A peek at the Leaf's Charger

[Ingineer]

My take is that the 6.6kW upgrade would be tricky. First off, it would require 2 beefier wiring harnesses, both running the length of the car; one from the J1772 inlet to the charger (EMI filter) and one from the charger to the HV junction box. The reason is the size of these wires appears to too small to support anything larger. It might also require an upgrade to the J1772 inlet itself.

It would also require draining the cooling system and crawling under the car to disconnect the lines.

-Phil

What VIN are you looking at? Is is preproduction or consumer? I'd be curious to see if there is larger wires in some of the most current deliveries now that they know they have to upgrade the charger.

It's not pre-production, it's a recent delivery.

-Phil

[evnow]

It's not pre-production, it's a recent delivery.

We all know whose car it is

[MikeD]

Would I be totally off base to think that the back hump was designed to be temporary (as well as the circuitry it contains)? Since the inverter is designed to take (substantial?) re-gen AC power and recharge the batteries, perhaps an enhanced inverter design is in the works that allows it to also take external AC power (without requiring the current large charger) to do the same. I thought that ORNL for one had worked out such a design, and could Nissan be moving in that direction (and might that explain why it did not want to include a more expensive 6.6 kw charger that was soon to be rendered obsolete and replaced in the early LEAFs)?

[Ingineer]

It's not pre-production, it's a recent delivery.

We all know whose car it is

Actually, I've had my dirty little hands in several different Leafs so far, so I doubt you do! =)

[Ingineer]

Would I be totally off base to think that the back hump was designed to be temporary (as well as the circuitry it contains)? Since the inverter is designed to take (substantial?) re-gen AC power and recharge the batteries, perhaps an enhanced inverter design is in the works that allows it to also take external AC power (without requiring the current large charger) to do the same. I thought that ORNL for one had worked out such a design, and could Nissan be moving in that direction (and might that explain why it did not want to include a more expensive 6.6 kw charger that was soon to be rendered obsolete and replaced in the early LEAFs)?

I'd say you are off-base. The hump is clearly not going anywhere in this iteration of the Leaf.

It doesn't make sense to attempt to dual-purpose the inverter, as you need a PFC front end, and galvanic isolation. Neither of these can be done with a dual-purpose architecture. AC Propulsion did this on one of their setups, but they didn't use isolation. No major automaker is ever going to throw a non-isolated "bad-boy" charger out there.

I'd say they could have put the charger up front and the brake capacitor in the side if they wanted to. I first thought this would give you a flat cargo floor, but it wouldn't in the Leaf because of the pack being under the back seat. (raises the floor)

[KeiJidosha]

Would I be totally off base to think that the back hump was designed to be temporary (as well as the circuitry it contains)? Since the inverter is designed to take (substantial?) re-gen AC power and recharge the batteries, perhaps an enhanced inverter design is in the works that allows it to also take external AC power (without requiring the current large charger) to do the same. I thought that ORNL for one had worked out such a design, and could Nissan be moving in that direction (and might that explain why it did not want to include a more expensive 6.6 kw charger that was soon to be rendered obsolete and replaced in the early LEAFs)?

AC Propulsion design is integrated for the reasons you mention, and capable of charging at 18kW.

http://www.acpropulsion.com/products-tzero.html

That's how Tesla does it. But I understand there are patents on this design so other manufacturers may not be willing to pay for the intellectual property.

[garygid]

Didn't "Nissan" mention their hope to place the more powerful charger up front, probably for easier cooling (and much shorter wiring)?

[EVDRIVER]

Didn't "Nissan" mention their hope to place the more powerful charger up front, probably for easier cooling (and much shorter wiring)?

A 7.2kw charge could go in the same spot as it would be almost the same size or it could go up front but the rear was easy and the hump was already there. They used smaller wires as auto makers are super cheap and do the minimum required.

[AndyH]

Did some nosing around to satisfy curiosity, and here's what I found:

VERY NICE!

The Charger is made by Nichicon.

No exploding capacitors in there!

[Herm]

A couple of questions...

1. what is a brake capacitor?

2. How do they handle L3 charging, any details?

If you order the L3 port then perhaps you can also use it for charging at 6.6kw, with an external charger that sits on the wall of your garage.