Tony828 said:
The new Nissan Leaf continues to use passive battery thermal management system; Despite all the vigorous defense of the current system (that may work well in cooler climate), I wish all the best but’ll move on in a different direction .........
I would agree if you live in a hot place. In a moderate climate, the passive and the active thermal management is more of a personal choice than a simple technical decision.
In cool places, better battery life, cheaper and simpler look all like a clear gains for passive, other than for the
few drivers that do a lot of long distance trips with many DCQCs.
I'm sure that passive vs active cooling will be discussed endlessly. The last word will not come until long after the technology gets mature.
My Leaf has been through 4 summers, has 35k miles, and is at about 90% battery capacity or 10% loss. SOH has bounced up to 92%, but a linear projection shows that the battery should be at about 10% loss. If loss is linear, then I'd be looking a replacement battery in 12 years or 2026 or so. The battery has only rarely gotten hot enough that an active cooling system would have even turned on. Some local 2011 Leafs lost the first bar this summer at 90+k miles. There is one 2011 Leaf I know of just below 90k miles that has a fair shot of passing 100k miles before loss of first bar. I'm not going to do that well, I average 2 QCs per week.
I suspect however, I'll buy a 60kWh car after they become more available. The Bolt's seat doesn't fit my rear end, so the Bolt is probably out the running unless GM fixes this. The Teslas are more excitement and dollars than I want. Eh, still looking.