Nissan IDS concept shows Next Gen Leaf with 60kwh

[Arlington]

I'm going to play contrarian: if radical leaps in performance are available through battery gens 2.1 thru 2.3 which offer exact volumetric fit (or involves only a suspension tweak for enough clearance) why not try to squeeze a 2017/18/19 out of the existing Leaf tooling with just a power battery upgrade, and maybe a skin job and electronics tweaks?

Tooling is crazy expensive, and volume production per re-tooling is the key to auto-industry profits. The Tesla S debuted in mid 2012 and there's no talk of a redo of of much that's dimensional/tooling related, but all kinds of progress in battery, power delivery, and motors.

Is there anything inherently outdated about the rest of the Leaf, that a 80% to 100% leap in capacity to 60kWh can't "solve"?

Bad range? Double it with 60kWh and underprice the Bolt with a proven design
Stale styling? Skin job, not all new.
Out of date electronics/controls? Swap a few modules
Need big weight chop? Carbon-Alloy hybrid rims or a carbon fiber floor pan might do it (and give you clearance for that tall 60kWh battery

I think you could just as easily see a second low/sporty 4-seat Leaf "dropped" onto the current Leafs floorpan.

To me it makes sense to keep working the battery and the roofline and not much else:
- Leaf Sport 4-seater (low-roof version; low drag, cutting edge styling but also ceiling too low for passenger #5)
- Leaf (today's model, but twice the range)
- e-NV200 (big empty box sitting on same floor pan as above; maybe a gearing change to be a practical 6/7 seater)

[finman100]

Yes the sagging Supercharger network. huh. what is it called when there is nothing to compare it to? let me know how those cross country trips work in a brand new 60 kWh Leaf. THAT ain't happening without a charging network. You just bought more battery than you can use. which is fine. even i would like more. but my current Leaf is regional. I've done 300 miles in a day. But things heat up and things take too long to charge.

Charging at 40 kW every 150 miles or so isn't going to cut it for an all day/several days trip. Maybe Nissan has a secret plan for such eventualities...

Until then: http://www.treehugger.com/cars/tesla-pa ... rgers.html

[Arlington]

Yes the sagging Supercharger network. huh. what is it called when there is nothing to compare it to? let me know how those cross country trips work in a brand new 60 kWh Leaf.

Cross country trips aren't really the market for electric cars. If you're going more than 400+ miles (where you'd have to refuel in almost any ICE car), you're going to do it in a hybrid that refuels anywhere in 15 minutes. It'll be 10+ years before it is worth re-working the car to chase the cross-country market.

And if this is "the problem" and given that "the fix" is external to the car, that argues even more strongly for not reworking the current Leaf beyond continuous improvements to range driven by battery improvements.

There is a much more important market for trips like Boston - New York, Detroit - Cleveland, Cinci - Cleveland, NY-DC, Chicago -St Louis Most "long" important "business" trips Americans do end up falling in the 120mi to 240mi to 360mi range, which a 200 mile car and today's charging stations can basically cover, particularly if you charge up before you leave home and "when you get there", you may never need a charging stop at all.

A 200mile car makes all of those practical with, at most, a single "on-the-road" stop (assuming you charge while at both ends) and more importantly for city slickers, eliminates range anxiety for "weekend/getaway/vacation" stuff like
[*]DC-to-Delaware Shore,
[*]Philly-to-Jersey Shore,
[*]Boston-to-Cape Cod
[*]Boston-to-Ski
[*]NYC-to-Catskills/Berkshires/Poconos,
[*]LA to Palm Springs
[*]Seattle to San Juan Island(s)
[*]Sacramento - Lake Tahoe

...all of which are about 125 miles, and are what they are because people accept 2-hour drives as their personal limit for "away" trips, regardless of how far the car can go.

[finman100]

All great examples!

http://ecowatch.com/2015/10/24/tesla-road-trip/

Two-car households (i am in this group) will undoubtedly see more EV range as an incentive to go EV for half the garage.

I'm looking for the full garage of gas-replacing cars.

Single-car households will have to decide on limiting their travels to 200 EV miles (ok, 400 RT), or look for a car with more and faster charging infrastructure. Both are wins, but to truly replace a gas car a charging network is a MUST. And at least one mfg is doing WAY more than the other EV mfgs in this department. C'mon Nissan! Get going on the charging if you are going to bring a longer distance 60 kWh Leaf.

PS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my Leaf! But I want to drive further on actual road trips, like the link above. Well, I would not need to set any records.

[DaveinOlyWA]

Lets be honest here. Tesla's SC network is already sagging under the weight of user abuse ...

I do not follow Tesla that closely yet.
Could you provide some examples or links to documentation of abuse

no. a minimal effort in research should turn up how some Tesla owners are using the SCs for daily use. This is a problem that will not go away with a slap on the wrist and a suggestive letter

[Arlington]

no. a minimal effort in research should turn up how some Tesla owners are using the SCs for daily use. This is a problem that will not go away with a slap on the wrist and a suggestive letter

Agreed. It is adequately documented. But I suspect that Tesla will simply stop offering free supercharging to new sales after a certain date or models below a certain MSRP (they could bear the losses when all they sold/sell is $75k to $100k Model S and X cars, but not with a flood of 3s at $35k)

[ydnas7]

no. a minimal effort in research should turn up how some Tesla owners are using the SCs for daily use. This is a problem that will not go away with a slap on the wrist and a suggestive letter

Agreed. It is adequately documented. But I suspect that Tesla will simply stop offering free supercharging to new sales after a certain date or models below a certain MSRP (they could bear the losses when all they sold/sell is $75k to $100k Model S and X cars, but not with a flood of 3s at $35k)

I reckon Tesla will maintain their free for life supercharging, just making it unhappy for those who recharge within 70miles of home etc.

[GetOffYourGas]

no. a minimal effort in research should turn up how some Tesla owners are using the SCs for daily use. This is a problem that will not go away with a slap on the wrist and a suggestive letter

Agreed. It is adequately documented. But I suspect that Tesla will simply stop offering free supercharging to new sales after a certain date or models below a certain MSRP (they could bear the losses when all they sold/sell is $75k to $100k Model S and X cars, but not with a flood of 3s at $35k)

I reckon Tesla will maintain their free for life supercharging, just making it unhappy for those who recharge within 70miles of home etc.

I've always assumed that Tesla will maintain "free for life" for the high-end S/X cars, and them only. I assume the Model III will be a pay-as-you-go. They already have the communications necessary to set up a billing account for each car. If things get really bad, they could stop the "free for life" for all new cars. Eventually those cars will come off the road.

C'mon Nissan! Get going on the charging if you are going to bring a longer distance 60 kWh Leaf.

Nissan wants others to build out the chargers so they can focus on the cars. Personally, I think the No-Charge-To-Charge program has potential to kickstart those networks. Nissan gets a selling point to sell more cars, and the network providers have a guaranteed source of income during the duration of the program. Miracles haven't happened overnight, but give it time, it could work out. So while Nissan isn't following Tesla's path, they aren't exactly doing nothing with regards to infrastructure.

[Arlington]

60kWh should be a tipping point in EV use. See this great article, Can EVs handle the distances we drive? (from which I've linked the illustrations, below)

Key to understanding this is to see that EVs need not duplicate all trips for all people. They just need to do near-all trips for, say, 80% of people, to be in the choice set for a revolutionary, world-shattering 30% to 50% of car buyer (recall that it would be a radical growth in EVs to get to 10% to 20% of cars sold. Lots and lots of single-car and two-car households have people who don't like to drive more than 3 hours, ever, and who switch to other modes (air, rail, bus) for longer trips, regardless of the range of their ICE car. They don't *want* to go farther than a 60kWh car can take them.

95% of commuters travel less than 40miles to work. Those that do go that far are probably driving at 75mph+ speeds where drag matters A LOT. Even so, let's say that to the Leaf 40miles of 75mph+ driving burns 80 miles of range. A 60kWh battery should still have the mostly covered. (not that that market it worth chasing in a Leaf: it is either, today, people who don't care (and do it in an F150) or do care (and do it in a Prius). Ergo, 60kWh = far more than an EV will ever need to be a "daily commuting" car for 95% of commuters (e.g. the mass market for EVs)


But wait, single-car households will take "weekend getaway" trips, say 5x a year. These could be key. How far are those trips?
To quote myself, such trips are, almost by definition--trips of roughly 2hours and roughly 125 miles. Any closer than 1 hour, and it wouldn't be a getaway (you'd just have reached the exurbs of your metro area). Any farther than 3 hours and it is no fun to do in a weekend for MOST people who can then consider EVs (and those who "love to drive", yeah, they'll keep considering only ICE/hybrids)

Two hours and 125 miles feels "away" but not "too far"
[*]DC-to-Delaware Shore,
[*]Philly-to-Jersey Shore,
[*]Boston-to-Cape Cod
[*]Boston-to-Ski
[*]NYC-to-Catskills/Berkshires/Poconos,
[*]NYC to The Hamptons or Atlantic City
[*]LA to Palm Springs
[*]Seattle to San Juan Island(s)
[*]Sacramento - Lake Tahoe

You can see this in that people do drive >160miles about 1% of the time or less...aka back and forth 2 weekends a year


Some "stretch" distances
[*] Vermont Ski (Boston to Killington = 160 miles)
[*] Hartford CT/ New Haven to Hyannis Cape Cod 160 to 180
[*] Chicago to Wisconsin Dells = 180 miles)
[*] San Francisco to Lake Tahoe = 205 miles
[*] Here's a whole list from LA, mostly in the 50mins to 2hours range

And then all kinds of once-a-year trips that are in the 4hour to 5hour "big vacation trip" range;
[*] St Louis to Ozarks
[*] Atlanta to Hilton Head
[*] NYC to Lake Placid or Vermont
[*] LA to Vegas
For which renting a car or going by bus, train, or plane works quite well...and for which I know plenty of people who own ICE vehicles who nonetheless rent a car (cheap) for this kind of special trip because their usual ICE is either a "workhorse" or older and no fun on long trips.

[Firetruck41]

I mostly agree with the previous post, except I don't know anyone who has ever rented a car for a "driving" getaway. 60kwh should have a large portion of urban/suburban America covered.