Warning: Battery Replacement Cost Increase (now $8500)

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LeftieBiker said:
I was originally going by the post below, in which a Russian claims, in a video, to have swapped a 30kwh pack into a 24kwh Leaf - he claims it didn't work initially, but then did work when the 30kwh controller (I assume the LBC) was swapped as well. After that I think I got turned around by the discussion of the 40 to 30 swap. I apologize for the confusion. It should be noted, though, that using 30kwh packs in 24kwh Leafs does seem to be possible, with the bonus of getting to use the extra capacity.

First post on this page:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=25786&p=540231#p540231

Bkvszomorito managed to get the 30 kWh pack to work in the 24 kWh Leaf because he swapped the LBC AND VCM. This will only work on 3/2013+ model Leaf's (not 2011/2012, nor apparently 2/2013 or earlier). Bkvszomorito used a 3/2013 Leaf. However, if you do this, the intelligent key immobilizer will trigger and then you will have to tow the leaf to a dealer re-activate your keys before the car can be driven.

bkvszomorito said:
I have swapped the VCM (engine control) electronic controller and the battery pack, and it works perfectly, without any issue.

If your car is produced before 02.2013, unfortunately the VCM is not compatible, so it should not be easy to do the retrofit.
(The above quote is from a PM)

In terms of a straight cell swap from a 30->24, it appears the reference voltages are extremely similar between 40 & 30, but NOT between 30 & 24. Here's a link to the voltage graphs:
https://pushevs.com/2018/01/29/2018-nissan-leaf-battery-real-specs/

If you notice, both cells are fully charged at 4.2V, which means that putting a 30 or 40 kWh cells in a 24 kWh BMS will NOT overcharge them (my earlier post was incorrect and I will edit it to reflect this). However, the voltage where the rapid dropoff starts is 3.6V for the 24 kWh cells but only 3.3V for the 40 kWh cells. This means that a 24 kWh BMS (unless reprogrammed, which I'm not aware of anyone successfully doing) will show VLBW at 3.6V per cell. However, if using 30 or 40 kWh cells, 3.6V is only halfway through the discharge curve, meaning that you still have half the battery capacity remaining.

I think turtle typically kicks on around 3.0V per cell, so the car won't actually turtle, but it will just be a very confused car that can drive 80 miles at VLBW.

Because the voltage curves match between 30 & 40, this problem doesn't exist. Therefore, one should be able to simply do a 40->30 cell swap and have everything work (except range indication). However, bkvszomorito found that after doing such a swap, he had issues where the car was not fully utilizing the battery. It was charging only to 97% and turtling at 22%, leaving exactly 25% of the range (10kWh). So it appears that the 30 kWh BMS is somehow either hardcoded to 30 kWh (either intentionally or to fix the BMS range estimation issue) or the internal resistance of the 40 kWh cells is different enough to trigger strange behavior. The BMS that bkvszomorito used does have the firmware update for the 30 kWh range estimation.

This means that a 40->30 cell swap is possible, but only 30 kWh range will be available, and unfortunately, the reserved range appears to be near the bottom end of the battery. It would be ideal if the BMS only charged the battery to 75%, but alas, that's not how it appears to work. Nonetheless, the 40 kWh would have a lower DoD on each drive, so theoretically, it should last somewhat longer.

Hopefully this helps anyone who reads this, planning to do dissimilar cell swaps.
 
peted said:
LeftieBiker said:
It looks like it will be possible to install 30kwh packs in older Leafs, so with age weeding out the defective and weaker packs (or at least revealing them), that should be an option for another 5-7 years.

I have read this entire thread (all 38 pages!) with interest, as our 2013 LEAF's battery is deteriorating suddenly, after five solid years of no significant degradation.

I blame, at least in part, our upgrade to the 3G radio last year, as that resulted in our 12V battery running down periodically. Since it was apparently happening only when we charged to 100%, the dealer asked us to do that more often as a way of trying to reproduce and help diagnose the problem. Naturally, it didn't get them any closer to actually fixing the problem, but we did notice the loss of the first bar of capacity during that time. Almost a year later, we've lost the second.

Of course, I'm sure at least to some extent, the age of the car is just catching up to us.

Range is noticeably reduced, which of course is an ugly cycle. With less capacity, the battery gets closer to minimum charge more often, and starting trips with 100% charge is required more often, both of which age the battery more quickly. :( Sigh...

Anyway, we contacted the local dealer to see what our options are, and according to them, we have exactly one: pay nearly $9000 for a new 30 kWh battery. Ouch!

(Caveat: I'm not the one who actually made the inquiry, and so I don't at the moment have details such as whether that price includes labor, and/or whether it takes into account any offsetting amount for the exchange of the battery that's in the car now.)

I cannot vouch for the reliability of the information the dealer provided us, but I can at least confirm that not only is it the case according to them that one can put a 30 kWh battery into a 2013 LEAF, at this time that is the only option available through Nissan.


As for all the comments about whether this makes sense for Nissan to do or not: no one ever accused any big corporation of having much common sense. There are usually far too many layers between the people who know a good idea when it bites them on the ass, and the people who make the actual decisions, for corporations to generally choose wisely when it comes to long-term decision making.

But, I consider it patently obvious that Nissan should be doing everything they can to make sure their battery replacements are affordable, especially for the early model cars. The idea that cheaper batteries would cannibalize current and future sales is ridiculous. First of all, there just aren't enough of the early model cars around for that to be significant. A serious car manufacturer is selling millions of vehicles per year; accommodating a few tens of thousands of owners per year isn't going to make a difference.

Secondly though, the idea of cannibalizing current and future sales only makes sense if there are sales to be had. Eliminating sales by shoving what would otherwise be a loyal customer over to other manufacturers, that will do far more to harm sales than letting a few more of the older cars stay on the road.

Now, I'm not saying that Nissan understands any of this, nor that their motivation isn't exactly based on a completely misunderstanding of this. Just that it wouldn't be logical for them to take that view.

Not true. I know someone who just paid to have their pack replaced and it was a 24 kwh pack.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Not true. I know someone who just paid to have their pack replaced and it was a 24 kwh pack.

To be clear, everything I wrote is true. Whether the statement by the dealer, which I referenced, is true or not, I cannot say. While I've read enough on these forums to take your statements as reliable, there is enough missing detail from the statement above that I can't say for sure it applies in our situation.

Nevertheless, if we ever do decide to pay such a high price to have our LEAF's battery replaced, rest assured we will get a statement in writing from the dealer about what exactly the replacement will be and what it will cost, before actually proceeding with any work.

The person at the dealership we contacted is, so far, very confident in his own statement. Granted, neither of the nearby Nissan dealers have demonstrated much competence with me. Never mind that at both, the staff seems to turn over yearly, which I think is nuts. I hate our local Chevy dealer, but at least I got to deal with the same crooks each time I'd gone in over the past 20 years, instead of having to break in all new ones each time.
 
peted said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Not true. I know someone who just paid to have their pack replaced and it was a 24 kwh pack.

To be clear, everything I wrote is true. Whether the statement by the dealer, which I referenced, is true or not, I cannot say. While I've read enough on these forums to take your statements as reliable, there is enough missing detail from the statement above that I can't say for sure it applies in our situation.

Nevertheless, if we ever do decide to pay such a high price to have our LEAF's battery replaced, rest assured we will get a statement in writing from the dealer about what exactly the replacement will be and what it will cost, before actually proceeding with any work.

The person at the dealership we contacted is, so far, very confident in his own statement. Granted, neither of the nearby Nissan dealers have demonstrated much competence with me. Never mind that at both, the staff seems to turn over yearly, which I think is nuts. I hate our local Chevy dealer, but at least I got to deal with the same crooks each time I'd gone in over the past 20 years, instead of having to break in all new ones each time.

Trade it in on a Bolt or Tesla. Be done with the nonsense. Or keep it without new battery and also buy a Bolt or Tesla and use Leaf for short distance. Tesla is best and I still have my Leaf.
 
Evoforce said:
Trade it in on a Bolt or Tesla. Be done with the nonsense. Or keep it without new battery and also buy a Bolt or Tesla and use Leaf for short distance. Tesla is best and I still have my Leaf.

We've already purchased a used Model S to complement the LEAF. Worst case, we'll keep the LEAF for shorter trips, as you say. But, we live in a rural area, so no trip is truly a short trip. Fact is, as much of a rip-off the $9000 battery seems, if it's at least an upgrade in size, it's a lot cheaper than buying a new car. (Though, looks like if the Honda Clarity were available in our area, we would have been able to lease one for three years for the same price.)

We might also wait another year or two before upgrading the battery, which would make the economics at least a little more palatable.

For me, the most frustrating part is that when we bought the car, the expectation was that a replacement battery would be closer to $5K than $10K, which figured into the fuel cost comparison. We're at 60K miles now after six years, so a $9K battery works out to 15 cents a mile just for the battery alone.

If gas cost a lot more (like it really ought to) the economics would look better. But at $3.50/gallon (we live in one of the higher-cost areas for gas), a car that even gets 24 mpg costs less in fuel costs to operate, and that's before the cost of the actual electricity is even taken into account. More fuel-efficient cars (as most are these days) would trounce the LEAF. Heck, even a lot of the smaller SUVs would.

Even if I do the calculation looking forward instead of backwards -- after all, put a battery in now, and we'd likely get at least another 60K miles out of it, so the cost for that one battery is technically over 120K miles -- that halves the per mile cost, thus doubling the equivalent mpg for a gas car. But a Prius or similar still breaks even with that.

And that ignores that we already paid the premium for a car with a battery in it when we got the car in the first place. So it's a bit debatable whether that's really a fair way to calculate, tempting as it might be to do so.

I will admit, the LEAF is not, for us, solely about economics. In fact, that's among the least of our motivations. But still...the LEAF has absolutely, completely failed on its promise to be economically justified. I mean, it hasn't even come close to fulfilling that promise.
 
peted said:
Evoforce said:
Trade it in on a Bolt or Tesla. Be done with the nonsense. Or keep it without new battery and also buy a Bolt or Tesla and use Leaf for short distance. Tesla is best and I still have my Leaf.

We've already purchased a used Model S to complement the LEAF. Worst case, we'll keep the LEAF for shorter trips, as you say. But, we live in a rural area, so no trip is truly a short trip. Fact is, as much of a rip-off the $9000 battery seems, if it's at least an upgrade in size, it's a lot cheaper than buying a new car. (Though, looks like if the Honda Clarity were available in our area, we would have been able to lease one for three years for the same price.)

We might also wait another year or two before upgrading the battery, which would make the economics at least a little more palatable.

For me, the most frustrating part is that when we bought the car, the expectation was that a replacement battery would be closer to $5K than $10K, which figured into the fuel cost comparison. We're at 60K miles now after six years, so a $9K battery works out to 15 cents a mile just for the battery alone.

If gas cost a lot more (like it really ought to) the economics would look better. But at $3.50/gallon (we live in one of the higher-cost areas for gas), a car that even gets 24 mpg costs less in fuel costs to operate, and that's before the cost of the actual electricity is even taken into account. More fuel-efficient cars (as most are these days) would trounce the LEAF. Heck, even a lot of the smaller SUVs would.

Even if I do the calculation looking forward instead of backwards -- after all, put a battery in now, and we'd likely get at least another 60K miles out of it, so the cost for that one battery is technically over 120K miles -- that halves the per mile cost, thus doubling the equivalent mpg for a gas car. But a Prius or similar still breaks even with that.


And that ignores that we already paid the premium for a car with a battery in it when we got the car in the first place. So it's a bit debatable whether that's really a fair way to calculate, tempting as it might be to do so.

I will admit, the LEAF is not, for us, solely about economics. In fact, that's among the least of our motivations. But still...the LEAF has absolutely, completely failed on its promise to be economically justified. I mean, it hasn't even come close to fulfilling that promise.

So as you talk about your circumstances, why waste $9000 on another short term battery? Wouldn't it be best than to sell off or trade it in? Get as much value you can now for Leaf, because of fast depreciation, and get a tax credit on the new purchase of Bolt or Model 3? Last I knew, full tax credit may come back for Tesla. It is sad to be in this position because Leaf is such a good car if not for bad batteries.
 
Evoforce said:
So as you talk about your circumstances, why waste $9000 on another short term battery? Wouldn't it be best than to sell off or trade it in? Get as much value you can now for Leaf, because of fast depreciation, and get a tax credit on the new purchase of Bolt or Model 3? Last I knew, full tax credit may come back for Tesla.
I agree on the bolded part. Unfortunately, installing an $7Kish to $9K battery on a Leaf with little value will unfortunately not add a huge amount of value to it on the used market. :(

As for Bolt, tax credit on GM EVs/PHEV is now $3750 and will drop to $1875 on Oct 1, 2019 then 0 on April 1, 2020 (dates are at https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-ev-electric-car). I posted again about heavy discounting at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=556772#p556772.

I wouldn't hold my breath for the tax credit returning to full for any automaker where it's been reduced already (for Tesla and GM, so far). I'm only aware of https://electrek.co/2019/04/10/tesla-gm-back-ev-federal-tax-credit-bi-partisan-bill/ but don't know of its status. I find it unlikely to pass given our political climate.
 
cwerdna said:
Evoforce said:
So as you talk about your circumstances, why waste $9000 on another short term battery? Wouldn't it be best than to sell off or trade it in? Get as much value you can now for Leaf, because of fast depreciation, and get a tax credit on the new purchase of Bolt or Model 3? Last I knew, full tax credit may come back for Tesla.
I agree on the bolded part. Unfortunately, installing an $7Kish to $9K battery on a Leaf with little value will unfortunately not add a huge amount of value to it on the used market. :(

As for Bolt, tax credit on GM EVs/PHEV is now $3750 and will drop to $1875 on Oct 1, 2019 then 0 on April 1, 2020 (dates are at https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-ev-electric-car). I posted again about heavy discounting at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=556772#p556772.

I wouldn't hold my breath for the tax credit returning to full for any automaker where it's been reduced already (for Tesla and GM, so far). I'm only aware of https://electrek.co/2019/04/10/tesla-gm-back-ev-federal-tax-credit-bi-partisan-bill/ but don't know of its status. I find it unlikely to pass given our political climate.

Agreed!
 
I feel the same way that all of you do about spending tons of money on a new battery. I HATE spending $5,000 per year on car insurance (on all of my cars) that just vanishes when I write the check.....

The other way of looking at it is that the $9,000 new battery will give you another 8-10 years of car use... I would guess that the useful lifetime of a Leaf is much more than 100,000 miles. so the new battery is a FIXED COST.

However Depreciation of a buying a new EV, alone, will be the $9,000 (that you are worried about in a few years..)

Also, If you have an ICE keeping a car over 100,000 miles would incur many VARIABLE COSTS... Which will add up again.

We don't complain that our car is worthless when it runs out of gas.... We complain about the price of gas, and fill the tank, week, after week..... That is the same thing.
 
peted said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Not true. I know someone who just paid to have their pack replaced and it was a 24 kwh pack.

To be clear, everything I wrote is true. Whether the statement by the dealer, which I referenced, is true or not, I cannot say. While I've read enough on these forums to take your statements as reliable, there is enough missing detail from the statement above that I can't say for sure it applies in our situation.

Nevertheless, if we ever do decide to pay such a high price to have our LEAF's battery replaced, rest assured we will get a statement in writing from the dealer about what exactly the replacement will be and what it will cost, before actually proceeding with any work.

The person at the dealership we contacted is, so far, very confident in his own statement. Granted, neither of the nearby Nissan dealers have demonstrated much competence with me. Never mind that at both, the staff seems to turn over yearly, which I think is nuts. I hate our local Chevy dealer, but at least I got to deal with the same crooks each time I'd gone in over the past 20 years, instead of having to break in all new ones each time.

You can only say everything you said was relayed correctly from your source. Every day is new so this could simply be a policy change by Nissan but the thought of 24 kwh packs being old and no longer manufactured is something we need to lose because that is not true. Every cell is batch processed and then a pack is created. There is not a whole lot of hoops needed to create any size pack.

TBT; Even if it was a 30 kwh pack, I can't figure out a decent TCO on your situation due to wildly different experiences regarding degradation. I know people with 120,000 miles on their 2015 24 kwh pack and not even halfway to losing their first bar along with 30 kwh owners who are on the cusp of their 2ND pack replacement under warranty...

Going back to cell manufacturing; it is very much an exacting process that is not much less technical than building CPUs. But even intel has to weed out the bad because their process which is likely the best in the World, still does not yield perfect results.

I think Nissan's failing is they don't know how to evaluate their cells effectively.
 
powersurge said:
The other way of looking at it is that the $9,000 new battery will give you another 8-10 years of car use... I would guess that the useful lifetime of a Leaf is much more than 100,000 miles. so the new battery is a FIXED COST.
You are ignoring a lot:

1. The battery is not covered by your insurance.
2. The maintenance costs that come with an older car
3. That $9k buys you a golf cart range car. That was OK in 2011, not today
 
Evoforce said:
So as you talk about your circumstances, why waste $9000 on another short term battery? Wouldn't it be best than to sell off or trade it in? Get as much value you can now for Leaf, because of fast depreciation, and get a tax credit on the new purchase of Bolt or Model 3? Last I knew, full tax credit may come back for Tesla. It is sad to be in this position because Leaf is such a good car if not for bad batteries.

"Waste" is a prejudiced way to phrase it. Rest assured, we won't buy the battery if we decide the money would be wasted. If we do decide to buy the battery, then by definition we have established that, at least for us, the money isn't wasted.

The car's a 2013, and even if the battery were in really good shape, it looks to me as though the best price we'd get is around $7-8K (optimistically). With a failing battery, I'd guess we're closer to $5K, give or take.

Regardless, I don't get the logic behind your proposal. I can rule out the Bolt just based on its size. I barely fit in the LEAF, and the Bolt's seats are too narrow for reasonable comfort. The Model 3 fits me better, but it's a $50K car, and purchased new we'd lose tens of thousands of that value in the first year or two. And even if it didn't, that's still roughly six times what we're looking at for a battery price (we'd have to buy the Model 3 in the next month or so to get even the $3750 credit, and there's no guarantee even that will remain, never mind would the $7500 credit be restored).

Given that we already have the Model S (which used, cost us at least $15K less than we'd spend on a new Model 3), we don't actually need another large(ish) sedan.

We're certainly not going to be buying a new battery any time soon. But it's just as certain that it's premature to state unequivocally that doing so would be absolutely the wrong choice, or especially that as an alternative we should be looking to spend six times as much on a brand new car, where we'll lose as much value in the first year or two of ownership as two batteries would cost.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
I think Nissan's failing is they don't know how to evaluate their cells effectively.
How about that. You say something I agree with.

This may be nitpicking but "effectively" is a question of QC tolerance. I think I read that Nissan allows a 20 - 30 mV range in cells*. That amount of variation has real life consequences. Could Nissan tighten up their QC ? I'm sure they could.

Do they want to ? Judge by what comes out of the factory.

* Tesla allows 1 mv.
 
peted said:
We're certainly not going to be buying a new battery any time soon. But it's just as certain that it's premature to state unequivocally that doing so would be absolutely the wrong choice, or especially that as an alternative we should be looking to spend six times as much on a brand new car, where we'll lose as much value in the first year or two of ownership as two batteries would cost.
We own two vehicles:
2018 Tesla Model 3
2013, second-hand cheap LEAF

One car
One golf-cart

Works very well for us. Match the tool to the job.
 
Sagebrush said:
You are ignoring a lot:

1. The battery is not covered by your insurance.
2. The maintenance costs that come with an older car
3. That $9k buys you a golf cart range car. That was OK in 2011, not today

1. Neither are depreciation costs.
2. Our oldest car is nearly 30 years old. The next oldest is 22 years old. Annual maintenance costs on each is less than $1000. And that's for gas powered vehicles, which are a lot more needy. Our LEAF has required essentially no maintenance; the only thing we've actually paid significant money for in six years of ownership are two new tires (I wasn't willing to splurge on a full set of four when one had been damaged beyond repair and required replacement).
3. What was okay in 2011 (or 2013 when we bought the car) is still okay for us. A new battery would be perfectly adequate for the type of driving this particular car will be used for (for that matter, the failing battery will be fine for the vast majority of the driving...it just means we'll wind up in one of the ICE cars more often than we'd prefer).

I have to admit, I do find it amusing the number of people who feel that they can state without reservation what makes the most sense for me. We all have different priorities, different budgets, different willingness to extend said budgets, and any number of other factors that go into this sort of decision-making.

I appreciate the input, but the advice would be better-presented if it came strictly with factual statements, rather than value judgments that make assumptions about the factors at play in my particular situation (for example, making a claim as to what is or is not "OK").
 
peted said:
I appreciate the input, but the advice would be better-presented if it came strictly with factual statements, rather than value judgments that make assumptions about the factors at play in my particular situation (for example, making a claim as to what is or is not "OK").
By 'not OK' I was talking about cost/range Nissan is charging, not about you at all.

I'm not sure why you emphasize Tesla depreciation for the first year or two if you plan to keep longer, but if your assumptions are correct about the depreciation then buy a 2 year old Tesla
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
You can only say everything you said was relayed correctly from your source.

If you make an untrue statement, and I quote that statement, saying you said it, then everything I said is true. All I've said is that you said something. That your statement was untrue doesn't make mine untrue as well.

DaveinOlyWA said:
Every day is new so this could simply be a policy change by Nissan but the thought of 24 kwh packs being old and no longer manufactured is something we need to lose because that is not true.

I definitely don't know what relevance that has to my statements. I never wrote anything about whether it's true that 24 kWh are or are not available, never mind made a claim as to why that might or might not be the case.

DaveinOlyWA said:
TBT; Even if it was a 30 kwh pack, I can't figure out a decent TCO on your situation due to wildly different experiences regarding degradation. I know people with 120,000 miles on their 2015 24 kwh pack and not even halfway to losing their first bar along with 30 kwh owners who are on the cusp of their 2ND pack replacement under warranty...

Sure. As I mentioned in the outset, our battery pack only showed significant signs of degradation after we started seeing the problem with the 12V battery getting run down and the dealer asked us to try to reproduce it (they wanted us to be able to bring the car in immediately after it happened, to check the stored error codes...this pattern was repeated several times over a short period).

There is a possibility that we could buy a new battery pack and, taking better care of it, it would last for eight, ten, or whatever years, vs the six we are looking at now (and to be clear, the current battery pack isn't dead...it's just that we're seeing enough loss of range that we're noticing it in our daily use of the car). Of course, it's also possible that the newer battery pack would be manufactured even more poorly than the one that came with the car, and wouldn't last even as long.

It's dangerous, trying to predict the future. The best I know how to do is look at the past and extrapolate from there, modifying that analysis only when presented with facts that clearly give a reason to.
 
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