Idea: Leaf Battery for 400V Powerwall?

[lincomatic]

How much would it cost you to operate a gasoline vehicle for five or six years with a 100-mile daily travel distance? That number is likely to exceed by several $k what you'd pay to repair your Leaf and charge it over that same time period. A 3-year lease of a new Leaf is likely to cost in the range of $12-15k. Owning a car, any car, isn't cheap. There's no magical rule that says your car always costs less to fix than it's worth right now.

Where to actually find a cheap-ish Leaf battery that'll last 7-8 years? Here's a search that can be narrowed down to your state: https://erepairables.com/salvage-cars-a ... issan/leaf. Wrecks are the only place you'll find the packs 'cheaply,' as anywhere else is either Nissan (charging $6-13k for a 30-40kWh pack) or some eBayer looking to make a 25% profit extracting the pack from a wreck and parceling the rest of the car out. Right now, I can see a wrecked 2019 (at least 40 kWh) selling for $3k in Maine plus delivery.

If you want cheap and maintainable transport, an e-bike is the way to go. The only trouble is that it's not as safe if there are cars around.

I know about erepairables. It's an auction site. I'm sure you yourself are willling to buy a whole wrecked Leaf, and pay for it to be shipped to your house w/o knowing the condition of the battery that's inside. The shipping alone kills the cost. Go ahead, be my guest. You said the conversion to use any other battery pack is easy, but you can't provide any details, because you haven't done it yourself.

In case you didn't notice, I posted in the *Engineering* section. This thread was created for a technical discussion. You haven't provided any useful technical information, and I don't need you to judge my decisions on what I want to do with my Leaf. Your condescending tone and stupid e-bike comment prove that you're just here to troll, so I'd appreciate it if just ignore my thread and butt out.

[Oilpan4]

Forget that. Plus where you going to get a 400v DC to 120/240v AC power inverter?

I have sources for the inverter

I would break the pack down into 24 or 48v sections. You got chargers, inverters for those voltages. Sell everything else you don't need.

Yes, I know, this is how most people do it. It's easy to just bolt a bunch of them together and stack them on a shelf, and have a huge fire hazard. But then you have to homebrew the BMS, get an expensive fireproof cabinet, and spend hours designing it. Reusing the everything from the Leaf intact, if possible, simplifies things a lot, and you don't need giant wires, because the current is so much lower at 400V than 48V.

Battery upgrades are possible now. It only really gets difficult when you want the much bigger and heavier 62kwh batt.

That's what everyone says, but where do you get batteries cheap, and how do you do it? I don't think it's worth investing $4-5K into a car that still has shorter range than is really practical (mine doesn't even have a QC port), and how many years can I use it before the 100F+ summer temps destroy the replacement battery, just like it my original? It's only worth it to me if I can swap batteries for ~$2.5-3K. And it's not worth my time to go buy another pack and swap out the modules, unless it cant get me at least 100mi range.

If know where I can get a Leaf battery that's in good shape and affordable, please let me know.

Buy the whole car. A 40kwh pack should give 100 miles of range as long as you keep it under 90mph.

[coleafrado]

Since you so politely asked, lincomatic, here are some direct links.

https://evsenhanced.com/shop/?filters=product_cat[110]

youtube.com/watch?v=AlxzlQgovUA

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23647

viewtopic.php?t=21678.

[goldbrick]

Personally, the biggest drawback of using the Leaf pack in its original form for this is the weight and size of the thing.

If I ever go off-grid, I would put the batteries in my basement and I would rather build a safe container for some 48V modules that are bolted together than try to get the 600+ lb pack down the stairs into my basement.

[SwedishLeafguy]

Dont listen to the Naysayers. I think this is an awesome idea, and i would like to try it out myself as i have just swapped my old gen1 63% SOC pck forva fresh one.

This has been done on a large scale in a massive battery park in California, but to do it "Down and dirty" DIY i guess one would opt for the simplest solution and using it as a manual backup with an off grid inverter on it's own circuit.

I believe if the pack is unplugged it should still balance itself, so that part of the bms i already covered. Getting the pack and inverter to speak is probably a massive job and the reason no one has taken it on. But hotwiring the contactor and making a DIY or purchasing a connector for getting Leafspy readings is an option today, and with this display on a tablet you could monitor SOC and cell health and manually control charge/discharge with a safe voltage.

...Or if yoy own a 2013+ Leaf you could just buy the new V2H-inverter that i think is avaliable in the states today and just park the Leaf permanently.

[alozzy]

Ironic that you posted this, as Dala the Great has just posted a YouTube video on the same topic!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr7vzq8PW70