The Wonderful Leaf

Nissan have millions of miles of Leaf data showing use and battery condition, from that deduced that no battery conditioning is required for most of the car’s usage.

I will add I owned my Leaf 30 for 4 years and never had a problem with rapid charging or any other charging for that matter. The battery still had 12 bars and was on 92% state of health when I sold it, not bad for a 5-year-old Leaf with a “badly” designed battery

renagade said:

How come years ago Nissan produced the Leaf, and so sales have it as a wonderful motorcar. Many many miles at next to nothing, the quality is all you can read about so why. ho why the absolute neglect (for the want of a better word ) did they get away for so long with the design and manufacture of that battery.
I am on the edge of choosing one (30 kwh )type but there are so many you can't do this you can't do that ??
I am 72 now and really like the look of the 10 -17 leaf but I was a joiner not an electrician so don't understand.

There that is my rant for the day.

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The 30kwh car has a 100k mile/8 year warranty on the battery. They'll now go about 100 miles in summer and about 70 miles in winter. Plug in once charge is low and you need the car that day or the next day. that's about it!

There's always a balance of design choices. The Leaf battery is easily accessed and opened, and the modular design allows parts of it to be replaced easily if needed (or recycled/reused at end of life). And to Nissan's credit, they also put a clear indicator of battery health right on the dashboard in front of the driver.

Others with much better thermal performance are a much more involved if they ever do need attention. Larger buffers at the top and bottom (so less usable) also helps to prevent degradation and hide any that does happen.

I think the problem with Nissan is largely that they kept on that platform for Leaf and eNV200 for so long and we're now a decade later without something new and better.

I believe that I read that KIA were introducing a special battery coolant that is non conductive, therefore should it leak into the battery, then it wouldn't cause a massive short out. The coolant change cost £500 (every 5 years) - so be careful what you wish for.

Battery cooling and battery conditioning wastes a lot of precious range, however if you are doing over 300 miles in a day on a regular basis then battery cooling is a necessity to maintain a constant battery temperature for rapid charging and keep battery heat in check from high drain, that comes with motorway driving.

I've been driving Leafs since 2013, 24kwh, 30kwh and now 40kwh. In all these years I have ever had any issues with any of them. I sometimes think about changing but the reliability of the car and the chademo charge reliability mean I will stick with it.

simon-g said:

And to Nissan's credit, they also put a clear indicator of battery health right on the dashboard in front of the driver.

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The bars for battery SoH and Temperature both vary wildly. The capacity drop per bar is based or original Leaf 24 and isn’t truly indicative of anything.

On the contrary it shows how bad Nissan are at showing actual state of battery


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Hermit Dave said:

The bars for battery SoH and Temperature both vary wildly. The capacity drop per bar is based or original Leaf 24 and isn’t truly indicative of anything.

On the contrary it shows how bad Nissan are at showing actual state of battery


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My Leaf with 7 capacity bars is definitely telling me "I don't go very far"!

renagade said:

How come years ago Nissan produced the Leaf, and so sales have it as a wonderful motorcar. Many many miles at next to nothing, the quality is all you can read about so why. ho why the absolute neglect (for the want of a better word ) did they get away for so long with the design and manufacture of that battery.
I am on the edge of choosing one (30 kwh )type but there are so many you can't do this you can't do that ??
I am 72 now and really like the look of the 10 -17 leaf but I was a joiner not an electrician so don't understand.

There that is my rant for the day.

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You'll find much more positive feedback than negative on here.
You can check the state of health (SOH) of the battery with the free leafspy app, a £13 dongle and smartphone, if the seller can't tell you what it is.

It was the lack of problems and complaints that helped me decide on a Leaf over anything else.

Edd Beesley said:

My Leaf with 7 capacity bars is definitely telling me "I don't go very far"!

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Loss of bars is definitely telling but having them doesn’t prove a thing


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Hermit Dave said:

Loss of bars is definitely telling but having them doesn’t prove a thing


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It's the actual range that matters, or how fast it drops when you are driving.

farmergiles said:

It's the actual range that matters, or how fast it drops when you are driving.

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SoH reflects loss of capacity. If available capacity drops from 28kWh to 25kWh you have effectively lost 12 miles range.


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Leafocaster said:

Nissan have millions of miles of Leaf data showing use and battery condition, from that deduced that no battery conditioning is required for most of the car’s usage.

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Have owned a 24kWh LEAF for 7 years. Also had a 40kWh and now also have a 62kWh.

Thermal issues don't exist (since firmware update) unless you a thrash the thing up and down the motorway and rapid charge multiple times.

For my usage this is much better than the Model X I had for 6 months or so which lost about 10 miles range a day keeping itself warm...

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Mike Schooling said:

Have owned a 24kWh LEAF for 7 years. Also had a 40kWh and now also have a 62kWh.

Thermal issues don't exist (since firmware update) unless you a thrash the thing up and down the motorway and rapid charge multiple times.

For my usage this is much better than the Model X I had for 6 months or so which lost about 10 miles range a day keeping itself warm...

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I'm sure that Nissan would have installed cooling had there been a need, something which the Leaf's critics fail to consider when making snide remarks.

Mike Schooling said:

Have owned a 24kWh LEAF for 7 years. Also had a 40kWh and now also have a 62kWh.

Thermal issues don't exist (since firmware update) unless you a thrash the thing up and down the motorway and rapid charge multiple times.

For my usage this is much better than the Model X I had for 6 months or so which lost about 10 miles range a day keeping itself warm...

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I only trashed it once- driving from London to Sheffield when it was 33C here. Stopped twice to charge and temperature bar was in red for most of the journey.
Charging when I reached Sheffield was going at sub 20kWh when I tried to charge a bit.

Sheffield being cold eternally managed to get battery temperature down and all was well driving back the next day


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Hermit Dave said:

I wonder why Nissan added battery cooling to Ariya

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Larger heavier vehicle, larger battery and more motor power?
Different battery make, more space for the cooling hardware, to enable realistic 100kw charging?
Lots of reasons but probably more than one informed their decision.

farmergiles said:

Larger heavier vehicle, larger battery and more motor power?
Different battery make, more space for the cooling hardware, to enable realistic 100kw charging?
Lots of reasons but probably more than one informed their decision.

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No one stopped them from making all those changes to Leaf.


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Hermit Dave said:

No one stopped them from making all those changes to Leaf.


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Why would they?
You can't say that because they are installing battery cooling on the Ariya, then they should have been installng it in the Leaf. It's a non sequitur.

Having done 300 miles in a day a couple of times in my Leaf 40, battery temp has never been an issue. If you regularly do more than this sort of mileage a leaf is probably not the best car for you.

If the likes of the Leaf and Tesla hadn't been developed and manufacturers taking the risks in late 2000's early 2010's I doubt we will be where we are today with the variety of EV's available. Is the Leaf aging tech? Yes, does this diminish the positive effect it has had on the moving forward of the EV movement, no I dont think so.

But it is still a very good and usable EV, with or without battery cooling in my opinion.