10 years of Nissan LEAF Battery Evolution (2010-2020)

[Music] 2010 was an exciting year for tech crowdfunding company kickstarter changed the way the projects get funded apple unveiled the first ipad and nissan introduced the world to the leaf december 2020 marked the 10th birthday of one of the world's most popular electric vehicles the nissan leaf hi my name's barry and welcome to evs enhanced an electric vehicle engineering company based in christchurch new zealand our mission is to develop and offer upgrades that enable existing electric vehicles to remain useful relevant and desirable as they age in the 10 years since the launch of the nissan leaf many owners of the earlier models are now considering their battery upgrade options to make their vehicles as good as or even better than new to date nissan has shown little desire to offer affordable battery upgrade options so companies like ourselves have been working on solutions for some time to celebrate the leaf's birthday we'll be taking a look at the high voltage battery that powers this electric vehicle as well as how it's evolved over the years we'll also be taking a look at some of our products we've developed to help harness this new technology for use in earlier model nissan leafs to learn more let's hear from one of our lead technicians sam thanks barry to help us understand these products better we have assembled for our first time every battery pack revision found in the japanese nissan leaf starting with the 24 kilowatt-hour pack introduced in late 2010 right through to the 62 kilowatt-hour pack found in the latest 2020 nissan leaf unfortunately for owners of the earlier and lefts energy density isn't the only major change so let's take a look in more detail here we have the original 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack found in the zedio leaf from 2011 to and twelve it is easily identifiable by its patchwork sheet metal on the lid larger safety disconnect and the 22 pin communications connector found next to the hv power outlet it is internally comprised of 48 individual battery modules the first major revision came in late 2012 this included a major revamp of the casing to reduce overall weight revised cell chemistry and new communications for the battery controller inside the pack a smaller safety disconnect was fitted and on the front of the pack a 36 pin communications connector and an additional connector for the ptc heater inside the vehicle this ptc power outlet featured on all packs from this point onwards in addition to the high voltage output this connector features an interlock safety loop which must be present for the pack to operate so how do we fit one of these newer battery packs into the earliest nissan leaf there are a couple of physical changes that need to be addressed as sam pointed out the ptc heater power outlet was featured on all battery pack revisions from this point onwards so to fit any of these newer battery packs into the earliest zdo leaf we have developed this the ptc power outlet delete cap this product satisfies the requirement of keeping the interlock safety loop intact while sealing the connector to keep out water and dust another major change that sam alluded to was the introduction of the 36 pin communications connector replacing the 22 pin on the original our kits address this by using a custom wiring harness which we fabricate using new genuine nissan connectors allowing for plug and installation without cutting a single wire this is also where we connect our hv battery translators which we'll be discussing shortly the next revision came in late 2013 it quickly became apparent that the chemistry used in the last revision was not up to scratch to address this new cells were fitted to help improve the lifespan of the pack fast forward to late 2015 and we get the 30 kilowatt hour pack a new double sized battery module was introduced with 24 of these filling the pack this ran alongside the previous 24 kilowatt hour pack giving two options available to the azdo2 leaf this vehicle was configured to operate with both battery packs despite yet another revision of battery controller communications this meant the 30 kilowatt hour pack was not compatible with earlier leafs in mid 2016 another 30 kilowatt hour pack emerged with revised cells and new firmware when nissan used generous rounding to call a previous pack 30 kilowatt hour this version was closer to that advertised value both packs ran alongside each other and can be used interchangeably these 30 kilowatt-hour battery packs were not without their issues one of the more widely known was that of a firmware bug of the battery management system found inside the battery pack this caused the vehicle to under-report its remaining energy and the state health of the battery in addition to calculating reduced range this also meant that the battery capacity bars on the dash often indicated that the battery pack was in far worse condition than it really was nissan addressed this issue and released a firmware update to correct this for the earlier version of the 30 kilowatt hour battery pack however they've yet to acknowledge a similar issue facing the revision of the 30 kilowatt hour battery pack in response ev's enhance have developed our own solution but that's for a different video the next leaf to hit the market was the stylish new z1 in late 2017 these models came fitted with a 40 kilowatt hour pack which further extended the range of the leaf the communications within the pack changed yet again so engineers got back to work and we now have translators available to fit these packs into earlier model leafs now is a good time to discuss our hv battery translators as sam has mentioned throughout the presentation the communications protocol used by the battery management system within these packs keeps changing and with each revision these batteries become incompatible with earliness and leaks despite the fact that physically fitting these newer packs is a relatively trivial process using parts from different battery packs such as the original battery management system with high capacity cells creates its own set of problems and is definitely not recommended so what was required was a way to allow battery packs and cars that spoke different languages to correctly communicate with each other to do exactly this we developed the ev's enhanced hv battery translator this fits between the vehicle and the battery using our custom wiring harness it handles all of the communications between your leaf and the battery you want to fit and when paired using our hv battery pairing tool there is never a need to break the factory seal of any leaf battery when performing a battery replacement or upgrade battery repairs are the only case when this is validly required and battery failures warranting this are statistically quite rare here we have the 62 kilowatt hour pack this is the first pack to receive a full module layout redesign to help reduce wasted space especially through the centre of the pack this redesign introduces three different module sizes to help utilize the full width of the pack we have shorter modules through the middle medium size in the front and taller ones in the rear the pack itself is also taller to help accommodate these modules with the center of the pack now being occupied by modules this tunnel has been added to accommodate the internal cabling all previous packs utilized a two cells in parallel design whereas this pack uses three cells in parallel the new cell capacity is similar to that of a 40 but with the 50 extra added cells we're seeing an approximate 50 increase in capacity also with that increase in cell numbers we're getting a proportional increase in added weight so the earlier packs weighed approximately 300 kilograms whereas this pack weighs 440 kilograms and to accommodate this additional mess several additional mounting points have been added to the pack also in different areas which make this challenging to fit into earlier model leafs before the release of this pack there was speculation that nissan would add active thermal management much like that of the env200 which was released in 2014. this is not so nissan decided not to use active thermal management but this will be a feature in the upcoming nissan aria in saying this the the new three cells in parallel design uh significantly reduces the chance of overheating the battery during long road trips involving many fast charges thanks sam it remains a core focus to ensure our products are as user-friendly as possible our battery translator kits come pre-configured for your vehicle and battery in addition to plug-in installation requiring no wiring we supply a custom mounting bracket that bolts to the vehicle using existing mounting points requiring no permanent modification this means that battery upgrades can now be completed in a fast efficient and safe manner after a small amount of additional training the whole process can be completed by any skilled mechanic it takes around an hour using basic equipment found in your average automotive workshop this means the battery upgrades are available wherever you are whether you are close to a dedicated ev specialist like us or not now before we go i'm going to pass you back to sam who has just a couple more battery packs to share with you today as we get a lot of inquiries regarding the env200 vans we wanted to show you the packs fitted to these vehicles the earlier model vans were fitted with a 24 kilowatt hour battery pack which was replaced with the 40 kilowatt hour battery pack in february 2018. these packs are noticeably different from the leaf packs being a different shape and different connector location one of the most notable differences is the addition of active cooling this is achieved by using the vehicle's air conditioning system which is fed through the pack using these additional ports on the front we are also pleased to announce that a new translator to allow you to fit this 40 kilowatt hour pack into the earlier model vans is now available so there you have it 10 years of the nissan leaf thanks for watching we hope you enjoyed this video as much as we enjoyed making it we want to extend our massive thanks to all of our partners and customers for all of your support throughout 2020 as always you can find us on facebook or at ev'senhaus.com until next time have a safe holiday and we'll see you all again in the new year you

Channel: EVs Enhanced

Views: 98,900

Rating: 4.9116936 out of 5

Keywords: Leaf, battery upgrade, battery replacement, thermal management, translator, gateway, bridge, pairing, P3102, 62kWh, 40kWh, battery swap, upgrade, swap, replacement, health, weight, capacity

Id: hpgv-dY-q6M

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/spacexjames]

I own a zoe and I still loved this video; I just really wish that early leafs would have started off with thermal management - we’d have so many healthier batteries. I still think this opens the door to a 70kWh thermally controlled leaf pack pretty soon - that would honestly be unbeatable at the right price

[u/GoodNegotiation]

I found this interesting to watch as somebody who has been around Leafs for a few years!

[u/torokunai]

great video, learned a lot.

got to see how the eNV200 pack is cooled, got the weight delta on 40 vs 60 (300lbs+ IIRC), and that they just added a third cell/module to the 2P configuration of the 40 packs.

Makes me think that instead of paying $10,000 - $13,000 to replace my 40kWh for a 2020/21 62kWh, I should just wait and see if pack upgrades come out later this decade, allowing me to repurpose the degraded 40kWh pack as home storage or something.

[u/Paper64ink]

Ayyyyyy they have the LEAF Nismo in the thumbnail!!!!