Featured Nissan LEAF Slide Confirms 225-Plus Mile Range, $35,000 Price Tag For 60-kWh 2019 Model

25k after taxes, not bad. is it still air cooled?

 

not a problem for me, but might be an issue in the south. i kinda like the 2018 at 29k and 150 miles.

 

I'm surprised the 60 kWh option is delayed all the way until 2019. It's a shame Nissan still refuses to use proper thermal cooling on their batteries.

 

one concern is resale value. for those aware of air cooling problems.

 

New Nissan Leaf spotted testing alongside Nismo Note e-Power | Electrek

Author of the above believes the car pictured is the 2019 leaf.

 

To be fair, the cooling is not a huge problem for most people. The big EV markets are usually more North than where it becomes a problem and the markets where it is hot, are usually small geographically (commuter style cars in Singapore, or island runners in St. Lucia, etc) so the range doesn't make a huge difference.

My Leaf is approaching or passed (I haven't looked in a while) about 30k miles. Still have all my "bars" which means I am at least 85% or more of capacity remaining on a 2013 bought Nov 2012.

When the range drops to that of a golf cart, then so be it. It will be great as an around town only vehicle. I wanted a Tesla ended up with a Leaf. Build quality is terrible in both, but the Leaf was a third to a quarter the cost.

 

agreed, that's why i said perception by some may reduce resale value.
otoh, if you drive it hard all the time, could liquid cooling be more effective?

 

i imagine someone crossing the 120° summer Mojave or NM or AZ deserts - even parts of TX .... and their poor Leaf's fan trying to cool an already 135° over heating pack - as they pull up to use a CHAdeMO - which can easily add another 25° to the poor cars' smoldering overheat equation. The 225 mile range will likely be down to just 185 miles range before winter. That's just ridiculous.

we lost our 1st bar sometime after 30k miles. kiss your lucky stars you're not over 80K miles. 65% or less remaining off the 'advertised' 100 mile range - which turned out to be high 70's in reality after epa disclosure.
thanks nissan
.

 

If the CHAdeMO protocols are worth a damn, the charger shouldn't be feeding electricity to a hot battery. Though it wouldn't has bad as if a hydrogen pump filled a too hot FCEV.

I thought the issue with Leafs arose more from sitting in a hot, enclosed garage while charging. It is a passive cooling system. When the air below the parked car is the same temperature as the air above it, the convection currents stop, and the air in the pack stays there.

 

It really reduces the amount of power going in, but basically it prevents any cool-down period so you can get hot from being ambient plus highway driving and then the high power charger keeps you hot while parked just so you can go back on the highway in the heat and keep it hot.

 

My mother did the hike across Europe trip after college. The little car they had rented needed to pull over with the trucks to cool down while crossing the Alps.

 

even on a 100° summer day here in SoCal, garage door open, I can stand barefoot in the garage. The garage floor may 15° cooler than the outside temperature.
I'd have to sprint across our driveway & street - if barefoot, as the sun beating down on it, might be 15° hotter than the air temps .... ie - ~30° difference between the two surfaces ... both for my tootsies as well as a traction pack.

Here's a quick 15 second video of the X' fans/active/compressor/liquid cooling running last summer when we were in the hot Utah desert - during a 30min lunch stop.
Not sure how it will come through your speakers, but it was disturbingly loud .... like one of those refrigeration units on a semi diesel trailer

Still, better that, then poached battery pack. Although the Air temps that afternoon were 114° - that black asphalt was an easy 140°.
.

 

With the garage door shut, how long until it is like a sauna in there? Unless the space is well vented, that volume of air will reach a steady temperature through out. That leads to no circulation. If it's hot enough, liquid cooling systems, and beer fridges, will start having a tough time doing their job in such stagnant air.

Outside, a car's cabin can become an oven; air hotter than the pavement. The pavement burns your feet because it can shed the heat to your flesh quicker than air can. But the air heated in the cabin does move out though convection. If it didn't, we'd be seeing more car windows blown out during the summer. When it moves out of a Leaf, cooler, relatively, air gets pulled in from under the car.

Early Leafs did not have a battery that could tolerate the heat of markets were they sold it.
The ability to withstand heat abuse is one of those things that could have improved in batteries since then.
While I would still avoid air cooling in a hotter climate, I will look into a used Ioniq and gen2 Leaf for a commuter down the road.

 

IIRC, about ½ of the US ev market .... is Cali .... where summer & fall temps often go into the 90°s & 100°s. One would think common sense would demand manufacturers of EV's would better consider where there biggest market is.
.

 

Those are just pleasant days. Phoenix has over 100F days for nearly a third of the year.
The Triple-Digit Club: Here's How Often Your City Reaches 100 Degrees | Weather Underground
Hottest Cities in United States - Current Results
Number of Hot Days at US Cities in Summer - Current Results

Anyone got data on how the lizard packs are aging in the heat?

Nissan was trying to bring a BEV for the masses to market back when battery prices were high. With Renault, they were likely looking to Japan and Europe for design parameters. Now they are likely looking to China and maybe India.

Air cooling saved on costs, but proved bad for their first battery. Yet air cooling is fine in something like the Prime and Energis. It has been awhile since the first Leaf arrived, and battery advances haven't just been all about reducing costs. Perhaps air cooling is fine for 100 mile BEVs now. That is all the range I need for commuting. So hopefully air cooling proves to be sufficient.

 

Did some reading. The long range Leaf is going to be LGChem battery with TMS. 100kwh DC charging. Maybe more than 11kwh L2 charging speed.

I am starting to like it more now ProPilot seems to be very good from reviews.

 

About 10% of the US light vehicle market is California. It is a high proportion of plug-ins right now, but that is likely short lived as plug-ins gain share. Norway and China are also great plug-in markets. The question is then do you design a car mainly for japan and california or for the world?

The leaf is lower cost than the bolt or any of the teslas, but how much of that is having air cooled versus liquid cooled packs. For a car introduced today, if we are talking above 10 kwh, it seems air cooled do not offer much advantage.

2018 Nissan LEAF, Tesla Model 3, Chevrolet Bolt: How Do They Compare?
LG Chem will introduce NCM 811 battery cells for EVs next year - Push EVs

My guess is the 60 kwh leaf will have lower cost battery cells and the added cost of a liquid conditioning system. A liquid conditioning system means that less range is lost on hot or cold days, the battery can charge faster on faster chargers, and the battery Pack should lose less range over time. The disadvantages are the higher cost and weight of the radiator/conditioning system. Why design a system for california when you can design one that works in most states and countries? Renault, part of the nissan/reanault/mitsubishi group already does liquid conditioning.

 

Link?
.