Some Geniuses Are Swapping Brand-New Chinese Batteries Into Dead Nissan Leafs For Over 250 Miles of Range [The Autopian]
Posted by markeydarkey2@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 107 comments
Posted by markeydarkey2@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 107 comments
natesully33@reddit
I feel like at some point there will be a cottage industry built up around fixing/upgrading batteries like this for most popular BEVs. Recycling dead batteries too of course, just like we do for engine scrap and lead-acid batteries now.
Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho@reddit
Besides the original Tesla roadster, I can’t think of any old EV’s that would have that high demand to refurbish. Upgrading this leaf might have been more expensive than just buying a new equivalent once you factor labor and possible certification.
Tight_Olive_2987@reddit
I would do it for my taycan
Live-Habit-6115@reddit
The taycan already has a sizable battery, even the base models. The problem is it's just inexplicably inefficient as fuck. Audios have the same problem. Like 2 miles per kwh lol.
Luckily on the newest models coming out now they seem to have figured it out a bit but yeah otherwise these first gen Audi/Porsche EVs are basically irredeemable from a range/efficiency perspective
Tight_Olive_2987@reddit
Mine gets 3.7 mile per kilowatt hour. And I’d still put a solid state battery in it because it’s more fun to drive and nicer than any other EV I’ve driven
Surturiel@reddit
Oh, imagine, in 10 years, I can just plop a new battery in my Polestar 2, that more than doubles the range... 500 miles would be a dream.
TheMylo@reddit
BMW i3. Such a fun to drive light little car. It’s unique enough to have a growing cult following. It has a standard CCS port, so it’ll continue to be compatible with new charging stations. It’s limited to 125A, but I see no reason why a third party future retrofit battery couldn’t also come with a boost in charging speed. Also the body is carbon fiber so years of salty winter roads don’t affect it as much as more traditional cars.
ChubbyGirlsPM_MePics@reddit
Except that you basically can't get tires for those pizza cutter wheels.
There's one summer tire, one all season, and two winter tires that are obtainable for it.
I hope that you like the Bridgestone Ecopia tires.
TheMylo@reddit
What country are you in, where you only have one option?
I’m looking at 10 different summer, 7 all-season, 13 winter tires, 3 of which are northern climate rated and there’s even a studded winter tire. I just had my summer tires replaced less than a month ago for the first time since I got the car in 2019 and was spoiled for choice. On the very same 155/70 R19 pizza cutter wheels you mentioned.
Live-Habit-6115@reddit
He's in America. That's where the i3 only has one choice of tire
PM_ME_VAGS@reddit
It would likely sacrifice range with anything but that exact wheel and tire setup, but a lot of people seem to trade up for wider tires and match all 4 for easy rotations. Get wheels that are still small, light and aero but get some more tire options.
DudeWhereIsMyDuduk@reddit
I'm thinking about one next year. I don't need 100+ miles of range out of an EV, I just need something to get me around town with some stuff in the back and charge it at home every night. Anything farther afield and I'm likely going to be doing something where I want the Jeep for activities anyway.
Live-Habit-6115@reddit
A BMW i3 with a bigger battery would be great. That thing is unique, fun and a real hit with the ladies.
Okay maybe not that last one but otherwise yeah - range was the only real thing holding that bad boy back. As a big fat nerd I admire the ingenuity of it and the brilliance of its engineering and packaging. The fucking thing is like a tardis, I couldn't believe how roomy it was based on the exterior dimensions.
And I mean, how many other cars are made entirely out of carbon fiber, glass and plastic?
That baby is virtually rust proof!
Simon676@reddit
I believe these upgraded batteries are like $7-8000, installing is pretty easy on almost all EVs as the batteries simply drop down through the floor.
Yankee831@reddit
Yeah that’s the point. You’re all in for about $10k and you still have a leaf worth $4k. Cool you can do it but it’s not saving much. Batteries need to get a lot cheaper for these kinds refurbs to be pragmatic.
When you can swap a battery for a few grand then EV’s will have some sort of parity at the bottom end of the market. 10-20 year old vehicles.
Simon676@reddit
A replacement Leaf battery can be had for $3000, we're talking about one that's much better than the original here.
The full swap including labor would probably cost $7k as the old battery still has value even if it's broken.
Yankee831@reddit
It doesn’t matter. Why upgrade a leaf to be competitive with used vehicles with much better builds. It’s just not a pragmatic endeavor it’s a hobbyist’s pursuit. The pragmatic choice would be to just buy a used ice vehicle or spend $10k on a used vehicle.
Simon676@reddit
For many people things other than money might matter more to them.
If you genuinely like the car a lot and are planning to keep it for many more years it can absolutely make sense to spend $7k on a upgraded battery.
Yankee831@reddit
Absolutely that’s why I said hobbyists pursuit and not pragmatic. Rebuilding my 88 F150 is not pragmatic it’s a personal project and brings me joy. Putting a new engine in my 08 Element is pragmatic dropping a V8 into it is not. This is akin to dropping a V8 into the element not replacing the motor. I don’t care what people do but basically nobody loves the leaf besides it being cheap and efficient (especially used). People are acting like this makes sense to do but it doesn’t at all which isn’t a problem. People are bad at economics us humans are very irrational.
Simon676@reddit
Nobody loves the Leaf? Are you crazy? You'd be extremely surprised by how many people absolutely adore the cute frog car and its instant torque. :)
AwesomeBantha@reddit
there’s a guy who bought a totaled Leaf for like $4k a while ago and swapped the entire drivetrain over to a Land Cruiser 80, I think it got around 50 miles of range but that wasn’t a huge deal since he would just trailer it to the offroad trails
this could be useful for people who want to do relatively affordable EV swaps using a Leaf donor but want a bit more range… not a volume market for sure but I’m happy the option exists
Yankee831@reddit
It’s an enthusiasts project not a realist or pragmatic project for anyone else.
Salt_lick_fetish@reddit
That’s freaking delightful! The most appealing thing about the ev hummer is the idea of silent wheeling. An ev 80 series is way cooler!
DepthHour1669@reddit
Only vehicle (in the USA) where battery swaps make sense is the Tesla Model 3. Mostly because the price of a mildly used battery from a crashed Model 3 had dropped down to $3k. Throw in another $1k or so of labor, and you could get a fresh battery for a Model 3 for $4k or so, which is probably worth it if you're 150k miles or 200k miles in.
masterventris@reddit
Where have you seen complete batteries for 3k? Because that undercuts all domestic solar storage options by a shit load and I am very interested.
Last time I looked a full battery was nearer $15k!
DepthHour1669@reddit
https://www.ebay.com/itm/126999684143
masterventris@reddit
That is probably even worth shipping here to the UK at that price. It is 10x cheaper than the same amount of storage sold specifically for domestic PV use.
DepthHour1669@reddit
Ebay “Tesla Model 3 battery”
Lugnuts088@reddit
While not EV, Prius were one of the first to have their battery pack costs come down so significantly due to the high demand of replacing their battery packs.
GreatOdinsRaven_@reddit
i3 maybe.
IamaFunGuy@reddit
Have you looked at new car pricing?
Nhojj_Whyte@reddit
Exactly my first thought. I haven't looked at EV pricing specifically but like, where are you getting a new car for 10k or less? Nowhere! And yeah it's not entirely new I guess, but a low mileage older car is at least going to cost you the equivalent of this swap.
It's better for the environment to keep an older car on the road rather than scrap it for a new one too, and well, if you bought a leaf, you probably did think you were saving the planet.
AwesomeBantha@reddit
also, not exactly an EV, but I know people swap the batteries in the Honda Insight, apparently there’s quite the MPG boost
AwesomeBantha@reddit
I believe that early Tesla Model S come with lifetime free charging - so if you own one of those and use public charging frequently and your battery is dying anyway and the replacement winds up being cheaper than buying a new car, it might be worthwhile
AGPatel15@reddit
I remember seeing a decent amount of Chevy Volts back before the Model S
BlueKnight44@reddit
This currently is dangerous as shit. There are dozens of safety variables monitored in the batteries and charging systems that I can only assume are turned off to make this work. Without the OEM data needed, it is extremely hard to reverse engineer all of then CAN protocols to make it all work properly. It is only a matter of time until these start going up in flames.
Surturiel@reddit
It's already there, and growing.
With enough batteries and patience, you can sort out modules to get a workable one. Cells/modules don't degrade equally.
Scary-Strawberry-504@reddit
Maybe in the U.S. I doubt this would happen is most of Europe where we get fined for the smallest of modifications
kograkthestrong@reddit
There's a dedicated hybrid shop not too far from me.......in the middle of nowhere off of some farm road. Dude seems to be doing pretty well. There are always tons of cars being worked on. I can see this happening.
DudeWhereIsMyDuduk@reddit
I think a lot of Gen Z forgets that for decades, "EV" meant that grizzled guy in Vermont who converted a Rabbit to run off AGMs in his garage. There's a long traditional of geekiness and general nerdery in the field, long before the South African coup leader decided to invade the space.
Live-Habit-6115@reddit
How are you gonna forget something you didn't know in the first place?
snsvsv@reddit
That’s what you do with old power wheels. Why not a leaf
Live-Habit-6115@reddit
Because then you're behind the wheel of an ancient Nissan Leaf
Csoltis@reddit
Def a big fan of Makita power wheels, did you see that guy that made one a dragster?
ezekirby@reddit
I follow a couple of guys on IG who made dragsters that their young kids race. It's hilarious.
Csoltis@reddit
Don't forget the wheelie bars!
LoPanDidNothingWrong@reddit
I would love to replace the hybrid battery in my Cayenne to get a bit more electric only range. If anything I have learned that I don’t need more than thirty miles of true range for 99.9% of my driving and my Cayenne doesn’t quite make it that far.
Life_Menu_4094@reddit
I still can't help but feel Nissan should have done exactly this with the new Leaf such that they might have leveraged the competitive advantage of their having a fifteen year old platform that would likely have been sufficient for a low-cost EV - a segment that is largely unaddressed in the US at present and likely to grow in the near future.
A_Light_Spark@reddit
The Japanese automakers would rather eat their own shit than use chinese products as major feature lol
Life_Menu_4094@reddit
While I was speaking more generally about a larger capacity battery, I also don't think what you suggest is necessarily true. Toyota uses CATL batteries in the bZ4X / RZ, for instance.
A_Light_Spark@reddit
Then it makes even less sense to me. If they have done it before, why would Nissan not consider strategic collaboration like this? Of course incompetence is one thing...
College_Prestige@reddit
I think Mazda took a Chinese EV and called it the 6e in Europe. Though that's not the norm
A_Light_Spark@reddit
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/mazda-teases-its-new-chinese-made-electric-suv
It's chinese in the sense that it's funded and developed by Mazda's chinese branch.
College_Prestige@reddit
They took a deepal, which is wholly owned by changan, and reskinned it under the Mazda JV
A_Light_Spark@reddit
I see, makes sense. But on the surface they claim it's Mazda. Instead of simply stating it's a ChangAn/Deepal, you know, to save cost and cut the BS. I know in the auto world it's common (Skoda reskin), but it's always silly to me.
TurboFucked@reddit
Just one in a long line of major failures at Nissan. It's no surprise they are where they are now.
StandupJetskier@reddit
Why does anyone think that EV won't be "hotrodded" ?
velociraptorfarmer@reddit
Right? It's already happening with golf carts and power wheels. It's just a matter of time until the systems get cracked and these things get cheap enough that they fall into the hands of people who like to mess around.
Slyons89@reddit
My guess is because most folks with the knowledge and capability for "hot rodding" traditional ICE cars don't have the programming knowledge and capability to circumvent the software restrictions and requirements that are in-place on EV cars.
A lot of EV cars, when there is an unexpected change in parts, just go into 'safe mode' or refuse to function at all. So the impression is they are difficult to mod because they are so purposely locked down and all the systems are integrated together.
There are definitely some folks with that overlap of knowledge of both worlds though, especially younger guys who learned the trade in the past decade or so as even ICE cars became very software focused.
cgduncan@reddit
Because there's a big overlap between "hotrod" type people and people who think EVs are evil
StandupJetskier@reddit
HOT ROD ALL THE THINGS !!!!! :)
Tight_Olive_2987@reddit
Porsche has apparently been building their cars to be able to put an engine in rather easily.
June1994@reddit
Because they don’t think too hard about it?
Pad_TyTy@reddit
Nothing could go wrong here.
D4rkr4in@reddit
Fwiw Chinese battery tech is really good now - probably better than American ones
Saitoh17@reddit
There's no probably about it, my Chinese phone from last year has a silicon carbon battery in it that nearly all Americans have never heard of
CapacitorJinrai@reddit
Chinese silicon battery is made by a Japanese owned company
Boundish91@reddit
Since when did the US produce batteries?
Previous_Composer934@reddit
since forever. just not at the same scale as china
DepthHour1669@reddit
The new battery is probably way better than the junk that came with the Leaf
BlueKnight44@reddit
Does not matter. All batteries fail sometimes. And if they don't, the electronics around them do. There are OEM safeguards in place for all this. Unless these people are 100% duplicating all the communication between the vehicle and these batteries, it is only a matter of time until they start going up in flames.
IsaacM42@reddit
the issue is the cabling and cooling
chalk_tuah@reddit
probably also better than the junk that came with the leaf
IsaacM42@reddit
i mean the leaf's cabling and cooling
JtheNinja@reddit
The Leaf is rather infamous for its passively cooled battery
goaelephant@reddit
Air cooled like an old Porsche?
DepthHour1669@reddit
Nah, an aircooled porsche has a fan. The leaf doesn’t even have that.
Seref15@reddit
Yeah when one of these combusts then the firefighters get there and none of the cabling is where they're expecting it to be
Nhojj_Whyte@reddit
This is just as true with most engine swaps and about as (ir)relevant.
south-of-the-river@reddit
Except it probably would be.
RowanTheKiwi@reddit
Technology improves. People have been upgrading cars for decades with newer better parts. Modern aftermarket engine management as an example is light years ahead of carbs. EV is no different.
TopEntertainment5304@reddit
Nissan's bankruptcy was inevitable, all their products are just worse Toyotas.
Boundish91@reddit
Soo, with some fiddling could you get more horsepower as well or will the leaf cabling and air cooling not accommodate that?
txmail@reddit
The electric engines have hard limits at what they can achieve in terms of torque and RPM's. That being said... there is nothing preventing people from using a few gears to increase output shaft RPM's for higher top speeds of EV's (at least until they hit their aerodynamic limits).
tomsnrg@reddit
Actually electric engines have a wide range of power and rpm, at the price of efficiency loss. Short term extreme power - just program the controller.
JtheNinja@reddit
I imagine for some cheaper/shorter range EVs, the stock battery wasn’t capable of producing enough current to max out the motor. If that’s the case, you could potentially get more horsepower this way.
txmail@reddit
Very true, some are artificially limited in software only and if you want the full potential of the engine you have to pay to buy the higher level model. It was the same thing Tesla did with the battery packs (artificially limited them).
Boundish91@reddit
I've been waiting for this type of modding to start on older EVs.
Or is the article an April fools?
kimi_rules@reddit
Swapping old Leafs batteries has been a thing for awhile, I've seen college students in my country do it for cheap and the exposure.
This article just highlights that they can source batteries from CATL to get far more range than the typical battery upgrades my people do.
WretchedMisteak@reddit
This is something I have been thinking about with the current gen EVs. I'm assuming it would be possible to swap out the battery packs in the future for new generation battery packs. For example, you get get a second hand Taycan and when Solid State Batteries are around, you could swap it out.
oliverprose@reddit
This is what I was hoping would come out of the battery swap tech that was being floated with early EVs - they'd standardise on the battery (maybe a range of sizes, but no more than 3 or 4) and you'd lease based on capacity. When it's low, nip into a station and swap for a charged one of the same size and away you go again.
When the battery platform upgrades like solid state, then your capacity lease covers that, or you have it as an upgrade option as the older technology is being phased out.
lordtema@reddit
NIO still does battery swaps, but there are limitations to the tech. You get relatively poor DC fast charging which can be an issue when there is not enough battery swap stations, and you also have to lease the battery (but you only take a loss after the 6 yr mark compared to buying a battery with the car)
juwyro@reddit
The era of EV modders is here.
strangway@reddit
Nissan should be the “geniuses” in this story.
Hackwork89@reddit
Some geniuses, not all geniuses.
pembquist@reddit
I just wonder if this has any effect on insurance.
SignalSatisfaction90@reddit
They don’t gotta know
Traditional-Oven4092@reddit
Some genius’ house burned down
Doip@reddit
Wait until you learn what gas does
The_Strom784@reddit
Coming soon:
Old Nissan meets questionable battery.
kimi_rules@reddit
It's a CATL battery.
KeyboardGunner@reddit
CATL makes the cells, not the pack. An important distinction.
The_Strom784@reddit
It's probably fine. I just wanted to make a dumb joke.
seantaiphoon@reddit
So you buy a 3000$ 10 year old car that doesnt work worth a crap. Spend a week plus messaging the manufacturer to figure out their chinglinsh and it will only cost you 9800$ USD plus your blood sweat and patience for a pile of junk car. Plus no warranty or insurance that anything you just did won't burn your house down when you go to charge it.
Im okay thank you but it's getting closer. Only 4x magnitude to go.
PabloIceCreamBar@reddit
Bro wtf
seantaiphoon@reddit
Forgive me. I buy a lot of Chinese stuff from the weird corners of the earth because it's cheaper. Especially heavy equipment like crushers. Time and time again they come with complete crap manuals that you can't interpret and they tout full English manuals. It falls on the user to struggle through learning Chinese.
Chinglish is simply Chinese English as far as I've ever known.
Redditors thinking it's racist is a little reddit. It's a language branch.
9800$ and you can't write a manual. It's not a usable product.
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