jlsoaz
Well-known member
Lothsahn said:johnlocke said:The real problem here is that Nissan picked the wrong chemistry to start with. The problem haunts them to this day. Higher average temps cause more rapid degradation in both the 24 and 30 KWH batteries. The jury is still out on the 40 KWH battery but the evidence so far doesn't look good. It will be another year before we will be able to say if the 40 KWH is really any better or worse. It does look like there's a problem fast charging the 40 KWH battery during road trips. NIssan will continue to use the same chemistry simply because it works ok in their primary markets ( Europe and Japan). Nissan USA has repeatedly ignored customer complaints and failed to act except under court duress.
Honestly, I think the real problem is that while they've kept the battery size the same, they refuse to sell upgrades. If people could buy a replacement 40 kWh battery for the 24 kWh original cars, I don't think there would be the negative attention that they're getting right now. They've already figured out how to fit 60 kWh in basically the same size. Also a possibility for a future upgrade, but Nissan likely won't do it.
Tesla's got goodwill because they make their cars better via constant software updates and improvements. Nissan has a huge opportunity here to set a precedent that their cars will get better when you buy a replacement battery in ~10 years after the original purchase, but there's not currently the will to do that. It's not even hard--they just have to design a BMS to talk to the older VCM protocol, and reprogram the VCM to update the GOM.
Both of you discuss points that I think are worth making. I just wish it was possible for each of us to raise issues and mull them over and occasionally to disagree without quite this extent of (sometimes arguably off-the-mark) brow-beating.
As to future-proofing the Leaf, yes, I thought so around 2012, and I may have said so, and still think so now. It may not be as do-able as you lay out, but IMO there would be value to NIssan and its customers to trying harder in this area. As an example, I think alliance member Renault in France did more to explore the question of battery upgrade/replacement. I don't know the pros/cons of how that turned out.