New Nissan LEAF Survey

I've been thinking about the extra range and how it would affect DCFC availability.

My take is that a lot of us would charge up overnight as we do now, but for a longer period on our home L2's. For someone like me, the home electric bill would be a little higher but I would be able to skip 4 charging sessions between Vancouver and Bellingham, Wa. That would not only save time but would fit in a little better with my natural break and eating patterns. I think the DCFC charging itself would be more efficient as many more kilowatts would be onboard before the near capacity charging slowdown begins.

It is very possible that quick chargers wouldn't be so backed up due to range anxiety issues. Most people would have plenty of mileage to spare every day and would rather charge overnight at home than visit a public charger.

I finally find a free moment and pull together the information to intelligently respond to this survey (looking back at my intelligent response to the RegGuheert MNL survey from 24Nov2013), and Nissan as is their usual incompetence, has already closed the survey.
If you can't provide two weeks to respond to the survey, then you really don't give a DAMN about the results.
Just a quick note to Mr. Toby Perry, Nissan's new Director of Electric Vehicle (EV) Sales and Marketing in the US: If you can't do better than this, then you may soon be added to list of Nissan personnel that have been fired or removed from the Nissan LEAF effort, along with several others that unfortunately haven't been fired yet but should be fired soon.
Nissan is apparently led by a bunch of moronic idiots :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:

TimLee said:

Nissan is apparently led by a bunch of moronic idiots :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:

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And yet, they make the best selling BEV in the world.

TimLee said:

If you can't provide two weeks to respond to the survey, then you really don't give a DAMN about the results.

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I disagree.. I suspect most Leaf owners, who are known to be technologically savvy, will have answered the survey within a few days. Second of all, we have no idea how quickly they needed the survey results. It is possible they were planning to make design changes immediately.

Yes I would like to see the results of that survey also.

If past history is any indication of the future, not going to hold my breath waiting on that one.

Not hard when you are pretty much the only game in town... Now, if they still want to be in that position five years or more down the road from now, well, we shall see...
Never did receive a survey, by the way...

jhm614 said:

TimLee said:

Nissan is apparently led by a bunch of moronic idiots :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:

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And yet, they make the best selling BEV in the world.

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adric22 said:

TimLee said:

If you can't provide two weeks to respond to the survey, then you really don't give a DAMN about the results.

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I disagree.. I suspect most Leaf owners, who are known to be technologically savvy, will have answered the survey within a few days. Second of all, we have no idea how quickly they needed the survey results. It is possible they were planning to make design changes immediately.

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David Murray, it sure sounds like you're passive aggressively calling me "non-technologically savvy", but maybe that wasn't your intent :? :?: .
And secondly "technologically savvy" has no correlation with response to Nissan surveys, participation on MNL, or InsideEVs, or many other things.
I think all Nissan was looking for was a marketing type gut response to their survey, not an intelligent thoughtful response.

Yes, they may have needed the response quickly. But if they had their act together, they would have asked for the survey response at least 4 to 6 weeks earlier. Or ideally around the time that the LEAF Advisory Board member posted his survey.

Mostly adric22 (David Murray) your input on MNL has been constructive and useful. But I don't feel your current response met your usual standards.

TomT said:

Never did receive a survey, by the way...

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Sorry TomT. At least you got an invite to the Phoenix meeting :? :?

TimLee said:

Your current response unfortunately did not meet your usual standards.

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Whoa there Tim, I'm sure adric22 meant no personal insult there. Take a deep breath and relax...

drees said:

TimLee said:

Your current response unfortunately did not meet your usual standards.

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Whoa there Tim, I'm sure adric22 meant no personal insult there. Take a deep breath and relax...

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+1

Never received the survey either... My voice has been silenced... :mrgreen:

I got it and just tried to answer it and it was closed. I consider myself fairly tech savvy but also fairly busy last few weeks.

DanCar said:

drees said:

The rumor is that they will be using a ceramic coated separator from Polypore instead of the non-ceramic coated separator they are using now. LG is already using a ceramic coated separator for the batteries going in the Volt. GM went all out in making sure that the Volt pack would last a long time.

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Here is a different theory: Given that there hasn't been significant battery loss reported in 2013 cars, suggest that the separator was added to 2013's and that the mid 2014 change is about an NMC battery. One minus against this theory is that Nissan itself said that the hot battery was mid 2014. But perhaps they are thinking of a very hot battery. A plus for this theory is that Nissan has said that longer range battery is coming soon and delayed LE and e-nv200 for the new battery. E-nv200 is scheduled for production mid year, right around the time that the new hot battery is suppose to be available.

Click to expand...

Here is another piece of the puzzle:
http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generation-battery-is-coming-online-now/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Ghosn says a year ago that new battery online now.

You know.. It wouldn't actually surprise me to know they are already manufacturing these 48Kwh batteries and perhaps already putting them in cars on the assembly line. If you remember how they did with the 2013 models, they actually had them arriving at dealerships and still no announcement on price or range. And being that they know how news spreads about the Leaf very quickly, they probably wouldn't release that survey until the very end, for fear of killing sales of the current model. Another tidbit to keep in mind - they can test these batteries in current model Leafs. So, no need for a camouflage car to be driving down the road. They could have been testing the battery all over the world in regular Leafs that nobody would notice.

The more I think about it, I think this battery is coming sooner, rather than later.

DanCar said:

Here is another piece of the puzzle:
http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generation-battery-is-coming-online-now/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Ghosn says a year ago that new battery online now.

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Interesting, but the story is a year old :?:

adric22 said:

You know.. It wouldn't actually surprise me to know they are already manufacturing these 48Kwh batteries and perhaps already putting them in cars on the assembly line. If you remember how they did with the 2013 models, they actually had them arriving at dealerships and still no announcement on price or range. And being that they know how news spreads about the Leaf very quickly, they probably wouldn't release that survey until the very end, for fear of killing sales of the current model. Another tidbit to keep in mind - they can test these batteries in current model Leafs. So, no need for a camouflage car to be driving down the road. They could have been testing the battery all over the world in regular Leafs that nobody would notice.

The more I think about it, I think this battery is coming sooner, rather than later.

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Possible. But note that the year old story said the 2nd generation would be a 75% capacity increase. 42 kWH, not 48 kWh.
Could be that the "HOT" battery might be 2nd gen too :?:
Maybe the 24 kWh version that will be used in the lower cost LEAF :?:
But I still tend to think the 42 kWH version will be 2015 model LEAF.

TomT said:

Not hard when you are pretty much the only game in town... Now, if they still want to be in that position five years or more down the road from now, well, we shall see...

Never did receive a survey, by the way...

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I've not received any surveys in the past year or so. When I first signed up I got a couple and then they stopped. Must not have like the answers I gave so they closed their ears.

DanCar said:

Here is another piece of the puzzle:
http://insideevs.com/nissan-ceo-carlos-ghosn-second-generation-battery-is-coming-online-now/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Ghosn says a year ago that new battery online now.

Click to expand...

That was the battery changes that went into the 2013 LEAF which includes the changes to the module shell and other minor improvements. I wouldn't really call it 2nd generation, I'd call it more like version 1.1 (if you call the '11-12 LEAF battery version 1.0).

You'd have to think that if there was major improvements in battery durability they'd be all over that in the press - not to mention they wouldn't be talking about "hot battery" vouchers for people who've had their battery replaced under the capacity warranty with another "cold" battery so they can get a "hot" battery later.

Of course, no one's heard anything about hot battery vouchers for quite some time, so...

All that said - if there was a significant chemistry change snuck into the 2013 LEAFs that improves durability, I'd guess it happened when we started seeing LEAFs leave the dealer with low GID readings around ~260 instead of 281. Of course, that could also just simply be a LBC firmware change.

Regarding trying to gauge when/where/how-much Nissan may be in bringing out a better-battery Leaf:

I keep wondering if there are any participants on mynissanleaf.com who are customers in Japan and could they share anything they have read or heard locally on these or other Leaf matters that may seem to them worth noting to others.

An afterthought on this -

If Nissan does come out with something competitive (higher kWh), and soon, a question is whether it would offer any terms by which Gen1 Leaf drivers could swap into (longer-range) Nissan BEVs.

my desire for an electric car? (very happy with my 2012 leaf but boy is it tough sometimes)

I want 75 miles range....

0'f outside with the heat going at night at 55mph after 100,000 miles on the battery pack. to know no matter how bad it gets I can go 75 miles. ie drop dead range.

that is what I want. THAT will change everything. it will turn this car into a 200,000 mile car instead of a 100,000 mile car and greatly increase resale value.

right now I can just barely make my 54mile one way commute (48mph) but below 28' I can not use the heater. I imagine in 2 years I won't be able to make that trip any longer below 25'

I have made that trip down to 0'f with 3.5 miles left (leafspy) just under 1kwh remaining.