Tsiah said:
OrientExpress said:
FYI:
Here is a diagram of the LEAF Plus's battery architecture. They have moved to a three cell low-resistance model that manages heat quite a bit better.
This is precisely what I was expecting they had done by adding more cells and how I figured they would be ok without a TMS. I still don't think no TMS is a good idea and I won't be buying another non TMS EV as I've seen my pack get extremely hot when I need to do a lot of driving and a QC or 2 on a hot day. Maybe this 62kWh car will prove better in maintaining temperature and cell capacity... But I won't be buying one to find out.
Thanks to OrientExpress for the diagram and to Tsiah for the comment.
On personal buying, I also am unlikely to buy another vehicle without TMS, at least unless or until I see some years of evidence that it is holding up better than we have seen. Even though I live in a relatively hot area, the concern would not completely go away even if I lived in a different area.
On Industry discussion, around 2006-2010, I feared that Nissan was establishing a pattern of erring on the side making the battery show that it wouldn't hold up. I don't know as much about them, in general, as some here seem to, but I do know they already had the experience with the Lithium Ion vehicles around 2000 in California. During the mid-2000s, Chevy seemed to be taking a rather admirable amount of time, money and effort to build some protection for their battery going into the Volt, and Tesla seemed to do the same for their vehicles. So, those companies were offering added up-front cost but the possibility that the vehicles would hold up better, and thus in some equations be less costly, in the long run. It's true that many consumers may prioritize the short run in their buying decisions, but I thought it would be an interesting thing to see this play out.
- Here we are about eight years after the Volt and Leaf launched and I'm ok with the extent to which my six year old battery seems to be holding up on the Volt, and there seems to be some related decent valuation put on the used vehicles. Having watched the Volt development around the mid-2000s, I'm not surprised at these developments.
- On the other side of things, It became apparent not long after the Leaf launched that in some cases the Lithium Ion batteries, with passive air cooling, were not holding up well, and for some years overall the values on used Leafs have been pretty modest. The valuation issue is also tied in with the inevitable valuation drop of a gen1 short-range BEV. The failure of the batteries to hold up more consistently and to a higher level across the Leaf fleet didn't surprise me. However, Nissan's apparent decision (though I may have it wrong) in declining to move to a different angle on this.... an angle where they could err on the side of over-building (for want of a better word) the system and not under-building it, ....is potentially disappointing to me. It depends on a few things, including whether I am badly mis-perceiving how Nissan has approached this, or just maybe being too concerned.... maybe their architecture and other measures will bear out. I'm hopeful their view has become that it is important to protect the battery for all customers, and (thus) the long-term value of the car.
One peripheral thought - I don't know as much about some here seem to about some claimed tendency in general for Nissan to be cheap, but I wonder if it would be a good idea for Nissan to take some folks from their GT-R program (if they haven't already done) and put them on the Leaf and other EV programs. I say this because the GT-R appears to be (from what very little I know) a vehicle where the effort was made to build to world-class standards, and leave no qualitative make-or-break "Achilles' Heel" that might bring down the long-term customer satisfaction. Even if the price to the customer was extraordinarily high, the vehicle seems to be a good halo vehicle with (as far as I know) decent durability for a vehicle of its type, and it appears to have satisfied customers. I don't say that the Leaf should be a halo vehicle (it should be a mainstream decent-volume profit-maker), but I do think it would be a good idea for Nissan to move to address the two significant make-or-break issues they put in place with the Gen1 vehicle (range and degradation). As I say, maybe they have done this, I guess we'll see.
I'd also like to see them and other manufacturers of 200+ mile BEVs (Tesla, GM, Hyundai, Kia, Jaguar) put a higher price on things, if that's what they think they need to do to break even or make a profit.
