Battery Leasing in hot climate areas?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jlsoaz

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2012
Messages
849
Location
Southern Arizona, USA
Hi -

I spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out if there were existing battery leasing or battery lease threads, and I couldn't find them using the search box here, so here is my question:

Has there been any talk or consideration given, by Nissan or by Leaf enthusiasts, possibly to bringing back the idea of battery leasing here in the US. (I ask about the US in part because I am in the US, but in part because they have had battery leasing programs in other regions, haven't they?). I'm particularly interested in whether it might be a thought for the hot climates where we might want to consider a longer-range Leaf but are wary of the question marks hanging over cycle life in the heat.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Nissan did float the idea, but it never came to fruition. IIRC it would have been $100 per month.

Thanks, I also seem to remember some talk about possible battery leasing some years ago. It's very unlikely I would personally get a Leaf at this time, but if they did offer reasonably-priced battery leasing on the e+, then I have to wonder if, over the next five years, it would significantly change my discussions with my fellow Southern Arizona residents, and I might be able to re-include consideration of the Leaf e+ in my thinking and suggestions to them. At present, I just basically leave it alone and say that I'd have to see the Leaf battery show how it holds up over 5+ years and ~50-100,000 miles before I could consider one again, or consider suggesting one to others.
 
AFAIA, the only BEV in the U.S. to offer battery leasing was the Smart ED, but IIRR that was discontinued a while back, although it was very popular when introduced. Here's one article describing it, and I'm sure you could find links to more in the Smart topic: https://www.greencarreports.com/new...g-lands-in-u-s-electric-smart-drivers-love-it


I agree that given degradation, restricted range and frequent battery improvement, battery leasing is the way to go for now if you want to keep the car for a long time, but need constant (or better yet, improving) range.
 
LeftieBiker said:
There is also, of course, regular car leasing. It's more expensive, but you do get a fresh battery (and car) every 2-4 years.


True, but in addition to the higher cost it's also much more energy intensive compared to just leasing the battery, for those who are looking at EVs as a way to reduce that. The hope is that somebody will eventually produce a lifetime battery so that there will be no reason to lease same.
 
GRA said:
LeftieBiker said:
There is also, of course, regular car leasing. It's more expensive, but you do get a fresh battery (and car) every 2-4 years.


True, but in addition to the higher cost it's also much more energy intensive compared to just leasing the battery, for those who are looking at EVs as a way to reduce that. The hope is that somebody will eventually produce a lifetime battery so that there will be no reason to lease same.

Tesla Researcher Jeff Dahn just released full specs on the construction and composition of battery cells capable of 3600 discharge cycles with a 10% loss of capacity. Either there's some trick to the construction that makes it difficult to build or Tesla has something even better waiting in the wings (maybe from Maxwell). They even detailed the electrolyte composition and the electrodes used. This could be the basis for Tesla's "1,000,000 mile" battery. The battery they built was a pouch style battery but the chemistry should be applicable to cylindrical cells as well. Dahn released the info with the note that this could be used as a benchmark by other researchers implying that the cell and it's chemistry could be duplicated by others and perhaps even improved upon.
 
LeftieBiker said:
There is also, of course, regular car leasing. It's more expensive, but you do get a fresh battery (and car) every 2-4 years.

"regular car leasing" .... or, as I like to call it, holding a never-ending bonfire with money.

the gasoline vehicle paradigm that has been out there my whole life seems to be based on providing the payer with not-entirely-safe but certainly in some ways fun transportation from A to B and extracting an overly high price from that payer based on tempting them with gilded carriages, fancy financial footwork, better and more fancy and fun vehicles, and, in the end, very little equity. The way that some people avoid the worst of the financial hit is to eschew the steeper portions of the depreciation curve for a gasoline vehicle. I may be wrong, but part of this is, I think, to eschew leasing. For example, a person can spend $5,000 cash for a used vehicle with 50,000 miles on it, drive it for another 100k or 200k miles, bear the expenses of doing so, and, in the end, undoubtedly spend less than another person who may opt for all the latest bells and whistles, all the time. The cheap used car driver may also have less fun, and perhaps have less safety, though older cars do not necessarily mean joyless transportation.

For longer-range BEVS, it seems like there is the possibility that the good ones will last longer than comparable gasoline vehicles. That is, the length of the depreciation curve may change. I'm not sure if this logically means that a buyer seeking low costs per mile would avoid the earlier part of the curve. If one wants to wait to spend just $3k or $5k on a *good* used BEV, as one might have done for a good used gasoline vehicle, one may have to wait a long time? Still, a wildcard here is the condition of the battery. We know that in an air-cooled Leaf in a hot climate, there is reason to see the depreciation on that battery as a question mark.... I'm not saying it's a certainty that the battery will degrade... I'm saying it's not known with confidence that it will hold up. So, to my mind, that's the sort of limited situation where leasing the battery might make sense, and might in the end give some slight confidence boost to buyers of the chassis that they can be assured that the battery at any given time will meet some minimum standard.
 
jlsoaz said:
LeftieBiker said:
There is also, of course, regular car leasing. It's more expensive, but you do get a fresh battery (and car) every 2-4 years.

"regular car leasing" .... or, as I like to call it, holding a never-ending bonfire with money.

That's how I see it.
I have always only made 1 car payment to get any of my cars or trucks.
I figure I saved probably $30,000 on the price of the car, about $5,000 in interest, a few thousand in taxes, probably at least $5,000 in insurance.
Buying a new car is dumb.
 
Oilpan4 said:
Buying a new car is dumb.

I used to think that too until I found I could buy a new 2017 Leaf for about $5k less than used 2015 models were selling for locally. It's amazing how EV rebates and credits can change the equation....

To be honest, I do have to admit that new car technology is much improved over the 200x era cars that we also currently own. I'm not a big fan of all the new electronic gadgets but ICE engines, transmissions, etc have improved a lot over the last 15 or so years. But there are still reliable ICE cars from the early 2000's out there that get 30mpg or so for $5k or less.

I do all my own car maintenance so that is a big factor too. We bought our last car with 110k miles on it and I think the original owners just buy a new car every 10 years and drive it until about 100k miles then get another when the warranties expire. I guess it all depends on if you want to 'pre-pay' for maintenance and depreciation or take your chances that you can cover the costs for less yourself.
 
Buying a new car and then dumping it way before its useful life is over is dumb.
Buying a new car from a reputable, reliable manufacturer to keep, use, maintain and repair for 10 - 20 years is a reasonable approach.

OP: your suggestion of Nissan battery leasing in hot climates just boils down to shifting the costs of battery degradation to Nissan. You can manage the same by buying a heavily depreciated LEAF that comes off lease.
 
Oilpan4 said:
jlsoaz said:
LeftieBiker said:
There is also, of course, regular car leasing. It's more expensive, but you do get a fresh battery (and car) every 2-4 years.

"regular car leasing" .... or, as I like to call it, holding a never-ending bonfire with money.

That's how I see it.
I have always only made 1 car payment to get any of my cars or trucks.
I figure I saved probably $30,000 on the price of the car, about $5,000 in interest, a few thousand in taxes, probably at least $5,000 in insurance.
Buying a new car is dumb.

Everyone is different, so I am not going to pretend to know what is best for you. At the same time, you cannot possibly know what is best for every reader of this thread. With surprisingly few exceptions, every new car depreciates to scrap value over its lifetime. Every owner of that vehicle will incur some portion of the depreciation. Owning any depreciating asset along the depreciation curve is a "never-ending bonfire with money." A car is no different. If you want to own it, you will pay for the depreciation. The only question you have to ask is, "What portion of the depreciation curve will I pay?" You may pay a different part of the depreciation curve than I do, but that does not make your choice any more or less valid than mine.
 
SageBrush said:
[...]
OP: your suggestion of Nissan battery leasing in hot climates just boils down to shifting the costs of battery degradation to Nissan. You can manage the same by buying a heavily depreciated LEAF that comes off lease.

I wish that were true . Because of the (painful, in my view) amount of time that Nissan took finally to install longer-range batteries in its cars, heavily depreciated Leafs are, so far, not very useful to me. They all came with ranges which, when new, were either not useful, or borderline. Now that those batteries are older, the ranges are even less useful to me.

However, in theory, once the 200+ mile (when new) Leaf e+ have been in the marketplace for a few years, they are something I could consider buying if/when they come down to below $25k or (better) below $15k. However, what will there range be then?

I've only done one lease, but I think when we lease a new vehicle, we are in some way sharing the cost of the steep early depreciation curve with the financing company (often captive to the automaker). The terms of the lease, including end of lease possible vehicle purchase terms, I guess would determine who bears more or less of that cost. The performance of the Leaf e+ battery over time in hotter climates is to be treated as an unknown and a steeper than usual risk, at least by some of us, and so in suggesting a Lease, I think I"m suggesting raising the cost of ownership, but shifting some of that risk to the automaker, in this special case.

To get this back on track, I think the more important things to me to get across (to Nissan, or to whomever is interested to think it over) about my suggestion here are:
a) given Nissan's relationship with Renault, they could study what has worked and what has not worked about battery leasing in Europe.
b) given what happened with range degradation (on what was already very modest range to begin with), with the early Leafs in the hotter climates, battery leasing might be a candidate to address some of the concerns of the drivers, now that Nissan has finally come out with a battery size that is better suited to a larger addressable market.
c) in a sense what I'm suggesting is possibly raising (not lowering) the overall cost per mile, over the course of the ownership (or leasing) experience) to those who might get a new or used Leaf, in return for reducing the risk of a driver being stuck with a vehicle that seemed to meet their needs when the range was near the EPA ratings, but in a worst case scenario turns out to not be able to go as far as they need (or DCFC as frequently as they may need) once a few hot seasons have taken their toll.

I'm not sure I'm a huge believer in my suggestion, but I'm looking at not only my experience, but what I saw a bit with other Arizona drivers - for some of them, it will be awhile before they consider another Leaf. For others, they have read the stories and know that there is still a question that has not yet been answered by real-world data as to how the ranges will hold up here. So, battery leasing was an idea that didn't take hold in the US (in light duty BEVs), but I've always wondered if we would return to it. I don't think there will be quite as much impetus for that if the batteries just flat-out hold up nicely over 10-20 years, but if they tend to lose a lot of their capabilities over just the first 5-8 years, then, depending on the lease terms maybe battery leasing could help the automaker meet the driver halfway?

I wish I knew more about how/if/when this has worked out (or not) in e-buses.
 
SageBrush said:
OP: your suggestion of Nissan battery leasing in hot climates just boils down to shifting the costs of battery degradation to Nissan. You can manage the same by buying a heavily depreciated LEAF that comes off lease.

One other thing I forgot to add:

To me, a microeconomic ideal of some consumers, and a major reason to buy an EV or PV, is to progress to the point of zero-ing out ongoing costs. In the case of an EV, it puts an end to ongoing gasoline fuel costs (and oil change costs). If we lease our batteries it unfortunately builds an added cost back in. However, maybe there is a way to mitigate that, if the automaker gives lessees the option of eventually buying a battery.
 
martyscholes said:
Everyone is different, so I am not going to pretend to know what is best for you. At the same time, you cannot possibly know what is best for every reader of this thread. With surprisingly few exceptions, every new car depreciates to scrap value over its lifetime. Every owner of that vehicle will incur some portion of the depreciation. Owning any depreciating asset along the depreciation curve is a "never-ending bonfire with money." A car is no different. If you want to own it, you will pay for the depreciation. The only question you have to ask is, "What portion of the depreciation curve will I pay?" You may pay a different part of the depreciation curve than I do, but that does not make your choice any more or less valid than mine.

Hi -
While some aspects of buying a vehicle amount to personal preference, there is a portion of this that is not subjective. It is in the cost per mile calculations. Generalizing and simplifying, my fallible understanding is it is notably more expensive, in dollars per mile, when all costs are taken into account, to go from lease to lease of new vehicles, than it is to buy old vehicles in decent shape and drive them for dozens and hundreds of thousands of miles. There are some qualifiers and caveats to this:
- there is higher risk in the latter method, and sometimes the costs may balloon such as if the risks doesn't pan out and the car does not hold up well, and there can be high rental car costs, and quantifiable and harder-to-quantify costs of missing work and other events, etc.
- some of us are more willing to hire others or do maintenance themselves. In the latter case, it might be useful for some cost calculations to assign a dollar value to the time of the owner who is also a maintainer, but I think simplifying across millions of vehicles, the $/mile figures are still notably lower.
- perhaps some other differences.
 
jlsoaz said:
SageBrush said:
[...]
OP: your suggestion of Nissan battery leasing in hot climates just boils down to shifting the costs of battery degradation to Nissan. You can manage the same by buying a heavily depreciated LEAF that comes off lease.

I wish that were true . Because of the (painful, in my view) amount of time that Nissan took finally to install longer-range batteries in its cars, heavily depreciated Leafs are, so far, not very useful to me. They all came with ranges which, when new, were either not useful, or borderline. Now that those batteries are older, the ranges are even less useful to me.
[....]

To modify or clarify something I'm saying here:

If the suggestion of a lease is to address the risk surrounding the uncertainty of how the new long-range batteries will hold up, then I'm not sure how it helps me directly, if I remain the sort of buyer who waits ~5 years for a car to age to see how the battery is going to do. Then again, if I know that I can buy a used chassis for $5k or $10k, and that the battery in there will be within certain specifications, and perhaps I can choose to buy or lease that battery, and if I lease the battery at that point, I would be guaranteed it will stay within specifications during the term of the lease, or be replaced with one that does conform, then this might help some potential buyers see that chassis as having decent value. As well, if there is transparency early on, as to what a replacement battery will cost years from now, then this also would help. (I always liked Nissan for providing transparency on 24 kWh battery replacement prices out of warranty, but I don't know if they have done this for the Leaf e+ batteries).
 
^^^ You have mentioned what I think is the most important issue for battery leasing, at least as far as for those of us who keep cars a long time.

Note that when I say battery leasing, I don't mean you're guaranteed, some percentage of the max. before replacement. I mean you get a guaranteed capacity, no more and no less, regardless of conditions, which is what you get with an ICE.

So, to pick numbers out of the air, all cars would have a pack with a total capacity of say 100kWh, but you'd lease the pack with either 70, 80 or 90 kWh usable guaranteed, the lease price naturally increasing as the usable capacity increases, because the pack would need more frequent swapping out.

As batteries improve, maybe the new packs have 150kWh total in the same form factor/weight, and you have the choice of say 100/115/130kWh usable. At some point you hope that batteries improve to the point that you've got enough for the life of the car, and you then simply buy a battery instead of leasing.
 
Well someone has to lose their ass buying new vehicles.

There's no point in battery leasing since soon anyone will be able to put a newer leaf battery in an older leaf.

For me it will cost almost nothing.
 
jlsoaz said:
To modify or clarify something I'm saying here:

If the suggestion of a lease is to address the risk surrounding the uncertainty of how the new long-range batteries will hold up, then I'm not sure how it helps me directly, if I remain the sort of buyer who waits ~5 years for a car to age to see how the battery is going to do. Then again, if I know that I can buy a used chassis for $5k or $10k, and that the battery in there will be within certain specifications, and perhaps I can choose to buy or lease that battery, and if I lease the battery at that point, I would be guaranteed it will stay within specifications during the term of the lease, or be replaced with one that does conform, then this might help some potential buyers see that chassis as having decent value. As well, if there is transparency early on, as to what a replacement battery will cost years from now, then this also would help. (I always liked Nissan for providing transparency on 24 kWh battery replacement prices out of warranty, but I don't know if they have done this for the Leaf e+ batteries).
You want the manufacturer to guarantee battery capacity.

State your allowed degradation, price and interval.
The only offer that I know of from Nissan is the 24 kWh battery: 5 years/60k miles, ~ 65% of original capacity for ~ $8,000 -- $9,000. This implies that one way or another Nissan wants to charge 15 cents a mile for battery use.
 
GRA said:
^^^ You have mentioned what I think is the most important issue for battery leasing, at least as far as for those of us who keep cars a long time.

Note that when I say battery leasing, I don't mean you're guaranteed, some percentage of the max. before replacement. I mean you get a guaranteed capacity, no more and no less, regardless of conditions, which is what you get with an ICE.

I like some of your thinking. I should say I'm ok with some range degradation, but my own basic requirement is just to have a clear agreement on useable kWh (let's say a minimum of 70). The numbers on both price, kWh and so forth are not trivially easy to work out, and keeping in mind that the expectation is the dollars and minimum kWh and so-forth would need to be set at a point that is agreeable both to consumer and manufacturer. I should also say that in general, I'm an "own it and DO NOT make monthly payments sort of guy, and even in this case I'm probably going to try to do that, but the early-technology range degradation question is a tough one and I think it might benefit Nissan (though I am not confident that it will) if they re-consider battery leasing. One of the things I have in mind is the other people I have met in this area who are reluctant to consider another Leaf, or who flat-out will not do so.


GRA said:
So, to pick numbers out of the air, all cars would have a pack with a total capacity of say 100kWh, but you'd lease the pack with either 70, 80 or 90 kWh usable guaranteed, the lease price naturally increasing as the usable capacity increases, because the pack would need more frequent swapping out.

As batteries improve, maybe the new packs have 150kWh total in the same form factor/weight, and you have the choice of say 100/115/130kWh usable. At some point you hope that batteries improve to the point that you've got enough for the life of the car, and you then simply buy a battery instead of leasing.
 
Back
Top