Nissan Leaf vs Prius

The shelve life of Li batteries has nothing to do with the anode and cathode material, it is in the electrolyte. The electrolyte is mostly organic material which will deteriorate over time. It is a close guarded trade secret of the composition of the electrolyte. Different manufacturers have their own formula and the life expectancy may vary. Every time the battery is put into a charging or discharging cycle, the electrolyte also "wears" out.

Typically the manufacturer will specify cycle time from 500 to 1000 for 100% capacity discharge and charge cycles.

If only 50% capacity cycle are used, the number of life cycles is doubled.

For EV is battery capacity usage is much higher than that of a hybrid or PHEV, so the number of cycles available is much less.

GM elected to use only 50% of the Volts battery capacity is to prolong the battery life.
I am not sure about Leaf's capacity useage allowed.

 

another tidbit: there are many Toyota RAV4 EV's that are still working just fine on their original battery packs, 10 years later.

Edit: this is with NiMH batteries, which where stolen from the public by BO (Big Oil) as they got control of the patent and decided to kill them (anyone wonder why)

 

I think this says a lot about where bigdog1234 works, and his job here. They just make sure HE believes his 'facts'. And he knows this, and works there anyways.

 

The RAV4 EV uses NiMH battery, not LI.
NiMH battery has a shelve life of 10 years, it is not unexpected it is still working in the RAV4 EV or Prius.

 

Yes, you are right NiMH, of course we all know what happened there, BO (Big Oil) got control of the patent, which doesn't run out to 2014, hence newer chemistrys had to be developed.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV"]Toyota RAV4 EV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


"Once the last of the 328 EVs was sold in November 2002, the website disappeared and the EV program was unceremoniously scrapped. No additional cars could be bought because Toyota didn’t have anything to sell. The RAV4-EV was based on the 1996-2000 gasoline powered RAV4, which had become obsolete. Production of additional vehicles would only be possible under one of two different scenarios. The first would be if the RAV4-EV was redesigned to fit the 2003 RAV4, and the second would be if production of the 1996 version was resumed. Toyota claimed that tens of thousands of orders would have been necessary for them to resume or continue production, and development time would have been a major obstacle.
Whether or not Toyota wanted to continue production, it was unlikely to be able to do so because the EV-95 battery was no longer available. Chevron had inherited control of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco, which had purchased them from General Motors. Chevron's unit won a USD 30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic, and the production line for the large NiMH batteries was closed down and dismantled. This case was settled in the ICC International Court of Arbitration, and not publicised due to a gag order placed on all parties involved.[2][3] Only smaller NiMH batteries, incapable of powering an electric vehicle or plugging in, are currently allowed by Chevron-Texaco.[4]
Main article: Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries
So for those seven months in 2002 a full-sized production electric car was available for sale to the general public for the first time in decades. Buying one wasn't easy, however; just one special sales person at only a dozen dealers - and only in California - was authorized to sell the Toyota RAV4-EV. If an individual wasn't already aware of the car, they were generally unable to buy (or even see) one. Many would-be purchasers were steered instead to Toyota's Prius gasoline electric hybrid vehicle, despite having asked about the plug-in car."

and

"Due to the NiMH battery patent restrictions, development in replacement batteries for the RAV4 EV (and other electric vehicles) continues with small firms building NiMH packs, and larger firms working on efficient manufacturing of Lithium Ion or other battery types."

 

Sure

http://www.compactpower.com/faq.shtml

"A reasonable conversion factor for lithium-ion batteries is 0.14 kg of Lithium per 1 kWh of electrical energy."
​

Batteries are made from Lithium Carbonate. This weight can be calculated from the chemical composition Li2CO3.

Anouther source
Lithium Carbonate Supplies Abound! – Sequence Omega

With current production techniques, 0.6kg of lithium carbonate will be used per kWh of battery storage capability, and 1 kg of lithium carbonate is equivalent to 0.1875 kg elemental (pure) lithium. At 0.6kg LCE per kWh, recovering 50% of the estimated 160M tonnes of LCE would result in 13.3 Billion 10kWh batteries, or 3.8B 35kWh battery packs for battery electric vehicles.
​

Note the LG estimate works out to 0.74 kg of lithium carbonate per kwh. I chose this number from the manufacturer of the volt battery packs. The $8 per kg of lithium carbonate was from big dog. It seems to agree with other sources but I am not sure of the current price.

 

And now we wait for the first electric vehicle that meets all 3 criteria:

1. Affordable....
2. Practical...
3. Attractive...

Nissan Leaf..."I want you...I need you...but there ain't no way I'm ever going to love you...Dont be sad...cause 2 out of 3 aint bad".

 

ok, so post might have been over the top a bit, but having just watched "Crude" less than a week ago and seeing how much has been destroyed by oil drilling, it is very hard to be subtle about the overwhelming damage our planet has undergone


as far as battery longevity, taking the example above, 2000 cycles at 50% to go 50 miles, well that is 100,000 miles. not bad, but i think, Nissan stated they expected nominal longevity to go more than 150,000 miles

 

The future probably lies in a world of revisioned walkable cities broken into neighborhoods of small shops easily reached within 1.5 miles of all residential dwellings...without cars ...wait a minute...that's the world we destroyed in the 30's, 40's and 50's..Everything old will become new.

 

In that case, it's deliberate stupidity.

 

Nissan has revised the Leaf website, but it appears to be down at the moment, so I am attaching the "Leaf" spec sheet PDF, for those who care.

AeroVironment Leaf (and Volt / Ford Fusion EV as well) charger video:
http://www.avinc.com/video/evmicrosite/homechargingmadeeasy.mov

 

Bedrock, I believe like big dog that the price of lithium is likely to go up instead of down. That is why its important to know how much of the battery cost is for a raw material whose demand is increasing.

Other items related to lithium batteries are likely to go down. These include the battery chemistry, and manufacturing processes, and manufacturing capacity. The cost of a consumer electronics type Lion battery has been going down and is around $350/kwh which works out to a $8.4k price. That is price not cost. Add $300 for lithium price increases and the price may be around $9K for a replacement battery 5 years from now. I expect that improvements may go on, but I don't have a crystal ball. I doubt that anyone will sell a consumer that same 24kwh battery pack today for less than $15K.

Note the volt and phv-prius are using much less of their battery capacity than the leaf. The volt also has thermal management of the battery pack that the leaf does not have. Nissan is being very aggressive compared to GM and Toyota. That seems to make the leaf lease the best value proposition. After 3 years we should have much more information on whether the Nissan approach is the right one.

 

Because they both have gas engines that power the vehicle when the battery gets low.

Tom

 

thanks for the link. as i anxiously await my email invite which should be arriving TODAY, the PDF has entertained me. its interesting what the market dept will put into a sales flyer in order to take up space

features;

○ remote fuel-filler door release

○ silver painted A/C vent knob finishers

○ front and rear assist grips (x4) (as opposed to the "Right hand drive version which would be x2??)

all of which makes my have 2nd thoughts on my purchase decision...then again, NOT!!!

 

All good points! Does it matter if EVs work for 50% of drivers or 90% when initial production capacity will be <1% ??? Get a half million on the roads and most "myths" of why they do not work will vanish.

I am in home design & construction and one of the things that needs to be addressed is "futureproofing" new homes. It costs little to locate the electric panel in garage (for EV charging), run conduit from panel to roof (for future EV) and oversize breaker box. But few builders are doing any of these.

"The Leaf is Ugly" When I bought my 2004 Prius (gas was $1.50/gal) I thought it was ugly.

When gas hit $4+ in 2008, I thought it was beautiful!!!

Joining this discussion late cause I just stumbled upon it.
Why is a great thread about EVs hidden in the Gen III forum?

 

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