is acting up so we may have to bypass it. Do you think we could comfortably make it to Kilbeggan without having to charge in Ballinasloe and Athlone or am I just asking for trouble not stopping in either of these locations?

Check the chargers on emaps and plugshare before you leave. Leave with a full charge and work on the basis of using Ballinasloe. If it's down/unavailable, ramble in to Athlone. I guess if Ballinasloe is working, you'll know if you can skip Athlone on the way back.

I always allow for 110 Kms in the current gen 24 Kwh at 100 Kph.

The older national routes are great for increasing range not only because you might be driving slower but they can be shorter distance. FOr instance, If I go the M9 all the way to work it will be about 7 Km more than driving the old N9 through Castledermot. That's about 7% battery saved one way.

Soarer

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.....

Excellent hope to read your review soon !

Gumbo

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.....

Did you go for the black one in the end?

unkel

Well wear Soarer! What did you get? Where did you buy it? Year, spec, price, etc.! You know the drill!!!

Soarer

kceire wrote: »

Did you go for the black one in the end?

I did kc, yeah.

unkel wrote: »

Well wear Soarer! What did you get? Where did you buy it? Year, spec, price, etc.! You know the drill!!!

I'm like ShefWedFan now, and not wanting to say anything until the deal is done, but...

2011, so only one spec!
Black, with a light grey interior.
New front tyres. Wind deflectors, which is a big thing for me!
Public and granny cables.
Taxed til November, passed the nct last week until March 2019. The ol fella had a look at it last night while he was in Dublin, and he said she's immacculate. He thought it very weird not to check oil levels and stuff!
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. But my daily round trip is about 25kms, with the odd 40kms round trip for a game of footie, so the range doesn't bother me.

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. Everything's agreed on word only, and you just never know.

Thanks to everyone I annoyed via pm. This has been brewing for around 2 years!:eek:

https://www.donedeal.ie/adview/view/15023386

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.

samih

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!

samih

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

samih

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.....

samih

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.

samih

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).