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SageBrush said:
By the way OP, you forgot to mention that the $17k is spent on a car with a puny motor.

Let's summarize: $17k to have excellent local or regional range BUT
NO warranty
Anemic home charging
Outdated DC fast charging
Outdated car
Outdated performance

Even as an exercise for a marketing class, this is pretty pathetic.
Click to expand...

It's important to remember that this is a hypothetical; warranty and service are a question for lawyers and actuaries. 1-3 years is just an educated guess based on an imagined lean startup with ten customers per year; a company with a long-term business model probably would be happy to match Nissan's 6- or 8-year 100,000 mile warranty.

The puny motor is actually a good thing - cars with fewer horsepower are safer to operate (no possibility of a 120mph wreck!) and EVs with lower-powered motors tend to damage their batteries (and transmissions, and tires...) substantially less over time. The Leaf inverter can technically output 130 kW instead of 80 kW, but bringing that up here would just be a confounding factor for battery upgrade companies ;)

Not to defend GM or Nissan, but the difference between DCFC to 80% on Tesla's 250 kW Superchargers vs 50 kW CHAdeMO (and the new hypothetical pack) or 50 kW CCS is barely 20 minutes (30-40 mins vs 50-65 mins). I'm sure you've taken photos of the "1000 mph" charging on your Tesla, but there's a reason that number always drops.

They've done a great job with thermal management on the M3 -- but if it "fully" supercharged at 250 kW, the car would be at 100% in less than 20 minutes (and also on fire). Higher peak rates provide ever-diminishing returns and are largely vehicles for marketing and hardware innovation - the consumer experience is not meaningfully improved by them.

On the last point - performance is a very valid criticism, but so far (out of 40+ respondents) you're the only one to bring it up. Thank you for being the outlier! Leaf owners that don't also have Teslas seem to have no complaints with their Leaf's performance.

Thanks for the perspective :)
 
cwerdna said:
I've been unable to sell my 11 bar '13 Leaf built 5/2013 for $6200 at work (not that I've tried that hard). I already bought a Bolt so that makes it even more of a hard no. Even if my current Leaf had CHAdeMO inlet (it doesn't), it's still a really tough sell.
Click to expand...

Took me a while to notice that last sentence.

From what I've seen - an 11-bar 2013 with no DCFC is only worth $3-4k. It sucks that a skipped $750 option at purchase turned into a $2-4k devaluation, but the market has decided out that a car that can really only do 80 miles in a day isn't worth all that much. :/

Sorry to hear about the power outages, stay safe!
 
coleafrado said:
Not to defend GM or Nissan, but the difference between DCFC to 80% on Tesla's 250 kW Superchargers vs 50 kW CHAdeMO (and the new hypothetical pack) or 50 kW CCS is barely 20 minutes (30-40 mins vs 50-65 mins). I'm sure you've taken photos of the "1000 mph" charging on your Tesla, but there's a reason that number always drops.

They've done a great job with thermal management on the M3 -- but if it "fully" supercharged at 250 kW, the car would be at 100% in less than 20 minutes (and also on fire). Higher peak rates provide ever-diminishing returns and are largely vehicles for marketing and hardware innovation - the consumer experience is not meaningfully improved by them.
Click to expand...
I have not taken photos of 1000 mph charging, but I have calculated the time to charge for two hours of driving (until the next stop.) It is 10 - 15 minutes in my Tesla, compared to ~ an hour in your upgraded LEAF.

We get out of the car, stretch, use bathrooms, and then continue with the trip. You might do the same ... and then twiddle your thumbs for another 45 minutes. Watch Bjorn Nyland's 1000 Km (620 miles) drives in different EVs. The LEAF averages ~ 30 - 35 mph; the Tesla doubles that throughput speed. That consumer experience is night and day different. Despite what it may sound like, I am not ranting about the LEAF or crowing about the Tesla. I am pointing out that the EV experience has improved A LOT since the 2011 LEAF model year and your upgrade offer misses out on the years of rapid innovation. And by the way -- 50 kW in a Gen1 LEAF is marketing spin. Figure on ~ 35 kW before SoC related taper, so about 30 kW average over the charging session.

About car power: I agree with you, at least in part. My wife mostly drives our LEAF and never complains about the power. Since I mostly drive our Tesla I find the LEAF anemic but OK. For context, I am not an aggressive driver by any means, and I find the Tesla over-powered. Yesterday I drove a 2019 Hyundai Ionic hybrid. Now that is an under-powered car, mostly because of the delay between mashing the fuel pedal and the car responding. Anyway, my point here is that if a future potential customer of yours is considering spending either $17k for your offer or double that for a new Tesla, a Tesla test drive is going to sink your case. You do not have to believe a Tesla owner -- ask on the forum people who have replaced a Gen1 LEAF with a LEAF+ their opinions about the power difference. That is a modest improvement, but one of the keys to getting people to open their wallets.
 
Just some forced air cooling would be a huge improvement, as long as you don't live where it gets over 110'F regularly.
If you live some where like that, get a tesla or GM product.

Forget about the refrigeration based battery cooling, knock a few thousand off that number and it might be affordable, but still no where near practical.

Sagebrush is right about the chademo.
Conditions have to be perfect for an old leaf to hit 50kw. When it does it only holds at 50kw for some where around 3 minutes, at least on the cars I saw being charged.

Now if you put in a bigger battery, figured out a cooling system, mastered the BMS to VCM and chademo communication it should be possible to hold the chademo power at 50kw for longer. I believe muxsan has achieved this on his extender pack cars.
 
coleafrado said:
johnlocke said:
$17K is a whopping down payment on a used Tesla or almost full boat on a used Bolt. By the time you get to market, used Model 3's are going to start showing up. A 3 year old model 3 might go for $25K at a guess.
Click to expand...

Lots of people have this expectation that the Model 3 is going to depreciate as quickly as a comparable ICE car, but that's just not happening. The battery is too valuable! I don't think a single used Model 3 has sold for under $38k in the two years they've been on sale, and I don't see $25k happening even by 2024 except for very high-mileage cars.

johnlocke said:
It might be a deal if you could find an old Leaf for $3-5K and replace the battery.
Click to expand...
As a point of reference - the 9-bar 2012 I'm using cost $5k. I've seen equivalent cars in much the same condition sell for as little as $3-4k.

johnlocke said:
Value with a new battery might jump from $10K to $17K but you are never going to recover the cost. $17K is a whopping down payment on a used Tesla or almost full boat on a used Bolt.
Click to expand...

Even though there's no actual market data on upgraded Leafs, I agree with you that this is probably true.
Click to expand...
You are forgetting that Tesla has ramped up the model 3 to 400,000 units a year. Pretty soon the used market won't be supply constrained. Also the Model Y goes into production by next summer. Some Model 3 owners will trade their 3 for a Y. With Tesla's Shanghai plant starting up to feed China and Asia and Gigafactory 4 being planned for Europe, Telsa is planning on building a million cars a year for the U.S. and Canadian markets. They will be competing with half a dozen other models. I also think that to move that many cars, Tesla will have to revert to open end leasing. If so, a 60% Residual on a $40K car after 3 years puts you at $24K. A 5 year old Model 3 with 75,000 mi on it is not going to be worth half of what cost it new.
 
Oilpan4 said:
Sagebrush is right about the chademo.
Conditions have to be perfect for an old leaf to hit 50kw. When it does it only holds at 50kw for some where around 3 minutes, at least on the cars I saw being charged.
Click to expand...
.
The 2013+ (or thereabouts) 24 kWh battery LEAFs have electronics that allow up to 125 Amps, 120 Amps in practice.
Nominal pack voltage is about 360 volts so the peak kW is ~ 43 kW

I'm not sure if the 2011/2012 LEAFs are 125 or 100 Amp electronics but most CHAdeMO in the USA (including EA, until they decide that 200 Amps works reliably) are limited to 100 Amps. That works out to 36 kW.

The above refers to peak. A session up to 80% will include SoC related tapering after ~ 50% so the average power will be less.
 
I've hit 48 kW on several EA and GreenLots chargers in the 2012 I'm using, so 125A is at least possible in the first gen. For an original battery, that's over 2C - obviously it can't hold that very long before overheating or tapering. For a degraded battery at 15 kWh capacity... That's over 3C! Should be no surprise that multiple 50 kW fast charges can heat the original pack to >130°F on a warm day.

As for forced air, that has a number of issues I don't have time to address at the moment. Liquid cooling is something like 5-10x more efficient.

The hypothetical assumes that 50 kW CHAdeMO will be enabled on all upgraded cars - and they should charge at 50 kW for substantially longer than Muxsan's packs do. 50 kW into a 60/70 kWh battery is hardly 0.8/0.7C, which modern cooled NMC/NCA can handle usually up to 75% with no issues.

Again - don't worry about the engineering difficulties. The premise of this hypothetical is that they have all been solved.
 
johnlocke said:
coleafrado said:
johnlocke said:
$17K is a whopping down payment on a used Tesla or almost full boat on a used Bolt. By the time you get to market, used Model 3's are going to start showing up. A 3 year old model 3 might go for $25K at a guess.
Click to expand...

Lots of people have this expectation that the Model 3 is going to depreciate as quickly as a comparable ICE car, but that's just not happening. The battery is too valuable! I don't think a single used Model 3 has sold for under $38k in the two years they've been on sale, and I don't see $25k happening even by 2024 except for very high-mileage cars.

johnlocke said:
It might be a deal if you could find an old Leaf for $3-5K and replace the battery.
Click to expand...
As a point of reference - the 9-bar 2012 I'm using cost $5k. I've seen equivalent cars in much the same condition sell for as little as $3-4k.

johnlocke said:
Value with a new battery might jump from $10K to $17K but you are never going to recover the cost. $17K is a whopping down payment on a used Tesla or almost full boat on a used Bolt.
Click to expand...

Even though there's no actual market data on upgraded Leafs, I agree with you that this is probably true.
Click to expand...
You are forgetting that Tesla has ramped up the model 3 to 400,000 units a year. Pretty soon the used market won't be supply constrained. Also the Model Y goes into production by next summer. Some Model 3 owners will trade their 3 for a Y. With Tesla's Shanghai plant starting up to feed China and Asia and Gigafactory 4 being planned for Europe, Telsa is planning on building a million cars a year for the U.S. and Canadian markets. They will be competing with half a dozen other models. I also think that to move that many cars, Tesla will have to revert to open end leasing. If so, a 60% Residual on a $40K car after 3 years puts you at $24K. A 5 year old Model 3 with 75,000 mi on it is not going to be worth half of what cost it new.
Click to expand...

Only time will tell whether that happens.
 
coleafrado said:
cwerdna said:
I've been unable to sell my 11 bar '13 Leaf built 5/2013 for $6200 at work (not that I've tried that hard). I already bought a Bolt so that makes it even more of a hard no. Even if my current Leaf had CHAdeMO inlet (it doesn't), it's still a really tough sell.
Click to expand...

Took me a while to notice that last sentence.

From what I've seen - an 11-bar 2013 with no DCFC is only worth $3-4k. It sucks that a skipped $750 option at purchase turned into a $2-4k devaluation, but the market has decided out that a car that can really only do 80 miles in a day isn't worth all that much. :/

Sorry to hear about the power outages, stay safe!
Click to expand...
:O

I got offered $5K earlier in the year by Carmax and at least one other place, but felt it was too low.

I've seen folks on various Leaf FB groups and here pay more than $5K for much more degraded Leafs, some of them w/the crap chemistry (built before 4/2013) and sometimes model year '12 , some w/no CHAdeMO.

When I bought this used Leaf, I intentionally didn't want to pay for CHAdeMO inlet. I've posted about why numerous times. (My previous leased '13 Leaf had CHADeMO). Back when I was in the market, IIRC, getting a used Leaf with CHAdeMO was at least $1K to $1.5K more. (My Leaf SV w/premium package cost me $9,325 + tax and back in July 2015.) From the pricing tab of https://usa.nissannews.com/en-US/releases/release-698a9e429ae04602b683514427ca41ba-us-2013-nissan-leaf-press-kit, the LED + quick charge package was $1,630.
 
Now that we have CHAdeMO in my city, my stubbornness in finding a CHAdeMO car appears smart. IIRC the price difference was about $500 back in 2017. It should add a year or two to the LEAF's utility for us.

It would surprise me if auction prices vary by $1 - $2k based on CHAdeMO. That implies an understanding of the LEAF I just do not ascribe to auctions.
 
SageBrush said:
Oilpan4 said:
Sagebrush is right about the chademo.
Conditions have to be perfect for an old leaf to hit 50kw. When it does it only holds at 50kw for some where around 3 minutes, at least on the cars I saw being charged.
Click to expand...
.
The 2013+ (or thereabouts) 24 kWh battery LEAFs have electronics that allow up to 125 Amps, 120 Amps in practice.
Nominal pack voltage is about 360 volts so the peak kW is ~ 43 kW

I'm not sure if the 2011/2012 LEAFs are 125 or 100 Amp electronics but most CHAdeMO in the USA (including EA, until they decide that 200 Amps works reliably) are limited to 100 Amps. That works out to 36 kW.

The above refers to peak. A session up to 80% will include SoC related tapering after ~ 50% so the average power will be less.
Click to expand...

The highest voltage I have seen on my home chademo is 400v.
 
SageBrush said:
Oilpan4 said:
Sagebrush is right about the chademo.
Conditions have to be perfect for an old leaf to hit 50kw. When it does it only holds at 50kw for some where around 3 minutes, at least on the cars I saw being charged.
Click to expand...
.
The 2013+ (or thereabouts) 24 kWh battery LEAFs have electronics that allow up to 125 Amps, 120 Amps in practice.
Nominal pack voltage is about 360 volts so the peak kW is ~ 43 kW

I'm not sure if the 2011/2012 LEAFs are 125 or 100 Amp electronics but most CHAdeMO in the USA (including EA, until they decide that 200 Amps works reliably) are limited to 100 Amps. That works out to 36 kW.

The above refers to peak. A session up to 80% will include SoC related tapering after ~ 50% so the average power will be less.
Click to expand...

I routinely saw current in excess of 120 amperes with 2011 and 2015 when using older Blink chargers which have nameplate rating of 125A. The pack voltage would get to about 390 on the 2015 before the current would drop much. The 2011 would start tapering at a lower voltage. The EVgo chargers in my area seem to be slower. I did one QC on the 2019 to verify the quick charging capability. The power output of that EVgo dropped to 20 kW after 15 minutes. I suspect this was to avoid excessive utility demand charges.
 
coleafrado said:
SageBrush said:
Oilpan4 said:
The highest voltage I have seen on my home chademo is 400v.
Click to expand...
.
And the Amps were ?
Click to expand...

Up to 20A: http://www.setec-power.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=13&id=5
Click to expand...
That is my point: you will not get 125 Amps at a CHAdeMO DC fast charger in an old LEAF by the time you reach 400 volts. My earlier power numbers are ballpark correct, although an owner might see a few kW more for a minute or three during the session if they pay close attention.
 
There is another risk that has been touched on in this thread that I would think about:

Reliability of the LEAF has not really been tested, in the sense that a reasonable cohort of high mileage cars does not exist. We do know however that repairs can be prohibitively expensive at Nissan (if they are willing to touch the car in the first place with the different battery.)

OP: you asked for a vote, so add my No to the tally. I do appreciate you giving this idea more than passing thought but the practicalities are just too much to make a business case.
 
I think the idea only becomes attractive if you can have the battery purchased and installed for 7-8K. When you add the 6K for the car, that puts in at 14K, or a few thousand less than a new S 40kW when buying in Colorado. Much more and I think, you would lean towards the new car with warranty over the range difference. Beyond charging and long term reliability (and there are a number of 100K Leaf's out there now), you also need to consider some of the older tech aging out in terms of carwings and safety devices.
 
SageBrush said:
coleafrado said:
SageBrush said:
.
And the Amps were ?
Click to expand...

Up to 20A: http://www.setec-power.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=13&id=5
Click to expand...
That is my point: you will not get 125 Amps at a CHAdeMO DC fast charger in an old LEAF by the time you reach 400 volts. My earlier power numbers are ballpark correct, although an owner might see a few kW more for a minute or three during the session if they pay close attention.
Click to expand...

For one thing: the Leaf's 96S battery never reaches 400V (4.17V/cell) as it limits voltage to about 4.10V/cell at 100% charge. The current taper above 80% doesn't even factor in when you're talking about how long fast charging from 0-40% takes, particularly on a hypothetical upgraded 1st gen (not an old one) so why even mention it here?

For another: that charger only does 20A because it's only a 10 kW home CHAdeMO. I expect about 0% of homes are equipped with a 50 kW grid connection. This has no relation at all to commercial dedicated DCFC e.g. Electrify America.

As you said in a previous comment, it takes you 10-15 minutes to charge up for two hours of driving in your 3. I don't know how fast you drive, but let's say that's 30 kWh. At 50 kW, charging up that amount should only take an upgraded LEAF 35 minutes - about twice as long as your Tesla.
 

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