Battery Upgrades are very possible

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I

Inventor71

New member
Joined
Jan 10, 2019
Messages
1
I have read a lot of post on this forum and I can say with confidence that battery upgrades are very probable. Going from a 24KW to a 30 KW is nothing more than creating a emulator / translator between the CAN bus and the battery. There are a lot of people on this forum that have mapped and documented the CAN interface. It also looks like the hardware interface can also designed on this forum or somebody could make a hardware device and make a pretty decent profit.

The reason for this post is to tell people a battery upgrade is very possible. Is Nissan going to do it? Hell NO. That effects their profit margin. I have 2013 Nissan Leaf SV with 11 bars, when it gets to 9 or 8 bars the car will be paid off and its very possible I would consider a bigger battery ( at which time may be bigger than 30KW ) instead of buying the same battery. Yes a 30KW battery may be around 6K on copart.com but 6K is better than 30K for a new leaf.

The CAN bus has been documented pretty well, I am working on completely changing the infotainment system so it can have a new look every time a new firmware comes out and gives the car a new look and feel from the drivers point of view.

The mechanical parts of the car can last pretty much forever if maintained properly. I had a 2002 Dodge Durango before the Leaf and it had the worst reliability score at the time. By doing the maintenance properly I put 300,000 miles with zero issues other than typical maintenance. There is no reason the Leaf should a major failure other than the battery. There is not any wearable parts in the drive train other typical stuff (brake pads, tires).
 
I remember a post here of somebody whom replaced his 24kWh pack with a 30kWh but he had to replace 2other part (one behind the glove box and one under the hood) and I think a dealership had to pair them.... Still good to know!
 
Inventor71 said:
Going from a 24KW to a 30 KW is nothing more than creating a emulator / translator between the CAN bus and the battery.

... at which time may be bigger than 30KW )
Click to expand...
Your post would have a lot more credibility if you used the right units.

The proper units in this context are kWh, not "KW". See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=540845#p540845.

Someone pointed to this video by Bjorn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0lyqrgQJFk. Apparently, he's made another on this subject which I haven't watched.

24 and 30 kWh (battery size) Leafs have 80 kW motors.
 
Sad to say but there should be wrecked Leafs with 40 kWh packs available soon. It’s about time for people to start trying to get 40 kWh packs in older Leafs. I will be looking at sticking a 62 kWh pack in my Leaf when the pack degrades out of warranty.
 
Post on u tube of Russians reputedly (if you can understand Russian, you can verify) replaced 24 kwh pack with 40 kwh pack successfully.
But no English, no value to me... Oh wait!! I forgot, I already have a 40 kwh pack. That might have played a part as well. :cool:
 
I've actually been watching videos by these guys with an EV service shop in Ukraine who did a bunch of Leaf related transplants. Btw, Youtube does somewhat decent job autotranslating with captions. You'll miss all the fun of the original sayings, but at least some meaning will come through. Lots of very good technical info on our cars there. They do all kinds of repairs with zero support from Nissan since they don't even sell Leafs there.

The channel is at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi8nlJqLOyapQ5EXR4wqMoA

Their latest project is taking 40kwh pack from a wrecked 2018 and putting it into a 2014 I think 24kwh Leaf.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtGOZvpa6Ks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6tDOHXxukY

they went through a bunch of various combinations - moving packs as is, moving VCM, but all they got was a turtle mode operation
Then in part2 they kinda succeeded by transplanting a bunch of 24kwh guts into the 40kwh pack- contactors, current sensor, main battery controller and even pack heaters. The car drove but BMS had no idea that pack capacity was higher than 60AH. So it would display --- instead of range, and go into turtle mode after 200 something km. So they basically hit the wall since BMS does not learn that far up. Next steps are modifying settings in firmware but since it's read protected that was something they did not yet have a way to do

Keep in mind it's a fully equipped shop, with Nissan diagnostic tools etc.
the same guys also swapped a 30kwh pack into a 24kwh leaf of a similar vintage and that did work.

I do speak the language, so could help somewhat with translation questions
 
Reagle said:
I've actually been watching videos by these guys with an EV service shop in Ukraine who did a bunch of Leaf related transplants. Btw, Youtube does somewhat decent job autotranslating with captions. You'll miss all the fun of the original sayings, but at least some meaning will come through. Lots of very good technical info on our cars there. They do all kinds of repairs with zero support from Nissan since they don't even sell Leafs there.

The channel is at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi8nlJqLOyapQ5EXR4wqMoA

Their latest project is taking 40kwh pack from a wrecked 2018 and putting it into a 2014 I think 24kwh Leaf.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtGOZvpa6Ks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6tDOHXxukY

they went through a bunch of various combinations - moving packs as is, moving VCM, but all they got was a turtle mode operation
Then in part2 they kinda succeeded by transplanting a bunch of 24kwh guts into the 40kwh pack- contactors, current sensor, main battery controller and even pack heaters. The car drove but BMS had no idea that pack capacity was higher than 60AH. So it would display --- instead of range, and go into turtle mode after 200 something km. So they basically hit the wall since BMS does not learn that far up. Next steps are modifying settings in firmware but since it's read protected that was something they did not yet have a way to do

Keep in mind it's a fully equipped shop, with Nissan diagnostic tools etc.
the same guys also swapped a 30kwh pack into a 24kwh leaf of a similar vintage and that did work.

I do speak the language, so could help somewhat with translation questions
Click to expand...
I thought that was their original plan.
Take a 24kwh pack, gut it, repack it with 40kwh pack modules. Or wire up a 40kwh battery with 24kwh battery guts.
Yeah it looked like swapping the 24kwh stuff over to the 40kwh battery was the way to go.
But if simply swapping a pack, vcm or bms would work, might as well try it and confirm or rule it out for sure one way or the other (like he did when putting a 30kwh pack and 30kwh cars' vcm in a 2011 last year and got it to work) .

I would call going 217 km with a 40kwh pack before going turtle a success.
I'm not sure how he will convince the gen 1 pack that it has more than the standard 24kwh stuff available for power.

It looked like in that last test on part 2 it displayed range with the 40kwh pack, but it looked like 24kwh range?

If the car was given 40kwh batteries wired up with 24kwh battery electronics and showed range wouldn't the car eventually learn that it has much more range than normal?
 
Looks like we have 3 options.
Buy a battery from nissan.
But where's the fun in that?

Or do what the Ukrainian dude did.
He put a 2016 30kwh battery and 2016 VCM, both from the same car into his 2011 leaf.

Or take a 40kwh battery dewire it and replace the 40kwh battery electronics it with the wiring, sensors and BMS out of a 24kwh leaf battery, install the very confused 40&24kwh Frankenstein battery back into the older leaf and do a dealer diagnostic battery reset on the car + new battery.
Only problem is the 40&24kwh Frankenstein battery will still think it's a 24kwh pack.
And we don't know what the long term effects will be.
My guess is over time the cars GOM system learns it has a ton of range, but never figures out it has more than 60AH batteries.

Of the 2 upgrades it looks like the 30kwh pack plus 2016 VCM swap is the most complete plug an play upgrade.
We know it works all the way back to 2011, the car gets a 30kwh pack and it knows it has a 30kwh pack.
 
For 40 kWh or higher packs, I think mux's CANBUS bridge would be the solution for getting those to work in an older LEAF (other than the challenges of different connectors, physical wiring differences, etc):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2HLLAw5nM&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLJefVNS8JA
 
cwerdna said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Let us know when you have progressed beyond the talking stage.
Click to expand...
Besides the incorrect units, it's funny that the OP hasn't returned in awhile.
Click to expand...

Actually fits the pattern. they get an idea in their head, feel its plausible and post here. Get challenged, do some research finding they have nothing to talk about. Done.
 
alozzy said:
For 40 kWh or higher packs, I think mux's CANBUS bridge would be the solution for getting those to work in an older LEAF (other than the challenges of different connectors, physical wiring differences, etc):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2HLLAw5nM&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLJefVNS8JA
Click to expand...

Too bad Nissan didn't invest as much energy into designing a robust pack as they did designing a secure one...
 
Oilpan4 said:
I thought that was their original plan.
Take a 24kwh pack, gut it, repack it with 40kwh pack modules. Or wire up a 40kwh battery with 24kwh battery guts.
Yeah it looked like swapping the 24kwh stuff over to the 40kwh battery was the way to go.
But if simply swapping a pack, vcm or bms would work, might as well try it and confirm or rule it out for sure one way or the other (like he did when putting a 30kwh pack and 30kwh cars' vcm in a 2011 last year and got it to work) .

I would call going 217 km with a 40kwh pack before going turtle a success.
I'm not sure how he will convince the gen 1 pack that it has more than the standard 24kwh stuff available for power.

It looked like in that last test on part 2 it displayed range with the 40kwh pack, but it looked like 24kwh range?

If the car was given 40kwh batteries wired up with 24kwh battery electronics and showed range wouldn't the car eventually learn that it has much more range than normal?
Click to expand...
From what I can tell the turtle and final cutoff is voltage dependent, as is charging cutoff. So theoretically it should give you the range of a 30/40kWh or other battery. Whether or not the car will understand what is going on and display the correct range on the dash is another story. There's also a chance that if watt-hours are way more than the original design that it might throw some sort of error code since the car won't understand why voltage is so high even after so much juice has been used. But if this is a problem we do know that there is an easy workaround. Just feed electricity in after the place where amperage is measured. Even if you use 40kWh cells or whatever you should be able to make a parallel circuit around that part. Just add whatever shunt resistors you need to get the right percent of amperage through that part.
 
This is a mod I want to do.
Until some one puts a 60kwh pack in a 24 or 30 kwh car.
But that's going to be a feat of engineering beyond just making it fit.
 
They just posted a third part- basically they just ended up transplanting most of the guts and wiring from 2018 into 2014. Took some work but it ended up being a fully functional 2018 in a 2014 body :)
 

Similar threads

T
LBC firmware upgrade of donor battery.
Replies
3
Views
344
Stanton
Stanton
D
Adjunct battery packs?
2
Replies
20
Views
3K
danielsantos
D
M
Replaced PDM but dealer still can't get the car to charge
2 3
Replies
53
Views
5K
nlspace
N
M
REPLACING the 12v OEM battery in a LEAF (any MY or trim level)
Replies
18
Views
1K
frontrangeleaf
F
M
Hello from Wales
Replies
1
Views
490
Jamesjeff
J

Latest posts

Back
Top