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Yeah that is a lie.
Nissan Leaf
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Soldato
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I've found Nissan salespeople very crap when it comes to their knowledge on the Leaf and electric infrastructure. Surprising when they've been selling the Leaf since 2011.
There were a lot of 30kWh owners upgrading to the 40kWh with the assumption that the new model would be no worse than the old. It would be disappointing to "upgrade" to the new one only to realise that it can't do journeys as far as the old one! In the current weather conditions people are also having problems on their first charge. Drive at 70mph for a period and even the first charge can be throttled as the battery is too warm. It's also not just charging, once the battery is too hot the car also reduces performance. It really is a poor situation and I can see why people are so unhappy.
The range figure is a separate issue not unique to this car and is the fault of the test.
yup its this part thats shocking:
"When Mr Weatherley wrote to Nissan to complain, he was told that rapid charging was only intended for use once in a journey - something many buyers may be unaware of."
Why doesnt it say that anywhere? That you can only rapid charge it ONCE a day?! If you buy a car with reduced range like a EV you are going to need to charge it multiple times a day, then they create a car that CANT be rapid charged more than once? lol. Electric cars have got a LONG way to go before they are even remotely able to replace a petrol car without you having to change your plans and only ever travelling 100-200miles from home max.
Based on my own experience of driving these cars, and having to deal with the charging networks regularly, I disagree. We're already at the point where they can comfortably replace a petrol car that does 100-200 mile journeys, max. The next couple of years will take us well beyond that as new, longer-range models launch, and the charging infrastructure matures. A long way off? No.
The problem being discussed here is specific to the "new" Leaf. The Leaf launched in Japan in 2008. The "new" Leaf is built on the same chassis, and is basically just a facelift. Like the original, it relies on passive cooling for the batteries. Turns out, the battery pack in the "new" car is too dense for passive cooling; heat becomes a major problem under load. An active cooling solution is needed. However, without a complete redesign, there simply isn't room for one. This also ties in to why the "new" Leaf launched with only 50kW charging, while competitors are launching cars that are capable of taking up to 150kW.
Every other BEV still in production from a major manufacturer has active cooling for the batteries. It was a standard feature when the Zoe and i3 launched in 2013. Nissan are simply way behind on this one, and should have redesigned the chassis to accommodate cooling years ago. Instead, they've launched a car that doesn't perform as could reasonably be expected
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thats what i mean. you would have to change your plans and only have to travel 100-200miles a day if you got a EV.
Soldato
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Obviously it doesn't work for everyone, in the same way that choosing a car already relies on a load of factors.
What's it got to do with the guys age? Perhaps the only relevance is that older people are less likely to put up with crap and lies from companies than people with fewer years experience. Nissan appear to have, at the very least, been a little economical with the full story around the cars abilities. Why should anyone accept that, regardless of their age?
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Old people are able to admit they got scammed. Young people feel embarassed.
Disjointed charging network with differing standards is not a good why to promote EVs. I was watching Jay Emm on YT with several short Vlogs with a borrowed Nissan EV. Approaching a charge point with 3 choices of cables and differing charge speeds at different locations with varying costs. You can see how off putting that would be for your average punter or less tech savvy.
Major petroleum companies are buying up the charging providers currently so that may help with charging points at services at least.
Major petroleum companies are buying up the charging providers currently so that may help with charging points at services at least.
In my experience the older generation do little to no research and take everything a sales person says as gospel.
Yeah it's not correct, but you can help yourself in these situations.
The motor trade are the absolute worst for selling a pack of lies from the top to the bottom.
Soldato
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I was talking to the wife about the state of the charging network the other night, hopefully with BP getting in on the game they'll standardise and make it as simple to 'fuel up' with electricity as it is to fuel up with petrol. There's really no excuse for having to have multiple accounts with different networks that's just ridiculous.
Even as a car person i wouldn't have thought to explicitly ask the salesman/Nissan if i could rapid charge more than once a day if i were buying one, i'd assume i could just fuel up as many times as required.
Even as a car person i wouldn't have thought to explicitly ask the salesman/Nissan if i could rapid charge more than once a day if i were buying one, i'd assume i could just fuel up as many times as required.
That's because you have done no research on EVs as you have no need to at the moment.
If you were looking at spending £20k+ on one you would likely research and the appropriate questions would come from that.
I'm not trying to say Nissan have done no wrong as it's fairly obvious they have, but you can really help protect yourself from the BS dealers spew all over.
Buying a car that has a range of 235 miles and expecting it to do 235 miles is naive but I think the fast charging is simply a situation of design oversight and miss-selling.
They need to quantify it and outright say that fast charging is available under 'x' conditions and not under 'y' conditions. What they are instead doing is being vague and evasive. Its a shame as I really like the new Leaf and this wouldn't stop me buying one if I was in the market for such a car but bad press isn't going to help sales.
They need to quantify it and outright say that fast charging is available under 'x' conditions and not under 'y' conditions. What they are instead doing is being vague and evasive. Its a shame as I really like the new Leaf and this wouldn't stop me buying one if I was in the market for such a car but bad press isn't going to help sales.
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I work with two people who own Nissan Leaves - Both are very much as you describe, but somewhat worse about the preaching and superiority side. They've declared me the enemy, as I drive a filthy, horrible, child-killing diesel!!
Soldato
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I have actually done a fair bit of research into EV's as i would very much like my next car to the electric however i never even thought to ask that question as well, why would i?
It'd be like buying a lawn mower, mowing your own lawn and then wanting to mow your elderly neighbors garden straight after and then finding out you can't as it needs to cool down for 2 hours before you can start - it's a question no one would ever think to ask the lawnmower sales person as it's perfectly reasonable to assume that it should just work continuously and not have some big design flaw.
That depends on the EV.
If you're driving one with an ~80 mile range then yes, there's going to be a lot of planning involved. I've been doing this for a while and it's certainly not for everyone. There's still a few areas of the country where travel is difficult. And going beyond ~120-150 miles quickly gets annoying. I do that once or twice a year, so I can just about tolerate it.
If you're driving a car with a 120-150 mile range (the majority of current models) then driving long distances will be considerably easier. A single stop at a rapid charger will put these cars over 200 miles. And there's enough rapid chargers across most of the country to prevent it from being a huge inconvenience. Still not ideal for someone who drives these distances daily, but not a huge inconvenience for someone that does it a few times a year.
Beyond that? The Hyundai Kona EV launches in August. The long-range model can do 300 miles, and has a price tag of £29,495 (after the grant). Other manufacturers will follow suit through the rest of 2018 and 2019. There's certainly not "a long way to go" before EVs are capable of more than 100-200 miles in a day. Depending on your tolerance for charging en-route, we're either there already, or are set to get there imminently.
Battery production has been the bottleneck holding back progress. It's a bottleneck which will soon be resolved; a significant number of gigawatt size factories are due to open this financial year.
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On the range thing, sure. A little research would show that the NEDC figure is complete nonsense.
But on rapid charging, other models don't have this problem. Previous versions of the Leaf don't have this problem. Until the story broke in to the mainstream press, the only way you'd know about it is by reading discussion at places like SpeakEV. Even there, it took some time for the story to gain traction. If you were an early adopter, you couldn't have known. If you ordered up until last week, there's a reasonable chance you wouldn't have known.
Nissan's customers bought the new 40kWh Leaf expecting it to be better than the outgoing model over long distances. Due to a design flaw that Nissan failed to highlight, it isn't. In this hot weather, even the 24kWh car is faster over a journey of a few hundred miles.
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