New Nissan Leaf.. 50kw more power and 62kwhr battery

neptronix

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https://insideevs.com/nissan-reveals-leaf-e-plus-ces/

Looks like the leafie is turning into a real electric car, finally.
What i find interesting is that they improved the battery density and the power at the same time.
The upgraded model must have some cutting edge cells inside.

No word on the price just yet.
 
Very exciting to have more options here. I fear that the 1st gen leaf actually left people with a unfavorable opinion on EV cars. 23kwh is way to small of a pack, plus no thermal management.

It also begs the question: Has the thermal management system been upgraded?
 
grindz145 said:
Very exciting to have more options here. I fear that the 1st gen leaf actually left people with a unfavorable opinion on EV cars. 23kwh is way to small of a pack, plus no thermal management.

The Leaf's drag coefficient times area was on par with an average full size sedan, so of course 23 kWh didn't work too well. It was an energy-guzzling brick to the wind.

Had it focused on better aerodynamics and cut its drag to about 50% of what it was, it would have had a 150+ mile highway range with the same pack, and had it done that, its practicality would have been greatly expanded for an additional cost of just a few hundred dollars per car.

It could have kept the same physical footprint in the road by adopting a shape such as that found in the Mercedes Bionic concept.
 
The 62kwh Leaf will have thermal management ONLY for fast charging. It uses the car's A/C system. There is still no TMS for any other situation. I would definitely NOT buy a 62kwh Leaf, any more than I plan to buy the 40kwh Leaf SL I'm leasing. Nissan prefers "cheap" over "good" when it comes to battery packs.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Nissan prefers "cheap" over "good" when it comes to battery packs.

There is such a thing as "cheap" AND "good" if one is willing to sacrifice specific capacity and energy density, but that will mean the car will have to be designed to be more efficient to compensate for the reduced pack capacity and still get decent range, which still seems anathema to an auto industry hell-bent on maintaining planned obsolescence in its design language and infinite growth in a world of finite resources.

They could have built a streamliner and used some CALBs. You don't even need a BMS for CALBs. They're a robust, dumb battery that are cheap in large volumes and can make more than enough power to run the drive system, while being able to last as long as the car. Everyone in the industry seems obsessed over delicate but massive packs that need complicated electronics and cooling systems to work right instead of building the car to be efficient enough that it can make use of more primitive but durable components.
 
Except those CalBs would need twice the space, weigh twice as much, (650kg). and kill the performance.
That is quite a sacrifice , and would it save much $$$s ?? (That is approx $25,000 + of cells !) :roll:
Good luck running a 400v pack of those with no BMS ! :shock:
And are they really any better for life expectancy than modern NCA cells ?
 
Hillhater said:
Except those CalBs would need twice the space, weigh twice as much, (650kg). and kill the performance.
That is quite a sacrifice , and would it save much $$$s ?? (That is approx $25,000 + of cells !) :roll:
Good luck running a 400v pack of those with no BMS ! :shock:

That's why the car needs to be efficient. If you cut the horsepower requirement for highway speeds in half, then you can use half as much mass in battery without killing the range. Designing the inverter to allow the motor to make its peak power at lower voltage and changing the gearing solves the performance issue. In terms of drag, less is more, and the benefits show themselves in all areas.

In one-off volume, CALBs are more expensive than the Leaf's batteries. The cost comes down dramatically in large group purchases, to where it becomes comparable on a per kWh basis. Except now you need less kWh of battery for the same range if the car is designed to go more miles per kWh of battery.

The 1st gen Leaf used the wrong design and the wrong battery.

And are they really any better for life expectancy than modern NCA cells ?

Depends on which cells.

The old Leaf packs from the 1st generation were crap. There's conversions running the 1st gen CALB SEs that are over a decade old while still getting 90%+ original capacity, no BMS or thermal management needed. 1st gen Leaf batteries started giving trouble at only 5 years old, down to 80% capacity. The CALB CA series cells are even more robust than the SEs and may end up being a lifetime battery, but they aren't old enough yet to really know.

Now, the NCA cells in the modern Teslas are a totally different animal. No one really knows their real lifespan yet, but their cost is low thanks to the production volume, even though they do need a BMS and thermal management. If they even match what the CALBs are capable of in terms of longevity, they'd be more than worth using.

Studies suggest the modern NCA cells are more than up to the task:

https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/tesla-battery-degradation/
 
The old Leaf packs from the 1st generation were crap. There's conversions running the 1st gen CALB SEs that are over a decade old while still getting 90%+ original capacity, no BMS or thermal management needed. 1st gen Leaf batteries started giving trouble at only 5 years old, down to 80% capacity.

There are several generations of Leaf battery pack, delineated by build year (and month, in some cases). The first pack, built from 2011 through March of 2013 (much to the eventual horror of many 2013 Leaf drivers who thought they were getting a newer design), degrades rapidly in all but cool climates. Most 'Canary packs,' as I have dubbed them, have by now lost 3-6 of the original 12 "capacity bars" displayed on the dash. The packs built from April of 2013 through 2014, dubbed by me the 'Wolf Packs,' are much better in normal climates, with much better longevity, but are still vulnerable to hotter temperatures. Typically, Wolf packs in normal climates are now at 11 bars, with quite a few still showing 12. Finally, in 2015, Nissan started using the "Lizard Pack" (named by Nissan), which has the best resistance to heat of all the Leaf packs, but still degrades too fast in really Hot climates like Arizona. There have been issues with the 30kwh pack produced in 2016 and 2017, but the jury is still out on the exact nature of the capacity loss problem with those packs - Nissan claims it is a BMS reporting error, and has issued a software patch for it.

So if you want to use Leaf cells or modules in your EV build, choose carefully!
 
The Toecutter said:
Hillhater said:
Except those CalBs would need twice the space, weigh twice as much, (650kg). and kill the performance.
That is quite a sacrifice , and would it save much $$$s ?? (That is approx $25,000 + of cells !) :roll:
Good luck running a 400v pack of those with no BMS ! :shock:

That's why the car needs to be efficient. If you cut the horsepower requirement for highway speeds in half, then you can use half as much mass in battery without killing the range. Designing the inverter to allow the motor to make its peak power at lower voltage and changing the gearing solves the performance issue. In terms of drag, less is more, and the benefits show themselves in all areas.

In one-off volume, CALBs are more expensive than the Leaf's batteries. The cost comes down dramatically in large group purchases, to where it becomes comparable on a per kWh basis. Except now you need less kWh of battery for the same range if the car is designed to go more miles per kWh of battery.

You are dreaming of a perfect EV ..light, aerodynamic, long range ( on flat freeways) , and cheap.......it doesnt and cannot exist !
Most leafs spend their life in cities..the ideal use for them.. Where aerodynamics offer little benefit.
Range is mainly dictated by weight, accelleration, battery capacity, and motor efficiency ...(that means high voltage )
There is no long range (250+mile) EV with a 30-40kWh battery.
Where have you ever heard of Calbs costing less than $300/kWh ?
 
Hillhater said:
Range is mainly dictated by weight, accelleration, battery capacity, and motor efficiency ...(that means high voltage )
There is no long range (250+mile) EV with a 30-40kWh battery.
The Zero SR/F has a range of 200 miles with an 18kwhr battery (standard battery plus range extender.) It's all in what size vehicle you want and how fast you want to go.
 
Just going up to a 62kWh pack should relieve the operating temp issues entirely. It will still age fast cooking in a hot parking lot, but it's unlikely to have thermal problems driving or fast charging merely from having the battery capacity double.

I'm stoked for Nissan getting serious!
 
The Hyundai IONIQ BEV has a range of 140 miles (208 km) on a 28 kWh battery. It will be getting an upgrade to 39 kWh late this year, and if it's efficiency is similar to the current IONIQ, it will definitely be in the 250 mile+ club. 120 Wh/km on the highway means it will easily hit 325 km to a charge.
 
billvon said:
The Zero SR/F has a range of 200 miles with an 18kwhr battery (standard battery plus range extender.) It's all in what size vehicle you want and how fast you want to go.
Certainly, the type of vehicle makes a big difference...
...but we were contemplating a popular mainstream daily driver that can be used for taking the kids to school, granny to hospital, shopping, teenagers making out in the back seat , etc etc
 
Hillhater said:
Certainly, the type of vehicle makes a big difference...
...but we were contemplating a popular mainstream daily driver that can be used for taking the kids to school, granny to hospital, shopping, teenagers making out in the back seat , etc etc
Ah! Well, if that's the mission, no need for a 250 mile range.
 
The Nissan Leaf was an early success at selling EVs. Partially (IMHO) because they were a large company that was willing to lose money on EVs in order to get their foot in the door an a future technology. Another major part of their success is that they made some performance concessions in order to have a lower price than some other competitors (like Tesla).

The Tesla Roadster and Model-S were not competing for the same customers as the Leaf. The Leaf is the true successor of the GM EV-1. It is expensive, but it was the most "affordable" economy car that was an EV.

That being said, This new development is the best change they could have chosen. Even if you don't need the extra range, the larger battery means that each cell is not as stressed in order to allow the pack to provide the demanded amps for the motor when accelerating.

As Luke mentioned, a car sitting in the sun in Phoenix at 110F is not "good" but if the battery does not get much hotter during acceleration, 110F (43C) is not horrible for an EV battery pack. I haven't been able to find a verification of the peak temps that were recorded by the Leaf BMS (pre-2015), but I suspect they reached 140F or more (60C).

Due to the physical form of the cells, the Leaf remains a VERY popular DIY pack for the home back-up power pack market. A pack that has reached down to only 80% of their new capacity (Tesla, Leaf, Zero, etc) are considered no longer usable. That being said, "for the right price", they will be snapped up to be placed in someones garage, to power the home during a power outage.

The average daily miles of the common Leaf customer will not change, but the new packs being doubled in size wll do a tremendous amount to help the pack last many times longer in the vehicle. Well done, Nissan.
 
I had a 2013 LEAF and loved it. It was really a fantastic car for everything but road trips.
 
spinningmagnets said:
..... but the new packs being doubled in size wll do a tremendous amount to help the pack last many times longer in the vehicle. Well done, Nissan.
Also, remember the new packs are a very different chemistry, 56 Ah cells, with a different pack configuration,
https://insideevs.com/nissan-leaf-e-plus-62-kwh-battery/
 
Re: Nissan Leaf

It is expensive, but it was the most "affordable" economy car that was an EV.

The Mitsubishi iMiev was actually cheaper, and it was a decent enough city car. The problem with it was that it was terrible on the highway.
 
Hillhater said:
spinningmagnets said:
..... but the new packs being doubled in size wll do a tremendous amount to help the pack last many times longer in the vehicle. Well done, Nissan.
Also, remember the new packs are a very different chemistry, 56 Ah cells, with a different pack configuration,
https://insideevs.com/nissan-leaf-e-plus-62-kwh-battery/

The 62kwh pack seems to have the same 40kwh pack chemistry, with more dense packaging. My 2018 40kwh Leaf SL has so far NOT impressed me with the pack's resistance to degradation. The car was built in February 2018, I got it at the very end of April, and between the end of April and the middle of November the pack lost about 5.5% capacity. This despite me keeping it in an A/C - cooled garage in really hot weather, and only doing about 3 fast charges, all at night. It remains to be seen if the lower stress on the 62kwh pack will actually increase its longevity, or not.
 
Hillhater said:
You are dreaming of a perfect EV ..light, aerodynamic, long range ( on flat freeways) , and cheap.......it doesnt and cannot exist !

I'm not dreaming of a "perfect EV", but mentioning it is possible to cut energy consumption by half or more without much compromise. There's no shortage of concept cars with the Leaf's road footprint and a similar shape and close to half the aero drag, and it is perfectly possible to build such cars without exotic materials. Gutting all the crap like power steering/power windows and going back to lighter/more durable/primitive components to replace them would go a long way towards reducing weight while further cutting cost.

This would mean the engineers would also have to design the cars instead of the stylists and accountants, which is anathema to the modern auto industry hell-bent on maintaining planned obsolescence and needless but profitable complexity for its own sake.

Tesla, overall, seems to be heading in the right direction at least(the Model 3 has the lowest Cd of any current production car). Can't say that about the rest of the industry...

Most leafs spend their life in cities..the ideal use for them.. Where aerodynamics offer little benefit.
Range is mainly dictated by weight, accelleration, battery capacity, and motor efficiency ...(that means high voltage )

Range is less important in cities than it is on the highway.

That being said, a drag reduction of 40% could still give a 10% boost to range in < 30 mph driving, and as speeds in the city increase, its importance grows.

Also, when it comes to the low power requirements during steady state highway cruising, voltage/current make very little difference in efficiency. You're looking at a difference of a mile or two of range out of a 30 kWh pack going from 400V to 200V... at best. Even in city driving with lots of light accelerations and stops, you're looking at a 1-3% change in the efficiency of the electric drive system during its typical use cases. When you're racing or driving like a jackass, that's a different story, but then range probably isn't the concern in that type of driving anyway...

There is no long range (250+mile) EV with a 30-40kWh battery.

False. The Solectria Sunrise in 1996 had a 200-250 mile highway range on a 27 kWh pack, as but one example. With hypermiling techniques, it set a world record of 373 miles on a charge in the 1998 Tour Del Sol. The designer claimed it would have been $20,000 in mass production, but the auto industry wouldn't touch it.

Where have you ever heard of Calbs costing less than $300/kWh ?

During organized group buys on the EVDL from 9-12 years ago. People have gotten them new for as low as $250/kWh for the CALB SE and Thundersky cells.

More recently, evtv.me had some SE cells on clearance sale for under $300/kWh about 2 years ago. They are still on a clearance sale but their price has gone back up to where they are more than the CA cells that replaced them in the market, probably because of the fact that they are difficult to find.

They're much more expensive buying cells for one vehicle. My CALB CA100FI cost around $430/kWh.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The old Leaf packs from the 1st generation were crap. There's conversions running the 1st gen CALB SEs that are over a decade old while still getting 90%+ original capacity, no BMS or thermal management needed. 1st gen Leaf batteries started giving trouble at only 5 years old, down to 80% capacity.

There are several generations of Leaf battery pack, delineated by build year (and month, in some cases). The first pack, built from 2011 through March of 2013 (much to the eventual horror of many 2013 Leaf drivers who thought they were getting a newer design), degrades rapidly in all but cool climates. Most 'Canary packs,' as I have dubbed them, have by now lost 3-6 of the original 12 "capacity bars" displayed on the dash.

I was referring to the "canary packs" in this case. I know someone with an early Leaf and have ridden in it. It now gets about 40 miles range on the original pack, which has about 50,000 miles on it. He bought it used.

It was a battery ill-suited to the task of an inexpensive and reliable daily driver.

It's a shame that Nissan won't allow it to be upgraded with the newer packs. His option is basically to spend $6,000 on another pack of the type that came in the car that will have similar longevity, because it seems that Nissan didn't design the car to be upgraded to the newer technology used in later models. There will probably come a time where Nissan will stop support for this model and replacement batteries will be totally unobtainable, and an otherwise perfectly good car with mechanically solid drive system(theoretically capable of lasting over a million miles), components, and chassis will end up in a junkyard somewhere or have a large percentage of it resting in a landfill.

Planned obsolescence is vile. There is absolutely no reason a car(and many other "consumer" products) can't be made to last a lifetime without great expense, especially an electric car, except then the industry wouldn't make as much profit. It seems destroying mother Earth is very profitable, for those that get to reap the profit. Everyone else not sharing in the profit taking will suffer the consequences.

Luigi Colani rightfully derides the actions of the industry execs and government bureaucrats with "the stupidity is overwhelming":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKmzbfd393I

While he is complaining about the trucking industry, the same comments apply to the auto industry. The 1st gen Nissan Leaf, along with the vast majority of modern cars, are basically boxes. This adversely impacts efficiency as well as to a lesser extent the longevity of the components due to increased power requirements causing increased wear and tear on the components, which is especially true for EVs because of the non-linear relationship between depth of discharge and battery cycle life.
 
His option is basically to spend $6,000 on another pack of the type that came in the car that will have similar longevity, because it seems that Nissan didn't design the car to be upgraded to the newer technology used in later models.

The good news: replacement packs, whether done under warranty, or purchased by the owner, are now all "Lizard packs." The later packs will fit the early cars with an adapter kit. So cars with packs replaced after 2014 degrade only as fast as the 2015s, which is the best Nissan ever managed.

The REALLY BAD news: The cost for a new pack, installed is now up to...sit down... $8500. And that's with the mandatory trade in of the old pack.
 
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