I'm sorry for the hassle Nissan is giving you.

As there is no way for a layman to know when a cell fails apart from anunexpected range loss, I would ask what steps anyone can do to reverse or stop a cell failing. Once it's happened it's not reversible.

To me it is immaterial that you missed a service when the faulty cell might have been spotted beause Nissan would still have had to replace it. (this point might be made to the ombudsman?)

 

Thanks for that - it's a good point. I think they are just attempting to throw small print at me in the hope I will just give in.

The New Car Code implies as much - basically, if it's a manufacturing fault, unless servicing directly impacts the fault, it shouldn't make a difference.

Especially as a service consists of printing off the battery health status, telling you that the brakes want looking at soon (as you were told on your MOT) and changing the washer fluid for £159. I don't think this really impacts on the battery!

 

Yes, since there is no servicing of the battery possible, there is nothing that could have been done to prevent the failure.

 

If you car has telemetry, Nissan may well have known the cell has been failing for some time, possibly even before you did.
Of course, whether the Nissan mothership will have made that information available to your dealer is another matter altogether.
Might be worth a data protection act / GDPR request to Nissan Motor Company Ltd to ask them when the faulty cell on your vehicle was first known to the telemetry.
Personal Data Request - Customer Service | Nissan UK might be a good staring point. Request ALL your data.
Then from that data, you may be able to see when the battery health started going wrong, and if it was before any missed service, then you could prove beyond doubt that it wasn't the lack of dealer servicing that caused it.

 

If you car has telemetry, Nissan may well have known the cell has been failing for some time, possibly even before you did.
Of course, whether the Nissan mothership will have made that information available to your dealer is another matter altogether.
Might be worth a data protection act / GDPR request to Nissan Motor Company Ltd to ask them when the faulty cell on your vehicle was first known to the telemetry.
Personal Data Request - Customer Service | Nissan UK might be a good staring point. Request ALL your data.
Then from that data, you may be able to see when the battery health started going wrong, and if it was before any missed service, then you could prove beyond doubt that it wasn't the lack of dealer servicing that caused it.

GDPR doesn’t work like that, you would be able to request all customer records - but it’s unlikely that the car ones would be linked to the customer record, it would only be linked to the car one.

 

Thanks Simon - that's an interesting idea... I'll definitely do that & report back, Cheers..

 

Can you post up the Leaf Spy page showing the status of the bad cell(s)? What mileage are you at?

The Nissan warranty is more about overall pack degradation as I read it: "30 KWH LEAF : If the battery capacity level gauge of your 30 kWh Nissan Electric Vehicle falls below 9 bars (out of 12 bars) within 100,000 miles or the first 8 years of the vehicle’s life (whichever comes first), Nissan will repair or replace the damaged battery components free of charge to bring the capacity up to 9 bars."

It does seem rather poor form if Nissan would not at least contribute to the repair, even if it does fall outside the warranty.

Cleevely Motors charged about £900 to replace the knackered cells in this 120k mile Leaf 40 taxi, so maybe worth enquiring around a 3rd party rather than Nissan...

 

I was going to post my Leafspy data with the post but can't seem to track it down - will take some new data tomorrow & post if I can't find it.

I don't intend to hand £2400 to Nissan with no guarantee I won't have the same issue happen the next week.

I'll try Clevely Motors - any other potential independent installers anyone can recommend much apreciated.

Thanks, Dave..

 

I had the impression that the guarantee related in some way to degradation of the battery capacity to 70% or a similar figure. Something that doesn't involve investigation into why that has happened. No debate over whether it was a fault at the outset, or one that developed later. If the capacity is down to 70% then that is a demonstrable fact and triggers warranty action to replace that missing capacity. Am I wrong in that impression?

 

This was how I had taken it when I was sold the vehicle - the salesman certainly didn't draw my attention to the fact that "battery degradation" apparently isn't the same as "cell degradation" which is interesting as the battery is made up of cells!

In the small print if you search for it you will see that Nissan tries to cover themselves by measuring battery degradation with the "health bars" on the dash. There are 12 of these, which one would assume each represent 1/12th off battery health - wrong! These bars individually represent varying amounts of "battery health". Battery health is roughly the average health of all the battery cells. The real value of these bars is known only to Nissan - I'm not saying they have but they could for example change the formula with a firmware update - there is no way to know.

Nissan will only instigate the 8 year "warranty" if the bars drop to "below 9 bars".

My vehicle has dropped only recently to 11 bars - this seems to represent overall battery health of about 83% as shown in Leafspy although the capacity of the battery actually available to me is about 62.5%.

The problem with a failed cell is that it hobbles the whole battery - the battery can only deliver charge until that weak cell reaches a certain level beyond which it can no longer use the energy in the remaining cells. This is far more catastrophic than the battery degrading slowly and naturally.

I don't know if anyone's ever had their battery degrade to the fabled "under 9 bars" in the 8 year period as 70% is well within the expected operating degradation for traction batteries This makes the 8 year "warranty" essentially worthless as the only thing likely to cause a battery to seriously underperform is a failed cell which they will not repair under warranty.

Dave..

 

I would suggest generally you have a good case and it's more than likely just Nissan trying it on and hoping you'll give up.

There are, to my knowledge, no user serviceable parts in batteries as such. Assuming the coolant system was found to be in good condition then the failure is either a manufacturing defect, or simply one of those things.

Regardless, they should be honouring the warranty and replacing the cell.

 

No coolant system in the Leaf

 

I f Nissan won't give up the data, ask the ombudsman to ask for it.

 

The "bar" system keeps it simple - the first bar is 15%, the remaining are 7% each. So typically the first bar goes at about 85%. This is fairly well known and documented.

The warranty is about battery pack degradation as measured by these bars. Given how comparatively primitive the Leaf battery system is with having only passive cooling and with heat being the big killer of batteries, the number of warranty claims is generally pretty low. The batteries have proven themselves to be surprisingly robust in general.

The Leaf Spy data should tell you which cell(s) is/are failing and it's usually pretty damn obvious. Massive difference in voltage compared to all other cells when fully charged is the giveaway.

This thread Advice….to repair a cell or to change the car has an example of such data, and covers a cell failure similar to what you're having. It also has a "happy ending" as the dealer paid for the repair, although this was a resold vehicle so the situation is slightly different. However, if you're the original owner I would really be talking to Nissan GB or the dealer about a goodwill repair or hefty contribution.

 

The "bar" system keeps it simple - the first bar is 15%, the remaining are 7% each. So typically the first bar goes at about 85%. This is fairly well known and documented.

The warranty is about battery pack degradation as measured by these bars. Given how comparatively primitive the Leaf battery system is with having only passive cooling and with heat being the big killer of batteries, the number of warranty claims is generally pretty low. The batteries have proven themselves to be surprisingly robust in general.

The Leaf Spy data should tell you which cell(s) is/are failing and it's usually pretty damn obvious. Massive difference in voltage compared to all other cells when fully charged is the giveaway.

This thread Advice….to repair a cell or to change the car has an example of such data, and covers a cell failure similar to what you're having. It also has a "happy ending" as the dealer paid for the repair, although this was a resold vehicle so the situation is slightly different. However, if you're the original owner I would really be talking to Nissan GB or the dealer about a goodwill repair or hefty contribution.

Surely you are conflating degradation with a cell failure.

They are not the same and the repair is for a manufacturing defect rather than a claim under the degradation rule.

 

1 - The car was bought with 8 year battery warranty - a warranty normally covers manufacturing faults but not normal wear and tear. Nissan's so called warranty appears to ONLY cover normal wear and tear - this was not made clear to me upon purchasing the vehicle.

Sorry but this makes no logical sense to me.

How can a warranty cover wear and tear of a component but not an actual failure of the component ? That's backwards if anything. Sounds like a fob off to me.

2 - Cell failure can only be due to poor manufacture as it is part of the battery which is now operating outside of normal parameters.

I'd like to agree with you but I have to point out it's not necessarily the case that an individual cell must have an obvious manufacturing defect to fail. One thing that can lead to cell failures is excessive operating temperature. Every cell will have some manufacturing tolerance making some cells more sensitive to failure by overheating than others, but any cell can fail if run sufficiently hot sufficiently often.

Furthermore in a Leaf where there is no battery cooling system to equalise temperature of the cells (let alone cool them) there can be deltas of as much as 10-12 degrees or more between the hottest and coldest cells, and this can be the difference between a cell suffering a failure or not. In a Leaf the hottest cells are usually in the middle of the rear bank.

It's well established that these rear cells fail a lot more often than any others, and the reason is they get the hottest. At some point the cell with the worst tolerances (but not actually defective) which is running the hottest will fail before any other cells. This failure may occur in response to one specific incident where the car was driven hard and/or rapid charged to a very high temperature until the hottest and/or weakest cell failed. From that point on you have a bad cell that may not have gone bad had it not been subject to that particular circumstance.

If you let us know what cell number is the weak cell someone can probably look it up to see if it's in the rear bank.

I'm acutely aware of the risk of high temperatures as I've just done a 160 mile trip yesterday with two rapid charging stops and despite trying to drive slowly for economy the hottest cells in the pack were up to 52 degrees after the second rapid charging stop, and that is not good for them.

However I would argue that Nissan bears some responsibility for the risk of inducing a cell failure due to high temperatures by (a) not providing any kind of cooling system, allowing heat to build up in the rear bank of cells in particular and (b) not adequately throttling the charge rate when the cells are too hot - the 30kWh model will still cheerfully charge at the full 46kW when the cells are at 52 degrees. This is NOT ok for the cells, and any Leaf that is put through this situation on a regular basis is going to see cell failures sooner rather than later IMO.

I agree with most of your other points and wish you well with your proceedings. Someone needs to take Nissan to task on this issue of battery warranties and call their bluff, as an 8 year warranty which they will try to wiggle out of despite a clear failure of an individual cell is no warranty worth having.

Wording the warranty based on the number of bars shown on the dashboard is a very sneaky ploy IMO especially when a firmware update was released for the 30kWh model to increase the reported SoH and restore prematurely missing bars. The cynic in me can't help but wonder if the firmware update is specifically to skirt responsibility of warranty battery replacements, as they can just update the firmware to unlock more of the bottom end buffer to inflate the range and SoH figure to see it out just past the 8 year warranty. (Moving the goal posts, basically)

There really needs to be more government oversight on this stuff if the public are to have any faith in EV batteries and their battery warranties.

The battery is still the most important and most expensive part of an EV, and also the thing that is going to wear out or fail first, in most cases, as things like motors etc will outlast the useful life of the car in the vast majority of cases. Checking the battery health (with Leafspy) is the number one important thing to check on the car before buying.

The good news is that a an out of warranty cell swap of an individual cell on a Leaf is a relatively easy job for an Indy EV specialist like Cleevely. Although I haven't done a Leaf I have done a cell swap myself on my previous Peugeot Ion, on my driveway no less... The Leaf is a bit bigger and heavier so would require a bit more in the way of mechanical support but is fundamentally the same process as it does not have any complex liquid cooling system for the battery, making dropping the traction battery relatively straightforward, and the cell modules come apart easily.

So if at the end of all this you can't get any joy from Nissan you can still expect to get your car repaired at a reasonable cost by a competent Indy.

 

So if at the end of all this you can't get any joy from Nissan you can still expect to get your car repaired at a reasonable cost by a competent Indy.

I think that is the key point. The Nissan price is excessive, but make it £500 - £900 and it's an unwelcome but not unreasonable cost for on a 6-7 year old car. But I'd be kicking up a stink with Nissan to cover it!

 

Im so sorry but I'm quite drunk!

I may have missed it but have you posted Leafspy read of your cells at low SOC, we can then tell if you have a weak cell.

I myself had this and had it replaced - 2 in fact by Nissan with no questions asked and a really good service.

This differs from general pack degradation.

Can you post a Leafspy of the pack so we can have a look?

 

Definition of an alcoholic... someone who drinks more than their Dr.

 

Really sad to hear of this woeful tale.

I have always known that the battery warranties with electric cars are not fit for purpose. I only know of one person successfully getting a battery fixed/replaced under warranty and that was me! My Leaf 30 had low range from day 1 and I push my dealer to fix it. In the end Nissan technical helped diagnose a battery fault and they agreed to swap out the battery entirely. This happened in the first month from new. Attempts by others to claim under the battery warranty that I have been aware of have failed.

I believe that this is an endemic issue with EVs. The wording of any warranty I have seen has always been pretty vague and imprecise leaving a lot of wriggle room for the manufacturer to reject claims. It is often only when capacity drops to below an overall percentage, typically 70%, that the battery warranty kicks in and that means that it is possible to have a faulty battery delivering 71% of what it should be delivering, from day 1, and it is not covered under the terms of the warranty. This is certainly the case with the Kia EV battery warranty and IIRC it was the same for the Nissan warranty with the Leaf. IMO this is totally unacceptable. If you take delivery of a new car you would expect that the full capacity should be warrantied with a sliding scale to allow for normal/expected degradation based on time/miles/charge cycles. This is not the case.

I wish the OP the very best and hope that it gets sorted for you. On a more general note, I would like to see battery warranties reviewed by the ombudsman (or other official body) with the objective of ensuring they are revised to be fair. Right now IMO they are grossly unfair and I suspect that there are many others that know they have a faulty battery but as the overall degradation is still above the threshold they cannot claim.

 

Thanks for the words of support.

I tend to agree about battery warranties in general & have mentioned to the ombudsman that I consider this case wider than my individual situation.

I don't really see the logic from Nissan's point of view either - they're a leader in EVs, it won't cost them much to sort it out & I would now be saying "what a good company" to you all.

I really find the warranty wording quite cynical.

Dave..

 

I fail to see how Nissan can argue that you don't have battery degradation.

What is a battery? It is formed by a group (battery) of cells.

If a cell degrades then by definition the battery has degraded, because a battery is the sum of its cells. I would have no issues arguing that in the County Court! Do you have legal insurance with you household policy?

 

I fail to see how Nissan can argue that you don't have battery degradation.

Totally agree but that is the issue I have with EV battery warranties. It doesn't warranty against premature failure - It warrants against degradation of capacity of the whole battery of more than 30% (capacity down to 70%) overall. There is no mention of individual cell degradation or failure. It is really a warranty of minimum capacity towards the end of the warranty period... not a warranty for premature cell failure. That just isn't covered AFAICS.

 

4 - Using an EV with a failed cell is bad for the remaining cells as they are put under a lot of stress having to compensate for the failed cell - this will lead to premature battery failure so should be repaired as a matter of urgency.

I'm not sure that sentence is true. The failed cell does indeed limit the charge which can be stored in the whole battery, but except that it may run hotter than the others and affect the cells right next to it, the others are given an easier time, not a tougher one.

As far as I know, the LEAF and e-NV200 batteries use 96 192 cells, as 48 "modules" in series, each module of 2 cells 4 cells, two pairs in series, each pair being two cells in parallel. If one cell fails completely so that it neither charges nor discharges, the capacity of the battery is halved, because all 48 modules 96 cell pairs carry the same current. The other 47 modules are only being run at half current, so less stressed. [edited to correct my initial mis-reading of the diagrams]

(The cell packs which use many small cells in parallel for each module, rather than two large ones, are less disastrously affected by any single cell failure. But that's not a LEAF.)

Your thoughts / support / kind words are welcome

I hope you get Nissan to repair your battery either under warranty or under instruction from the Ombudsman. Firstly, it's only fair to you; and secondly, it will set a valuable precedent. Good luck!

 

I'm not sure that sentence is true. The failed cell does indeed limit the charge which can be stored in the whole battery, but except that it may run hotter than the others and affect the cells right next to it, the others are given an easier time, not a tougher one.

As far as I know, the LEAF and e-NV200 batteries use 96 192 cells, as 48 "modules" in series, each module of 2 cells 4 cells, two pairs in series, each pair being two cells in parallel. If one cell fails completely so that it neither charges nor discharges, the capacity of the battery is halved, because all 48 modules 96 cell pairs carry the same current. The other 47 modules are only being run at half current, so less stressed. [edited to correct my initial mis-reading of the diagrams]

(The cell packs which use many small cells in parallel for each module, rather than two large ones, are less disastrously affected by any single cell failure. But that's not a LEAF.)

I hope you get Nissan to repair your battery either under warranty or under instruction from the Ombudsman. Firstly, it's only fair to you; and secondly, it will set a valuable precedent. Good luck!

This is interesting - it is not what I have generally been led to believe. I understood that the remaining cells would constantly be trying to balance the weak cell and would therefore be under constant stress. They still attempt to charge fully but as the battery uses charge and approaches 0% shown, charge remains in the good cells but the weak cell is dominating the available charge.

The trouble is we shouldn't even be guessing at this.

I'm a consumer who was sold a shiny new car with an 8 year battery warranty - now my battery doesn't work properly due to a fault and the warranty doesn't warrant it!

Dave..

 

First thing you can realise, if you want, is that Nissan makes it possible to see individual module failures, something you can't notice with other car makers without proprietary software that only they have access. I don't think it's good idea to use this tool to get back at the manufacturer, you are punishing Nissan for transparency and Nissan can easily take it away on next models.
How can you know if Tesla has a bad cell? Take out battery pack and measure modules one by one.... not joking.

Tesla Shopper Gets $15,000 Model S Due To One Faulty Battery Cell

Tesla Roadster repair center Gruber Motors has a new Tesla repair to isolate and replace bad cells. This can save people a ton of money.

insideevs.com

I think that you can try to force Nissan to repair one module but we need more info to understand the extent of degradation, car mileage, number of quick charges.
Nissan can reject based on terms and conditions of the warranty.

Battery cells just fail, statistical reality.
Manufacturing defects? Depends, if the car did 60.000 miles and that one cell was fine for 60.000 miles, can you still call it manufacturing defect? To prove it, you would need to analyse cause of failure and it could be as simple as impurity in raw materials. Making perfect cells each time is possible but too expensive, so need to work with tolerance. Most battery warranties covers battery pack, not each cells and this calculation includes statistical bad cells.

I think that the true scam here is they're trying to charge you 2.4K for a repair that is worth 0.5K. I think you would be less angry if the repair cost was reasonable, 2.4k isn't reasonable and for that I'm with you.

If I were you I would replace module myself or discuss your issue with Cleevely, they have experience doing such repairs, will certainly charge you much less than 2.4K.

 

Thanks for your reply

I haven't used leafspy in my arguments here. I have approached this as a layperson - a consumer, which I am.

For me it's simple - I was sold the car with the reassure that it had an 8 year battery warranty - Drastic loss of range - Nissan have diagnosed and accepted the fault - also accepted the battery has been well cared for (low QCs, average mileage, no abuse) - Nissan have refused to even contribute to the repair.

I will call Clevely today, or perhaps I'll get my spanners & rubber gloves out! But I really shouldn't be having to resort to this as my car is still within warranty!

Dave..

 

The replacement of a cell is a repair of the whole battery. I once had that explained by a Judge when arguing that a benefit claimant wasn't entitled to a new central heating boiler. The retort was that he was entitled to have the cost of repairs to his heating system. The replacement of a part is the repair to the whole.

So the whole is faulty.. the battery is not doing what it should do? Hence it should be repaired under warranty.

 

If the car still shows SOC 70% + (or whatever the warranty fig) how can anyone have a warranty claim. If i was judge i would ask does it or does it not have 70% SOC as worded by the warranty, everything else is irrelevant.

On a ICE engine one cannot claim a defect if one of the compressions is down a bit only when something goes bang.

Sorry i think you are just going to have to pay for it or live with out. You could P/E. A garage would just send it to auction. How about car wow etc.

 

On a ICE engine one cannot claim a defect if one of the compressions is down a bit only when something goes bang.

It has gone bang though, a part of your drive train has failed and is taking the car's range with it. How would an ICE manufacturer handle a piston not firing due to a defect? Not a perfect comparison since that'll affect power and fuel economy but it's a non-fatal degradation.

 

@graaaaaaavy

I'd raise a formal complaint with Nissan. Then if they refuse to fix it I'd take it to the ombudsman and see what happens. If the ombudsman rules in Nissan's favour then you've lost nothing. If they tell Nissan to fix it then you've saved yourself the cost of getting it fixed.

 

This is about where I'm up to - the ombudsman has deemed it worthy of investigation so fingers crossed!

 

I don't disagree with @NGee but I feel that the real issue here is that the warranty doesn't seem to cover premature failure that doesn't drop the SoH below 9 bars. That is nothing short of outrageous IMO. According to the Nissan battery warranty, in keeping with other battery warranties I have seen, only warranty against a loss of overall capacity or SoH with there being a threshold below which they will repair or replace... in the case of Nissan that appears to be 9 bars SoH, with Kia it is 70% of quoted new capacity. This means that if a battery fails significantly due to workmanship issues or for any other reason but it doesn't reduce the overall battery SoH or capacity below the warranty threshold it really doesn't matter how old that battery is... it is not going to be eligible for a warranty repair. It might be a month old, it might be a year old. That means that effectively they only warranty against higher than expected degradation at the end of the warranty period. No allowance is being taken for the fact that the battery might be a lot newer but still has significant premature degradation.

I don't think this argument will help the OP. His warranty is what it is. But I do feel that EV battery warranties are not fit for purpose as they stand. I am not sure that anyone can do anything to force manufacturers to change the method by which they determine if a battery issue is to be covered by their warranty. The manufacturer determines the warranty conditions... we as customers either agree or we choose to buy from someone else.

 

There is a lot of debate about what is meant by a warranty offer of action if performance drops below 70%. I am sure that most buyers took it to mean that if the battery was only capable of physically moving the car to 70% of the original 100% range then it would have modules replaced if not totally replaced.

The ombudsman, who hopefully is not an EV driver, would resonate with that simple layman's opinion and conclude that Nissan was being disingenuous if they now seek to hide behind semantics to avoid responsibility.

I would reinforce that aspect when submitting your claim to the ombudsman and hope that common sense would prevail with an important precedent being set for future similar cases.

 

There is a lot of debate about what is meant by a warranty offer of action if performance drops below 70%. I am sure that most buyers took it to mean that if the battery was only capable of physically moving the car to 70% of the original 100% range then it would have modules replaced if not totally replaced.

Range is not a definitive measure for anything. I could drive the car on a trip and you could do the same with the same car and one of us would likely get better range than the other (I'll let you work out who would be better

It really needs some metric that is not subjective... such as max / min cell voltage etc. That is not open to any kind of variance depending on the driver.

 

UPDATE...

I have contacted Cleevely EV about replacing the faulty cell. The work would cost about £500+VAT but there are no modules available at present due to the high degradation seen on 30 kWh modules.

I have scoured the internet and can't find a single one for sale. - Interestingly when I enquired at Fish Bros Swindon (Nissan's battery center) and was quoted £2400 for the cell swap I also asked for a price to supply the parts and did actually get one.

A (presumably new) 30kWh battery cell module including consumables for replacement is £1590 (inc VAT) - add Cleevely's time & we're still at £2190 inc. VAT - slightly better than Nissan but still unaffordable.

If a battery contains 24 modules that's £38,160 for a pack's worth - bargain!

 

You can just be patient and wait until 30kWh modules become available from used market.

Cleevely quote sounds reasonable.

Before repairing with Cleevely I would wait to see if bars or SOH start decreasing, I don't know if Cleevely repair voids warranty.

Please get back about SOH discrepancy.
82.5% is normal degradation for 6 years old car and car still very useable.

My 79% SOH shows 125 miles on GOM with foot light like helium.

 

As the voltage spread is staying almost the same (164mV @ 97.5% SOC, and 172mV @ 36.4% SOC), is this a case that Cell 46 still has its proper capacity, but has over the years lost a bit of charge compared to the other cells (? through leakage across the terminals?) which is not being replaced through the normal cell balancing when charged to 100%,

I wonder what would happen if Cleevely EV were able to put some extra charge into Cell 46 so that its voltage matched that of the other cells. Would this restore the working capacity of the battery pack?

 

It's an interesting idea & from comments I have seen from others, this may work temporarily but is unlikely to be a long term solution. As far as I'm aware, this procedure requires removing the cell from the vehicle which is not going to be a cheap option. I will enquire though, thanks!

 

According to Leafspy your SOH is 82.65%, should be about 23kWh and range accordingly.
This is too high for warranty claim, is better than my Leaf 30, although mine a bit older and a bit more mileage.

Where did you see 17.5kWh residual capacity?

 

I give up... good luck with your claim