Yikes, degradation is looking bad (2018 Leaf)

SageBrush, I have the upgrade, didn't really change anything for me, as the second battery was only weeks old. I'll be back on the board next year looking for more advise on buy or turn in. Can't remember what you said that long, LOL.

Thanks,

SageBrush said:

WetEV said:

SageBrush said:

Imagine a LEAF with 6 - 12 months left on the battery degradation warranty, and Nissan with a choice whether to swap in a new pack or a 10 bar pack. What what you do, as the economics advisor to Nissan ?

Click to expand...

Not to say it will not happen. It can't be common, as there isn't a large supply of 10 bar packs, as packs usually don't outlast the cars. Most pack replacements will need to be new.

Click to expand...

The refurbs are made by picking out the "good" cells from failed packs.

Click to expand...

Only problem is that there wouldn't be many "good" cells. Sure, would be some. But hey, don't let facts get in the way. Try to make sure that the Leaf fails for the Greater Glory of Tesla.

Is that the best you can do, arguing like a Trumper ?
You said 10 bar packs are rare because cars outlast packs;
Now you know that argument is specious.

As for the ratio of 10 bar packs to returned failed packs, all I can say is that it is enough for Nissan to invest in building a factory.

SageBrush said:

You said 10 bar packs are rare because cars outlast packs;

Click to expand...

Your argument is specious Tesla Troll. Spread the FUD someplace else.

If packs lasted twice as long as cars, there would be an large number of used but still lots of life left packs available once the cars started to wear out.

As cars last longer than packs, and as most packs that are replaced seem to be fairly evenly worn out, then there will be few "10 bar" packs that can be assembled.

SageBrush said:

As for the ratio of 10 bar packs to returned failed packs, all I can say is that it is enough for Nissan to invest in building a factory.

Click to expand...

Or at least for Nissan to invest in a press release. Note that this "factory" was in Japan, there are not similar facilities elsewhere. And while it is "green" to reuse old but still useful cells, the point of the press release, the potential number of such isn't large.

Does anyone know of any not new warranty pack replacement? Can you buy even buy a replacement not new battery pack in the USA from Nissan? Or in Japan?

WetEV said:

Your argument is ...

Click to expand...

Reasonable, but you are too invested in fan-boyism to see or admit it.

You have bored me, and worn out your welcome. Into the ignore list you go.

SageBrush said:

You have bored me, and worn out your welcome. Into the ignore list you go.

Click to expand...

How special. I'm thrilled.

Well, what do we know so far?

Well, the Tesla pack being 3X the cost "should" last 3X longer and it has but it would appear we are being swayed by a handful of overly publicized packs that have piled a lot of miles on. In those cases, QC use was extreme and the time to pile on the mileage was short.

BUT, we also have LEAFers who have done the same thing. We have a Uberite exceeding 120,000 miles on his LEAF and still has 11 bars. Granted, 11 bars is not 12 bars but he is running on a 24 kwh pack. So he has beat the clock by all measures. What is his secret?

Well, not much of a secret because like some of the well known 250,000 mile Teslas, he QCs several times a day and has piled on his mileage in a very short period of time.

Now we have my 2016. I didn't QC nearly to the degree these people did but did do so more than the average. I racked up nearly 30,000 miles in 14 months suffering little degradation (VERY little) that included a 116.2 mile trip on a single charge in January 7 days before her untimely demise. (Yeah, that Winter range degradation hit me hard!! :lol: )

I really think I could have had a monumental vehicle stat to brag about a few years from now but the accident made me realize that I was working towards a direction that was not in my best interest so within 2 months of getting my 2018, I changed jobs. So, no chance to see how well the 2018 would have stood up to the challenges my previous job presented although I will say for the 2 months, it was a pretty awesome improvement!

So as I reach 9,000 miles on my LEAF with 4X the degradation my 30,000 mile 2016 had, the initial results are interesting. I cannot jump to any conclusions right now simply because the degradation LEAF Spy has reported has not translated into reduced range. Now with so much range that I rarely need to access, I might simply be unaware of small loses so I have to say...

Stay tuned!!

Depending on where you live, It appears Tesla packs can last 10x longer Nissan packs.

Evoforce said:

Depending on where you live, It appears Tesla packs can last 10x longer Nissan packs.

Click to expand...

10x is probably an outlier for both packs (in opposite directions) but 5x sounds about right for an average.

This is what makes the LEAF such a lousy value. Time will tell if I guessed right, but I bought my Tesla with an expectation of it lasting 15 - 20 years (in my hands or otherwise.) The LEAF is a 4 - 6 year car, or 8 years if considerable battery degradation is tolerated along the way.

Supposedly a study says a car is in "replacement" mode when it hits 150,000 miles. This seems rather plausible. I prefer to replace sooner if purchased new, others go much longer. This is where the stats become murky. I have had cars well beyond 150,000 miles mostly because they were bought used so expectations were simply created on a different scale, different criteria, etc.

But the reality is most people don't keep cars 15 years. The average time is closer to 7 years. In this day and age, a lot has to do with changing tech. I kept my truck for decades because it was bought for a purpose and continued to do that specific purpose. But cars are different. Its hard to spend $$$$ on something than hang on to it a long time because they get outdated quickly and that applies to EVs much more than the average car.

So the decision is buy it for $$$$$ and hold it until its worth $$$ and trade it in for the latest trinkets for a "little" money (is there such a thing?) or put up with it until its only worth $$ and basically sell it used (since the dealer might give you ¾$ if you are lucky) and restart the new car buying process from scratch.

So yeah, some people will buy their Tesla and drive it 20 years and still have 70% of their "way more than we needed" range left but they would not be the norm. Every day I see people who bought Teslas a few years ago or such (and yeah a LOT of them only did it to get their T3 sooner) only to trade up.

But I have always considered the degradation factor although I have been lucky in the past and this is the first LEAF that had enough range new that I could live with on 9 bars while torturously waiting for the anticipated #8 exodus. Granted, a much easier transpo need helps.

But then again, I could always switch to the Niro.

DaveinOlyWA said:

But the reality is most people don't keep cars 15 years.

Click to expand...

That is irrelevant. The important point for value retention is how long the car is fit to be driven in close to the same manner as a new car. Depreciation is an imperfect measure of this metric.

As for me, I'll be delighted to keep my Model 3 for 20 years if possible. That would work out to be ~ $200 a month acquisition cost in today's money and line up well with my environmental priorities. One of the things I find disturbing in the LEAF is the thought that it may well be in a junkyard before it is 10 years old, even though I ask very little of it.

Call me crazy, but I think the 2018 Leaf can be a 15 year car, depending on what you mean by "car."

In my area, the 2018 can be picked up for under 20K. This is partly why I think the 2018, criminally crap battery that it is, has actually really good long-term value. Some interesting things to consider about the 2018:

1. It will never have less than 100 miles of range during its 8 year warranty.

2. If you drive economically, and are able to beat EPA ratings by an average 25% year-round, then you will never have less than 125 miles of range during its 8 year warranty.

3. Battery degradation is not linear, but if the battery degrades at an average annual rate of 5%, then it will degrade to 65% after 7 years, which would trigger a warranty replacement, which would conceivably mean getting a new battery that takes 7 more years to reach 65%, which means the car will always have at least 65% capacity (97.5 miles EPA; 121.9 miles "economic" driving) for 14 years.

4. Even at 40% capacity, the 2018 would still have 60 miles of range EPA, 75 miles of range "economic" driving. That's still considered very usable by 2015 Leaf standards. And I could be wrong about this, but I don't see the 2018 battery degrading to 40% in faster than 15 years, simply because the warranty replacement would interrupt the timeline. Even at 8% average annual degradation, warranty replacement would be triggered after a little more than 4 years, then 40% degradation would occur about 7.5 years later, so OK, let's say it takes 12 years total to get to 40%. This could happen. But I don't see the Leaf having 8% degradation consistently over its entire life - I could see it having rapid degradation in the first 3 years and then this degradation leveling off; or I could see the reverse, slow initial degradation followed by steeper end of life degradation. And even if it did have reliably 8% degradation every single year, a $19K car used over 12 years still seems to make a lot more sense than four separate 3 year, $12K leases ($48K total) over that same 12 year time period.

This could be naive, but my 15 year plan for the 2018 Leaf would be this:

For the first three years, use it as a commuter car (my work commute is 22 miles round trip), a weekend car (I drive 50 miles or so on weekends, spread out over 2 days), and a medium-range road trip car (roughly six 250 mile trips to visit family annually). After three years, I figure the battery degradation will be enough to make these 250 mile road trips annoying, so I would then rotate the Leaf into purely commuter/weekend mode, and stay in that mode for another 12 years. Three years from now, my wife's gas car (a CRV) will be a candidate for replacement, and my hope is that we could snag a low-mileage used Bolt, Tesla, Niro/Kona, Leaf E-Plus, etc. for around 15K. And then this used 200+ mile EV, with much more competent battery tech, would be the new long-range car in the family. Anyway, such is the dream.

Then, at 15 years old, a planter?

I was actually thinking prison meal cart, for when "the people" rise up and put Carlos Ghosn in jail....

WetEV said:

SageBrush said:

You have bored me, and worn out your welcome. Into the ignore list you go.

Click to expand...

How special. I'm thrilled.

Click to expand...

Welcome to the club. That what SageBrush does when he runs out of arguments and can’t insult his way through the discussion.

I like how the 2018 has a “criminally crap battery” after just 9 months of being out in the wild. It may turn out to be horrible, but we should see. The Model 3 isn’t available everywhere, and the $35K version is still nowhere in sight.

The 2018 has a more aggressive BMS than previous versions of the Leaf, and is rumored to be NMC rather than MnO. That should give it more cycles and make it less prone to forming scale and dendrites. Only time will tell. Personally, I believe I have lost about .6kWh (based on charge and percentage plotted to a graph that generates a trend line). I’ll roll over to 10,000 miles tomorrow.

Kieran973 said:

In my area, the 2018 can be picked up for under 20K.

Click to expand...

Wow. If that only includes the Fed tax credit, it makes the LEAF an attractive value again ... though I still view it as the second car in a household.

I'm quite pleased with our two cars, a 24 kWh LEAF and a Tesla. I view the two as 1.0 + 0.5 = 1.5 cars which fits our needs quite well.
To me the 40 kWh LEAF is a 0.75 car when new and a 0.5 car for a long time thereafter. It would not be used any differently in my household than the 24 kWh LEAF but I can easily imagine it fitting into a niche in other homes.

Your use plan is borderline due to winter. I think you have to ask yourself how long you are willing to sit and charge on your 250 mile trips and/or do with less cabin comfort. If others will be in the car, then think twice before choosing the 40 kWh LEAF.

SageBrush said:

I think you have to ask yourself how long you are willing to sit and charge on your 250 mile trips and/or do with less cabin comfort.

Click to expand...

As a second car, why take on your 250 mile trips?

Your use plan is borderline due to winter. I think you have to ask yourself how long you are willing to sit and charge on your 250 mile trips and/or do with less cabin comfort. If others will be in the car, then think twice before choosing the 40 kWh LEAF.

Click to expand...

Good point, fair enough. But if I could even pull off four 250 mile trips a year I'd be happy. These would all be in late spring, summer, and early fall.

As a second car, why take on your 250 mile trips?

Click to expand...

My work commute only puts about 3,500 miles a year on my car, my weekend driving another 2,000. The real mileage dent comes from doing twelve 500 mile round trips a year. Right now we do all twelve of those in my Honda Civic because it gets better gas mileage than my wife's Honda CRV. In the Civic, I get mid 40's mpg in the winter, low 50's mpg in the summer on these trips. In the CRV, I'm lucky to get mid 30's mpg in the summer on these trips. But if I traded in my Civic for a 2018 Leaf, and if I treated the Leaf like a local-use-only second car and simply did all of our 500 mile out of town trips in the CRV, we'd barely save money on gas, and we'd barely reduce the amount of carbon we release into the atmosphere, because we'd only be using the Leaf for about 5,500 miles a year while drastically increasing the use of the CRV. So instead my goal is six of these 500 mile trips in the Leaf, and six in the CRV. Or if I could even do four in the Leaf that would be fine. Plus, my wife is probably going to take the Leaf to work two days a week because her commute is much longer (about 50 miles round trip) and I'll be stuck with the CRV on those days. Basically, I'm aiming to put about 12,000 miles a year on the Leaf and only 7,000 a year on the CRV.

Looks like our heatwave that we've been having is taking it's toll on the battery. I just went from 10% last month at 9000 miles to 13.7% loss and I am now at 10,500 miles.