EV (electric vehicle) News and Discussion

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#1725239 23-Feb-2017 15:16

Hunter: Linuxluver

Many thanks for a very informative thread. Without the usual flame wars and arguments ICE vs EV
Sure answer many of my questions.
I have a few that you may be able to answer for me.

1. Is it possible to extend the range of your Leaf by modification with extra batteries ? Say in the boot area.
2. If so, is it legal to mod the car, as in dangerous.
3. Do you have to pay RUC with your Leaf ?
4. Car insurance about the same as a similar ICE ?
5. How much is it for you to use ChargeNet facilities ?

1. Yes. Some people have added a second battery pack. "

Electric Vehicle Battery Systems

$6500 with 2-4 year no hassle warranty

2011-2014 Nissan Leaf Battery System

24KWHR battery added to the factory battery making 48KWHR total, 80 miles is factory range, now upgrading to 160 miles total no extra computers or chargers necessary. The additional battery system will mount in the trunk in a custom enclosure. The additonal battery will charge using the factory charger nothing else required. This system will make the car much more reliable, no range anxiety, no issues."

There are some major caveats, but it seems to be possible.

2. Don't know. Probably OK if you do it right and conform to any regulations....and you'd need someone involved who knew those.
3. No RUC on any EV until Evs are 2% of the entire light vehicle fleet.....at least under this government. A new government might also have purchase incentive and tax rebates.
4. Car insurance is based on the value of the vehicle...so yeah. Same.
5. Charge.net is 25c / kw and 25c / minute. So - for an actual example:

20:11 duration / 13.8 kWh Charge @ Thames (THDC1) = $8.50 (14kw at 7.5km / kw = 105km added (approx).

But you only use those on road trips as normally you'd charge at home (ie: 90% of the time). But Charge.net are only some of the public fast chargers. Many, if not most, are free of charge today.....and many will remain free of charge because if they start charging then issues arise around who gets the money.....like where a power company has put fast chargers on commercial land owned by the 3rd party......everyone is happy while they are free - saving the planet - but once someone starts asking for money all the hands are out looking for their share.

Charging at home, you'd only pay per kWh what you'd pay for any appliance....so maybe 18c? 20c each? So charging up 10kWh / day would cost you $1.80....or whatever.... It's super cheap. But where you also really save money is the service requirements being much lower.....because most of the stuff that requires regular servicing in an ICE doesn't even exist.

I knw you asked about charge.net.....but they are only one small part of the cost picture.

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DravidDavid

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#1725317 23-Feb-2017 17:36

I have to commute from Helensville to New Lynn every day and the $80 that feeds the straight six is hitting hard in the pocket. Always wanted an EV or an EV convert, but range anxiety would be a big thing for me.

Until the leaf is affordable and capable of 300 or so kilometers per charge, it would be hard to justify the cost of the vehicle.

Linuxluver

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#1725325 23-Feb-2017 17:58

DravidDavid:

I have to commute from Helensville to New Lynn every day and the $80 that feeds the straight six is hitting hard in the pocket. Always wanted an EV or an EV convert, but range anxiety would be a big thing for me.

Until the leaf is affordable and capable of 300 or so kilometers per charge, it would be hard to justify the cost of the vehicle.

That's 40km each way. There are four free chargers at LynnMall on the upper parking level (while the Mall is open).

A decent LEAF with 100km+ range could do the return trip no problem. You might think a 20km margin isn't much......but go walk 20km. It's a loooong way.

I've driven my LEAF (30kWh) from Greenlane to Kaiwaka via Helensville.....and had 35% battery left. Charged up in Kaiwaka for 15 mins and drove home.

have you driven a LEAF or other electric car? That always seems to seal the deal.......they just feel good. Lots of power and instantly available. Quiet and smooth....no bumping up through the gears.......just "GO to Wow".

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#1725335 23-Feb-2017 18:47

Linuxluver:

@Linuxluver where does this info come from?

AFAIK batteries are damaged by OVERcharging or being left flat, but common (Motorhome) practice is to keep them topped off with a good maintenance charger (5stage) via solar whenever possible to extend their life and function? Also, aren't Lithium (lifpo) immune to the full drain damage too? Why would 80% charge be better for them (as I'd expect they'd have a very good multistage charger under the hood taking care of the "overcharge" risk?

ANglEAUT

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#1725433 23-Feb-2017 22:21

Linuxluver: ... have you driven a LEAF or other electric car? That always seems to seal the deal.......

Too true. Actually driving the vehicle and going through the experience will help you make up your mind.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

Scott3

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#1725454 23-Feb-2017 23:03

DravidDavid:

I have to commute from Helensville to New Lynn every day and the $80 that feeds the straight six is hitting hard in the pocket. Always wanted an EV or an EV convert, but range anxiety would be a big thing for me.

Until the leaf is affordable and capable of 300 or so kilometers per charge, it would be hard to justify the cost of the vehicle.

Depends what you call "affordable".

The 40kWh Renault Zoe has a 300km range, and is available with delivery kilometers only for $40k.

Other option if you are concerned about range anxiety is something like a used BMW i3 with Range extender. They will run electricity for the first 120 - 140km then fire up a little petrol engine. They are good for a 0-100 time of 7.8 seconds, and are rear wheel drive.

At $2/L petrol is is quite hard to pay back the extra cost of an electric vehicle unless you can get one really cheap and do a heap of Km in it. (i.e. charge both at work and at home each day)

PhantomNVD:
Linuxluver:

@Linuxluver where does this info come from?

AFAIK batteries are damaged by OVERcharging or being left flat, but common (Motorhome) practice is to keep them topped off with a good maintenance charger (5stage) via solar whenever possible to extend their life and function? Also, aren't Lithium (lifpo) immune to the full drain damage too? Why would 80% charge be better for them (as I'd expect they'd have a very good multistage charger under the hood taking care of the "overcharge" risk?

Lead acid batteries like to be kept fully charged (but not to have their electrolyte boiled).

Lithium batteries like to be stored about half full. (that's why when you buy a new cell phone it comes with an around half charged battery). Both deep discharge and use near fully charged wear the battery more than use around mid charge.

Car's like the holden volt don't allow access to the top and bottom 25% of the battery, so only the middle 50% gets used to prolong the battery pack life (my numbers are made up), but concept is right.

BMW i3 with the 21.6kWh pack only allows access to 18.8kWh or it to avoid the most damaging areas (very high state of charge, and nearly flat)

Older leaf's had an option to only charge to 80%, but on the Gen2 cars they changed the battery chemistry to make the pack more durable, and removed this feature as nissan said it was no longer required. (leaf also has some capacity in the pack that is unusable.

No need to worry about overcharging lithium batteries. They can catch fire if overcharged, so there is always a controller or smart charger to prevent it from happening. Automotive grade packs also have battery management systems to manage the pack at a cellular level, so the pack will be much better looked after than a laptop of cell phone battery.

Linuxluver

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#1726620 26-Feb-2017 17:59

PhantomNVD:
Linuxluver:

@Linuxluver where does this info come from?

AFAIK batteries are damaged by OVERcharging or being left flat, but common (Motorhome) practice is to keep them topped off with a good maintenance charger (5stage) via solar whenever possible to extend their life and function? Also, aren't Lithium (lifpo) immune to the full drain damage too? Why would 80% charge be better for them (as I'd expect they'd have a very good multistage charger under the hood taking care of the "overcharge" risk?

Good points all, with respect to Lithium batteries. One of the issues with them in cars has been a lack of real-world experience in real-time battery degradation. It's one thing to cycle a test battery a few hundred or thousand times in a lab and another thing completely to put the battery into service for a decade in climates as diverse as Norway and Florida. Much of the view of LEAF batteries, in particular, is coloured by the experience with the 2011 and 2012 models, the "Gen 1" LEAFs. These batteries really didn't do well in hot places and tended to degrade sooner and more rapidly than expected.....leaving some people with LEAFs they may have paid as much as NZ$69,000 for with cars that had driven barely 30,000km....and a range reduced by 25% or more in just 3-4 years or so.

The 2013-onward "Gen 2" batteries (a.k.a. "lizard battery") were reformulated and they seem to be standing up to use in all climate much better.....and best in temperate places. But they have only been out for barely more than 3 years in any numbers.

What is clear so far is that how (DC fast charge or slower AC charge) one charges the car and how deeply one cycles the battery does appear to have an impact on the the chemistry of the battery....one way or the other.....in creating resistance within the battery...and thus loss of capacity (and more heat).

Some user groups have been gathering data on when and how much a model's battery degrades. The sense seems to be that time leads to some degradation no matter what. But aside from time, the number of full cycles also matters....so a car that is constantly charged to 100% and then drained to very low...and then recharged back to 100%....and so on....will degrade faster than one that rarely gets below 20% and rarely gets above 80%.

I'm taking this on faith mainly as I have little direct personal experience. My two LEAFs have both been relatively new (2015 last year and 2016 this year) and both batteries were (and remain) stubbornly on 100% of capacity.....I haven't seen any degradation yet, myself. My current battery is the 30kWh version that has only been on the roads for about one year......so everyone who owns one is part of a large experiment, in effect, to see how long they last.

I tend to fast charge about 1 in 4 times.
I tend to not go below 20%.
I tend to not charge over 80% unless I need to add range to get to the next charger (or home).

I'm hedging my bets.

Behind all of this is a 2013 Gen2 LEAF taxi in the UK (C&C is the operator). It's just over 3 years old. It's been charged 13,000 times and a 3rd of those were fast charges. It has driven over 273,000km.

It's battery is currently at 76% of original capacity.....and it is being retired.

A new battery being installed would effectively make it a new car as in all other respects it seems to be sound and it's only 3 years old.

Conclusions? Hard to say....This graph is useful. It's real data from real cars. You may have to register (free) on the SpeakEV site to see it. Basically it says a Gen 2 LEAF owner can reasonably expect no significant loss of battery capacity for 2-3 years....and after that it will probably gently decline into the low 90% range......and after that the data is for older cars with the older battery......with the sole exception of the 2013 C&C Taxi LEAF ("Whizzy") that was used heavily for 3 years every day and charged up several times each day. You can see its curve on the graph....but it's still 76% after more than 3 years of very heavy use: 273,000km+ and can do at least 100km on a full charge even now.

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davidcole

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#1726793 27-Feb-2017 08:23

Just been watching this thread,. and see a lot of talk about the Leaf. We can only get these 2nd hand right? can't buy them new any more?

Are there any other pure evs in nz, or are they all hybrids (which I consider just a stepping stone for electric vehicles and therefore wouldn't be interested in them at all)

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trig42

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#1726876 27-Feb-2017 09:27

Renault Zoe is pure EV. I think there is a Mitsi iMiev? Also the BMW i3 (without the rex).

davidcole

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#1726879 27-Feb-2017 09:29

trig42:

Renault Zoe is pure EV. I think there is a Mitsi iMiev? Also the BMW i3 (without the rex).

Don't they have really short ranges? Like less than 50km? (I know, added non stated requirement)

trig42

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#1726881 27-Feb-2017 09:31

I'm not sure. The Zoe is comparable to the Leaf I think. The i3 the same. Both are a lot more expensive though, which is why I'm only looking at the Leaf myself.

Linuxluver

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#1726908 27-Feb-2017 10:08

davidcole:

Just been watching this thread,. and see a lot of talk about the Leaf. We can only get these 2nd hand right? can't buy them new any more?

Are there any other pure evs in nz, or are they all hybrids (which I consider just a stepping stone for electric vehicles and therefore wouldn't be interested in them at all)

In addition to the EVs mentioned by Trig42, The Hyundai Ioniq EV and the Tesla Model S and Model X are now also available in NZ. There are others imminent.....but you can buy these today.

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Linuxluver

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#1726911 27-Feb-2017 10:13

davidcole:

trig42:

Renault Zoe is pure EV. I think there is a Mitsi iMiev? Also the BMW i3 (without the rex).

Don't they have really short ranges? Like less than 50km? (I know, added non stated requirement)

No.

The Zoe 22kw model can do 170km around town and probably 130km on the highway.

The Zoe 41kw model (EV Central in Taupo has 30 of them coming) can do 300km on a charge.

A 24kw LEAF with a good battery can do 130km-170km, depending on terrain and driving style.

A 30kWh LEAF can do 170km-250km depending on terrain and driving style.

A BMW i3 is similar to a 30kw LEAF.....and more if you have the range extender....but you don't need to turn that on at all.

A Hyundai Ioniq can do 220km on a charge.

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Linuxluver

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#1726914 27-Feb-2017 10:15

trig42:

I'm not sure. The Zoe is comparable to the Leaf I think. The i3 the same. Both are a lot more expensive though, which is why I'm only looking at the Leaf myself.

EV Central have some 41kWh ZOEs coming and they are asking around $40,000.....maybe less. It's a great price for an EV with 300km range.

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Linuxluver

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#1726917 27-Feb-2017 10:18

A friend pointed me at this "Head to Head" video on YouTube from Motor Trends.

It compares several cars....by drag racing them: a Bentley SUV, a Tesla Model X SUV and an Alpha Romeo supercar among them.

The race between the model X and the Alpha is hilarious......and the outcome very impressive....

The link starts at 2:55......end of the Bentley segment, just before the Model X vs Alpha Romeo race(s).

https://youtu.be/ib-02b2ooLY?t=2m55s

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