LEAF 2 : What we know so far (2018 or later?)

[SageBrush]

The current price of a 60 kWh car is very problematic for cars like the Bolt. It just isn't attractive as a $40K+ car. Here in California some Chevy dealers have over 150 cars sitting on their lot

A 150 mile 40kWh car for under $30k without incentives is very doable and I suspect he LEAF 2 will be just that car.

20 kwh ... $10,000

$500 a kWh

 

[OrientExpress]

its chicken and egg, but for Nissan to get 60kWh packs cheaply, they simply will need to initially get 60kWh packs expensively. An overlap of both being available, but much better value being for the cheaper pack, .

I suspect that is what will happen, there will be two battery pack options, one being a mainstream pack and the other being a low volume halo 60kWh pack that will be $5-7K (or more) expensive for those that have to have more range immediately. Over time the more expensive pack will come down in price as will the 40kWh pack.

As with most early adoption products do the 60 kWh car will depreciate faster than the 40kWh car.

 

[evnow]

it should be obvious, but the statements were in Japanese and about cost basis and the bulk of the market. No where did it not imply that 60kWh were not coming 2018, just that the Japanese market would be buying the 40ish kWh version in bulk.

What is the actual quote you are basing this on ?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Folks are discounting the fact that GM can VERY EASILY make their 288 cell 60kWh usable pack into a 192 cell 40kWh pack.

The number one problem with that is the car will only get 2 CARB-ZEV credits instead of three.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Here in California some Chevy dealers have over 150 cars sitting on their lot

That could be because of the seats and the terrible lease offers (although a little better in Ca.). They will start to move when those two issues are fixed. And um, speaking of manufacturers with tons of unsold EVs sitting around on dealer lots...

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Why would the lease offers get better? Aren't lease prices a function of selling price, interest rates, and what the car is expected to be worth at the end of the lease?

 

[GetOffYourGas]

Bolt gets EVs halfway to mainstream


Two problems have relegated electric vehicles to a sliver of the market for years: EVs offer less convenience than internal-combustion vehicles, and they are priced considerably higher.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20170501/BLOG06/170509982/bolt-gets-evs-halfway-to-mainstream

It's funny, for what it is, my Leaf exceeds any gas car for both of those "problems".

Within its range, an EV is far more convenient that any gas car can ever be. Every morning I start with a full charge, and I simply go about my day without thinking about it. Yes there is the long trip problem, but I have another car in the driveway. If we ONLY sold EVs to those with 2+ cars in their family "fleet", the EV market could still be at least an order of magnitude larger than it is today.

My Leaf cost me $23k. And today you can get a base Leaf for less than $20k. A comparable gas car would have cost about $5k more than my Leaf, and THEN 2-3x as much to fuel and maintain. Even if the Leaf depreciates to $0 in the ~8 years I expect to own it, the TCO wins over a gas car.

The only "problem" I have with my leaf is that I love driving electric and wish I could take it on my ~300 mile road trips. The Bolt/Leaf 2 half solve that problem with greater range. But only the Model 3 has the combination of range + infrastructure to truly make it go away.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

In part, it comes down to how much you value electric drive. To me, if you disregard the electric drivetrain, the Bolt feels like a nice $20,000-ish small car. But the model I drove stickered at over $43,000.

The LEAF exhausted most of the market of people who were enamored with an EV for the sake of it; to get to the next level of adoption the value proposition needs to improve for those who don't see it as a crusade. Ultimately it's tradeoff between convenience and somewhat lower cost of home refueling and longer driving distance capability, so even if you have someone who prefers the former, at some point they won't be able to justify it as the price delta increases.

 

[SageBrush]

In part, it comes down to how much you value electric drive. To me, if you disregard the electric drivetrain, the Bolt feels like a nice $20,000-ish small car. But the model I drove stickered at over $43,000.

The LEAF exhausted most of the market of people who were enamored with an EV for the sake of it; to get to the next level of adoption the value proposition needs to improve for those who don't see it as a crusade.

You are buying into the drivel of the denialists. A crusade is not required to want clean air or clean water, or to mitigate climate change. A crusade is not needed to want less wars, less OPEC influence, less money funneled to terrorists, or a healthier domestic economy.

Pollution and oil dependency has a monetary cost and to deny it is to say that you value your life (not to mention everybody else) at zero, or simple hypocrisy in asking someone else to pay.

 

[edatoakrun]

I suspect that is what will happen, there will be two battery pack options, one being a mainstream pack and the other being a low volume halo 60kWh pack that will be $5-7K (or more) expensive for those that have to have more range immediately. Over time the more expensive pack will come down in price as will the 40kWh pack.

As with most early adoption products do the 60 kWh car will depreciate faster than the 40kWh car.

Designing a BEV with multiple pack sizes inevitably compromises one or both of the BEV designs, but much less so if the larger pack capacity can be achieved with higher energy density, rather than increased weight.

Of course, that is what Nissan did in the gen one LEAF using both ~24 kWh and ~30 kWh packs.

I still think the LEAF gen 2 will probably be available with with an inexpensive base pack with a designation somewhere in the low 30 kWh range, an evolutionary improvement on the present "30" kWh pack.

And the optional larger pack is more likely to be designated as between 40 kWh and 50 kWh, than ~60 kWh.

Folks are discounting the fact that GM can VERY EASILY make their 288 cell 60kWh usable pack into a 192 cell 40kWh pack.

The number one problem with that is the car will only get 2 CARB-ZEV credits instead of three.

If the Bolt had been designed to accommodate a smaller pack from the beginning, it would be much cheaper, more efficient and probably sell quite a bit better than the ~60 kWh available Bolt GM builds today.

But GM installing a smaller kludge pack in the present Bolt by using fewer cells is unlikely, IMO.

It is unfortunate, IMO, that all BEV sales in the USA are distorted by CARB's obsession with BEVs with longer-range than that determined by market realities.

Thanks to CARB, we will wind up with smaller total sales of BEVs, stuffed with larger battery packs that are rarely required, and mostly just carried as dead weight.

Thus we will have more ICEV miles driven in total, and more petroleum fuels consumed, than if CARB prioritized it's ZEV credit incentives for the market segments where BEVs and BEVxs with ~20 kWh to ~40 kWh packs are superior to ICEVs, and could sell in larger numbers.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

You are buying into the drivel of the denialists. A crusade is not required to want clean air or clean water, or to mitigate climate change. A crusade is not needed to want less wars, less OPEC influence, less money funneled to terrorists, or a healthier domestic economy.

Pollution and oil dependency has a monetary cost and to deny it is to say that you value your life (not to mention everybody else) at zero, or simple hypocrisy in asking someone else to pay.

Nobody cares, least of all the guests on the Rising Sun. Thanks for doing your part though.

 

[WetEV]

Thanks to CARB, we will wind up with smaller total sales of BEVs, stuffed with larger battery packs that are rarely required, and mostly just carried as dead weight.

Thus we will have more ICEV miles driven in total, and more petroleum fuels consumed, than if CARB prioritized it's ZEV credit incentives for the market segments where BEVs and BEVxs with ~20 kWh to ~40 kWh packs are superior to ICEVs, and could sell in larger numbers.

If minimizing current petroleum consumption was the only goal, then start-stop "weak hybrid" technology should be first, then hybrid power trains, then plug in hybrids, then full electrics. There simply isn't enough battery manufacturing capacity to make more than a few percent of US car sales full electric cars at this time.

On the other hand, if advancing the state of the art is a goal, making full electrics forces the technology to advance.

 

[edatoakrun]

...There simply isn't enough battery manufacturing capacity to make more than a few percent of US car sales full electric cars at this time...

Which is precisely why it makes much more sense to use the available battery production capacity to build the maximum number of ~30 kWh pack BEVs, rather than only ~half that many BEVs with comically over-sized ~60 kWh packs, as CARB has unfortunately incentivized with its current ZEV credit scheme.

 

[desiv]

Which is precisely why it makes much more sense to use the available battery production capacity to build the maximum number of ~30 kWh pack BEVs, rather than only ~half that many BEVs with comically over-sized ~60 kWh packs, as CARB has unfortunately incentivized with its current ZEV credit scheme.

Part of the problem is convincing the consumer of that...
It looks like a lot of consumers won't buy the cars without the extra density..

If you build them right-sized, but people don't buy them, is that actually the right choice?

desiv

 

[LeftieBiker]

Why would the lease offers get better? Aren't lease prices a function of selling price, interest rates, and what the car is expected to be worth at the end of the lease?

GM is keeping $5000 of the $7500 tax credit, and charging another $5000 in inflated residual if you plan to buy the car. If they were to reverse the proportions they kept/credit to MSRP, and dropped the inflated residual, the car would get leased in much, much larger numbers. As it is the Bolt lease is a great way to throw away money.

 

[OrientExpress]

There is the possibility that Nissan is moving toward this line of thinking with LEAF2 and first having a 40ish kWh offering for MY16, while cost reducing a 60kWh variant that could be offered at under $38K as a halo LEAF in the MY19 time frame. Range is great to talk about if budget is not an issue

The Bolt has shown that folks aren't willing to pay $43K for a car that would only add 70-80 miles of additional range. If $30-32K is your budget, then a 150 mile car may be your best bet.

 

[desiv]

If $30-32K is your budget, then a 150 mile car may be your best bet.

Thing for me is, that's 150 miles new..
What will it be after 5 years in the winter with the heater going?

That type of thing is one reason people want more range than they might need now...

desiv

 

[OrientExpress]

There have been good advances in battery durability, which have to translate into a better battery warranty that we will most likely see in the new LEAF. But it is a moving target, we have already heard from the new Nissan CEO that they have a 300 mile car in the works for 2020, and if this technology follows most other tech curves it will not stand still but will continue to improve. The question everyone has to make is at what point do you invest knowing full well that there is always going to be something faster, better, cheaper in the pipeline.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Thing for me is, that's 150 miles new..
What will it be after 5 years in the winter with the heater going?

It won't be 150 miles with the heater running in cold weather even when new. Figure 120-130 miles in Winter.

 

[EVDrive]

So we already know that a cheap Leaf with a 30kWh pack is not a big seller. Almost every manufacturer has a limited range Leaf competitor and they are not selling in great numbers.

CARB is doing the right thing to incentivize long range EV's with fast charge times wich is what I and others who are waiting on the EV sidelines right now want in addition to low prices. Where would EV's be without CARB, maybe nowhere.

A few other big reasons the Bolt is not selling well is it is a tiny Chevy hatchback, people are unsure about the long term quality, the seats don't help it sell, the company is anti Tesla and against fuel efficiency improvements so I and others won't support them for their politics.

Tesla model 3 is the other reason. Despite everything I just mentioned, I may have bought a Bolt if it weren't competing with a much more interesting car, the model 3. The wait for the Model 3 is depressing Bolt sales. I'd much rather have a Model 3 so that's where I have my deposit and my money. Nissan is perceived as higher quality so a longe range Nissan EV will sell better than a Chevy Bolt in my guestimate.