Has anyone seen solid details on the difficulty of replacing the Leaf battery system when the battery capacity becomes unusable. After 5 or so years, our Leaf batteries will probably have decayed to 80% or so of their original capacity. Given the 100 miles range can be limiting for some situations like non-commute trips, when that drops to 70-80 miles, it will begin to hurt.
Now the hope is that new battery Lithium chemistries are in the works, the DOE is investing heavily in battery companies, volumes will be significantly higher and battery recycling will all help capacity and cost by anywhere from 2X to 5X in 5-7 years of Leaf battery life. That will mean that replacing the Leaf battery pack and charger ( new batteries may need new chargers ) will be inevitable and hopefully improve either cost or capacity or both. If say Lithium Air batteries double the capacity and half the cost for the Leaf form factor, it would be nice to know how difficult changing the battery will be. I wonder how deeply integrated the battery chemistry details are implemented in the Leaf and whether change out has been considered and planned. Is it like changing an engine or radiator? Any ideas?
Now the hope is that new battery Lithium chemistries are in the works, the DOE is investing heavily in battery companies, volumes will be significantly higher and battery recycling will all help capacity and cost by anywhere from 2X to 5X in 5-7 years of Leaf battery life. That will mean that replacing the Leaf battery pack and charger ( new batteries may need new chargers ) will be inevitable and hopefully improve either cost or capacity or both. If say Lithium Air batteries double the capacity and half the cost for the Leaf form factor, it would be nice to know how difficult changing the battery will be. I wonder how deeply integrated the battery chemistry details are implemented in the Leaf and whether change out has been considered and planned. Is it like changing an engine or radiator? Any ideas?