Reddit: Nissan Leaf e+ revealed with longer range at 2019 CES

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Leaf15

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 9, 2018
Messages
174
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/01/08/nissan-leaf-e-plus-long-range-battery-ces/?ncid=edlinkusauto00000015
https://electrek.co/2019/01/08/nissan-leaf-plus-62kwh/

Range 226 miles
62 kWh battery pack
160 kW electric motor makes 201 horsepower and 250 pound-feet of torque
70 kW charging system (135 miles of range in 30 minutes)
Top Speed 105 mph

About a $6,600 increase over the normal Leaf. Picture shows badge on hatch (SL Plus)

Leaf e+ doesn't look a whole lot different than the regular Leaf
Updated infotainment system gets updated with a larger 8-inch screen and new software

Leaf e+ will be rolling into dealerships come spring 2019

Unfortunately, this improved battery pack still uses the old air cooling system, not the liquid cooling many other manufacturers have utilized to maintain temperatures.

Not sure how it could compete with Kona, Niro and Bolt LT, the price is similar compared to better engineered EVs. May be it is going to be sold in volumes? unless Kona and Niro would be sold as compliance cars in limited quantities. Good news - it is coming soon...

Guessometer shows 283 Miles range on 97% SOC battery on one of the pictures and 6 miles total on odometer.

Found strange statement from Nissan’s Alliance Global Director of Research about the new battery pack. Some details: "Nissan’s own motor and motor controller also play a big part in acceleration and Nissan brings a ton of its variable speed transmission work into play here." ???
 
If the base range works and you don't frequently need fast charging or for the charging to be reliably fast, I suppose this will work quite well actually. It finally could work for my situation, except it is a year too late so now I have a Clarity. The extra price load definitely hurts. I guess this is finally the car that Nissan said they would beat the Bolt with. How long has the Bolt been out now?
 
DarthPuppy said:
I guess this is finally the car that Nissan said they would beat the Bolt with. How long has the Bolt been out now?
Yeah, it sucks that Nissan's so late with a competitor to the Bolt. Bolt's been out since Dec 2016.

However, AFAIK, the Bolt never got a RHD version (AFAIK) so that rules out a ton of countries. It was the Opel Ampera-E for Europe but GM sold off their European operations to PSA Groupe which includes Opel and Vauxhall (UK). So, now an external company would need to buy vehicles from GM. Not sure how many of those Ampera-Es have been sold in Europe since that switch and even before. I don't see it at https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/03/nissan-leaf-renault-zoe-20-of-european-ev-sales/.

Wouldn't surprise me if Bolt's worldwide sales are puny and if it's only available in the countries at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Bolt#Markets_and_sales, which is nothing in terms of sales #s for GM.
 
I can’t say that I don’t want the improved range and power of the e+ but my 2018 SL with ProPilot is “good enough” for what I use it for. I think I will save my money and hold out for an EV with real Class III towing to replace my SUV and my wife’s PHEV. I may end up keeping my current Leaf a very, very long time.
 
Bigger pack means driving has lower C-rate (less heat generation when travelling at highway speed).
50% bigger pack with just ~30% faster charging means less heat buildup while charging due to lower C-rate.
Even if Nissan didn't have active cooling, this version will have less rapidgate.

I actually consider KISS might work out one day very well, not just in Canada :geek:
 
Interesting point regarding the +50% battery vs. +30% charge rate meaning less heat generation when charging and therefore less degradation. I didn't know that was well correlated. But it does make sense to me (I'm not an engineer or know much about batteries/charging.) Hopefully that is the case. I really liked the 2018 Leaf when I test drove it but the range was a bit too short for my needs, especially allowing for degradation. If the degradation on this is indeed improved, then this would be quite a competitive option.
 
That depends on how much of the typical degradation will occur from fast-charging a hot pack, and how much comes from just ambient temps. I'd like to think it's the former, but having lost 5.5% in six months, with few QCs and none with the pack actually hot, I'm unconvinced...
 
DarthPuppy said:
Yikes! 5.5% in 6 months without abuse is rather disconcerting.

I kept the car in my garage last Summer, with A/C keeping it below 78F, too. The first year is supposed to see higher loss than subsequent years, but I'm not overly optimistic.
 
Do you know how long it will take to fully charge up the new battery?
Say, if using the old Blink L2 home chargers. (I think you can set the unit's max amps to 30A)

arnis said:
Bigger pack means driving has lower C-rate (less heat generation when travelling at highway speed).
50% bigger pack with just ~30% faster charging means less heat buildup while charging due to lower C-rate.
Even if Nissan didn't have active cooling, this version will have less rapidgate.

I actually consider KISS might work out one day very well, not just in Canada :geek:
 
Fully depleted battery (unrealistic scenario) to 98% charged is almost 60kWh,
230V*30A=6,9kW/h. Expect 8½ hours.

No. new modules will not fit to even 40kWh Leaf. They are different, vehicle is 5mm higher (likely pack is 5mm thicker).
 
arnis said:
They are different, vehicle is 5mm higher (likely pack is 5mm thicker).
The 5mm may be used for active air cooling gap between battery and floor. The battery seems to be sealed though, so it may be the same size actually. But we have no info on it yet.
 
Lets review multiple days on single charge usage pattern scenario:

I have colleague at work who bought Model 3 AWD recently. Although he bought it to get long range battery, but later he realized: there is a catch with active BMS - it eats itself up. Here is the scenario where it becomes very uncomfortable. He bought it for long trip he makes once a month hoping he could do round trip on fully charged battery. 310 should cover it plenty, except the little detail about trip: he would stay there for a few days. Ops, the car is loosing on average 20 miles a night to keep battery worm, so when it is time to head home - he could not make it as 40-50 miles are gone, combine it with low temp capacity loss and heater (20% on 300 is 60 miles, but on 24kW Leaf capacity lost is only 15 miles as battery is small). - I could not confirm it, but my efficiency in winter is only slightly lower 4.6(summer) vs 4.2 m/kWh(winter) only < 10 miles reduction, yet both are above Leaf rated average. Heat pump certainly helps: 6 kWh (electric heater) vs. 1.5 kW (heat pump).

It gets as bad in commute scenario. Lets say you commute 20 miles a day. So you would think you can make 15 days of commute on full battery, but in reality you could barely make 7 days as every night it will loose 20 miles, so you daily commute becomes 40 miles. Yet on puny 24kW Leaf I could make 4 days. Just think what it does to efficiency? Well it is only half of rated 125 empg and comparable to good hybrids, lol. Even if active BMS EV is charged every day - it is still wasting grid energy on BMS, one way or another you are getting less efficiency, period.

Considering multiple days on single charge scenario - we have 3 x battery size outperforming small battery by lousy 70%. So on Leaf you get almost 100% of the range used for driving, while on active management BMS EV you get barely 50% of the range in this scenario.

Now, we may understand why Nissan is so adamant about active battery temperature management in their EV.

Sometime in the future, the real EV would not waste its energy on keeping itself "alive" without any negative consequences. Not there yet, but Leaf in mild climate gets us closer to the "ideal EV".

So it looks like in multiple days on single charge scenario for 20 miles commute even 40 KWh Leaf with heat pump will beat the crap out of longest range Tesla Model 3 (not even talking about MR or SR variants), 62kWh would be the efficiency king for quite some time even considering possible battery degradation for some folks.

So do your math for your usage scenario, weather condition (temperature specifically including hottest in the summer - day and lowest in winter - night) and where you keep your car during day/night before making purchase decision on EV. The usage pattern for commute I have presented is matched with my requirements and conditions, yours would be different, so is the outcome.
 
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/nissan-takes-on-tesla-by-giving-leaf-major-range-performance-boost-.html

226 miles and 217 HP.

And still $7500 tax credit.

Leaf is once again interesting. Some substantial number bumps here. Would kill if it were AWD but it’s going to be a really quick car now.

Basically a Bolt but doesn’t look quite as awful and it isn’t a Chevy.
 
SageBrush said:
Leaf15 said:
Ops, the car is loosing on average 20 miles a night to keep battery worm,
BS
May be in Colorado it is BS, not in PA (we have urban mountain areas as well where temp it 10-15F lower than average). It also depends if car is kept in garage or outside even in the same area(as it makes big deviations in temperatures). I take it you are not an authority for North East while living at place where "Winters are mild with an average daily high temperature of 45 degrees Fahrenheit and days reaching 60 degrees are not uncommon". We have 20F during day here lately. Think what happens during night? Low single digits F it is.
Besides, colleague had no reason to exaggerate or bad mouth his brand new car. BTW, he also mentioned it was ~ 15 miles in the late November when it was 45F day average (not night). I am kind of feeling guilty for suggesting him Model 3 LR, because it seems to fit his needs. But there is nothing else with longer range, so he would have to figure out how to do those trips. I overlooked parasitic BMS drain as I never experienced it on my Leaf; and thankfully, I never will.
 
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