Andy Palmer and Chelsea Sexton Discuss the Nissan LEAF

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LEAFer said:
Was it made very clear that the requested price is for an EXCHANGE ***NOT*** a NEW part ?
I think if you are going through the trouble and expense of a pack swap some people might want a brand new one. They should provide pricing for both.
 
rumpole said:
edatoakrun said:
OrientExpress said:
On the topic of Lease v. Buy

I was as surprised as Nissan was of the large number of individuals that bought this 1st generation car rather than leasing it. To me it seemed illogical that anyone would buy into a first generation highly complex electronic product that had no track record like the LEAF, knowing full well, that it would be superseded by future generations that were cheaper, better, etc...

Speaking for myself, I leased, in no small part, due to uncertainty as to how The LEAF could handle a rural mountainous region with few public charging opportunities. When I discovered how well my LEAF handled this challenge, I bought simply because the lease rate offered by Nissan was just too high. With the current low lease rates and high residuals, I would probably lease, if I were making the same choice today.

<<snip, snip>>

Knowing full well the Leaf battery is a completely different chemistry, has anyone run a Leaf to empty and let it sit for 20 or 30 minutes? Can you then get a another couple of miles?

Yes, I heard the story from a Nissan dealer that a customer ran his LEAF down to turtle or when it shut off entirely. Then let it sit overnight and was able to drive it back to his home the next day in order to charge. Caveat, his home was close enough, so didn't need a tow.
 
JRP3 said:
LEAFer said:
Was it made very clear that the requested price is for an EXCHANGE ***NOT*** a NEW part ?
I think if you are going through the trouble and expense of a pack swap some people might want a brand new one. They should provide pricing for both.

gee maybe i can go back to my cost estimate of $8,000. but i also estimated that price would not be available until 2014 and would be HIGHLY dependent on the price of gas which i still say will be a contributing factor in how much that battery pack will be plus i think there WILL BE a limited warranty on pack replacement that works like tires. get half the mileage from it, get half off the exchange if degradation is X %. guessing the X % will be a major bone of contention that will be resolved like any other issue of this type; $$

if you dont like the (guessing 30%) degradation exchange rule, for an extra $$ at purchase, you can buy a warranty that allows a 20% degradation exchange, etc.

other than that; its all speculation. hints that $5000 is too low means nothing if we dont know what the price is because i feel that after TN is up and running, a great price can be had
 
JRP3 said:
LEAFer said:
Was it made very clear that the requested price is for an EXCHANGE ***NOT*** a NEW part ?
I think if you are going through the trouble and expense of a pack swap some people might want a brand new one. They should provide pricing for both.

In LEAFer's scenario, the pack would be new. But there is often a "core charge" associated with the older parts that gets returned when the old parts are (a deposit, of sorts). So his question was basically one of gross vs net pricing.
 
evchels said:
JRP3 said:
LEAFer said:
Was it made very clear that the requested price is for an EXCHANGE ***NOT*** a NEW part ?
I think if you are going through the trouble and expense of a pack swap some people might want a brand new one. They should provide pricing for both.
In LEAFer's scenario, the pack would be new. But there is often a "core charge" associated with the older parts that gets returned when the old parts are (a deposit, of sorts). So his question was basically one of gross vs net pricing.
Exactly. The Roadster guy who bricked his battery (at about 2.5-3 years) was quoted $40k. It's that high because his old (bricked) battery was worthless. The BRA (Battery Replacement Agreement) quotes $12k at 7 years because the old (still useful) battery is returned.
 
This is totally accurate for me. I did not want to lease an EV and have Nissan take it from me after the lease end. I was thinking, what if Nissan changed their mind.

I always thought as well that Nissan would sell a whole battery pack with double capacity in a few years and I could use the old batteries for grid storage or sell the old battereis to Nissan for a credit on the new pack. If they haven't committed to doing this, then they should. That would be a great goodwill gesture.

Nubo said:
OrientExpress said:
...
The desire to own the version 1 LEAF really took us all as a surprise, and is a great testimony to the confidence that these early adopter owners placed in Nissan. ...

My impression is that it may have had less to do with Nissan than with General Motors and the EV1.

gmboob8.jpg
 
and generally speaking, the LEAF pack would still have significant value at 70% (still more power than new Volt battery) and could be used for other things (such as a battery storage for solar powered DCFC at each Nissan Dealership...*hint*) before finally being recycled again.

With Nissan now running a battery plant, they could handle the process end to end.
 
EVDrive said:
This is totally accurate for me. I did not want to lease an EV and have Nissan take it from me after the lease end. I was thinking, what if Nissan changed their mind.

I always thought as well that Nissan would sell a whole battery pack with double capacity in a few years and I could use the old batteries for grid storage or sell the old battereis to Nissan for a credit on the new pack. If they haven't committed to doing this, then they should. That would be a great goodwill gesture.

Nubo said:
OrientExpress said:
...
The desire to own the version 1 LEAF really took us all as a surprise, and is a great testimony to the confidence that these early adopter owners placed in Nissan. ...

My impression is that it may have had less to do with Nissan than with General Motors and the EV1.

+1

Although I never had an EV1, I wanted one and kept waiting for GM to offer them for sale because the lease rate in AZ was very high (no incentives). I still plan to buy a replacement battery when the time comes and use the old one for backup power at home. I am starting to look at options for charging controllers and inverters now because I am down 2 capacity bars and I want to know what my options are when I can no longer make my roundtrip commute (on the freeway at highway speeds with about 12,000 miles per year average, Mr. Palmer).

Gerry
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
other than that; its all speculation. hints that $5000 is too low means nothing if we dont know what the price is because i feel that after TN is up and running, a great price can be had
Probably not that great. The high cost is a factor of material purity, assembly process, and equipment, none of which will be cheaper here in the US. Not to mention any labor costs will most certainly be higher.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
and generally speaking, the LEAF pack would still have significant value at 70% (still more power than new Volt battery) and could be used for other things (such as a battery storage for solar powered DCFC at each Nissan Dealership...*hint*) before finally being recycled again.

With Nissan now running a battery plant, they could handle the process end to end.
The recycling process has no cross over to the assembly process, it's a completely separate endeavor. Having a battery manufacturing facility does not benefit the recycling process. Recycling lithium cells is also very complicated.
 
I had my LEAF in to a body shop today to get an estimate to have a fender scratch repaired. The guy at the body shop was curious about the car and said "What if you get in a bad crash and damage the battery? How much would that cost to replace?"
I said "I don't know exactly... It isn't published yet." He said, "Oh well, *I* can find out..." And he proceeded to pull up some car info from his service computer. He had the whole cutaway diagram of the car, and clicked on the battery modules. He looked 'shocked' when he saw the battery modules all said $0.00
He said it was unheard of for his pricing computer to not have a value for any part.
I told him if the battery was damaged it would probably have to be sent to a factory service center only. He was surprised at that as his shop normally handles all manner of repairs...
 
I love my LEAF, but hate the blasted Accept/Deny button press everytime I get into my car. We should hold a blackout carwings event, try to get as many LEAF owners to all deny carwings T&C all starting the same day. We could do it to start on Black Friday? Anybody else interested?
 
I think there is a lot of wishful thinking going on with the price of the battery.

I couldn't find the article but read on one for the green car blogs last month that the price of lithium is up 30%.

In addition, ford is easing into EV's and one reason for that is the battery price.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1075486_2012-ford-focus-battery-pack-cost-12-15000-says-ceo

I can totally understand why Nissan is not releasing the cost and price of the battery. In the near term it might be just to expensive to make sense to replace. I for one don't care so much. I plan to upgrade to a car with a bigger battery ASAP and if for some reason, I can't sell my Leaf for a good price, I'll keep it for an around town car and drive it into the ground. Or hopefully upgrade to some aftermarket cells in the future form Nissan, Tesla/Panasonic, Enginer, or some newcomer.

We would all prefer to know, however, I think we are too worried about the battery price. This in not a cell phone battery. The should design these to upgrade though and Andy said that is their plan.

For me the most important thing is that they provide detailed linegraph estimates to people that are in hot climates which show the yearly degradation estimate of the battery in relation to heat, yearly miles, averqge speed driven and time. Provide this data with a correlation to range estimates over time as well if possible. That last one might be too tricky though. I don't blame them for not giving us this data before because they didn't have it. Now they are getting close to 2 years of real world data which is way better than their previous estimates based on accelerated testing.

As I said before, a path to upgrade would be a great goodwill gesture. As a few others said, offering to sell battery capacity insurance or the option to buy replacement plan like tesla offered with the roadster are other great goodwill ideas.

Now leasing is only 200 a month for 2 years which is a great option for those looking to buy a leaf for the first time or for those wishing to trade in the leaf they currently own to releive battery degradation fears.
 
TEG said:
He had the whole cutaway diagram of the car, and clicked on the battery modules. He looked 'shocked' when he saw the battery modules all said $0.00
Order as many as you can! :mrgreen:
 
EVDrive said:
I think there is a lot of wishful thinking going on with the price of the battery.

I couldn't find the article but read on one for the green car blogs last month that the price of lithium is up 30%.
You are correct that any price below $8K or more for a new pack is probably way off, but the cost of lithium has little to do with it. There is very little lithium in the pack and even though the price has gone up it's still relatively cheap.
 
JRP3 said:
TEG said:
He had the whole cutaway diagram of the car, and clicked on the battery modules. He looked 'shocked' when he saw the battery modules all said $0.00
Order as many as you can! :mrgreen:

I would like 2 packs if they are $0's. I would like to stack 2 full packs on a trailer to tow around as a range extender, and I thought my plan would be too expensive.
 
Here is an article (May 15, 2010) quoting the cost of the battery:

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/05/15/nissan-leaf-profitable-by-year-three-battery-cost-closer-to-18/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"A couple weeks ago, the Times of London reported that the
battery in the Nissan Leaf cost the automaker around $9,000 to
produce. We covered the story here, but were hesitant to agree
with what seemed to be an incredibly low price. We went with the
story because Nissan had told us that a profit will be made on
each Leaf sold, so the low battery price partially made sense. We
were still skeptical of the numbers though, apparently with good
reason, because a new report pegs the battery cost at around
double the previously reported amount. Mark Perry, Nissan's
chief product planner for North America, tells The Wall Street
Journal that the actual cost is a little less than $750 per kilowatt
hour, bringing the total to just below $18,000."
 
TEG said:
I had my LEAF in to a body shop today to get an estimate to have a fender scratch repaired. The guy at the body shop was curious about the car and said "What if you get in a bad crash and damage the battery? How much would that cost to replace?"
I said "I don't know exactly... It isn't published yet." He said, "Oh well, *I* can find out..." And he proceeded to pull up some car info from his service computer. He had the whole cutaway diagram of the car, and clicked on the battery modules. He looked 'shocked' when he saw the battery modules all said $0.00
He said it was unheard of for his pricing computer to not have a value for any part.
I told him if the battery was damaged it would probably have to be sent to a factory service center only. He was surprised at that as his shop normally handles all manner of repairs...

the plot thickens.
maybe there are no replacement batteries and you have to buy a new leaf.
that doesnt sound like a very good strategy for nissan.
 
With regard to the idea that needing to replace the battery pack in a LEAF was unexpected, I noticed this tidbit in the manual (page EV-3):
The Li-ion battery has limited service life, and when its charging capacity falls below a specific level, the EV system warning light will illuminate. Owners should bring their vehicle in for inspection and possible battery replacement.
I wonder if anyone has seen that light yet?
 
Wow, if the battery costs $18,000 then Nissan should definitely use Panasonic cells like Tesla instead of their own cells. The Panasonic batteries cost half as much and have 2x the energy density. There is a good chance for $18,000, Nissan and Panasonic could put a 40kwh battery in the Leaf. This is likely because for each 20kwh hour increase in battery size, Tesla charges $10,000 more for the upgrade on their Model S.
 
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