LEAF advisory group

[RegGuheert]

thanks.
i am glad you guys are letting them know. i hope you join keep firing at them, with the rest of us.
they must know they are in deep water on this.

--
consensus, by the way means agreement; an opinion held by all or nearly all.
so, it would be completely illogical for them to ignore that.

Agreed. I will say this is one area where there has been broad agreement by the members of the LAB. (We have different views on many items since Chelsea intentionally selected a diverse group.) And I will say our feedback has been much more detailed than what has been provided on this board, with some rather specific recommendations being made. I would say that this time around your voice has been heard, and then some.

Are we allowed to know what the LAB assignments are?

Without going into specifics, I will give an idea of the kinds of things that they want from us:
- One item involves collecting some particularly useful information that some members have provided to this board and providing it to Nissan so that they do not overlook any details in some efforts they have ongoing.
- They have follow-up requests based on our detailed feedback concerning battery replacement. My personal opinion is that there are no simple answers here and I think Nissan is getting a more clear picture of what is at stake, at least from the viewpoint of the customers and other participants in the marketplace. Hopefully Nissan will find a way to strike a good overall compromise with the interests of all parties clearly represented. It is no easy task.

That's a partial, vague list, but perhaps it gives you a taste of the tasks. The bottom line is that the tasks all involve collecting and giving additional feedback to Nissan.

 

[oakwcj]

Do the LAB members have any idea what the cost, if any, for Carwings will be after three years? The first owners will be coming up on their third anniversary in less than two months.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Do the LAB members have any idea what the cost, if any, for Carwings will be after three years? The first owners will be coming up on their third anniversary in less than two months.

no

**my personal opinion** might be taking it in house or to another company. they were definitely not proud of the fact that its 2G tech

one thing about carwings; i know its a major pain to hit the accept button and i should know since i have failed to do so probably less than a dozen times since getting my LEAF, but it is data that Nissan is using to compile aggregate usage statistics. this can only help the process and any concerns over privacy, attempts at disqualifying warranties based on less than perfect charging habits, etc. is simply not the case here.

so if you can, let carwings collect your data... it can only be a good thing

 

[Stoaty]

one thing about carwings; i know its a major pain to hit the accept button and i should know since i have failed to do so probably less than a dozen times since getting my LEAF, but it is data that Nissan is using to compile aggregate usage statistics. this can only help the process and any concerns over privacy, attempts at disqualifying warranties based on less than perfect charging habits, etc. is simply not the case here.

Sorry, but this (press OK every time you start the Leaf) was a major screw-up that should have been corrected. While I am happy to let Nissan have my data, I am not going to hit "OK" several times a day for years on end so they can get that data. Consequently, I have probably sent data to them 20-30 times in the last 2.5 years. Correcting the problem would have given them the data.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

one thing about carwings; i know its a major pain to hit the accept button and i should know since i have failed to do so probably less than a dozen times since getting my LEAF, but it is data that Nissan is using to compile aggregate usage statistics. this can only help the process and any concerns over privacy, attempts at disqualifying warranties based on less than perfect charging habits, etc. is simply not the case here.

Sorry, but this (press OK every time you start the Leaf) was a major screw-up that should have been corrected. While I am happy to let Nissan have my data, I am not going to hit "OK" several times a day for years on end so they can get that data. Consequently, I have probably sent data to them 20-30 times in the last 2.5 years. Correcting the problem would have given them the data.

well they did change it to once a month on 2013's but really could not give us a good reason as to why that was necessary. seems like we can give "until i change my mind" permission to nearly everything else... why not this?

 

[TimLee]

They have follow-up requests based on our detailed feedback concerning battery replacement. My personal opinion is that there are no simple answers here and I think Nissan is getting a more clear picture of what is at stake, at least from the viewpoint of the customers and other participants in the marketplace. Hopefully Nissan will find a way to strike a good overall compromise with the interests of all parties clearly represented. It is no easy task.

Thank you for the very informative post.
"There are no simple answers here" is certainly the understatement of the year :!:
Some have said that eventually Nissan will "do the right thing" with regards to the LEAF much faster than intended capacity degradation problem.
I have become skeptical of that.
So far Nissan has produced around 80,000 LEAFs, and by the time they start producing a LEAF sometime in 2014 that has a battery that may be closer to their original design intent, they will likely have produced around 100,000 LEAFs that basically have a defective battery.
To really FIX that would require offering a warranty that matched their original design intent and stated expectations on capacity degradation.
But that would be costly. Although we don't know the cost of the battery, you used $333 per kWh in your recent survey on options for increased kWH future LEAFs. I think that is unrealistically low, and the $500 per kWh that Volkswagen stated is closer to correct. But even if the battery is only $400 per kWh, Nissan will have produced around 100,000 LEAF with basically a defective battery.
To extend a proper capacity warranty matching their design intent and stated expectations, would probably cost them around $1 billion.
Ghosn took a bold initiative in investing around $2 billion to produce the LEAF. But so far, Nissan somehow thinks that offering a pathetic 5 year, 60,000 mile, 66.25% capacity warranty; floating a $100 per month battery rental with that same 66.25% capacity guarantee; and buying out the class action law suit for around $2 million; is enough to FIX the problem.
So far they have made the wrong choice.
They need to step up to the plate with a real warranty on capacity that matches their original design intent. It will be a costly $1 billion fix to do that.
But not doing that has a much worse impact on their reputation and potential future greatness in being the world leader in electric vehicles.

 

[Pipcecil]

Personally, I think their may be some bean counters preventing what some of Nissan wants to do with their original battery problem. What makes this worse, the knowledge about this problem or even its existance is really only know to a few people only. In fact, I met some new people that bought leafs and none of them ever knew about the heat battery problem. At least this time the dealerships were pushing on the EPA range when I would talk to them, so that is a step in the right direction.

People just don't know, so to implement a costly fix would only solve a small minority amount of people. Some accountant probably looked at a risk assessment and determined that any negative press (which we can all agree has been small from actual news to word of mouth) is insignificant in lost sales versus spending a significant amount to make it right. The new battery warranty probably was only implement as a compromise between the idealistic and realistic people in the company and in pre-reaction to the lawsuit.

 

[TomT]

One other issue for the future might be that the cell companies are actively phasing out 2G...

they were definitely not proud of the fact that its 2G tech

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Do the LAB members have any idea what the cost, if any, for Carwings will be after three years? The first owners will be coming up on their third anniversary in less than two months.

no

**my personal opinion** might be taking it in house or to another company. they were definitely not proud of the fact that its 2G tech

Couple weeks ago, was on phone with customer support to get my Carwings to connect again, they noticed right away I haven't had the P3227 yet, told em, yeah, gonna do it with first year battery check, they said, it will help keep my Carwings from going down.

Don't know how to validate that, so skeptical. Anybody have less Carwings trouble after update? Is it possible to upgrade Carwings from 2G with such an update?

Gonna guess they'll ask $9.98/month for the privilege of giving them data.

Is it true that not having the update invalidates the warranty? Because, after the regen loss reports, I'd rather skip it.

 

[JPWhite]

Is it true that not having the update invalidates the warranty? Because, after the regen loss reports, I'd rather skip it.

The way I read the warranty announcement is that for Warranty consideration the update needed to be in place. That's not quite invalidating, if you had a claim they may do the update before assessing the warranty. I remember reading language that implied a grace period, but not sure how long that was for.

 

[mwalsh]

So far as I know, P3227 has nothing to do with CarWings. It was P1273 that was supposed to take care of CarWings issues. Unless they've rolled that fix into P3227 as well, which is possible I guess.

 

[mwalsh]

Is it true that not having the update invalidates the warranty? Because, after the regen loss reports, I'd rather skip it.

The way I read the warranty announcement is that for Warranty consideration the update needed to be in place. That's not quite invalidating, if you had a claim they may do the update before assessing the warranty. I remember reading language that implied a grace period, but not sure how long that was for.

On of those already having a warranty pack replacement one had not had P3227, and the dealership did the update immediately prior to giving him his new pack (presumably to validate the data from the car), but didn't give him any hassles about not getting it in advance.

That is what I am going to do - there is no way I can sacrifice any more range to an update that's going to strip away much of my regen. I just can't. And I won't.

 

[TomT]

No, the telematics (Carwings) require a completely different update process than that used for the P3227 (and most) updates, so it is stand-alone.

So far as I know, P3227 has nothing to do with CarWings. It was P1273 that was supposed to take care of CarWings issues. Unless they've rolled that fix into P3227 as well, which is possible I guess.

 

[Stanton]

Don't know how to validate that, so skeptical. Anybody have less Carwings trouble after update? Is it possible to upgrade Carwings from 2G with such an update?

This is one thing I DO know about: it is NOT possible to upgrade from 2G->3G compatibility without a hardware update to the telematics unit. I believe it could be done in a timely (and cost effective) manner, but it certainly wouldn't be free; the real question is what will they charge vs what is it worth (depends on your opinion of CarWings).

 

[TimLee]

Personally, I think there may be some bean counters preventing what some of Nissan wants to do with their original battery problem. What makes this worse, the knowledge about this problem or even its existence is really only known to a few people only. In fact, I met some new people that bought LEAFs and none of them ever knew about the heat battery problem. At least this time the dealerships were pushing on the EPA range when I would talk to them, so that is a step in the right direction.

People just don't know, so to implement a costly fix would only solve a small minority amount of people. Some accountant probably looked at a risk assessment and determined that any negative press (which we can all agree has been small from actual news to word of mouth) is insignificant in lost sales versus spending a significant amount to make it right. The new battery warranty probably was only implement as a compromise between the idealistic and realistic people in the company and in pre-reaction to the lawsuit.

I think your analysis is correct.
It is really surprising how little knowledge there is of Nissan's battery capacity degradation problem.
Even among LEAF drivers. A large percentage have very little knowledge about it, unless they live in hot areas or drive a lot of miles and it has impacted them personally.
Of course everyone that I discuss the LEAF with knows about it, but word of mouth is slow.
The automotive press has totally missed the story.
Even on the class action lawsuit, with around 20,000 people in the class, it appears that probably only around 100 or so opted out.
Those that read MNL regularly knew that was the right choice.
But the MNL community is fairly small. Most surveys get fewer than 150 votes.
Even if only one MNL reader out of ten votes, means there are less than 2000 people staying on top of LEAF issues through MNL.
2000 out of 20,000 2011 / 2012 LEAF drivers in the class.
I think you are correct, Nissan so far has decided that their reputation does not matter.
It isn't worth the cost to salvage it.

 

[dhanson865]

They have follow-up requests based on our detailed feedback concerning battery replacement. My personal opinion is that there are no simple answers here and I think Nissan is getting a more clear picture of what is at stake, at least from the viewpoint of the customers and other participants in the marketplace. Hopefully Nissan will find a way to strike a good overall compromise with the interests of all parties clearly represented. It is no easy task.

Thank you for the very informative post.
"There are no simple answers here" is certainly the understatement of the year :!:
Some have said that eventually Nissan will "do the right thing" with regards to the LEAF much faster than intended capacity degradation problem.
I have become skeptical of that.
So far Nissan has produced around 80,000 LEAFs, and by the time they start producing a LEAF sometime in 2014 that has a battery that may be closer to their original design intent, they will likely have produced around 100,000 LEAFs that basically have a defective battery.
To really FIX that would require offering a warranty that matched their original design intent and stated expectations on capacity degradation.
But that would be costly. Although we don't know the cost of the battery, you used $333 per kWh in your recent survey on options for increased kWH future LEAFs. I think that is unrealistically low, and the $500 per kWh that Volkswagen stated is closer to correct. But even if the battery is only $400 per kWh, Nissan will have produced around 100,000 LEAF with basically a defective battery.
To extend a proper capacity warranty matching their design intent and stated expectations, would probably cost them around $1 billion.
Ghosn took a bold initiative in investing around $2 billion to produce the LEAF. But so far, Nissan somehow thinks that offering a pathetic 5 year, 60,000 mile, 66.25% capacity warranty; floating a $100 per month battery rental with that same 66.25% capacity guarantee; and buying out the class action law suit for around $2 million; is enough to FIX the problem.
So far they have made the wrong choice.
They need to step up to the plate with a real warranty on capacity that matches their original design intent. It will be a costly $1 billion fix to do that.
But not doing that has a much worse impact on their reputation and potential future greatness in being the world leader in electric vehicles.

1st: good post, I don't agree with all of it but I want you to know I'm not being purely critical.

2nd: please for my sake and others, use the return key more, line feeds, carriage returns, paragraph markers anything to increase the white space in your posts. I took the effort to read it but it was hard to read on my screen, I know if I were in a different mood I might have skipped it.

anyway as to the topic of old battery chemistry vs new battery chemistry. I think "100,000 LEAF with basically a defective battery" is incorrect/invalid/misleading.

I'd say that only 10% of those 100,000 leaf drivers live in an area where its really hot and maybe another 40% in areas where it is somewhat hot. Sub divide that further for people that have short commutes and aren't severely affected by loss of range and I could easily imagine something closer to 25% of all leaf drivers wanting the hot battery pack for reasons of climate AND actual limitations due to lost range.

If Nissan replaced one in four battery packs to cover the people that would really benefit from the "hot" battery chemistry they would be making so many customers happy it would be beyond reasonable from a business standpoint.

I think they could cover the people that reasonably need a better battery without replacing $1 billion worth of batteries. It looks like in your post you are assuming 100,000 cars x $10,000 per battery pack to make that $1 Billion. I'm not arguing about the cost per battery pack (which might be lower, higher, or spot on), I'm just saying no need to replace every single battery pack.

You could give me a 2011 leaf right now with a pack that has lost several bars and I could drive it to and from work every day. I wouldn't pay you as much for it as you'd want to sell it for if you were the original owner but I'd be very happy to drive a Leaf on a regular basis from a functionality standpoint. It only has to get 40 miles a day in winter weather* for me to drive it without concern and I can plug it into a 120v outlet here at work if it can't even do that.

* worst case here is probably something like 25f maybe once or twice a winter but the majority of the driving would be done in the 55f to 85f range.


Do you really think 100% of the existing batteries need to be replaced to keep the customer happy?

 

[JPWhite]

Personally, I think there may be some bean counters preventing what some of Nissan wants to do with their original battery problem. What makes this worse, the knowledge about this problem or even its existence is really only known to a few people only. In fact, I met some new people that bought LEAFs and none of them ever knew about the heat battery problem. At least this time the dealerships were pushing on the EPA range when I would talk to them, so that is a step in the right direction.

People just don't know, so to implement a costly fix would only solve a small minority amount of people. Some accountant probably looked at a risk assessment and determined that any negative press (which we can all agree has been small from actual news to word of mouth) is insignificant in lost sales versus spending a significant amount to make it right. The new battery warranty probably was only implement as a compromise between the idealistic and realistic people in the company and in pre-reaction to the lawsuit.

I think your analysis is correct.
It is really surprising how little knowledge there is of Nissan's battery capacity degradation problem.
Even among LEAF drivers. A large percentage have very little knowledge about it, unless they live in hot areas or drive a lot of miles and it has impacted them personally.
Of course everyone that I discuss the LEAF with knows about it, but word of mouth is slow.
The automotive press has totally missed the story.
Even on the class action lawsuit, with around 20,000 people in the class, it appears that probably only around 100 or so opted out.
Those that read MNL regularly knew that was the right choice.
But the MNL community is fairly small. Most surveys get fewer than 150 votes.
Even if only one MNL reader out of ten votes, means there are less than 2000 people staying on top of LEAF issues through MNL.
2000 out of 20,000 2011 / 2012 LEAF drivers in the class.
I think you are correct, Nissan so far has decided that their reputation does not matter.
It isn't worth the cost to salvage it.

U say it is correct to opt out of the class action? I read lots here and missed that one. If you have the thread handy point me to it pls.

 

[downeykp]

This argument about defective or not defective according to where you live is bogus. Either way the battery was poorly designed and was advertised as something it is not.
As an owner of a 2011 and living in the PNW, I do not have much of the problems of many in warmer climates. Like an idiot, I drank the Kool aid and bought what Nissan was selling. Instead of leasing I bought with the goal of keeping the car a long time. Boy was that a mistake! I am retiring with wife and car in 2015 and moving to house on the Big Island of Hawaii were electricity is free because of PV system. That has always been the plan. So now my non-defective PNW battery will be exposed to sub-tropical temperatures. So is the battery not defective here?
The point is, Nissan screwed up and put a vehicle on the road that was not ready for prime time. They need to make this mistake better for all of us who believed what they were advertising and selling.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Do the LAB members have any idea what the cost, if any, for Carwings will be after three years? The first owners will be coming up on their third anniversary in less than two months.

no

**my personal opinion** might be taking it in house or to another company. they were definitely not proud of the fact that its 2G tech

Couple weeks ago, was on phone with customer support to get my Carwings to connect again, they noticed right away I haven't had the P3227 yet, told em, yeah, gonna do it with first year battery check, they said, it will help keep my Carwings from going down.

Don't know how to validate that, so skeptical. Anybody have less Carwings trouble after update? Is it possible to upgrade Carwings from 2G with such an update?

Gonna guess they'll ask $9.98/month for the privilege of giving them data.

Is it true that not having the update invalidates the warranty? Because, after the regen loss reports, I'd rather skip it.

ok guessing you were familiar with the "weak cellular signal" issue from last week?? well, P3227 did not help me

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

This argument about defective or not defective according to where you live is bogus. Either way the battery was poorly designed and was advertised as something it is not.
As an owner of a 2011 and living in the PNW, I do not have much of the problems of many in warmer climates. Like an idiot, I drank the Kool aid and bought what Nissan was selling. Instead of leasing I bought with the goal of keeping the car a long time. Boy was that a mistake! I am retiring with wife and car in 2015 and moving to house on the Big Island of Hawaii were electricity is free because of PV system. That has always been the plan. So now my non-defective PNW battery will be exposed to sub-tropical temperatures. So is the battery not defective here?
The point is, Nissan screwed up and put a vehicle on the road that was not ready for prime time. They need to make this mistake better for all of us who believed what they were advertising and selling.

just an aside to your comments; there has to be hard limits on free warranty replacement guides but recalls have no time or mileage limits.

so the big question is when is "higher than expected" degradation a defect verses being "less manufactured?"

I personally think (which means ZERO discussion on this topic) that anyone with the "old" battery should get a coupon for a discount good for any mileage based on this scenario.

it is obvious that many here will miss the warranty limits by what?? 10,000 miles? 20,000 miles??

so there has to be a middle ground here. this is my hope. After all, should I be penalized because my car "only" went 117,982 miles instead of 150,000?

but its not really a question of how far you went. it is a question of "what" you took with you