Speak EV - Electric Car Forums banner

16 blade actively cooled after market Leaf battery

14K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  DBMandrake 
#1 ·
An interesting development for the Leaf - our friends at EV's Enhanced in New Zealand have been developing a completely after market replacement battery for the Leaf which includes a fully active liquid cooling system - and not just using heat exchangers as is usually done, the cells are actually directly bathed in the (non conductive) cooling fluid....



Will there be enough of a market for it as Leaf's age ? Who knows, but depending on the cost it would beat replacing an old degraded or failed battery with another one of the same design with the same lack of cooling that will just suffer from the same fate and have the same rapid charging limitations...
 
#3 ·
Will there be enough of a market for it as Leaf's age ? Who knows
I think the market is time-sensitive. The jump from 20-25kwh vehicles up to 40kwh vehicles is £8-10k at the moment. They haven't fixed a price for their battery but if they can release it before the gap closes and for not much more than the gap they'll be on to a winner. Otherwise it'll be for collectors only I reckon.
 
#4 ·
I think it would have to be a lot less than the gap because if they are spending that much money a lot of people will prefer to get a newer car as well.

If I still had my Leaf I think I'd just want a newer, bigger capacity battery. The lack of cooling was never a problem for me. It's just never been worth getting a battery upgrade because they always cost pretty much what getting a newer car does.
 
#5 ·
Ok, elephant in the room time. Can a Mk1 LEAF justify not just the cost of replacement cells, but also of the replacement wiring and the installation of a complete temperature management system? :unsure:
It's impressive conceptual engineering but I fear it's flogging the proverbial dead horse. What it does highlight once again is Nissan's poor support in not selling replacement packs into the UK market. :mad:
 
#6 ·
There is no chance this will be economically viable for Leaf owners. Even swapping used batteries into a Leaf made no financial sense.

Even if it did make financial sense I still wouldn't do it on my Leaf as it would most likely mean the car wouldn't qualify for a third party warranty and even if it still did qualify, I can only get a warranty for another 2 years on my 2015 Leaf. I wouldn't be dumping thousands into a car that has no warranty and could break in several ways that could cost over £1000 each time to fix.

I'm not sure who this product is for?
 
#7 ·
I'm not sure who this product is for?
On a technical level, it's a great feat of engineering to put a very good (better than average, as it uses immersion cooling of the cells) liquid active cooling (and heating, btw) system into a car that was never designed for it, and without taking up any meaningful extra room in the car. (Just a few extra bits stuffed under the bonnet in what were previously large open spaces, and the battery enclosure itself is no bigger) And aside from the limitations of the battery, the Leaf is actually a solid, reliable car that is quite good to drive.

However on an economic level, I have to agree with you. Who is this for ?

Back when the Leaf first came out and there were concerns about battery longevity the party line from Nissan and EV fanboys was "by the time the Leaf gets old enough to need a new battery, replacement batteries will be cheap and plentiful!"

As we all know, that never happened. Nissan reneged on their promise to make new replacement batteries available at affordable prices, so when a Leaf reaches the age where the battery is seriously degraded (say 70% SoH) and out of warranty the value proposition of putting an expensive new battery into a car that is worth less by that time than the battery that is going into it just doesn't make sense.

It might make a little sense if an old Leaf with a new battery was equally as capable as a current new EV, but that's obviously not the case. The Leaf is old tech now, particularly in the area of the battery, and more modern competitors stomp all over it. We're still too far down the adoption S-curve for this to make sense, and the battery is still too big a chunk of the total price of an EV.

In another 10 years when battery tech has "plateaued" and a new EV has a similar range and usefulness to a 10 year old EV with a new battery things might be a little bit different. But until then EV's are going to be fairly disposable unfortunately.
 
#12 ·
Automatic Emergency Braking is the only thing in that list the older Leaf lacks that is safety related.

AEB is nice to have but we have to keep in mind what it's intended to do and what its limitations are.

It's not a system designed to avoid a crash/collision completely, it's only designed to brake at the very last moment when a collision which is unavoidable is anticipated to lessen the impact force. It won't stop you crashing into something or someone but hopefully there will be less injury. It's there to help out when the driver is not paying attention but it is not intelligent in any way like self driving, with a very short anticipation window to avoid false positives. (It only acts when a crash is inevitable)

So, nice to have but not a "I won't ever buy a car again without it" feature like airbags and ABS was. The crash worthiness of the Leaf is still extremely good (watch the NCAP video) and it has a full complement of front, side and rail airbags as good as any other modern car. So I doubt that it would rate 2 stars if retested today, and in real world terms its still a very safe car in a crash.
 
#17 ·
It's not a system designed to avoid a crash/collision completely, it's only designed to brake at the very last moment when a collision which is unavoidable is anticipated to lessen the impact force. It won't stop you crashing into something or someone but hopefully there will be less injury.
I agree that's the purpose and result at motorway speeds. NCAP tests of the feature at lower speeds with a pedestrian dummy or another car show it can completely eliminate a crash, in fact I think AEB failing to stop a collision from say 30mph is a fail. That's what I want it for, a safety net against bumper to bumper rush hour crashes and to protect pedestrians.
 
#13 ·
I agree with the posts above - the Gen 1 LEAF would be lucky to get two stars from Euro NCAP now. Apparently we now "need" (from a safety point of view) AEB, ACC, BSD, TCA, LKA etc. But personally I dislike a lot of the modern electronics, and my most recent experience of an MG4 left me much preferring the Gen 1 LEAF as it currently is - but that is just me and not what it appears consumers are being told that they need/want. More realistically I'd notice a lack of space compared to the MG4 and would worry about existing wear and tear and any corrosion. I'd also be concerned about the ongoing support for issues such as major control modules (TCU etc).
 
#14 ·
My experience of getting anything done on my Leaf is that generally speaking, most motor mechanics don't want anything to do with the car if they can avoid it. I even struggled to get a minor service done by an Independent garage and ended up having to use the dealership.

Now imagine you install a third party battery into the car and you have an expensive, complicated piece of equipment fail on the car. The Independent garages already aren't interested and who knows how the Nissan Dealerships would react to you turning up with a heavily modified car. I am willing to bet some, many or even all of them wouldn't want to touch it.

The money you spend buying this battery, which will likely be around £10,000 going by past battery replacement services, would be far better spent buying a newer Leaf with a warranty.

This battery replacement will probably never see the light of day outside of the unusual New Zealand market.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dk6780
#15 ·
Any idea when they are going to announce pricing?

I think there might be more of a market for it in New Zealand. Apparently cars are expensive there and a lot of people get imported ones from Japan (they both drive on the left), so there is a market for things like changing the head unit to English or maintaining fairly old cars. NZ might be the one place where this makes sense.
 
#16 ·
I would suggest that the price must be limited by the differential between the price of a LEAF with a poor battery and a new MG4 SE SR. In the UK those seem to be £7k upwards and £26k currently, and in the EU a Dacia Spring at £18k or less. Hard to see anything more than £10k which is about the current "value" associated with a used 62kWh battery when they are available.
 
#18 ·
The Leaf is not sold officially in New Zealand since the 24kWh model.

So all 30/40/62 kWh Leaf's in NZ are grey market imports mostly from Japan with zero support from the local Nissan stealers (sorry, dealers!) anyway....

Nissan won't even do safety recalls like the brake controller firmware update in New Zealand on the basis that they didn't sell those models (after 24kWh) there.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top