Hypothetical....buying a new battery pack?

[EVDrive]

I would upgrade if I hadn't already exchanged my Leaf for a newer version Leaf or a Tesla.
I also expect the Leaf to last 20 years easy.

 

[surfingslovak]

You can buy a 300 mile Tesla Model S and take delivery of it mid 2012

Are you sure about this? I contemplated putting down the $5K deposit last year before I decided to go with the Leaf instead. I returned to the Tesla store recently to revisit that idea, and they told me that they pretty much sold out all of next year's production and I could expect delivery in December 2012 or early 2013.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

I have no need for more range on the Leaf, actually less will be just fine, especially once the QC network is in place. Once more range is affordable, I'd consider buying a car with less range, save some money and put it toward a second EV, something highlander size with a 200-300 mile range, giving up the ICE/hybrid highlander we have now... I can dream anyway.

On the occasion that the Leaf isn't enough, it's more because we need more room more than we need more range. our need for more range comes with a need for more seating, hauling and storage capacity which puts us in a different class of vehicle. Nothing EV or ICE in the mid-range compact would fill that need even with unlimited range. As soon as we want to go on a long trip or have family in town, more seating, hauling and storage capacity is what has us leave the Leaf behind, which is surprisingly infrequent.

I have a strong feeling that once a charging infrastructure is in place, this whole conversation is going to change radically. I'm very interested to see how being able to drive to Portland or Vancouver changes my perspective on all this... by December, fingers crossed!

g

 

[JohnOver]

I would definitely go for it. That would mean that I would only need to charge at work (for free)! Plus I could make that cross-country trip I've been wanting to make..

 

[fenselau]

Yes- sign me up for that mid-life kicker!

 

[planet4ever]

I'm on the opposite side from gassless on this. Longer range seems like a much better long term solution than Quick Charge, at least so long as we're talking about lithium battery technologies. (And so far, at least, it doesn't look like we are going to be able to get Mike's 3x energy density out of supercaps.) QC is currently at about a 2C charging rate. From what I've read, it seems like you are not going to be able to charge frequently at an 6C or even a 4C rate without shortening battery life significantly. If so, the current half-hour wait for every 50 miles traveled at freeway speeds isn't going to be improved by a great deal.

If, on the other hand, I can go 300 miles without charging, and have a charger fast enough to completely recharge that overnight along with motels that can meet the power requirements of doing so, reasonably long trips do become practical. I'm not sure whether Mike's hypothetical was for 300 miles at freeway speeds, or 3x the current capacity, but hopefully a 10 kW charger (pulling up to 48A) would do the overnight job, so we'd need 60A infrastructure.

If that sort of infrastructure was there in five years, then yes, it would be worth $5K to me.

Ray

 

[Herm]

By the time you can get a 75kwh pack for much less than $5k, gas cars will be completely obsolete.. and gas will be dirt cheap

 

[mitch672]

You can buy a 300 mile Tesla Model S and take delivery of it mid 2012

Are you sure about this? I contemplated putting down the $5K deposit last year before I decided to go with the Leaf instead. I returned to the Tesla store recently to revisit that idea, and they told me that they pretty much sold out all of next year's production and I could expect delivery in December 2012 or early 2013.

for the Tesla Model S "Signaturre" series (they are only making 1,000 of these, and they are whats being produced first), you have priorty in the production queue, in theory. Forget about a $5K deposit, to get one of those they require a $40K deposit, and its going to price out at $70K with NO options, which will add further to the actual price. Checkout the link, I think they have less than 500 reserved so far on the "signature" model S (w/ the 300 mile pack and special badging)

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

In 5 years the car's value will probably be around 12k, so investing $5k just doesn't seem reasonable. I would think that in 5 years we'll have cheaper EVs with better technology that will drive the value of first Gen leaf to the ground. Mitsubishi alone promised 8 electrics by 2015.

There's more to it than that, though. One of the promises of an electric, in my book, is reduced maintenance and long life. It's important to me NOT to throw the car away so soon. I'll happily replace the batts on my $12k (or 10k or 5k) car as long as I have confidence that the car will continue to run for the life of those batts. If I take care of it, I hope to have a nice, green car for 15 years.

I have heard that with golf carts, people junk the gas ones after 10 years, but on the electric ones they just keep replacing the batteries and run them indefinitely.

Does raise some interesting questions about how cars get maintained. rebuilt and renovated in the future. Today we just replace cars because we are tired of them and enough stuff starts to wear out the maintenance becomes a burden (more the former IMO, even with an ICE car it's still almost always cheaper to repair than replace). Contrast that with aircraft that have more or less indefinite life spans. You might see EVs getting paint jobs and new interiors, etc than you typically saw with ICE cars.

 

[copdoc]

Maybe the electrical engineers can answer this:

Our battery pack is made up of a bunch of individual batteries. The supposition is that if an individual cell fails, it can be replaced.

Could someone develop individual replacement cells with, say, double the capacity for holding kW? Where it might be troublesome to replace the entire pack for 12000, I can certainly imagine having the dealer tell me, "We need to replace cells 2B and 4D. We can do that under your warranty for free, but if you'd like to pony up $400 each, we can add x number of kilowatts which would get you a slightly longer range."

Do all the battery parts have to be matching?

 

[lpickup]

Maybe the electrical engineers can answer this:

Our battery pack is made up of a bunch of individual batteries. The supposition is that if an individual cell fails, it can be replaced.

Could someone develop individual replacement cells with, say, double the capacity for holding kW? Where it might be troublesome to replace the entire pack for 12000, I can certainly imagine having the dealer tell me, "We need to replace cells 2B and 4D. We can do that under your warranty for free, but if you'd like to pony up $400 each, we can add x number of kilowatts which would get you a slightly longer range."

Do all the battery parts have to be matching?

Yes, pretty much. All the cells work together to provide power and ideally will supply more or less equal power with respect to each other. From a purely theoretical point of view, replacing individual cells with "high capacity" cells would be kind of like replacing one of your legs with a stronger or faster leg. The real limiting factor is going to be the weaker leg.

Not to mention that whatever technology that enables extended range is likely going to require different hardware and certainly software interface.

Even replacing individual cells with identical (but new) cells is still going to give you balance issues and you probably won't be able to take full advantage of the full capacity of those new cells.

Any future "enhanced" range upgrades are going to necessitate full pack upgrades. But even then I'm not optimistic that these will work in our current LEAFs. I've owned too many pieces of equipment where you'd think an upgrade would be possible by swapping in a new hard-drive and some new software or something simple like that but there's always some reason why some additional hardware is needed that is just not compatible with the existing equipment. If it happens that I'll be able to replace the pack in 10 years with a 400 mile pack, I'll be thrilled, but I'm only expecting a 100 mile pack, albeit much cheaper.

 

[coqui]

I'd do it in a heartbeat.
My Prius is now sitting garaged. Can't remember the last time I filled it up.
Gotta keep the Leaf purring (or humming in this case :lol: )

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

I disagree with the assertion that a larger battery capacity would only be useful with higher capacity charging. At 3.3 kW rate, 40 kW would take 12 hours, and having some of that as additional reserve wouldn't be all bad, or for occasional days when longer trips are needed, easily bringing that down to 8-10 hours. The "Nissan is a bunch of idiots for not giving us 6.6 kW" guys must be rock stars, getting home at 2am, and heading back out at 6am for their 80 mile commute.

 

[TonyWilliams]

The "Nissan is a bunch of idiots for not giving us 6.6 kW" guys must be rock stars, getting home at 2am, and heading back out at 6am for their 80 mile commute.

You can't imagine another scenario where a double speed charger might be handy? It is my #2 reason to buy the BMW Active E; number 1 is a 32kWh battery.

I'm not a rock star. If the Toyota Rav4 EV were available, I'd probably prefer that (assuming even larger battery and at least a 6.6kW charger).

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

You can't imagine another scenario where a double speed charger might be handy?

Sure... but a bigger battery capacity would be quite useful even if the charging rate was still 3.3.

 

[TomT]

Wanting 6.6Kw (or more) has nothing to do with that for me. I have plenty of time to charge at home. What I don't have plenty of time for is to sit around at public L2 for hours at end when opportunity charging, and 6.6Kw+ would help greatly with that. It's about charging away from home, not at home... Since I am not convinced we'll ever see enough Chademo QC units to make any practical difference, that is all we have.

The "Nissan is a bunch of idiots for not giving us 6.6 kW" guys must be rock stars, getting home at 2am, and heading back out at 6am for their 80 mile commute.

 

[EricBayArea]

To answer the question, definitely. I'd hope a 6.6Kw+ charger as well.

Wanting 6.6Kw (or more) has nothing to do with that for me. I have plenty of time to charge at home. What I don't have plenty of time for is to sit around at public L2 for hours at end when opportunity charging, and 6.6Kw+ would help greatly with that. It's about charging away from home, not at home... Since I am not convinced we'll ever see enough Chademo QC units to make any practical difference, that is all we have.

The "Nissan is a bunch of idiots for not giving us 6.6 kW" guys must be rock stars, getting home at 2am, and heading back out at 6am for their 80 mile commute.

I agree with all of that. I have no issues L2'ing at home at night. Where I do find the constraint is either at public facilities (although I have yet to rely on a public charger to get me home) or on days where I need to drive 50-60 miles in the evening - do I not drive all day or do I drive, then make sure I can get home with at least 2-3 hours to charge before I leave again... that's where we find ourselves taking our ICE.

 

[Nubo]

I disagree with the assertion that a larger battery capacity would only be useful with higher capacity charging. At 3.3 kW rate, 40 kW would take 12 hours, and having some of that as additional reserve wouldn't be all bad, or for occasional days when longer trips are needed, easily bringing that down to 8-10 hours. The "Nissan is a bunch of idiots for not giving us 6.6 kW" guys must be rock stars, getting home at 2am, and heading back out at 6am for their 80 mile commute.

Actually, the larger the battery pack, the less critical a faster L2 charger becomes.

For ease of calculation, let's assume the current pack gives an actual 100 mile range.

Let's say your commute takes you from 80% to 20% with the current LEAF and you're getting home with 20 miles remaining. If no further driving, then everything is good and you can let the charge start at midnight to get back to 80% for tomorrow. If, however, it turns out you need to take a 40 mile drive that evening then you are realistically looking at having to squeeze in maybe 2 hours of L2 before taking off. Easy to imagine where a 6.6 kW charge could be more convenient in that situation.

But now you've upgraded to the LEAF 300 pack. Your commute now takes you from 80% down to 60% and you arrive home with 180 miles of reserve. The speed of your L2 becomes irrelevant; you don't need any additional charging to cover evening needs. Even if you were to add another 120 miles of driving, you'd come back home with 20% - 60 miles remaining. Everything is fine. Even if the time remaining before your next morning's commute isn't enough for the 3.3kW charger to get you back to 80%, you're likely to still be fine. Maybe you only get back to 50%. That's 150 miles for your next day's commute of 60 miles leaving 90 miles remaining on the evening of Day2. Eventually you catch up with 80%.

With a 300 mile battery, 3.3kW charger would be perfectly adequate unless you are actually averaging well over 100 miles of driving for multiple consecutive days.

Taking it further, a 600 mile pack would make the charger speed even more irrelevant. Are you at 40% this morning, or 60% or 80%? Generally the answer would be "who cares"? The consideration becomes whether your L2 can keep up with your average usage within the time window you have available for charging. For a very high percentage of drivers, I reckon the answer for 3.3kW would be "yes".

Long distance travel is another story, admittedly. But there will hopefully be L3 for that.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

the current pack and 3.3 Kw L2/L1 charger will look very different as soon as the L3 network is up and running up here this summer! I'm thinking along the lines of what you are saying, sort of except I see L3 as making the 3.3 Kw charger even more adequate than increasing the battery pack would. I think the reason Nissan went with the 3.3 is that within the larger context of the cars design, assuming most would get the CHAdeMO port, that 3.3 was adequate for in home, I think they were banking on the L3 network getting built out faster than it has.

very much looking forward to the L3 network, more so than larger batteries.

I disagree with the assertion that a larger battery capacity would only be useful with higher capacity charging. At 3.3 kW rate, 40 kW would take 12 hours, and having some of that as additional reserve wouldn't be all bad, or for occasional days when longer trips are needed, easily bringing that down to 8-10 hours. The "Nissan is a bunch of idiots for not giving us 6.6 kW" guys must be rock stars, getting home at 2am, and heading back out at 6am for their 80 mile commute.

Actually, the larger the battery pack, the less critical a faster L2 charger becomes.

For ease of calculation, let's assume the current pack gives an actual 100 mile range.

Let's say your commute takes you from 80% to 20% with the current LEAF and you're getting home with 20 miles remaining. If no further driving, then everything is good and you can let the charge start at midnight to get back to 80% for tomorrow. If, however, it turns out you need to take a 40 mile drive that evening then you are realistically looking at having to squeeze in maybe 2 hours of L2 before taking off. Easy to imagine where a 6.6 kW charge could be more convenient in that situation.

But now you've upgraded to the LEAF 300 pack. Your commute now takes you from 80% down to 60% and you arrive home with 180 miles of reserve. The speed of your L2 becomes irrelevant; you don't need any additional charging to cover evening needs. Even if you were to add another 120 miles of driving, you'd come back home with 20% - 60 miles remaining. Everything is fine. Even if the time remaining before your next morning's commute isn't enough for the 3.3kW charger to get you back to 80%, you're likely to still be fine. Maybe you only get back to 50%. That's 150 miles for your next day's commute of 60 miles leaving 90 miles remaining on the evening of Day2. Eventually you catch up with 80%.

With a 300 mile battery, 3.3kW charger would be perfectly adequate unless you are actually averaging well over 100 miles of driving for multiple consecutive days.

Taking it further, a 600 mile pack would make the charger speed even more irrelevant. Are you at 40% this morning, or 60% or 80%? Generally the answer would be "who cares"? The consideration becomes whether your L2 can keep up with your average usage within the time window you have available for charging. For a very high percentage of drivers, I reckon the answer for 3.3kW would be "yes".

Long distance travel is another story, admittedly. But there will hopefully be L3 for that.

 

[coqui]

GaslessInSeattle,
When I test drove the Leaf, in Charlotte near the Nascar Racetrack, the Nissan folks were definitely pushing the SL with the QC port. I think you're right, Nissan was counting on L3's being a lot more available than they are.