Meeting with Nissan, Phoenix, Jan 8, 2013, 6pm, drinks prior

[philipscoggins]

Seems strange to pick Phoenix for the town hall if they weren't going to listen/show concern to what the majority of Phoenix residents are concerned about.

[cwerdna]

Unfortunately I just don't think they really get what our issue is.

Bummer! Although I'm sure there's no shortage of opinions and ideas, I'd have hoped that the question list at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11136" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; would've captured part/much of what many hot climate owners want. Problem is, from what I'm hearing, the meeting didn't go that way at all.

Perhaps the action item for every dissatisfied hot climate current Leaf owner/lessee is to spell out what they'd like to see for both themselves (e.g. buyback, convert sale to lease, etc.) and the longer term (e.g. stop sale of Leaf in AZ, TX, hot climates, better disclosures for hot climate folks, etc.) and log it with Nissan? Some of that probably has been done by filing complaints. Nissan can then figure out where the overlap and buckets are...

I know many folks have posted what they'd like but it's probably now buried in one of many threads, including the 500+ page one.

[leafkabob]

Seems strange to pick Phoenix for the town hall if they weren't going to listen/show concern to what the majority of Phoenix residents are concerned about.

I think they did listen and show concern. They just don't have anything to offer that was satisfying. They think the new warranty should do it. I think most AZ 2011/2012 purchasers don't agree.

[cwerdna]

Seems strange to pick Phoenix for the town hall if they weren't going to listen/show concern to what the majority of Phoenix residents are concerned about.

I think they did listen and show concern. They just don't have anything to offer that was satisfying. They think the new warranty should do it. I think most AZ 2011/2012 purchasers don't agree.

Sounds like it's time for a poll.

[surfingslovak]

Unfortunately I just don't think they really get what our issue is.

What surprised me was that they don't seem to understand how the instrumentation in the car can make range disappear at a much faster rate than the capacity bars would indicate. I believe that few people are aware, or have acknowledged, that disproportionate amount of usable capacity is lost between the very low battery warning and full charge. At least two cars during the range test seemed to go substantially farther after the low battery warning than one would have expected.

Additionally, the guessometer, or the DTE gauge, isn't helping things either. Many owners either take this number literally or use some approximation to derive range projections from it. I think it's safe to say that the guessometer is widly optimistic on a full charge when the car is new. Contrast that with a pessimistic reading in heat-affected cars. This discrepancy can make it difficult to asses how far the LEAF will go. Also recall that Tony had trouble making an accurate projection from Gids for several cars during the range test.

Note that I'm not mentioning this to discount the issue of battery capacity loss. I'm simply trying to explain how poor or inaccurate instrumentation can compound the problem, and make life even more difficult for affected owners.

[Volusiano]

2. Nissan has no intention (at this point at least) of going to a fluid cooling system for the battery. When more than one person suggested that such a system would solve the problem, Andy was pretty clear in stating that "there are many ways to dissipate heat, and fluid is only one of them." He really doesn't think it is the way to go. He also said they have no "Dubai Leaf," or any plans for a "desert version."

I remember Andy said something to the effect that the LEAF battery uses air cooling to dissipate the heat. I think it's misleading to even say this because it may lead people to incorrectly think that there's "forced" air cooling by fan in the LEAF. Fan-forced air cooling in the LEAF battery is not even there as far as I can tell. The only heat dissipation on the LEAF battery is simply through direct thermal transfer between the battery packs through the battery outer shell casing.

In spite of all of that, I was encouraged by the meeting. I believe Andy is sincere and felt he was honest with his responses. It would have been pretty easy to avoid coming to Phoenix or to have someone else do it instead. Billy and Jeff also struck me as sincere and genuinely interested in resolving our issues. Unfortunately I just don't think they really get what our issue is.

I on the other hand think they really do get what our issue is but are not genuinely interested in resolving our issue. They never once during the 1.5 hour town hall asked what the audience thinks it would take to resolve the issue to the audience's satisfaction. I thought that this should have been the HEART of the discussion, the PRIMARY reason for them to come all the way out to Phoenix, to address and discuss the issue of how to make it right directly with the actual people who are affected and are living day to day with the issue.

Even if they don't have a technical solution, like TMS or new heat-resistant chemistry, there are other non-technical solutions that they can still come up with to remedy the issue if they really want to. A better-than-9-bar warranty specifically just for hot climate 2011 and 2012 owners would be a good start.

[surfingslovak]

They never once during the 1.5 hour town hall asked what the audience thinks it would take to resolve the issue to the audience's satisfaction.

That's a good observation. They seemed to be on the defensive the entire time. Whether that was intentional or not, I don't know.

[Ingineer]

Phil, did you notice that the J receptical looked different? Another person and I thought it looked like it had heftier pins to handle the 30A charging.

The pins are always the same diameter, even on 70A inlets. But the inlet is a new Yazaki design. It looked to me as if it may very well have thermal monitoring, but I couldn't take it apart to confirm. =)

-Phil

[Stoaty]

Many of the modifications to the 2013 were direct results of user input. The North American battery does have a slightly different chemistry than Japan (sorry, no hard tech data).

Not so much interested in tech data as in the functional significance of the "slightly different chemistry". Why is the chemistry different for U.S.? More heat tolerant? Slightly higher capacity? Red, white and blue colors for the electrolyte?

[surfingslovak]

Not so much interested in tech data as in the functional significance of the "slightly different chemistry". Why is the chemistry different for U.S.? More heat tolerant? Slightly higher capacity? Red, white and blue colors for the electrolyte?

If I recall correctly, Andy insinuated that the battery chemistry has been tweaked, which was at least partially motivated by the issues owners have encountered. Can't really comment on electrolyte color