LEAF 2 : What we know so far (2018 or later?)

arnis said:

...This Leaf looks exactly like facelift. Therefore it is not Leaf2...

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The vehicle pictured almost certainly is neither, as the photos are also not of a future production model at all.

The photos are of the car that Nissan said it was in it's video, a gen one LEAF modified to test autonomous features which will be on the gen two LEAF.

Why would Nissan spoil it's own gen two reveal by releasing photos of the car early?

When the gen two is actually announced, I'm sure there will be argument as to whether it is actually a new car, or just a face-lift...

A few more significant quotes from the article I linked yesterday:

A few further snippets on the next Leaf came from a question-and answer session earlier in the day with Takao Asami, a Nissan senior vice president of research and advanced engineering....

Asami noted that the company was preparing for DC fast-charging at rates up to 150 kilowatts, though he questioned the practicality of higher rates for mass-market electric cars.

And he confirmed that the next Leaf would continue with an air-cooled battery pack, saying changes in cell chemistry had "significantly reduced" concerns over battery durability.

"I am not concerned any more" about the durability of electric-car batteries, he concluded...

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http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108175_next-nissan-leaf-propilot-self-driving-included-200-mile-range-or-more-confirmed/page-2

I agree with both of of those statements.

An ~150 kW charge rate is probably all that will be required in the immediate future by mass-market BEVs with total battery capacities from about 30 to 60 kWh, though trucks buses, and luxury BEVs with larger packs could benefit from higher charge rates (likely also with significantly higher costs per kWh) if and when such high-kW DC stations are ever deployed on a large scale.

And Nissan had it right a decade ago when it realized their was no future in developing BEV battery designs that required intensive active cooling, as the reduced cost and higher efficiency of ~passively cooled packs would inevitably lead to obsolescence of liquid or refrigerant based active cooling designs, as battery prices declined.

edatoakrun said:

A few more significant quotes from the article I linked yesterday:

And he confirmed that the next Leaf would continue with an air-cooled battery pack, saying changes in cell chemistry had "significantly reduced" concerns over battery durability.

"I am not concerned any more" about the durability of electric-car batteries, he concluded...

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Well, those of us who have a capacity loss of 30% in 5.5 years on our Nissan Leaf are concerned. I will wait to see what the battery capacity warranty is on Leaf 2. Any such statement is meaningless without a warranty to back it up.

Stoaty said:

edatoakrun said:

A few more significant quotes from the article I linked yesterday:

And he confirmed that the next Leaf would continue with an air-cooled battery pack, saying changes in cell chemistry had "significantly reduced" concerns over battery durability.

"I am not concerned any more" about the durability of electric-car batteries, he concluded...

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Well, those of us who have a capacity loss of 30% in 5.5 years on our Nissan Leaf are concerned. I will wait to see what the battery capacity warranty is on Leaf 2. Any such statement is meaningless without a warranty to back it up.

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On-topic reply here:

Update on Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17168&p=480334#p480334

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edatoakrun said:

Stoaty said:

edatoakrun said:

A few more significant quotes from the article I linked yesterday:

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Well, those of us who have a capacity loss of 30% in 5.5 years on our Nissan Leaf are concerned. I will wait to see what the battery capacity warranty is on Leaf 2. Any such statement is meaningless without a warranty to back it up.

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On-topic reply here:

Update on Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17168&p=480334#p480334

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Thats not really a relevant reply - it doesnt address fact that "believe us" isnt going to work after what many would consider serious losses of battery capacity with original Leaf. Nissan needs to provide really good battery capacity warranty, or risk losing many potential customers.

Nissan doesn't owe you anything. Buy a different EV if you don't like how Nissan handles their business.

Rebel44 said:

edatoakrun said:

On-topic reply here:

Update on Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17168&p=480334#p480334

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Thats not really a relevant reply - it doesnt address fact that "believe us" isnt going to work after what many would consider serious losses of battery capacity with original Leaf. Nissan needs to provide really good battery capacity warranty, or risk losing many potential customers.

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Uh huh. Unless they're going to have skin in the game, no customer who's experienced capacity loss at rates far beyond Nissan's initial claims on the Gen 1 LEAF is going to take their word on faith. For starters, no more warranties based on undefined 'bars'.

GRA said:

Uh huh. Unless they're going to have skin in the game, no customer who's experienced capacity loss at rates far beyond Nissan's initial claims on the Gen 1 LEAF is going to take their word on faith. For starters, no more warranties based on undefined 'bars'.

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Said someone that has never owned any electric car, much less a Leaf.

My choices, back when I bought the first Leaf, a 2012, was Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus Electric.

I'm happy I picked the LEAF. It seems to have been the best choice. The FFE was a cool car. But I liked the LEAF better, and so did the spousal unit. Which is important, eh? Unlike the FFE, the LEAF now has a capacity warranty. Not the best definition, I grant you, but not bad. I'll never come close to it, so it doesn't matter to me. LEAF has proven to be very reliable. Nice commuting car. Nice for short trips, one DCFC away at most. Nice for shopping trips. And so on.

Would I do it again? Maybe. Would depend more on what else was out there. Brovo Bolt looks nice today, but wait a year until we find out what problems it has, and hopefully a lot more CCS stations. Tesla's Model 3? Nissan's Leaf 2? Ford's rumored electric, perhaps delayed a year? VW's upcoming electrics, assuming VW sells into Washington state? and so on.

I wouldn't count Nissan out. The Leaf has been very very good to me.

In my company we have some contact to Nissan external service. One guy told us that the second generation Leaf is coming in third quarter 2017 (sure I didn't know if he wants to stop investing us in other EVs with wrong speculations).
But after CES I could imagine he was saying the truth, third quarter would be near future and realistic.
Only strange insideevs wrote several times that a battery upgrade is coming for the current Leaf since several months. I could understood this Nissan is building the new batteries now in the current Leaf as a preperation for the next Leaf, but where is the 2017 Leaf with a 40 kWh battery? It would make no sense to present it later than NAIAS Autoshow. Or Nissan changed skipping the 2017 Leaf with bigger battery and bring the 2018 Leaf earlier.

GRA said:

Uh huh. Unless they're going to have skin in the game, no customer who's experienced capacity loss at rates far beyond Nissan's initial claims on the Gen 1 LEAF is going to take their word on faith. For starters, no more warranties based on undefined 'bars'.

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not really undefined. After all, does the dealer simply power up the car, look at dash and then say "yeah, you qualify"


no they do not. the loss of the 9th bar is the signal to the consumer that the car needs to be tested. it is then the pack is evaluated for replacement. losing the bars is NOT the determining factor

DaveinOlyWA said:

GRA said:

Uh huh. Unless they're going to have skin in the game, no customer who's experienced capacity loss at rates far beyond Nissan's initial claims on the Gen 1 LEAF is going to take their word on faith. For starters, no more warranties based on undefined 'bars'.

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not really undefined. After all, does the dealer simply power up the car, look at dash and then say "yeah, you qualify"


no they do not. the loss of the 9th bar is the signal to the consumer that the car needs to be tested. it is then the pack is evaluated for replacement. losing the bars is NOT the determining factor

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I have yet to hear of anyone with 8 capacity bars remaining that has been denied a new (warranty) battery pack. The "evaluation" is a formality; you drop the 9th bar, you get a new (warranty) battery pack. Let's not spread FUD...

NavyCuda said:

Nissan doesn't owe you anything. Buy a different EV if you don't like how Nissan handles their business.

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WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT MOST OF US HAVE DONE!

onward and upward to bigger and better things :lol:

Interesting comments from Nissan engineering.

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/06/nissan-senior-vp-rd-200-mile-leaf-will-option-following-refresh/

Personally I think it is a great idea to offer EVs with less than 200 mile range. A lot of people only need a commuter car. EV's MSRPs are getting up in the $40K range, and the big boys like Nissan will soon get go the 200,000 breakpoint, which means smaller and smaller tax incentives. To me it makes sense to offer an EV with less than 200 mile range, bug with a more afforadable MSRP.

LKK said:

Personally I think it is a great idea to offer EVs with less than 200 mile range. A lot of people only need a commuter car.

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You personally thinking this is fine but the rest of the market and industry do not. This is the reason why the iMEIV's failed.. not enough range.. They were perfect for a commuter car, but people need more then that.

Nissan would have been golden (kinda) if it wasn't for the damn battery problem and loosing range so quickly (yes, the new one is loosing capacity also!)... but still, 103mi or whatever the new Leaf is rated at is STILL NOT ENOUGH..

Would you own a gas car with a 3 or 5 gal tank? and 100mi range? :lol:

EV's need to catch up with their ICE equivalents to be competitive. Plain and simple.

I had the opportunity to attend the Nissan CES executive roundtable on Thursday, and yes there were no firm announcements about LEAF2, but after talking with a number of the Nissan engineering and product marketing executives, if I was a betting man, I would put money down for a CY17/Q4 start of deliveries of LEAF2.

The other thing I found interesting is that Nissan feels that there is still lots of life in Chademo with much higher charging rates than in the current version, and they aren't entertaining the option of a move to SAE charging standards.

Another issue that was acknowledged are the large number of 2013/2014 cars coming off of lease this year and how to keep these customers in the Nissan family prior to the availability of the new car. There is an idea of floating around of offering these lease customers a financially attractive lease extension on their existing cars or a bridge lease on a 2017 car that include a "trade-up" to a LEAF2 when it is available.

How do you think this sort of leases offerings would be received by those whose LEAF leases are expiring this year?

if I was a betting man, I would put money down for a CY17/Q4 start of deliveries of LEAF2.

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Translation, please? Delivery in late 2017? If I were offered another lease extension to get through until Leaf 2, I'd consider it, especially if the Ioniq won't be here in time or if they make its option packages too limited and expensive, a la the Bolt with Surround View only being offered with a top end package with leather interior. One real concern I'd still have, though, is that my car would then have only the powertrain warranty, and I'm sure that it has a problem with the A/C that's hard to nail down because it only happens on long drives...

If you are not familiar with what CY17 Q4 means:

Calendar Year 2017 - Quarter4 which is October-December 2017

On Hyundai EVs, after talking at length with their EV team, I have marginal confidence that they can bring that car to market in any significant quantity in the same time frame.

On the subject of option packages rather than being able to configure a car a-la-carte, get used to packages. On low cost vehicles, the margins are just too thin and inventory management is too complex to offer build-to-order configuring.

OrientExpress said:

How do you think this sort of leases offerings would be received by those whose LEAF leases are expiring this year?

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I'm sure a large number of people who took Leaf leases primarily because of low price - rather than zero emission - would be happy with the idea.

Some of us early adopters will probably jump ship to Tesla 3 - esp. if Leaf 2 comes later than Tesla 3 ! But then, Nissan would probably find it hard to compete with Tesla 3 anyway - and would have to come up with cheaper, attractive packages.

Stanton said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

GRA said:

Uh huh. Unless they're going to have skin in the game, no customer who's experienced capacity loss at rates far beyond Nissan's initial claims on the Gen 1 LEAF is going to take their word on faith. For starters, no more warranties based on undefined 'bars'.

Click to expand...

not really undefined. After all, does the dealer simply power up the car, look at dash and then say "yeah, you qualify"


no they do not. the loss of the 9th bar is the signal to the consumer that the car needs to be tested. it is then the pack is evaluated for replacement. losing the bars is NOT the determining factor

Click to expand...

I have yet to hear of anyone with 8 capacity bars remaining that has been denied a new (warranty) battery pack. The "evaluation" is a formality; you drop the 9th bar, you get a new (warranty) battery pack. Let's not spread FUD...

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That misses my point. It's entirely up to Nissan to define how much capacity each bar represents, and there's absolutely nothing that prevents them from altering them if they chose to. As it is, they're claiming that 4 bars represents "about 30% loss," when we know it's really 66.25% or even a bit less. Other companies don't play this game, and say 70% (or whatever) of original capacity, which is a much less slippery value.

I'm thinking Tesla 3 more and more. Even if Nissan comes up with 60kwh at a decent price it does me no good for regional road trips with no places to fast charge. Same problem with the bolt.

JasonA said:

NavyCuda said:

Nissan doesn't owe you anything. Buy a different EV if you don't like how Nissan handles their business.

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WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT MOST OF US HAVE DONE!

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Actually, I think most of us on this forum actually do drive Nissan LEAFs.

="JasonA"
onward and upward to bigger and better things :lol:

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And some may also agree with me, that all Teslas and Tesla-powered compliance BEVs built to date are overpriced, overweight, inefficient, underdeveloped, undependable mediocrities, that no would in their right mind would want to drive.

But I guess we just don't have the poor manners to go to the forums dedicated to those vehicles to say so...