Future of Leafs in Jordan

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xenastro

New member
Joined
Jul 26, 2016
Messages
2
Hello,

I am from Jordan, a country in the middle east, our climate is moderate most of the year, but in July/Aug it gets hot, sometimes over 40 degrees celsius.

1 year ago the government exempted EVs from customs which allowed us to buy EVs at a very low price compared to other cars and since then we have noticed an influx of EVs in the market, vast majority of which are Nissan Leafs, all of them are 2011-2015, nothing newer.

Nissan agency in Jordan does not sell Leafs yet, all the cars are used and imported from the states.

So far the only means of getting your battery replaced is to install a used battery taken from a salvaged car, there is absolutely no means of acquiring a new pack and we don't expect the agency in Jordan to provide new packs for a reasonable price anytime soon.

So my question is, what do we expect to happen in a few years time, let's assume in year 2020 when the majority of the packs in these cars will need replacement, if we are to continue to rely on used batteries taken from 2015-2016 salvaged cars those used batteries will be heavily degraded as well.

Do you guys think that by 2020 there will be commercial battery packs that we can buy and replace, or do you think Nissan will start selling battery packs that are compatible with these older 24kWh EVs? I mean selling the packs separately without replacing them at Nissan dealerships.
 
Frankly, i dont think there would be a problem. State of Israel (sorry to mention) has a lot of EV's there and there doesnt seem to be a problem. I've got friends driving Leaf's in Tehran and one in Damascus (imported after the start of war) - no problems completely. So if Leaf (2015) can survive Tehran heat - it can survive everything :D

I would be more concerned about charging stations there...
 
Thank you for your response.

Charging stations problem should be soon resolved, we already have a few of them and the local community is very helpful in sharing their own home charging stations on PlugShare.
 
Well this explains why 50% of the calls, emails and facebook marketplace leads we've received so far are from Jordan or from someone who wants to export a car to Jordan. Unfortunately we are not set up to deal with export at all, but we may need to adapt in order to move some LEAF inventory out of the CarPortal warehouse.
 
Then go for it ;) Just choose 2013+ model, or better yet - 2015+.

We need to narrow that a bit. Packs made between April of 2013 and all of 2015 are fine, with the 2015 packs being best because of better chemistry. Leafs made before April of 2013 will have much worse degradation in heat because of worse chemistry, and 2016 & 2017 Leafs will also have bad degradation, sadly. Your best bet for your climate is the 2015 pack, and that will still degrade in heat.
 
In high-heat environments, to preserve range it's best to import an EV that uses active liquid cooling for the battery. So no Leaf (no cooling at all), no Kia Soul EV (uses cabin air), and no VW eGolf, at least the North American-spec version (not sure if the EU-spec has liquid cooling).

I believe the Mitsubishi iMiEV, Chevy Spark EV, and Ford Focus Electric all have liquid cooling for their batteries. If you can swing the acquisition cost, so do the Tesla models, but the most affordable one (the Model 3) was just released to the public and there's a months-long if not years-long waiting list depending on the specification you want.
 
RonDawg said:
In high-heat environments, to preserve range it's best to import an EV that uses active liquid cooling for the battery. So no Leaf (no cooling at all), no Kia Soul EV (uses cabin air), and no VW eGolf, at least the North American-spec version (not sure if the EU-spec has liquid cooling).

I believe the Mitsubishi iMiEV, Chevy Spark EV, and Ford Focus Electric all have liquid cooling for their batteries. If you can swing the acquisition cost, so do the Tesla models, but the most affordable one (the Model 3) was just released to the public and there's a months-long if not years-long waiting list depending on the specification you want.

I agree, but I think the problem is the availability and pricing of other EVs in the region.
 
With China now having 1/3 of all BEVs on the road, and 1/2 of new sales, it's possible that the first BEV with aftermarket or economically-viable replacement batteries will come from there. It probably won't be importable into US or EU, but could be imported into other global markets.
 
RonDawg said:
In high-heat environments, to preserve range it's best to import an EV that uses active liquid cooling for the battery. So no Leaf (no cooling at all), no Kia Soul EV (uses cabin air), and no VW eGolf, at least the North American-spec version (not sure if the EU-spec has liquid cooling).

I believe the Mitsubishi iMiEV, Chevy Spark EV, and Ford Focus Electric all have liquid cooling for their batteries. If you can swing the acquisition cost, so do the Tesla models, but the most affordable one (the Model 3) was just released to the public and there's a months-long if not years-long waiting list depending on the specification you want.


Add Fiat 500e to the list above of liquid cooled batteries. We just acquired four of them. They are tiny, but fun and good range. Great city car. Ambient summer temps around here (Central Valley of California) are 100-115F so almost as bad as Arizona. I cannot drive a LEAF here from late May thru late October. Looking forward to buzzing around in a 500e although there are so many full size trucks and SUV's around here I worry a bit about safety.

We continue to get a lot of calls from Jordan and now Norway is really starting to pick up.
 
xenastro said:
Thank you for your response.

Charging stations problem should be soon resolved, we already have a few of them and the local community is very helpful in sharing their own home charging stations on PlugShare.

Hi - it's more than a year later, but recently you've received a number of responses. A few ad hoc additional points from me:
- I live in Arizona, USA and drove a 2012 Leaf for awhile. I did experience battery degradation over the duration of the lease, as well as a few other drawbacks. Basically, the car's range was just far too little for my needs. I have long since moved on and purchased a Chevy Volt PHEV, and haven't recently paid close attention, but my fallible understanding was that it was/(is?) possible to purchase a replacement battery for the Leaf and have it installed. About USD $6000? I have no idea if this is true in Jordan.
- Unfortunately, there is a lot of homework to do on BEVs, and if you buy one that starts out life with these lame short ranges (under 100 miles for example), then any loss of range hurts even more.
- as far as I can recall, the Mitsubishi iMiEV is air-cooled (and only starts out life as 16 kWh? has this increased over the years?) Someone mentioned it as liquid-cooled. I don't know if there are differences with the Citroen or Peugeot variants.
- I'm thinking that some of your bets would have been, or may still be, to research Renault and some other models in Europe. For awhile, it looked like Renault was doing a better job of offering a battery upgrade path to drivers of used BEVs, but I'm not up to date on where that has gone.
- Renault Zoe - the earlier models came with the same inadequate (for purposes of many of us) kWh, but doing a quick look around, it appears that in recent years, there has been an option for ~41 kWh. Depending on battery protection and budget, this might be an option for some. (For me, even though there are a small number of ~40 kWh used BEVs in the US, I just made a decision I'm not bothering with these short range BEVS any more, so it's a PHEV for me until the BEVS are high quality, work it all out as to range, and depreciate in price on the used markets.
- GM has not been good about making the Bolt available in EMEA, otherwise I'd suggest looking into it.
- Unclear to me what sort of battery management and degradation the new Leafs will have in 2019.
- For me, the solution to all of this was to buy a used good PHEV (and there are plenty of mediocre ones), the Chevy Volt, and then drive about half my miles on gasoline, and wait it out, until the next generation of BEVs with 150+ miles EPA and well-protected batteries come down in price on the used market. I don't know which PHEVs are widely available used in the EMEA markets and have good battery protection. You do still I think have to worry about battery life in a used PHEV. I bought a used Volt here in Arizona with some confidence because Chevy did a good job of designing and installing the battery pack and cooling and such.
- I figure I will be able to finance a loan on my next BEV, such as a used Bolt or Tesla Model 3, sometime around 2023. At that time, I'll consider a used 2019 Leaf except the Bolt will have a 2-year head start in depreciation to my price levels, and I don't know yet what sort of battery degradation I can expect on a Leaf. I'm not a fan of the Bolt's styling though, so that's a point for the Leaf and Tesla.

Anyway, I do realize the original poster may have moved on from this question, but I thought I'd try to summarize some thoughts on it.
 
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