
Nissan says Leaf batteries will outlast the car by 10-12 years - jseliger
https://electrek.co/2019/05/24/nissan-leaf-batteries-outlast-car/
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aristophenes
To say that this article is misleading is not enough. This article appears to
be deliberately deceptive. Nissan Leafs are specifically known to have battery
problems such that they lose a large percentage of their storage after a few
years. The reason the batteries need to be recycled for other uses is because
they keep having to be replaced, and they need to do something with the old
batteries that are no longer useful for cars. Sure the battery might outlive
the car, doing something else. Meanwhile, the car will need several battery
replacements.

See [https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/29/nissans-long-strange-
tr...](https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/29/nissans-long-strange-trip-with-
leaf-batteries/)

~~~
twblalock
Reasons to lease an electric car rather than buy: the batteries degrade over
time, and even if they did not people would believe they did.

A friend of mine recently bought a Nissan Leaf with low miles on it for $9k.
It was less than 5 years old and it cost more than $30k new. The original
owner lost way more money on resale than he ever would have spent on a gas car
in 5 years, including paying for the gas.

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emp
Is 10 years normal for the lifespan of a car? Mine is 23 now, still works
fine, and I feel is nicer than similar new cars in terms of interior finishes,
hydraulic power steering, actual buttons for climate control that do their one
thing well.

I don't drive much, but then I don't remember any childhood cars of my parents
being at end of life at 10 years, and those were used in daily commutes.

Do the batteries decay over time? If a Leaf only has say 8k miles a year, will
the batteries simply fail to hold charge after 22 years?

~~~
dugditches
Environment matters a lot.

Road salt and Ocean Air destroys car bodies. The drivetrain can be fine, but
the body just falls apart around it.

There's going to be an interesting time for Used Cars coming up, with all the
electronics and complex parts. Where cars could be worked on in your garage or
local shop, now need a trip to a dealer to work out the Electronic Wizardry.

Followed by the dying out of non-diesel ICE shops turning into just Brake and
Tire places.

~~~
kevan
I've had good luck avoiding body rust in Minnesota, but on my last car (sold
at 15yrs old) I ended up replacing every suspension and brake component over
the last 3 years due to corrosion. My current car is 10 years old and I've
already replaced a couple seized calipers.

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thebruce87m
The data I’ve seen for Nissan looks terrible, enough to put me off until the
do some active battery conditioning like other manufacturers.
[https://pushevs.com/2018/03/20/nissan-leaf-battery-
degradati...](https://pushevs.com/2018/03/20/nissan-leaf-battery-degradation-
data-24-vs-30-kwh-batteries/)

~~~
eecc
Interesting bit on charging up to 80%. I guess it applies to laptop batteries
as well... any tool/tweak for say, macOS or Linux?

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Abishek_Muthian
Super. I hope all manufactures go back to building products for longevity
instead of planned obsolescence, for the sake of the planet.

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lostgame
Here's looking at you, Apple. I will never buy another MacBook again until
upgrading it is an option. Soldered RAM and especially a soldered hard drive
are inexcusable, personally, much less the repair ability factor.

~~~
jfoutz
I don’t really have much of a problem with that, but I would love the option
to replace the guts of my mbp every few years. I keep waiting for Gibson’s
sandbenders to show up.

~~~
vbezhenar
Yep. CPU's are barely increasing their performance (aside of increasing core
count recently, but that's for very specific workloads). Motherboards is
basically about CPU. Replace battery, optionally upgrade memory and SSD,
replace broken components (WiFi card, keyboard) and it's as good as new. But
that requires modular design.

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codazoda
The average life of a car is only 10 years? Wow. I tend to use my vehicles
much longer than that and I don't spend a lot on repairs.

Maybe this average is a result of accidents after a certain age. Almost any
accident in a 15 year old car will cost more than the vehicle to fix
professionally. I was surprised by the number though (which, to be fair, they
didn't actually list).

~~~
api
It depends a lot on where you live. Cold climates with salt and ice destroy
cars. Loads of rain can do it too. Where I live in SoCal cars last absolutely
forever. You see people driving early 90s Hondas all the time and they've just
gradually fixed stuff. The body is worn but basically good after almost 30
years. I imagine here a Leaf could outlast its batteries, but maybe not in
Michigan or New York.

The battery is the most costly part of an EV but battery prices are falling
rapidly. The rest of an EV is simpler and has fewer moving parts than a gas
car and will probably last longer.

~~~
newnewpdro
Yep, I drive a reliable but beat up ~300k-mi 90s car in CA and whenever I
visit family in the west chicago suburbs by car I get viewed as white trash
driving such a piece of crap and constantly checked out by city police. The
salt destruction completely redefines what it means to operate such an old car
there. The prevailing attitude is that only ghetto poor people drive old beat
up cars because they can't get a loan for a new one, presuming everyone
_needs_ to replace their car often.

When I'm in CA, people in parking lots often strike up conversations about the
car like it's a classic and make offers to buy it. Police never take any
interest in me since it's so common for people to drive old cars in a place
they continue working just fine. The culture is completely different, I often
wonder how much of it is due to the road salt alone.

~~~
api
Side note but isn't it sad that being poor gets you hassled by police? Not
only is it irritating but it leads to the poor getting tons of extra nit picky
tickets that end up costing hundreds of dollars.

It's also racial. I drove with a cracked windshield for almost a year when I
was at University of Cincinnati. A black friend was amazed and said if he did
that he'd get pulled over within days.

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userbinator
When I read the title, I could imagine someone at Nissan thinking "the battery
is 10-12 years too reliable, can we make it cheaper so it doesn't outlast the
rest of the car?"

This sort of "value engineering" is quite common today, especially since
things like advanced computer simulation can make it easy to design the
lifetime of a part within a surprisingly small tolerance. Before that,
manufacturers would often err on the side of overbuilding to avoid premature
failures.

~~~
aristophenes
They already did that. Their battery does not have a thermal management system
like their competitors do, and so it gets damaged during heavy use or
temperature fluctuations. It loses capacity rapidly and must be replaced after
5 years or so if the owner would like to keep a reasonable driving range.
Therefore they need to figure out what to do with these bad battery packs, and
as the article states they can use it to power street lights as it won't work
for the car anymore. I'd recommend searching for other articles about the
Nissan Leaf battery to get a better understanding of the situation.

~~~
Scoundreller
Or for somebody to figure out how to add a mitigating thermal management
system?

Or was this a cost decision that can’t be explained by incompetence?

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jordanbeiber
I got a leaf 6 months ago.

For me personally it’s been an epiphany that I rank up there with the internet
and the iphone.

My take these days is I select a chassis that is suitable, match it with a
battery that covers 99 out of 100 trips and with apple/android car finally
that differentiator is kind of gone.

The leaf could pack our double buggy/pram and three kids which is enough for
99 of 100.

Ideally I can drive it until the chassis is worn out, or the battery needs
replacing.

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adrianN
Nice. We'll need a lot of batteries for the transition to renewable energy.

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jmpman
How do their batteries last in Phoenix? Air cooled is unlikely to work well.

~~~
CalChris
Phoenix is bad for lead acid and lithium batteries.

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Scoundreller
Meanwhile in France, a company or two are selling electric cars where you rent
the battery, and it’s on the manufacturer to replace it if/when it degrades
beyond a pre-defines threshold.

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CalChris
I’d have kept my Leaf if I could have upgraded the battery pack when it came
time to replace it.

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nobleach
Seeing how many 2013 Altimas are just blowing up transmissions, Nissan/Renault
appear to be estimating the lifespan of one of their automobiles as 5 years.
I'm glad they've got their eye on long-lasting batteries, but, maybe build a
car that can last as long as those batteries?

~~~
jordanbeiber
Well, I think that EV is the way to go here. Few moving parts in one of those
which should in the end gain us consumers, but who knows. They’ll find new
ways to squeeze us!

An ICE is really a very complex piece of machinery. Lots of $ plowed down to
get them where we are today.

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joosters
Are these lithium ion batteries or lead ones?

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wlesieutre
Definitely lithium ion. Lead acid batteries are about the poorest option in
terms of energy capacity per weight, which is important when you have to spend
energy for hauling its own weight around.

They may be useful for permanent utility grid installations, but you won’t see
lead acid batteries powering electric cars.

~~~
adrianN
I think lead-acid is not useful for grid installations because of the low
lifetime. They're good for maybe 300 cycles. Their only redeeming quality
seems to be their low cost.

~~~
wlesieutre
Ah you’re right. Looks like they’re used for small scale off grid solar
installations, not so much at utility scale. It’s been done (link below) but
even the one I found is moved over to lithium ion now.

[https://energy.ehawaii.gov/epd/public/energy-project-
details...](https://energy.ehawaii.gov/epd/public/energy-project-
details.html?rid=3--1750332b5038042)

