BATTERY UPGRADE/REPLACEMENT

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A used 2011 or 2012 with a weak battery can be had for less than $6,000.
Why do they need to barrow a car to test it?
 
Oilpan4 said:
A used 2011 or 2012 with a weak battery can be had for less than $6,000.
Why do they need to barrow a car to test it?
Heck, years ago, kolmstead tried to sell his 8 bar '11 for $4500: http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19967&p=454921&hilit=%244500#p454921. He got no takers but was unfortunately in a remote part of CA. Car got donated after a few months of no takers.
DaveinOlyWA said:
badq45t said:
There is a company that will be offering Leaf Replacement batteries with lots more range, up to 65 kwh too. Fenix Energy, they are going to be taking mine as a test mule, donating for 2 years and I will have to lease something in between, but should be well over 200 miles of range. WIll be about the same as the Nissan batteries but with liquid cooling they will last a good long time.

Why can't you drive the test mule?
Probably because it will be w/o its pack quite a bit of the time and the company will need it for testing and development. You can't expect a whole bunch of paid employees to be waiting around or adapting their work and product schedule to the whims of some non-employee.

I could envision plenty of testing w/the car being driven, charged, discharged, DC FCed w/the employees wanting direct realtime access to instrumentation along w/the ability to abort the test or put out a fire, if needed. There are also potential liability issues.

If development were much further along, then sure, I'd expect beta testing by outsiders to be a possibility.
 
Yeah the $4,000 2011-2012 leafs with bad batteries was what originally got me looking into the nissan leaf.
But I decided to pay more and get one with a replaced battery.
 
Oilpan4 said:
Yeah the $4,000 2011-2012 leafs with bad batteries was what originally got me looking into the nissan leaf.
But I decided to pay more and get one with a replaced battery.

As someone who bought a degraded leaf cheaply with a plan to replace the battery for $5500... Then found out the price raised to $8k... You made a good choice.
 
cwerdna said:
Oilpan4 said:
A used 2011 or 2012 with a weak battery can be had for less than $6,000.
Why do they need to barrow a car to test it?
Heck, years ago, kolmstead tried to sell his 8 bar '11 for $4500: http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19967&p=454921&hilit=%244500#p454921. He got no takers but was unfortunately in a remote part of CA. Car got donated after a few months of no takers.
DaveinOlyWA said:
badq45t said:
There is a company that will be offering Leaf Replacement batteries with lots more range, up to 65 kwh too. Fenix Energy, they are going to be taking mine as a test mule, donating for 2 years and I will have to lease something in between, but should be well over 200 miles of range. WIll be about the same as the Nissan batteries but with liquid cooling they will last a good long time.

Why can't you drive the test mule?
Probably because it will be w/o its pack quite a bit of the time and the company will need it for testing and development. You can't expect a whole bunch of paid employees to be waiting around or adapting their work and product schedule to the whims of some non-employee.

I could envision plenty of testing w/the car being driven, charged, discharged, DC FCed w/the employees wanting direct realtime access to instrumentation along w/the ability to abort the test or put out a fire, if needed. There are also potential liability issues.

If development were much further along, then sure, I'd expect beta testing by outsiders to be a possibility.

I am with you on that but I was under the impression they were much more farther along than that. Would it really be all that difficult to monitor the pack and transmit data every day on wi fi or something?

I also get that testing requires quite the rigorous process to cover "most of the bases" to evaluate the driving extremes one could expect. This might mean "Hey we need your car for 3 days, etc...

I guess its all about budget in the end.
 
badq45t said:
There is a company that will be offering Leaf Replacement batteries with lots more range, up to 65 kwh too. Fenix Energy, they are going to be taking mine as a test mule, donating for 2 years and I will have to lease something in between, but should be well over 200 miles of range. WIll be about the same as the Nissan batteries but with liquid cooling they will last a good long time.
At your mention of this, I checked out their website. For us schlubs with 2012's, they MAY be able to put in a 30kwh battery but their initial plan is to replace like with like, i.e., 24kwh for me. Later LEAFs may benefit from greater upgradeability.

Interesting concept and company, and I hope their plans come to fruition. The car itself has such a potential for longevity...and then there's the crippling battery.
 
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