WetEV said:
GRA said:
WetEV said:
What a pile of FUD. We don't even know if the Leaf2 is "late to the party". Bolt isn't getting into customer hands until late this year. Leaf2 roll out will be much faster than Bolt roll out because Nissan is selling Leaf1 cars.
You know when the LEAF 2 will arrive, based on some official statement of Nissan?
No, and you don't when LEAF2 will arrive either. Nissan isn't saying. I admit my ignorance. You claim you know. I'm not convinced.
Nope, not claiming I know, I'm saying Nissan hasn't said squat about a near-term LEAF 2 intro, and any car that's going to be introduced within the next few months needs some word of mouth to build buzz in advance of launch, as well as to give the auto mags time to review the car. Neither has happened here.
WetEV said:
GRA said:
They haven't said anything in Paris, so right now it looks as if it won't arrive until the 2018 MY at the earliest.
Is there some law that says that you must present a new car in Paris to if it is to roll out before a given date? Auto shows are less of a factor today than in the past. Ford skipped Paris completely.
See above. Ford sure did, as did several other manufacturers who had nothing new to introduce that they hadn't already talked about. Nissan introduced the new Micra, and that's it.
WetEV said:
GRA said:
Those of us in cooler climates should prefer no TMS due to longer expected battery lifetime of a passively cooled battery in a cool climate. Hotter climates, the reverse.
Frequent road trippers have more reason to have a TMS (or at least active air cooling) due to frequent DCQC sessions. Commuters would more reason to have no TMS to reduce cost and improve reliability. And so on.
Future of battery development may alter this significantly as well. Longer battery life puts more preference on passive cooling. Larger battery packs mean more road trips and puts more preference on active cooling. Cheaper batteries puts more preference on passive cooling. All this and more will likely happen, but how much? The long term answer seems to me to be in doubt. Don't judge by LEAF 1.0 batteries, or even by the current LEAF batteries. You think you know the long term answer? I'm not convinced.
I'm convinced that no company can afford to offer both passive and active cooling on the same model, and that if they're going to sell a car in the U.S.,one of the few continent-spanning countries with the range of climate types that goes along with that, it needs to be able to deal with all U.S. climates, or else have its sales limited to only those regions where it's suitable (as Nissan so signally failed to do with the LEAF), causing no end of grief to customers who believed their claim. The resulting bad PR and and pushback on them was wholly Nissan's fault. Contrast that with the Volt, which has seen nothing but positive customer response to its battery pack behavior, all because GM engineered the pack to deal with the whole variety of U.S. climates. The fact that it was over-engineered for some is just the cost of having a universally-salable product.
WetEV said:
GRA said:
and past corporate behavior affecting future sales prospects, there've been ample examples of both expressed by current and former LEAF owners here.
Agree. Not that other corporations are much better. VW and diesels, ...
Oh, sure, I consider all corporations run by ethically-challenged, profit-driven slimeballs barring evidence to the contrary, but you'd think some of them would try to learn from their failures. The LEAF's pack design was certainly a failure here, or rather Nissan's marketing of it ensured it would fail. The ASCE defines a design failure as "an unacceptable difference between expected and demonstrated performance," and by any standard, Nissan's marketing claims of 100 mile range, 80% after five years and 70% after ten years guaranteed that the LEAF's pack design would be seen as a failure. That the design was adequate for the PNW, NW Europe and similar climates is by the by - that's not what Nissan claimed for it.
If Nissan were to again try to claim that a passively-cooled battery pack is suitable for use everywhere, given what we know about current battery chemistry, most of the LEAF owners who got burned the first time around will take a pass. If Nissan wants to back their claims with their own money, it's a different matter. They'd have to, because no one who experienced degradation 'failure' is likely to trust their word again.