New Nissan Survey

[DaveinOlyWA]

new survey from Nissan;

Nissan is investigating a Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) bi-directional charger for at home installation. It provides Level 2 charging, where power flows from the home to the LEAF – therefore this charger could serve as your EVSE (home charging dock). It also provides the ability to switch the direction of flow from the LEAF battery pack to the home, where the LEAF battery can provide energy to the home in order to offset peak utility prices or supply power during a disruption. This reverse flow functionality can help reduce monthly utility bills and help reduce the utility’s peak electricity demand.

it also asks about range loss, what was expected, what is acceptable...

[Boomer23]

I'm in the process of answering it now.

It asks what percentage of range reduction you expected before you bought the LEAF, in one year, five and ten years. Then asks what percentage you now expect in each time frame. To me, they should have included each year from one through ten years. Since very few owners have seen capacity reduction inside of one year, but many have seen it by 15 months. I said that I expected and I still expect to see no capacity reduction at one year and 20% at 5 years. But I didn't expect 15% reduction in 15 months, and I had no way to say that in this survey. If they'd asked the question for each year, one through ten, they would have received more accurate feedback from owners about expected capacity reduction.

It also asks about the DTE (Distance to Empty) gauge and whether you prefer one that is accurate at the moment, but goes up and down a lot depending on driving conditions, or whether you'd prefer one that is less accurate but uses driving data over a longer time period and mostly goes downward. I chose the latter. They also asked how much range reduction on the DTE we expect to see within the first five miles of driving. DUH: how about five miles, from an accurate meter?

Then questions about wireless charging, about power outages during wired charging, reasons for choice of LEAF. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity for free text entry of any other concerns that we might have.

[Stoaty]

Where does one go to take this survey?

[bdgotoh]

They email it to you.

I don't really see how they can deliver a realistic DTE gauge function until the range goes way up. Right now the car would have to be able to see into the future to give you an accurate estimate.

[JeremyW]

Haven't gotten the email yet, but I suspect this is how they will offer an "upgrade" for the first gen Leaf to 6.6 kW- by using an external DC charger.

Of course, this means squat when using public j1772, but at least it's bidirectional. I could grab a few kWh from work to bring home to run my apartment. Sounds great!

Pictures of the Japanese leaf to home: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nissanev/s ... 961041328/

Note, it would require a firmware update to get the CHAdeMO port to V1.0 to support pulling power from the pack.

Interesting that they went with Nichicon, who supposedly does not have the bid for the 6.6 kW internal charger in the '13 Leaf.

Jeremy

[DaveEV]

With the questions regarding the DTE - it left out the most important question - how about simply giving an accurate indication of remaining energy in the pack along with an accurate mi/kWh reading and let us do the math ourself? After all - we probably have a better estimate of what the road will bring than the car does.

A simple kWh reading will suffice (or just copy Tesla and have 2 DTE indicators - one based on ideal miles and one based on recent driving) and I'll do the math myself, thank-you-very-much. Then the only thing needed is a graph of mi/kWh over the past 100 miles. The current history mi/kWh graph is completely useless.

The 3 options of "accurate but quickly changing", "less accurate but doesn't tend to overestimate" and "not accurate at all but never overestimates" are all pretty crappy.

[mwalsh]

It asks what percentage of range reduction you expected before you bought the LEAF, in one year, five and ten years. Then asks what percentage you now expect in each time frame. To me, they should have included each year from one through ten years. Since very few owners have seen capacity reduction inside of one year, but many have seen it by 15 months. I said that I expected and I still expect to see no capacity reduction at one year and 20% at 5 years. But I didn't expect 15% reduction in 15 months, and I had no way to say that in this survey. If they'd asked the question for each year, one through ten, they would have received more accurate feedback from owners about expected capacity reduction.

It also asks about the DTE (Distance to Empty) gauge and whether you prefer one that is accurate at the moment, but goes up and down a lot depending on driving conditions, or whether you'd prefer one that is less accurate but uses driving data over a longer time period and mostly goes downward. I chose the latter. They also asked how much range reduction on the DTE we expect to see within the first five miles of driving. DUH: how about five miles, from an accurate meter?

I answered the same ways. On the capcity loss questions I said a 40% reduction after 10 years, and that was my expectation going in and my expectation now (fingers crossed!).

[DaveinOlyWA]

They email it to you.

I don't really see how they can deliver a realistic DTE gauge function until the range goes way up. Right now the car would have to be able to see into the future to give you an accurate estimate.

they could if they allowed the car history to be taken into account when factoring in the "driver quotient"

trivia question; why does Nissan require battery check annually?

answer; because the data logger on LEAF only has enough memory to store a years worth of driving/charging habits

[surfingslovak]

answer; because the data logger on LEAF only has enough memory to store a years worth of driving/charging habits

Sorry, but this looks like total BS to me, especially if you examined the seekrit battery report Phil outed a while ago. My best guess is that they need to get this data periodically to stay abreast of fleet-wide developments and trends. The annual service arrangement is just a practical opportunity to get it done.

[derkraut]

answer; because the data logger on LEAF only has enough memory to store a years worth of driving/charging habits

Sorry, but this looks like total BS to me, especially if you examined the seekrit battery report Phil outed a while ago. My best guess is that they need to get this data periodically to stay abreast of fleet-wide developments and trends. The annual service arrangement is just a practical opportunity to get it done.

IMHO, the Annual Battery Report is done so that dealers get you to bring the car in. Then, they talk you into getting/paying $$$ for a bunch of bogus maintenance.