Capacity Loss on 2011-2012 LEAFs

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Valdemar said:
Are all of them affected to a comparable extent?
Comparable? Yes. Identical? No. We are seeing a distribution, just as would be expected from a sampling of manufactured items which have been treated differently over the course of a year or so. But the mean for Phoenix is in a range that fits expectations.

Even Nissan says the degradation may be normal for this environment.
 
It took them longer than I imagined, but conservatives finally discovered the story. At least they hate Obama more than they hate electric cars, if not by much, so perhaps we won't see much coverage during the presidential election.

http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/07/25/heat-taxpayer-backed-nissan-leafs-lose-power" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
jspearman said:
It took them longer than I imagined, but conservatives finally discovered the story. At least they hate Obama more than they hate electric cars, if not by much, so perhaps we won't see much coverage during the presidential election.

http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/07/25/heat-taxpayer-backed-nissan-leafs-lose-power" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Damn! They missed a chance to directly blame Obama for "crony capitalism" in subsidizing batteries that are clearly not "anglo-saxon" enough.
 
Valdemar said:
Oh boy, this thread has definitely beaten all records by the amount of speculation contained. Just to throw one more into the mix, does anyone think that all these issues may be related to a bad batch of batteries?

Actually this hypothesis is probably the one that has the most legs.

Consider that it appears that all of these suspect cars are pretty much from the first major large scale delivery in 2011, with many of them coming in the May 2011 delivery batch. and that they are all being operated in extreme heat area in the south and southwest. It is possible that an early production batch of batteries may have a characteristic that would cause them not to operate to design when in a severe environment with some other unclassified (as yet) variable. Of the cars that are being examined, the battery component modules will be examined for their build dates and revision level, and that will be compared with the manufacturing information and board level component information to get a better understanding of what is going on and with the goal of finding a common issue.

The perfect scenario is that a specific component is found that in certain environmental and operational situations causes the issue. And that that particular component was superseded in later component releases. Then it is a simple (relatively) effort to find the cars that have this suspect component, and issue a TSB for those VINs to have it replaced with the newer component. This happens all the time with production runs of parts that are later discovered to have a defect.

But the second part of this puzzle is that it is really not known empirically how these suspect cars were operated. That does not mean that the drivers of these cars were operating them in an improper way, but it just means that it really isn't reliably understood how the cars were being operated because it has not been formally and scientifically investigated.

Now I know that several of you would dispute that, but honestly there really hasn't been any quality forensic evidence collected other than the anecdotal or interpretative data that has been seen here. Yes, there is 185+ pages of rants and raves mixed with some numbers, but none of the data I have seen here would stand up to scientific scrutiny. It may indicate symptoms, but it is not actionable data. Nissan has acknowledged that this data bears further investigation and is now doing just that.

The part of the investigation that Nissan will do with the customer cars and the drivers of these cars is important for them so they can have a better understand driving patterns in climates like Arizona. If Nissan can improve their modeling of how an EV vehicle is operated in harsh environments, then they can design and build a better car.
 
OrientExpress said:
Valdemar said:
Oh boy, this thread has definitely beaten all records by the amount of speculation contained. Just to throw one more into the mix, does anyone think that all these issues may be related to a bad batch of batteries?

Actually this hypothesis is probably the one that has the most legs.

Consider that it appears that all of these suspect cars are pretty much from the first major large scale delivery in 2011, with many of them coming in the May 2011 delivery batch.....
Let's have some fun with this and speculate that all of these cars are from the ship that left Japan days before the earthquake, were dusted with radioactive :eek: dust, and that is the reason for the capacity decrease. :lol: ;)
Reddy.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
i will say; i am in the camp that feels that Nissan has full prior knowledge of the heat issues for AZ and have already taken steps to rectify the issue in the 2013 MY along with addressing current 2012 and 2011 MY owners when US production begins
Add me to this camp.

If Nissan truly has been working on this battery chemistry for as long as they have (10+ years or something like that as they claimed?), they must have already been continually tweaking their chemistry for many different things, such as extended range, and hopefully heat resistance, too. Maybe even cold resistance. In fact, I thought the word on the street is that they may have an extended range version by 2015 that will double the energy density of the current version?

If you look at A123, a much younger company in terms of number of years in the battery business, they already recently claimed to have a heat resistant chemistry tweak to their battery. So for Nissan to fall behind and not have their own heat resistant version would be shameful. If that's the case, maybe Nissan should seriously consider licensing the technology from A123 for a fix. Admittedly, A123 uses a different battery chemistry (Lithium Ion Phosphate) than Nissan's (Lithium Magnanese Oxide). I don't know if the Lithium Ion Phosphate chemistry lends itself to a heat-resistant tweak more easily or not, but A123 has already gotten it. So hopefully Nissan is not too far behind.

For Nissan to take a HUGE risk to decide not to have TMS on the LEAF would seem to imply that while they don't have a heat resistant version available yet in their first roll-out year, they might have gambled on the fact that their heat resistance version can be in production soon to mitigate any potential back-fire on the current battery version, should it happen (and it just happened). Maybe in their risk calculation, it's still cheaper to have a non-TMS design up front to cut cost, in the hope that the heat resistant version will follow suit very soon to support their non-TMS design.

I sure hope that my guess is correct. If I'm wrong and Nissan doesn't have a heat-resistant version to back up their non-TMS design, then they're doomed. That is, unless their extended range version can go into production soon enough to save the day. I sure hope they still have a few tricks up their sleeve.
 
OrientExpress said:
[ It may indicate symptoms, but it is not actionable data.

Did you miss the part about an entire battery back being replaced in 10/2011?

Sounds like actionable data to me.

You are obviously thoughtful, but your continued denial and ignoring of important facts is bewildering.
 
Valdemar said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
it would be a bit unlikely to have a defective battery pack that covers 12 months of deliveries. after all, we seem to have a fairly consistent level of degradation from people who got their LEAF in Jan 2011 along with people who received their LEAF in Oct 2011.

i will say; i am in the camp that feels that Nissan has full prior knowledge of the heat issues for AZ and have already taken steps to rectify the issue in the 2013 MY along with addressing current 2012 and 2011 MY owners when US production begins

That would have been a suicidal move on their part to knowingly sell vehicles with problems in this emerging market. Which is not to say this didn't happen.

Suicidal?? not hardly. this option has been exercised dozens of times in the past. the only thing that matters is the last page of the story, not how the story got there. We humans want good things so we tend to ignore, forget or push to the rear the bad things.

doesnt matter had badly Nissan stumbled up to this point. doesnt even matter a little bit because if they execute the remainder of the story well. a year from now, that is all we will care to remember.
 
OrientExpress said:
And no I am not in denial, it is just that I have a deeper understanding of how failure analysis in the automotive industry works.

Yes, you are in denial and an apologist.

You apparently don't think this is an issue:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:Scott_3_bars_s.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
shrink said:
OrientExpress said:
And no I am not in denial, it is just that I have a deeper understanding of how failure analysis in the automotive industry works.

Yes, you are in denial and an apologist.

You apparently don't think this is an issue:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:Scott_3_bars_s.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No, What I am saying that stuff like the link you post certainly describes a symptom and, as Nissan has acknowledged, is reason for investigation, but it is not actionable information and does not have data that would conform with the forensic and failure analysis methodology of an automobile manufacturer or their suppliers.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Suicidal?? not hardly. this option has been exercised dozens of times in the past. the only thing that matters is the last page of the story, not how the story got there. We humans want good things so we tend to ignore, forget or push to the rear the bad things.

doesnt matter had badly Nissan stumbled up to this point. doesnt even matter a little bit because if they execute the remainder of the story well. a year from now, that is all we will care to remember.

The story was not executing well even before the bad news broke out to masses with 500 units per month they could only move despite all the efforts and tax breaks. I doubt Nissan really anticipated mass adoption of technology in the first several years despite their announced projected sales numbers, and things like this are enough to drive the whole thing to the ground, I really doubt marketing didn't know that. Now it will take years and $8+/gallon gas prices to heal up the damage done, if Nissan doesn't pull-out from EV business before that.
 
OrientExpress said:
...replacing a single instance of part at a dealer under warranty does not make it back to the R&D centers for a manufacturer or the supplier of the part, especially if they are based in another country.

And no I am not in denial, it is just that I have a deeper understanding of how failure analysis in the automotive industry works.
Actually, when my PTC heater was replaced last winter, I was told that the bad parts were being expedited overseas for immediate failure analysis.
 
OrientExpress said:
Consider that it appears that all of these suspect cars are pretty much from the first major large scale delivery in 2011, with many of them coming in the May 2011 delivery batch. and that they are all being operated in extreme heat area in the south and southwest.

So you think this will be the excuse that Nissan uses when they announce their fix?.. some of us think they will blame AGW and count double coup with the Believers.
 
lemketron said:
OrientExpress said:
...replacing a single instance of part at a dealer under warranty does not make it back to the R&D centers for a manufacturer or the supplier of the part, especially if they are based in another country.

And no I am not in denial, it is just that I have a deeper understanding of how failure analysis in the automotive industry works.
Actually, when my PTC heater was replaced last winter, I was told that the bad parts were being expedited overseas for immediate failure analysis.

Morale of story, whenever you say "never" or "every", all that is needed to disprove you is one instance!

Yes, back when the LEAF was very new in 2011, since there were so few cars in the field, every major component failure got close scrutiny. But generally that is the exception rather than the rule.
 
Herm said:
OrientExpress said:
Consider that it appears that all of these suspect cars are pretty much from the first major large scale delivery in 2011, with many of them coming in the May 2011 delivery batch. and that they are all being operated in extreme heat area in the south and southwest.

So you think this will be the excuse that Nissan uses when they announce their fix?.. some of us think they will blame AGW and count double coup with the Believers.

No, I think the responsible groups at Nissan will handle this in a professional manner, as they do with all of the other TSBs that are issued each year to correct issues with their products.
 
OrientExpress said:
No it is not, replacing a single instance of part at a dealer under warranty does not make it back to the R&D centers for a manufacturer or the supplier of the part, especially if they are based in another country.

If replacing an entire battery back 7 months after delivery did not make it to Nissan's R&D center, that is both denial and negligence. You can't equate a battery pack to say, faulty hatch struts or some other non-essential part that is replaced under warranty.

However, it is good there is finally some acknowledgment from the powers that be. It's just sad it took way too much discussion, frustration, anxiety, time, and a little old news story. The 2- and 3- bar loss owners were initially and repeatedly told this was "normal."

It did not have to be that way and there will unfortunately be some lingering resentment. There are better ways to treat your customers. That said, it's probably best we all just wait and see what the conclusions of the study are.
 
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