NissanConnect EV / Telematics Hardware Update, for the post-2G world

[Leafboy]

Thank you Stanton!

[lucasgary]

My understanding is that it's SMS messages.

So not even 'data' per se.

I came across the SMS protocol / serialization they use and it's pretty minimal.

I can't imagine it's costing Nissan much of anything.

Don't take this personally, but this kind of mindset just kills me.
For the record, the telematics function uses both SMS and data, but the data usage is minimal.
What I don't get is: Nissan is giving us a free service (airtime/servers/back-office/etc) for thousands and thousands of cars...and people think "it's no big deal". The fact is, the telematics service has been (and will continue to be--lucky for us) a "loss leader" for the technology...and minimalizing Nissan's contribution is short-sighted. If they charged for the service (as we originally though they would after the initial 3 year period), then things might be different...but they don't .

I'm confused? "This kind of mindset kills me"? Seriously, it's SMS messages and perhaps bit of data.

If you have specific details on the data being sent I'd love to see it.

If Nissan had serious cost issues they could make it easy to swap in / out the telematics units / sim cards so as to minimize cost. Bear in mind we're talking about a 38k car that doesn't have power seats, I'm sure Nissan is making money on these vehicles.

Ultimately it would be quite straightforward to make it simple to swap out sim cards and or other components to make it easy for imported vehicles to gain full functionality.

I'm assuming Nissan has chosen to NOT do that in order to better control and influence the market and discourage cross border purchasing. I think that is a fundamentally flawed set of assumptions.

I did drop in on my local dealer today, unfortunately their leaf tech's weren't in. I'll follow up with them in the next few days.

[cwerdna]

Bear in mind we're talking about a 38k car that doesn't have power seats, I'm sure Nissan is making money on these vehicles.

'11 Leaf started out at $32,780 (https://www.autoblog.com/2011/07/19/201 ... equipment/). Eventually, incentives appeared on Leafs. Batteries were very expensive and still are.

And, if Nissan/NMAC didn't price leases appropriately (like in my case viewtopic.php?f=23&t=23955&p=494478&hilit=%2414%2C401+nutty#p494478 on my '13 SV w/both packages), cars went back since the residual minus discount was too high and went to auction, selling for a lot less: viewtopic.php?p=436707#p436707.

Keep in mind Leaf is a very low volume seller vs. the rest of the Nissan lineup (almost 300K worldwide since inception in Dec 2010 per https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... with-tesla) so the R&D and tooling costs are spread out across FAR fewer vehicles than many of Nissan's bread and butter vehicles.

Look at CYTD US sales of Leaf vs. other vehicles at http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/ ... -u-s-sales and http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/ ... -u-s-sales.

[lucasgary]

Bear in mind we're talking about a 38k car that doesn't have power seats, I'm sure Nissan is making money on these vehicles.

'11 Leaf started out at $32,780 (https://www.autoblog.com/2011/07/19/201 ... equipment/). Eventually, incentives appeared on Leafs. Batteries were very expensive and still are.

And, if Nissan/NMAC didn't price leases appropriately (like in my case viewtopic.php?f=23&t=23955&p=494478&hilit=%2414%2C401+nutty#p494478 on my '13 SV w/both packages), cars went back since the residual minus discount was too high and went to auction, selling for a lot less: viewtopic.php?p=436707#p436707.

Keep in mind Leaf is a very low volume seller vs. the rest of the Nissan lineup (almost 300K worldwide since inception in Dec 2010 per https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... with-tesla) so the R&D and tooling costs are spread out across FAR fewer vehicles than many of Nissan's bread and butter vehicles.

Look at CYTD US sales of Leaf vs. other vehicles at http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/ ... -u-s-sales and http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/ ... -u-s-sales.

Fair enough, but none of that speaks to the issue at hand: "Is it making life easier for the customer?"

I haven't seen any evidence that there's regulatory or hardware issues with making telematics available in another, already supported, country. We're not talking about doing a deal with an entirely new provider. We're talking about either swapping out a TCU or just a SIM card depending on how coupled they are. You wouldn't even have to make it free. Just charged $x dollars to either swap out or enable telematics. The actual cost of the service is always going to be quite small. Again, if the business deal is already in place then there's no good technical reason prevent this from happening. Assuming, of course, that it's been designed that way from the beginning. Ultimately the fact that people have in the past moved their telematics service from the US to Canada would indicate there's no hard technical fault in doing so.

The evidence I'm seeing still leans towards market control.

[Supersleeper]

This is the second time since I replaced it that the TCU doesn’t respond. I get “MyLeaf: Status update failed due to weak cell reception. To change alerts visit the Nissan Owner Portal”. It’s not a weak signal, since it has good signal at my house. Second fuse pull didn’t fix it. Battery is brand new yellow top, with plenty of juice. Now what to do?

[Stanton]

This is the second time since I replaced it that the TCU doesn’t respond. I get “MyLeaf: Status update failed due to weak cell reception. To change alerts visit the Nissan Owner Portal”. It’s not a weak signal, since it has good signal at my house. Second fuse pull didn’t fix it. Battery is brand new yellow top, with plenty of juice. Now what to do?

Sometimes it takes a couple of "fuse pulls" to get it back...or you can pull the battery terminal and reboot the whole car (which I tend to avoid).

[Leafboy]

I just pull the fuse on the first of each month as maintenance and don't have a problem now.

[WetEV]

Also, you might try clearing the fault without a fuse pull.

With the car on:
Do several network things. Sync charging stations. Download Google locations. Download messages.
Then check check battery status while the car is on.
Repeat once.

This worked once for me. The first check battery status failed, the second one worked, and continued to work for weeks. It also failed to work once.

Nissan should just fix this.

[Stanton]

Also, you might try clearing the fault without a fuse pull.

With the car on:
Do several network things. Sync charging stations. Download Google locations. Download messages.
Then check check battery status while the car is on.
Repeat once.

This worked once for me. The first check battery status failed, the second one worked, and continued to work for weeks. It also failed to work once.

Nissan should just fix this.

Yes, Nissan should issue a TCU "fix"...but this is bad advice.
By your own admission: "this worked once for me".
Stick with the "fuse pull" whenever you lose communication with the vehicle.

[Supersleeper]

When I ran the diagnostic from leaf spy it looked like it was still complaining about low voltage on battery. So I yanked the amp sensor wire from the battery negative terminal and charged it up good. It's a brand new Yellow Top gel, so it should be able to take it. Odd that I didn't have any issues starting the car but likely it's because it's deep cycle battery that it still had enough amperes to trip the relays at low voltage. I've not seen the issue since, but I'm fairly certain that the TCU pulled the battery down low to begin with, and is likely why the TCU needed another fuse pull. I suppose I should reconnect the amp sensor wire at some point, but haven't yet.