Given what we know about the LEAF batteries now, it appears to me that even thermal cooling would not have been enough to make the batteries last much longer than they do now for places like Los Angeles, unless they would be willing to sacrifice a large amount of efficiency (and range) to do so.palmermd said:I agree that they could not change the chemistry at that time, but you can work to optimize what you have.
Look at the Volt TMS which uses a very similar battery as the LEAF and what maximum temperatures it aims for - it generally keeps the pack between 72-90F when the car is either on or charging. Even in Arizona, the Volt's battery appears to be holding up pretty well (hard to tell how much GM allows the SOC band to expand to compensate for capacity loss - don't know if people are able to monitor Volt battery pack voltages to get an idea or if they are able to sniff the CAN bus to find the data).
But LEAFs subjected to the same temperature band (like my San Diego LEAF which very rarely sees any battery temperatures over 85F) has still lost capacity at an alarming rate and TMS would not have helped my battery significantly.
It seems that GM got a battery from LG which has some "special sauce" which helps it's LiMn batteries last longer than the LEAF. And hopefully Nissan has their own "special sauce" ready to go soon.