walterbays
Well-known member
I can "answer" that with pure conjecture:Randy said:
A few years ago car makers looked at the economics of producing EV's. Most of them decided they couldn't make money at it and at best started programs to build a handful of CARB compliance cars. Nissan decided they could make money if several trends were favorable. They set out to try to influence those trends, and to produce the first mass market affordable EV. It was a "bet the company" move that, if successful, would catapult Nissan ahead of Toyota and their hybrid technology.
One big trend they bet on was the decline of battery cost per kWh. Remember when Leaf launched all the discussion about the price, wondering whether they were losing money on each car, and the surprise at how low Leaf's $/kWh figure was compared to other batteries? Getting the net cost down requires the Tennessee plant, economies of scale, and improved chemistry. It also requires secondary use markets, and raw materials recycling for higher trade-in value of the old battery. Economies of scale depend obviously on lots of EV's being sold. But also, only if lots of EV's are sold and are perceived to be increasing in volume, do the investments in improved chemistry research get made, do the deals with electric utilities for secondary storage use get signed, and do the lithium recycling plants get built and scaled up.
So they start out losing money on every car, but don't talk about it. They talk confidently about the line being profitable - thinking of 5 years or 10 years with increasing volumes and falling costs. They know many batteries will be replaced in 10 years and some will even be replaced in 5 years. But they're confident that by that time the costs will have fallen sufficiently, and they plan to set a trade-in price on a remanufactured battery some time between 5 and 10 years from launch.
Then some batteries in Arizona begin degrading faster than they imagined, and customers want to know the cost of new batteries now so we'll have an idea about depreciation of our investments. What can they say? If they use today's actual cost it will drive customers away. If they use the 2021 projected cost a bunch of people will want to trade batteries early to restore minor loss of capacity.
Perhaps they'll end up offering in effect to convert some battery purchases to leases. You pay so much per month, based on the age and mileage of your car, to guarantee a future remanufactured battery to replace your original capacity. The replacement battery would be available sometime between 2016 and 2021 depending on mileage and tested capacity. You might get it sooner if capacity tests abnormally low sooner, with warranty coverage offsetting some of the cost. The lease terms would let people calculate an equivalent retail price of a replacement battery with trade-in. That price would probably be close to Nissan's projected price in that year. But Nissan wouldn't have committed to sell them at that price, nor even to sell them at all. If a new chemistry gave 10% higher kWh per pound Nissan might lower their lease price for new customers going forward. If a major deal fell through with a utility that had planned to reuse old Leaf batteries, Nissan might raise their lease price.
Whether or not they do that for the majority of Leaf owners, they might offer similar deals to the customers worst affected by capacity loss. They'd guarantee restoration of capacity when really needed at a known price. And I wouldn't be surprised if a condition of the deal were to sign a non-disclosure agreement so that the rest of us don't know the price.
