Random EV thoughts.....

Thanks folks, appreciate the info

And the other one the same

I never answered your second question about getting a replacement battery

Short version, unless it's a warranty replacement, it's not really worth it

In technical terms, replacing the battery is simple enough:

1. Lift car
2. Unscrew battery bolts under car
3. Battery drops out (have something ready to catch it, it weighs 200-300kg 😀)
4. Put new battery in and connect it
5. Reprogram BMS for new battery via CAN Bus adaptor (there's programs to do this via a laptop or phone)
6. Drop car

Obviously lifting a car and heavy battery isn't easy, but it's something most mechanics could potentially do, there's no great science to it

In addition, battery packs are often compatible between cars of similar brands

• All Nissan Leafs have the same size and shape pack, there have been examples of older Leafs being upgraded to 40kWh or 62kWh pack
• All VW ID cars use the same battery pack, the only difference is the number of cells. In theory you could take a small battery ID.3 and add more cells to bring it up to the biggest battery size

Now comes the tricky question, is any of this worth it?

Unless you get the new battery for a low price and are willing to do the work yourself so the labour is free, then it isn't worth it

There are companies that will replace and upgrade battery packs for you. Cheapest seems to be €6,990 to upgrade a Leaf 24kWh to 30kWh, that's if you let them keep the old battery to resell

Considering you can buy a 24kWh Leaf for around €5k these days, and a 30kWh one for around €11k, that doesn't seem like much of a bargain. It also probably wouldn't raise the resale value and would have insurance implications since the car has been modified (some companies say a battery replacement is minor works but that refers to the 12v battery on all cars)

So unless you really like your current EV and want to give it a longer life, and have access to a car lift and you're fairly handy with mechanics, then battery swaps aren't really worthwhile

Have discovered an issue with work chargers, and was wondering if anyone would have any thoughts on what might be causing it?

We had a single charge point installed a few years ago, a ChargePoint one. It's display says it's an 11kw one and I noticed it charges my Leaf at 3.3.

Have now got more points in, and their display shows them as 22kw ones. But my Leaf constantly interrupts charging after a minute or two. Seems to start ok. Tried couple of the chargers and all doing the same.

The old one still working fine. So that would rule out the timer charging that I am overriding etc. If it works on one, should work on the other. Talking to work colleagues the new chargers are working for them without issues.

So why might the new ones be interrupting?

Based on what you’ve described I’d say it’s the charge points, not your car.

is your leaf 6.6kW? Maybe the new charge points dont like that being pulled on one phase.

any of the others users got a Leaf? If not, do you know anyone that could try one?

How are you guys measuring the degradation on your batteries?

I just got an OBD dongle to use with Carscanner and according to the app the SOH of my battery is 100%.

Is that it, or am I missing something?

Depends on car, ioniq typically shows 100% up to and above 160,000km but that can't be 100% true as there has to be some degredation, Hyundai and presumably Kia hide the true value and use some of the extra battery buffer. It's like the car starts with 110% and only drops below 100% when it's actually degraded 10%. I am typically a bit suspicious of reported by car degredation as it has warranty and reputation implications and Nissan released BMS updates which suddenly reports the battery improved, which can't be true, but they claim they just fixed a bug. I would say the truth is that they decided to show higher values to prevent battery warranty claims, and allow the battery to drain more to zero % so giving a bit more range. I know Tesla have different battery sizes in the exact same cars, so the extra buffer can vary depending on the exact pack installed the day it was built with many standard range cars often having long range batteries, but software restricted. The only real way to know would be an independent discharge test and measure the amount of energy supplied before the battery management system shuts off the battery.

What charger is in your Leaf and in his Leaf... are they 3.6kW or 6.6kW?

Maybe also try his cable on your car on the new charge points.

Volkswagen have teased their new Honda E ID.Life concept 😂

Easy enough to see where the styling comes from, although theirs far worse looking cars to copy and it's nice to see all the ID concepts aren't just a photocopy of the ID.3

To be fair, it looks like they stole the interior from a Model 3, minus the screen. They're making up for it by putting a projector screen on the windscreen when parked 😁

Gotta say that screen looks class. Just take my damn money VW!

And stole a yoke from an S!

and the yoke was stolen from Kit (knight rider)

Nothing wrong with driving like the Hoff 😎

Apparantly I'm doing VW an injustice because the Honda E exterior was copied from the Golf Mk I

I suppose I can't argue with the similarities

Goes to show that car makers copying each others designs isn't anything new

Would it not be a good idea to have 2 charging ports on a car, so it wouldn't matter if you drive in or reverse into a charger?

I'm sure it wouldn't cost that much yo hook a 2nd port up to the battery?