Just the way I see it, or anyone agree?

[Computerdoctor]

First of all, I really feel sorry for all of you that have lost one or more capacity bars on your Leafs.

That said, I would like to put in my opinion of thoughts in this matter, if I may?

That Palmer dude saying that "We don´t have a batteryproblem, we have a few cars with displayproblems" or whatever he said, thats just rubbish. But sure, it´s like holding on to that last little hope that
the cars can be magiclly cured. But, on the other hand, we all know that won´t happen, right?

So, let´s leave the fairytale stories behind and concentrate on the known facts here.

Nissan know very well that they have a problem on their hands here, but they don´t have the solution for it. And really, nobody has, right?

And this is where we all, especially you americans, have our share of burden.

Anytime someone from a company says something and that later turns out to be a lie, a miscalculation or whatever first thing that seems to come in mind for loads of people, and mostly americans is : "Let´s sue them! Put some laywers at it! Release the hounds!"

And this is the reason that noone from Nissan is daring to say anything at all about this. If they admit they have a batteryproblem, they will get a bunch of laywers at their heels faster than anyone can say "Gidometer!"

If we try to see this from Nissans point of view, what are they doing about this right now? First of all, just because they are silent doesn´t necessary mean that they are pretending like nothing happened.
My bet is that they firstly is trying to figure out : "What did we overlook when we tested the car?" Since they earlier have stated "80% after 5 years and 70% after 10 years" I am pretty sure that they didn´t just make those numbers up.
But they missed one huge factor, heat! They tested the cars for billions of miles in cold temps, freezing temps, normal temps. But they forgot about all of you that live in 100+ temps.

And secondly "What do we do now?"

To some point we knew we were taking a risk buying a car with new technology.

The biggest error Nissan is doing in this is denying the problem and failing to communicate, at all, with the owners of the cars.

No matter how degraded the battery gets, it´s still a fantastic car with great comfort and cool tech. But of course, when it no longer fills the owners need as transportation, it´s useless.
But that limit is different for everyone, what is good enough range for me might not be for someone else.

If I try to see it from Nissans point of view, I would like the cars to stay out on the roads for as long as possible to get as much information about heat/degradation issues with the batteries as possible. They need all the knowledge they can get for the future models.


But what do you, honestly, think they should do now, with this thing on their hands?

1. Just replace the batteries with new ones, same type? Well, besides being costly, they wont really gain any knowledge from the old batteries. Maybe the degradation slows or stops, maybe is doesn´t. But who´s best aimed for the task to get that knowledge? The owners that drive the car every day, of course!

2. Take the cars back and give all or most of the money back? That would be a huge blow to Nissan and electric cars. Could be the "who killed the electric car - part two". And I don´t want to contribute to that, letting the gas guzzlers win. Besides, what would I get instead? There simple is no other cars on the market competing with the Leaf! A Volt? Don´t think so!

3. Take the cars back for "evaluation and rebuilding" and lend the owners any other Nissan they want meanwhile? Well, that could be good or bad PR depending how they use it. BUt still, they will miss out on the knowledge I wrote about under point 1. For me, I wouldn´t trade my Leaf for anything since I could make my travels on 50% cap. Besides, here in Sweden the gas is about 8$/gallon! And i drive 15 k miles/year...

4. Communicate with the owners, admit the problem and tell us that they need our help to test and develop the cars. This is, as i see it, the only way we can get a win-win situation. They tell us what they know and we keep on testing the cars. But hey, there is no free lunches!. What do we want in return? Upgrades at fair pricing would be great!


Apologies for any strange sentences in my post, english ain´t exactly my native language. But hey, I bet I am better at english than you are at swedish!

 

[downeykp]

Some good points. Mahalo

 

[davewill]

The way to handle your suggestion is for Nissan to pick a battery capacity floor at which they would take warranty action on the battery. Then the owners keep driving until they reach that point. Of course, some of these owners are getting pretty close to any sort of reasonable degradation point.

A small correction: Nissan did quite a bit of their battery testing just outside Phoenix at the same facility they took the owner's cars to test.

 

[Computerdoctor]

The way to handle your suggestion is for Nissan to pick a battery capacity floor at which they would take warranty action on the battery. Then the owners keep driving until they reach that point. Of course, some of these owners are getting pretty close to any sort of reasonable degradation point.

But I don´t think they can set a battery capacity floor that will satisfy the majority of the owners. It just will have to be a consideration from case to case. My floor would be about 50% capacity but someone that needs 80 miles a day to make his commute needs a different floor.

I have made my economic calculation with this car that the battery needs replacement after 100 000 kilometres and that the cost for the replacement will be about 15 000 $.
If I get more miles or the battery gets cheaper, that´s a bonus!

 

[Nubo]

They did not forget about heat. The car was specifically tested in Arizona, and this fact was stressed to the enthusiast community when questions were asked prior to launch.

Whether or not the testing was adequate is a reasonable question. I would be surprised if a major auto manufacturer didn't understand the level of rigor required, and they have been working on this technology for quite some time. Still, it's not inconceivable. After all even NASA has been known to confuse Imperial and Metric measurements...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If I had to place money, however, I'd select an older NASA phenomenon called "Go Fever":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_fever" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[smkettner]

I think Nissan will be replacing a lot of batteries. Maybe free or more likely a prorated subsidized cost.
I honestly think there will be a lower cost and better battery made in Smyra very soon. Nissan will use these for replacements.
JMHO

 

[davewill]

But I don´t think they can set a battery capacity floor that will satisfy the majority of the owners. It just will have to be a consideration from case to case. My floor would be about 50% capacity but someone that needs 80 miles a day to make his commute needs a different floor. ...

You can't handle warranty issues like that...or rather, you can, but people who don't know about the "secret warranty" get shafted, and irate when they find out they've been skipping trips and borrowing ICE cars when others have been taken care of. I would note that someone like you who can stand to wait for 50% degradation might still see an advantage to waiting...their replacement battery will start it's life later and presumably the whole car will last longer.

My 2005 Prius just recently needed a new traction battery at 128k miles, just shy of the 130k warranty limit. This gives me a fresh traction battery that may well last me past 250-300k miles.

 

[Boomer23]

First of all, good job with the English. Your post was well written and no less grammatically correct than many of the native English speakers who post here. And from downeykp's response, Mahalo is Hawaiian for "thanks".

I think a combination of your points 3 and 4 would be Nissan's best approach. I've seen the Mini and BMW Active E drivers paying much more for their use of their EVs than LEAF drivers, and being very tolerant of mechanical issues because their leases were part of a development project. The drivers were willing to undergo some inconvenience, sometimes catastrophic failure, with good humor (perhaps not universally good humor, and not unquenchable good humor, but still good humor), because BMW was being open with them about the issues and making the drivers part of the solution instead of seeing them as adversaries. Nissan needs to understand that early EV adopters are a different breed than their usual customers, and not just because, as their marketing choices lead me to believe they think, most of us like polar bears. We tend to be technical people with a love of information, and we tend to distrust corporate BS. We are fiercely committed to our choice to drive an EV and we want to see EVs succeed. So rather than take the stance from the outset that they needed to stonewall and deny, they needed to be very open with us about their findings and enlist our help. I think that there is a lot to be learned by studying the Toyota story of the last few years. A full analysis of Toyota's lack of response and resulting poor reputation showed a corporate culture of fear to send bad news up the corporate ladder and a structure of information silos which stifled communication about issues that were essential to Toyota's image. I hope that Nissan learned from watching that situation unfold.

I think that Nissan could take back the affected LEAFs with two or more capacity bar loss (or some threshold) and swap them with new 2012 or 2013 LEAFs or new battery packs. LEAF sales figures being as low as they've been, there certainly is available inventory of replacement cars. The drivers could remain strong EV advocates and continue to get useful range out of the new cars or batteries while Nissan would have ownership and full access to the affected cars or packs to determine the issues and their long term response. The drivers would feel protected and valued and would remain Nissan supporters instead of potential legal adversaries.

I tend to be an optimist, possibly a foolish one, but I hope to see a constructive response from Nissan by the time the 2013 cars are introduced. Failing that, Nissan may become a footnote to the EV revolution: A company that helped to kick start the future with bravery and vision, but stumbled and fell by the wayside, a victim of poor execution.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i think a prorated exchange is in order. i would not expect Nissan to bear the full cost of a battery replacement if I had driven 25,000 miles. but at the same time, if one is no longer able to use the vehicle as planned then something should be done

now there are a lot of people here who have less than 30% degradation and are not able to use the LEAF as they had planned. not sure what they were going to do 10 years down the line when "normal" degradation would have been evident but either way, I think when Nissan's American battery plant is up and running they will have some viable options for us

 

[Computerdoctor]

And from downeykp's response, Mahalo is Hawaiian for "thanks".

Well, that one got me really confused! "What does Mahalo mean??" Mahalo for the explanation!

Nissan needs to understand that early EV adopters are a different breed than their usual customers

Exactly! They should be smart and draw advantage of this, that we are way more technically interested than their usual customers. Our curiosity for new technology is the key to fix the flaws of the construction before the great masses of ordinary "I don´t care how this thing works" customers begin to buy the cars.

as their marketing choices lead me to believe they think, most of us like polar bears.

Vicious creatures!

A company that helped to kick start the future with bravery and vision, but stumbled and fell by the wayside, a victim of poor execution.

Pure poetry! Really!

 

[klapauzius]

I think exchanging batteries or swapping out models with newer ones is not going to help, since
they do not have a heat resistant battery technology right now.

If they were to give free battery replacements to everyone affected in hot climates, we would have the same problem at our hands
next year, as the new fresh batteries will degrade as rapidly as the old ones.

They cannot come up with a TMS retrofit either.

The only honest thing for Nissan at his point would be to offer a full refund to everyone affected by the problem and make sure
that people who want buy in these climates are informed about the risk.

 

[JimSouCal]

I think Nissan will be replacing a lot of batteries. Maybe free or more likely a prorated subsidized cost.
I honestly think there will be a lower cost and better battery made in Smyra very soon. Nissan will use these for replacements.
JMHO

Thinking along the same lines about how this will pan out...

 

[caffeinekid]

Nissan needs to understand that early EV adopters are a different breed than their usual customers, and not just because, as their marketing choices lead me to believe they think, most of us like polar bears. We tend to be technical people with a love of information, and we tend to distrust corporate BS. We are fiercely committed to our choice to drive an EV and we want to see EVs succeed. So rather than take the stance from the outset that they needed to stonewall and deny, they needed to be very open with us about their findings and enlist our help. I think that there is a lot to be learned by studying the Toyota story of the last few years. A full analysis of Toyota's lack of response and resulting poor reputation showed a corporate culture of fear to send bad news up the corporate ladder and a structure of information silos which stifled communication about issues that were essential to Toyota's image. I hope that Nissan learned from watching that situation unfold.

Well stated. And to visit the Toyota issue a little further, notice how they (Toyota) missed a major opportunity to step it up with the Prius and essentially undermine the Volt. The Prius has needed an "EV only drive" option for quite some time now. And now that the option is finally there, did they make it worth having? No. If they had come up with a version that could just cover the average daily commute on EV alone, they would have had a resurgence in Prius sales. Imagine what is essentially the Volt with Toyota quality.

As for asking what Leaf owners can do, I would direct your attention to eBay and the used car lots. It appears that some have already decided. And being from the hotter south myself, if I see capacity losses in the first couple of years, I am going to be pissed. It is one thing to sign on to a vehicle that loses maybe 5 or 10% at 5 years, but it is another thing entirely to lose it in the first or second year. That affects the utility of the vehicle in a very negative way and isn't at all what most buys probably signed on for. Lets not forget the 100 mile range BS or the 73 mile EPA rating that never materialized for many (and maybe even most) of us down here.

 

[bernie82]

Here's how I check my battery capacity. I do a 60 mile daytime round trip on a relatively flat freeway with the cruise set at 60 MPH, with no air conditioning or heater turned on. Then I drive the Leaf until the low battery light come on, making sure to stay within a few miles of a charging station. When the low battery light comes on, I'll have about 3.6 KWH of useable power remaining in the battery. I should get about 67 miles on the odometer. I should have anywhere from 15 miles left in the battery at 60 MPH and about 23 miles left in city driving. Each lost bar will cost me about 6 miles of range. So if my information display shows 11 bars at full charge and I get to drive about 67 miles to the low battery light I can figure it's an information display problem. I'll probably lose about 6 miles of range driving at 60 MPH for each lost bar. So if my Low Battery light comes on at 60 odometer miles I can figure I really have lost one bar.

 

[planet4ever]

So if my information display shows 11 bars at full charge and I get to drive about 67 miles to the low battery light I can figure it's an information display problem. I'll probably lose about 6 miles of range driving at 60 MPH for each lost bar. So if my Low Battery light comes on at 60 odometer miles I can figure I really have lost one bar.

It sounds like you are confusing capacity bars (the skinny white ones, last two red) with available charge bars (the fat blue and white ones). The number of capacity bars you see is not affected by how full the battery is. Some people see 9 instead of 10 available charge bars on an "80%" charge, but I haven't heard of anyone who sees less than 12 of those bars at a "100%" charge, no matter how much capacity they have lost. What does happen as you lose capacity is that you get fewer miles per charge bar at the same speed. So I don't think your proposed conclusion is correct.

Ray

 

[cwerdna]

Well stated. And to visit the Toyota issue a little further, notice how they (Toyota) missed a major opportunity to step it up with the Prius and essentially undermine the Volt. The Prius has needed an "EV only drive" option for quite some time now. And now that the option is finally there, did they make it worth having? No. If they had come up with a version that could just cover the average daily commute on EV alone, they would have had a resurgence in Prius sales. Imagine what is essentially the Volt with Toyota quality.

It's a matter of a different strategy and wanting to hit different targets for price, cargo capacity, charging time, mileage, etc. With the Volt, it yielded a compact car (instead of a midsized Prius), that seats only 4 instead of 5, costs more, weighs 616 lbs more than the PiP (3781 vs. 3165 lbs.), has less interior room (due to the T-shaped) battery), that yields only 37 mpg combined on premium on the EPA test in CS mode vs. 50 mpg combined for the PiP on regular and has a very complex powertrain (similar to the PSD used in the Prius but w/3 clutches vs. none).

GM totally missed their targeted CS mileage, price, projected sales and I believe a few other things that I don't recall OTOH.

The PiP w/its smaller battery capacity means very few are going to spring for or feel the need to pay for an EVSE to installed at home since it's doesn't take long to charge at 120 volts vs. the Volt, where people might be more compelled to.

But sure, if one's looking for a PHEV w/a bias to run in pure EV across all speeds and acceleration requests (when not in CS mode) and a longer range, then the PiP falls short.

Define resurgence. Per http://www.toyotanewsroom.com/releases/august+2012+sales+chart.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, Prius family sales are up 95.9% YTD vs. the same period last year. But, having 4 models now helps and Toyota's recovered from the tsunami now.

 

[adric22]

The PiP w/its smaller battery capacity means very few are going to spring for or feel the need to pay for an EVSE to installed at home since it's doesn't take long to charge at 120 volts vs. the Volt, where people might be more compelled to.

THere really isn't that much advantage on the Volt either. After all, an overnight charge on 120V will always fill up the battery. And it isn't like you have to worry about being able to recharge during the day or be stranded somewhere.

The PiP simply doesn't compete in my opinion simply because it costs nearly the same as a Volt. Had the PiP come out and been $3,000 more expensive than a similarly equipped non-plug in prius as Toyota originally said, I think it would be a big hit.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i dont think Toyota missed the opportunity. i feel they simply decided there was no existing niche they could challenge at this time so they created a new one.

Toyota is hampered by the exchange rate. they have always been slightly more expensive and balanced that by having a much greater product which is why the Prius sells well.

but that only works to point. when the price gets too high, you move into a different demographic which is much smaller. Toyota would have had a chance to put out something more in the lines of a C-Max with a 20-25 mile real EV range since that would cover over 90% if they have work charging and over 50% if someone didnt but they would not have been able to come in at a reasonable enough price to compete. thus the decision for compliance only.

the RAV 4 EV is a vehicle able to compete but Toyota perceives there to not be sufficient nationwide support for distribution and they are right. public charging is not vital or needed by 75+% of the normal EV drivers but it provides emotional support and that is vital when spending that much money.

once again it comes around to Americans not having a clue as to what works for them or how to make it work for them

 

[thankyouOB]

Very, very weii done, computerSwede.

My solution?
Cheappricing for battery replacement wiyh installation; which would make degradation less of an issue - and include some"fair" subsidy for hot climes with future warranty-based warning on temps.

 

[ydnas7]

Computerdocter

There is a 5th option, heavier emphasis on vehicle lease for new cars,
+ people move on to new cars. If a reduced range LEAF is not for them, they can LEASE a new LEAF or transition to the alternatives.