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Sunday, October 2, 2022

My Nissan Leaf

I love my Leaf.  I have never been a petrol-head, even as a teenager.  I just wanted a car to get me from A to B (and of course with my girl friend by my side).  But my electric Leaf is something else again.  I'm a very conservative driver and drive gently but when I want to get out into traffic or pass someone with limited space to do it, man! does my Leaf get up and go.  It's a real jack rabbit.  I can understand why some electric car owners have to change their tires more often than when they drove and ICE car.  

And while we are at it, let's look at the cost of driving compared to an ICE car.  My Leaf has a range of 300km (actually more like 350 but let's keep the numbers simple) with a 60kWh battery.  Dividing 300 by 60, we see that I can drive 5km per kWh or for the sake of comparison, 10km per liter of petrol.  Now here a kWh cost me 25c so I pay 50c per 10km.  (actually I have solar panels but that is another story).  

A similar size ICE car gets about 10km per liter of fuel.  Here a liter of fuel costs $2.50.  Ergo, it costs me a fifth as much on electricity than it would on fossil fuel.  Add to that, that I hardly ever use my brakes and have no oil to change.  On the other side, I think I may need a new set of tires more often with my Leaf.

I think the Leaf could become the iconic  car of this century.  That is if they changed their business model.  For me, at least, their car is excellent and is all the car I will ever need or want but their business model doesn't put the customer first.

For instance, if you have one of the early 24kWh (kilowatt hour) batteries, the battery is probably getting a little tired by now and you won't have the range you once had.  If you can fine a wrecked Leaf with a 24, 30 or 40kWh* battery, it is a matter of about an hour's work to change out your battery for the one in the wrecked Leaf.  Suddenly the range of your Leaf has jumped way up.  And the chemistry back then was not what it is now.  Your new (used) battery is likely to last  longer than the original.  

*A 60kWh battery is apparently a real hassle to fit to the earlier models.  Possible but Quite difficult.

But the Nissan company doesn't make it easy to buy a new, higher capacity battery for your Leaf.  In fact, at least here in New Zealand it is virtually impossible.  This is not a company thinking of the best interests of her customers.

My second gripe is about the temperature control of the battery.  Apparently, too high or too low temperatures are bad for the battery and cause the battery to degrade more quickly.  Nissan should start to put temperature control around her batteries.

So what could Nissan do, even now, 22 years into this century, to make her car the iconic one instead of Tesla.  Actually, she would only make the Leaf iconic for one portion of the market but I suspect this is a huge percent of the market.  There will always be people who want the latest with all the bells and whistles.  Here is Nissan's advantage.  A whole bunch of us don't want this.  We want a reasonable looking car with very good range, ease of repair, nice handling but most of all a low price tag.  How does Nissan achieve this and still make a great profit.

1/  Keep the leaf the same from now on.  The only innovations should be ones that make the car cheaper or with better battery chemistry.  

2/ Decrease the cost of manufacture by, for instance, adopting Elon's mega-casting machines.  With the way you have your battery in the Leaf, you might be able to cast the whole chassis in one go, unlike Tesla that does it in two parts.  And while you are at it, make the underneath of the car flat.  At the back is a hollow that probably held the spare tire when they used the frame from one of their ICE cars for the Leaf.  If the bottom of the car was flattened out, there would be a huge increase in the trunk space.  An added advantage is that apparently a flat under side of a car improves its streamlining.

3/ Keep all the controls tactile.  No touch screens.  The radio in my Leaf is great.  It has a knob on the left for tuning and one on the right for volume and turning on.  Also there are volume control buttons on the steering wheel.  I never have to take my eyes off the road to operate my radio.  All controls should be similarly tactile.

4/ Produce a van for the 'tradie', the plummer, electrician, builder and so forth.  Provide a 220V AC outlet that the tradie could use and lots of attachment points inside the van for attaching shelves and things.  Make it with two sliding doors. Adopt every bit of kit possible from the Leaf.  Only innovate when necessary for the function of a van.

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