agreed, everyone's LOST THE PLOT that the only way to "Fight Climate Change" with an EV is technically to keep it on the road and in use for as long as possible, otherwise it can't "pay off" the sizable CARBON DEBT the vehicle incurs at the time of it's manufacture. both generations of Leafs would be great vehicles for this, but of course as i've stated previously, Capitalism and the Free Market System is WHOLLY INCOMPATIBLE with the idea of "Saving The Planet".
Upgrade of engines is not compulsory so why should traction batteries. However, at least we own them. The way electric cars are going we will never have the right to swap or upgrade batteries.
@@Dave5843-d9m If the vehicles software prevents you from upgrading the battery, you do not own it. To own something means being able to upgrade it as you see fit without the manufacturers permission, cracking encryption, or using devices meant to trick the software in other ways. It's also a conversation that comes with Right to Repair.
@@Dave5843-d9m You can upgrade ICEs though. Aftermarket turbo, forged pistons, engine remapping, more robust head gasket, exhaust, radiator even a whole engine swap. ICE's can be taken apart and put back together. If you want it to be like it is already you should be able to swap battery packs.
@@Dave5843-d9m "Upgrade of engines is not compulsory..." - Google 'Japanese Engine Replacement Law' When the day comes that my Camry engine dies, I'm pretty sure I won't have Toyota breathing down my neck telling me I cannot buy another engine from them, another of the dozens of engine manufacturers, a salvage yard, or from a competent mechanic who's capable of rebuilding it...while not having to worry about software blocks...
There is a channel that uses Chevy Bolt battery packs in Leaf`s the same channel has a tesla with a 125kw battery pack... Also there`s another channel that uses new 18650 custom battery cell packs in Leaf`s.....
I do believe the most likely way to keep our oldest EVs on the road will be third party battery packs. The vehicle manufacturers likely won't find it as profitable to update their battery packs, similar to how our cellphones are nowadays. Hopefully, manufacturers will always make their battery packs removable, unlike our modern cellphones.
It may require that there be a law to force it. Without that, manufacturers have an incentive to make the car so it can't be repaired beyond a certain date.
I have Leaf 2016, 30kWh, 250.000km and the battery has about 60% SOH. That would be fine, if it would be useful in winter. So I asked our official Nissan dealer for replacement. He politely told me to scrap the car and buy a new one, since the battery cost is in range of 30.000€. Yes, not a typo. So, if this is green, then I'm a hippo. Dala is such a nice guy, his work will help many, maybe even me. Thank you for this informational video.
Honestly, we cannot be 'green' until we get rid of the profit motive and 'business' becomes a cooperative and/or public entity in general. And that scares people, because it requires genuine socialism. Not social democratic stuff, the real thing... And the "s" word can't be handled at present day by many people.
Yep, Dala is awesome! It's definitely not an easy decision to take a _lot_ of work and make it open source when he could be making some money off it. But this is definitely great news for Leaf owners of current and future time.
Just because you make something open source doesn't mean you can't still sell it, you're just no longer selling the design but the implementation. Red Hat became so profitable that IBM bought them and their product is a Linux-based OS and support for it.
@@BringMayFlowersTrue, but pricing of open-source hardware does tend to be cheaper than most full commercial implementations, in my experience. But yes, hopefully he does get some good sales from it. :)
I had a 30 put in my 2011 Leaf by Cleevely during lockdown. So far, so good. The CAN bridge came from Muxsan. Dala has always responded to my emails and is super helpful. He’s also boosted his leaf power up to 200kW.
I bought s 2015 Leaf with a new traction battery, ive had it a week and ive already started planning battery and inverter upgrades. It helps that ive been buildong c-max packs for aftermarket equipment for several years and own all the fun special tools like osciliscopes, hydraulic crimping machine, TIG welder, ect. Actually, i have a 12' x 8' enclosed trailer stocked with tools for this stuff.
Woot! Dala’s channel is super cool! This seems like a fun thing to do. I hope this goes well for him. I look forward to his whole pack usage as stationary storage.
I agree that would have been a major attitude shift from an industry player. But open sourced software that is based on reverse engineered code has made Linux get where it is today in computing: and OK it's only on a few percent of home and office machines but it has totally grabbed the IT infrastructure and web servers and so on Hopefully this is the thin end of a very long wedge that can only do us all good
Vendors that have locked-in users opening up the vendor-lock-in without being absolutely forced by large countries? Nah. Heck, even when 500M+ country unions push them they'll still try not to. This is what hackers do.
Or at least imagine a future battery technology that isnt as sensitive to temperature changes. It seems reasonable to assume that some research dollars will go towards finding a battery solution that doesnt care so much about temperature. Especially on the affordable end of the EV space, reducing the cooling requirements for a pack would reduce manufacturing cost and assembly complexity quite a bit. Although regardless of the battery, anything that wasnt specifically built to be put into a LEAF will require some pretty exotic software and hardware in terms of the battery management system.... which is one of the most complicated and safety-critical systems in the vehicle.
There are some battery chemistries that have a wider range of acceptable temperatures, like sodium-ion, and some that need their own heating, like oxygen ion.
Recently saw a page about a company in New Zealand which has a blade type battery which fits into the original tray and also has a BMS with heating and cooling.
Most Leaf owners cannot do swaps themselves. Our social enterprise (nonprofit) offer this service to Leaf owners, in Ireland. The owners purchase the used battery pack themselves and we install using LeafSpy battery matching and Muxsan CAN-bridge. Next: an amazing Dala project offers "plug and play" integration of the old Leaf pack in a solar installations. Brilliant.
That's amazing. I live in the US and am low income. and my parents can trace their family back there. do you know if there is any way that I could buy a car there in Ireland and have it worked on there ? it might be easier than here in the states.
@@jbz7736Might be the opposite. They have more regulations than US and left side traffic when driver side is right side of the car. Additionally it will cost a lot to get car from ireland to US.
I'd love to see another visit to the LEAF shop in PDX and the work they're doing on refurbishing old LEAFs for new owners. Especially when it comes to 2011-2012 cars with the flawed onboard chargers.
@@anthonyc8499 In PDX also and have been looking into getting a leaf, they are everywhere in marketplace, sometimes really cheap. I rarely leave the Westside, 30miles even, would last me a few days if not the whole week.
Excellent video, Nikki. I've been following Dala's UA-cam channel for awhile. He's also put out a few videos on Mitsubishi i-MiEV (Citroen CZero & Peugeot iOn in Europe) repairs and upgrades, which hits home for me keeping those running, as my example celebrates its 11th birthday this summer. Let's keep these older EVs functional and viable options for used car buyers on a budget for as long as we can.
I'm glad Dala is doing what he's doing. Personally, I'd be way too afraid to mess with electricity, but some people would be competent to do this kind of work.
Even if you don't want to mess with it, the chances for someone around you being willing to do it is a lot greater, either someone you know, or a shop that will do cheaper than was the case before.
Start small get a cheep rc car..then an ebike.. same thing just scaled up.. you will be programming speed controllers, and building battery packs before you know it.
Kudos to you for your support of another You-Tuber who some might think of as a competitor channel. But no: not competition but co-operation. That also is part of the Open Source ethos.
That is really cool. Open source? I love all things open source, that is just too awesome. Honestly, and I say this with my bias as a gamer, but if you have something that is open source or easily modded, you'll have a community of enthusiasts who can keep something alive.
An early model LEAF with a current gen 60kWh battery will out-range a new LEAF as they had more aluminum components that were replaced with heavier steel parts later on.
One feature that the Leaf has that I've not seen on any other EV to this day is, the "state of health" indicator right there on the dashboard. Not just the state of charge, but the actual health status of the battery. I'd love to see this on other EVs. Sure, this info can be found using apps like "torque pro" with a special OBDII dongle, but it'd be nice to have that info right there on the dash, or at least available buried in a "system" menu or something.
The SOH figure may be misleading if the battery cannot be charged. Always best to check the cell voltages as well, so really a plug in dongle is essential when looking to buy a second hand EV or battery.
What good is an indicator that would show something interesting in 8 years at the earliest? :D Leaf and its first battery, that was history where it was needed. It would be completely useless today.
It has been harder for me to watch the channel for a bit. Lot if negativity in the world and though I would not wish this channel to change, I have been reducing my daily intake of the negativity. This episode was fantastic. Lots of facts and information about EV and just a joy to watch. Picked up my day. Thanks.
Sure, but why couldn't Nissan have done it? There should be no such thing as closed-source anything. Openness should be a requirement of doing business.
My 10 year old Leaf at 60k miles still has 10 bars on the display. Would love to upgrade it not so much due to the battery condition but as, at 24kWh, it never had much range anyway.
I live in Kent England and have a almost 4 year old 40 kWh Leaf that’s only got 18,000 miles on it. Looking into have a 60 kWh battery fitted by Cleverly near Gloucester. Seen them fitting them on UA-cam and had a chat with them at FullyCharged a couple of months back at Farnborough England. Thanks for the programs Bob Blood .
That’s interesting that Clevely themselves said they could do a battery swap as they officially said, about six or so months ago, that they’d stopped doing it as it wasn’t economically viable for them. I hope you’re right and they’ve changed their minds.
Surprised that you would already be wanting an upgraded battery. Have you lost an bars? What kind of range can you get? What kind of range do you need?
Daala is incredible guy.. because of him we will have a huge shortage of Leab batteries... His use of Leaf battery to keep cars in use, and work on different inversters to accept diffeternt batteries as sourse of power for solar backup is amazing... he deserves much more following. Good that you introduced the guy
Dala is a legend! This will make it fairly easy, with a modicum of understanding and a large chunk of high voltage respect, to keep earlier Leafs going for many years to come. The rest of the car seems to last well, so a battery solution like this will increase the appeal of the early Leaf. I remember someone saying they were developing a better cooling solution for the Leaf/eNV200. I'm going to have to find who it was again! If anyone is interested in the technical side of EV fiddling, Dala's channel is very interesting. Re the sad demise of your Traveller, it reminded me of a time when I was working in Exeter and one of my colleagues said her radio was playing up in her Golf and could I have a look. I removed the stereo and as the loom came into sight, the live feed had just been twisted together! No insulation either!! She had paid a garage £60 for fitting too! I had to make it safe and brought the proper connectors, tools etc into work the next day, to wire it properly. Some people should simply not operate screwdrivers or heavy machinery like kettles! If you are practically minded though, Dala has how to videos on installing replacement Leaf batteries and his software workaround.
Our Leaf will be eight year in October, and it has held up amazingly well so far. No mechanical issues, and it runs great. We also have an older diesel Mercedes B class, and that started pretty much falling apart before it was as old as our Leaf in now. The Leaf battery still reports full capacity, both in the car, and in the reports from the service center. That's pretty impressive for a nearly eight year old EV with 75.000km, and driven every day in at times pretty rough Norwegian conditions.
I had a 2012 Leaf briefly before I bought a model Y. 45 miles of range and I never ran out of charge as I only drive about 25 miles a day. Nice driving and zippier than you would expect. Great cheap solution if you don’t need a lot of range.
You are so right! The only reason I am now driving an EV is because I found a LEAF locally that while banged up and with limited range, was something I could afford. I love it and being retired and having a ICE car for backup when I need to go farther away than the 20 miles I can go (50 mile max range) with the LEAF, it works for me 99% of the time. I've been thinking of saving up for a Bolt when the LEAF gets to where even I can't use it. I don't think anyone around here would do a battery swap even if the parts were available. At my age I don't think I would attempt it either. BUT I love that Dalas has opened his heart to the world.
I'll be sub'ing to Dala, we need more people like him. I upgraded my EV battery but since it's a moped there were no issues with software etc., more than doubled the original capacity though. All solar charged too, from my home made power wall.
I'm a bit bummed, as I let the clickbait get my hopes up only to have them dashed. It is great that Dala has open-sourced the firmware, but it doesn't move the needle with regards upgrade costs. As the fleet continues to age, the quality of those remaining used packs continues to degrade. The supply of used packs will just continue to dwindle, and scarcity only drives up costs. The absence of aftermarket packs is the unsolved problem. Alas, litigation cost (at least in the USA) will likely deter would-be vendors. (I could go into a side rant about insurance auctions letting batteries discharge for months in wrecked vehicles long before they can even be purchased... degrading remaining packs even more.)
I just bought a 2019 LEAF SV. I love it and I want it to be my daily driver for many, many years. I expect some day I will want to spend several thousand to replace the battery rather than buying a new car. Dale is a good egg. Great video.
I'd love to see this kind of project for the old Spark EV or Fiat 500e. The latter is even popular enough for its styling to maybe warrant an open source battery swap.
The Spark remains my favorite EV, it's such a hoot to drive and has tons of usable space inside, despite its diminutive dimensions. And 10 air bags including side curtains!
We had a 2015 Leaf we bought used on 2017.. We loved it. When we traded it last year for our Bolt the battery was still at 80% SOH. When I figured out our total cost of ownership, it was less than what it would have cost us in gas to drive the ICE car it replaced to drive the same number of miles. The cheapest car I have ever owned.
How many miles did you have on it and how many bars did you lose? I have around 57,000 on my 2015 and have lost one bar so far. Curious to know what other people's experience is. I want to get a OBDII dongle for use with LEAFSpy but was afraid to short something out as some of the cheap ones have problems from what I've read in reviews.
wow! A 2-yr old car was the cheapest car you've owned. Still running a small lpg car after buying it 4-years ago for 350 quid. Living in the world I live in, where good cars are had for sub-500 quid and cars need to be fixed by the owner, i worry about how we keep moving ourselves around and not return to a time when car ownership was for the rich only.
Replaced my leafs battery with a 40kwh battery myself a year ago with the help of Dallas hardware am now looking at flashing a few can bridge's my self to help others out
EVs Enhanced in New Zealand (see their UA-cam channel) just announced a replacement battery pack for the leaf that features active cooling. They are preparing to put it on on the market in that country and have plans to sell wherever the leaf is sold.
Apparently not so much...I just happened on a live stream where poor Nikki was distraught about more vicious hate communication. Bless her she basically vented, cut off and deleted. We must all be vigilant at this end and block and report anything horrid that gets through. Sadly though it's still Nikki or one of the team that suffer the brunt of all the murderous hate speech. Just awful, feel so sad they have to deal with such crap.
Thanks for the heads up. And, thank you, Dala, for your invaluable aid to Leaf owners. I have been on the fence regarding purchasing a used Leaf with a not-so-great battery pack. This has me leaning a little more to the 'YES' direction. If I can locate a local mechanic willing to take on the job the adventure will begin.
Thanks for this very informative video for those of us still wanting to join in the used electric vehicle market. I keep wanting to add an around-town Leaf. I’m now more interested than ever! Again, thank you.
I would love to try to upgrade the battery on my leaf. I am also looking at (dreaming of) the EVsEnhanced battery which reportedly is actively cooled. But not available yet and looks to be very expensive.
OPEN SOURCE!!! Yeah!!! I LAUGHED when you referred to "Just Rolled In" videos! I love to watch them and SMH with some of the cars that he shows! HOW the HECK do these things still run???? Sorry to hear about your Morris!!! LOVE the triangle sticker (rainbow)! Thanks for the info! I watch Dala also.
Hi Nikki, this is Rick from the declining oil capitol of the world and rising renewables and EV capitol of the world, Houston, Texas. The open sourcing of battery upgrades on the Nissan Leaf is music to my ears. My 2015 Leaf has the lizard battery but has still lost 3 of its life bars. So far so good though. The thought of a 62 KW pack in my car sounds awesome. The possibility of converting the CHAdeMO connector to CCS is incredible news but for now I'll take the 62 KW pack. I can hardly wait for a V2G interface between my Leaf and my home incase we get another freeze or we get power loss during a heatwave. Thanks for another awesome and fascinating video!
I have a 2015 as well. I lost one bar around 50,000 miles. I'm at around 57,000 now. How many miles do you have on yours? Have you been using fast charging?
@@idmhead0160 I have just over 83,000 miles on my Leaf but I use level three rarely. I live in Houston, Texas and my garage gets very hot, combine this with the freezes and it’s usually after a freeze that the battery pack loses a bar.
@@radiotec76 Thanks for the info. That's worse than I hoped. Hopefully, I can stave off losing any more bars for awhile. I'm in the Chicago area and don't really use it in the winter. It's kept in a heated garage. So, I'm hoping I will have better luck than you. would like to make it until at least 100,000 before a lose another bar.
Wow amazing news. As a current 40kWh owner I even hold out hope for a CCS kit, CCS relaunch (it would sell like crazy without the Chademo cloud hanging) and a better cooled version battery like on the ENV200. I wouldn’t even have Nissan redesign the running gear, maybe glean over the interior trim, but keep it the same form factor. It would be modular to keep even old banger leafs on the roads for decades, that’s gotta be more sustainable.
which is why I think its been open sourced.. because there is no competition in offering this service, and everyone sees its not worth it... until there is actually an alternative cells that are cheap.
Definitely Open sourcing the install procedure and canbus interface is a huge benefit to the Leaf community. Huge props to Dala!! But it's not magically going to make "known good" Leaf battery packs available in Sri Lanka.
I'm all for this. Been wrenching on my own cars since i starting driving, and managed to land me a career in industrial maintenance so this makes an older Leaf way more feasible for me.
I’ve viewed Dada’s channel a few times. Tech is a bit beyond me, but the mention of a CCS conversion brings a glimmer of hope for my Soul’s future. Especially with the adoption of Tesla plug standard here in North American.
There is a community trying to crack the software code of the Chevy Volt as well and will open source it! Brian Batista and Monroe Lee King are hard at work. My 2013 with 310K miles has significant degradation, hold mode at 9 miles remaining keeps full power when flooring.
This is the first video from your channel to show up in my feed and I'm so glad it did! I found this video most informative. Many thanks. Personally, I have a background in electronics and I am no stranger to making electrical and electronic repairs to vehicles as well as other technical repairs and modifications with great success. I approach tasks carefully and methodically and plan everything out beforehand. I feel quite confident in being able to replace a battery pack myself in the need arises.
@@transportevolved For some reason UA-cam has started recommending really old videos. Mid-2023 is quite recent compared with other recommendations of up to 6 years old I've been getting...!
In 2019 a Nissan Leaf owner was quoted $35,000 for a new battery in Australia for his $20,000 Leaf, so he put that onto the web and as a result Nissan Australia had to issue a statement of $9,985 and 5.8hrs of labour. When Total Nissan in Perth (WA) just now quoted me $35,000 plus one week of labour for $5,000, I took that 2019 Nissan HQ letter along and asked them to give me a present cost and am still waiting. The 1800 HQ Nissan number was also contacted and I am still waiting! The solution: AUG Energy in Shenzhen will sell you refurbished Leaf batteries with new CATL modules and a 23kWh batt will cost you US$4,400 door-to-door and they also sell batts up to 63kWh in steps. One shop in Balcatta will install the battery for $1,000. Am still waiting now for a cheeep 2014 Leaf!
I saw this video's title, and I knew already Dala's EV repair was the reason for this video. He (Daniel) was my colleague some years ago, and it's been amazing watching him do what he does.
Oh yeah, one more thing... its great to see Dala doing this - I hope it inspires some others to do likewise... specifically, I would LOVE for Nissan to finally feel enough of a guilty conscience that they start offering Leaf battery packs openly for sale, and also the OEM cells, so the shade-tree pack-rebuilders can get fresh new cells instead of scrounging for wrecked Leafs! I could get REALLY hopeful and wish they would open up their internal design and communication protocols for the Leaf pack's communications, so we are not so dependent on all this reverse engineering, but that is probably just too much apoplexy for their patent attorneys.
I loved my 2012 LEAF. I just wish the Nissan hadn't dropped the ball. The were out front, and still could be, but… refused to improve their EV with thermal management, CCS, and more range.
There should by a mandatory faire use ip liberation when battery packs warranty expires, api's and technical specifications should become open source by law. Still there should be some third party regulation to ensure that builders, rebuilders of battery packs can produce packs with an acceptable quality levels.
In Canada, it is near impossible to source used leaf batteries that have an acceptable capacity remaining in them. The very very few companies that do "replacement" swaps create an additional demand for the very few that come available. The costs for a 62KW battery runs at about $20K CDN.
It's great and anything that keeps these cars on the road longer is to be applauded. That said doing it yourself isn't going to be a thing unless you have access to a car lift (so you can work under the car) and a table lift so you can drop the battery out. Both of these are outside the scope of most home DIYers and I'm not sure you can hire them? Defo worth a go if you can though.
EV MAKERS CAN'T LOCK OUT SELF REPAIR BECAUSE IT WILL KILL THE MARKET . HOW MANY LOW INCOME PEOPLE AFFORD TO PAY FOR REPAIRS OR A NEW CAR EVERYTIME SOMETHING MAYJOR . DON'T FORGET POOR PEOPLE ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO SURVIVE , WE WILL DO OUR OWN REPAIRS WEATHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT . COME ON AFTERMARKET PARTS ' THERES A HUGE MARKET TO BE FILLED .
The real big question here, is why do we tolerate manufacturers making things intentionally difficult for parts replacement? There is no excuse for the process of replacing the battery to be more than the physical replacement of the battery, and MAYBE a button in the software menu to ask it to recalibrate. The fact that you have to add hardware to the CAN bus to trick the car into accepting the fact that you replaced a part is the real thing we should be talking about, and talking about to our legislators. The only explanation for that is pure malice on the part of the manufacturer. They do it to lock you into their repair shops and their parts chain, and to extract more money from you. These practices need to stop!
When I learned about the hotrodding community around the Leaf motor/inverter and Dala's backhacking of CANbus systems, I idly wondered if the Leaf was going to become something like the Ford Model A and T; this dead-simple vehicle that has this MASSIVE cottage industry of power and use upgrades because the creators made it so cheap it would be easily understood. Even swapping to a gas engine is still fine, because those people are most likely recycling a good chassis and reusing it. I wonder if Dala will also be working on entire custom packs for the leaf as well; if it had modern thermal management it could DC charge, and Nissan won't be making the Leaf cells forever. Being able to covert a Leaf to using packs from GM or Tesla or anyone else could make them virtually immortal as entirely unique creations, assuming it can fit in the space.
Great idea by why do you question the possibility of DC charging a Leaf? Thet can already DC charge, don't you know? And there is a cooling system for the inverter when it's charging, see ?
I own a 9y opd 2015 LEAF SV for 6 yrs. I bought it used at 3 yrs old. Few would buy EV's if not for incentives and substudies. However, I'm glad to hear battery open source. I can DIY. I am down to 75 mile range. Still works for me. 8 years from now, not so much.
Good explanation of the Leaf thermal management problem, but I think misses on the other problem: battery life is a number of cycles of the full vehicle range, so a ~20kWh battery like the original Leaf will only give half the total range before it dies compared to a 40kWh battery, as it goes only half as far on the same number of full battery cycles.
It's actually more even better than that. (Probably, see my final paragraph) If you keep a Lithium Ion battery in the sweet range of 40% to 80% charge it lasts a lot longer than if you do the same power throughput from say 20% to 100%. So if you manage your charge regime appropriately for commuting use then I reckon you get more than double the number of effective full cycles from a doubled battery. My experience of this is with mobile phones, not eV batteries, bit the chemistry is the same so I figure it SHOULD be similar. I'd be glad to have this thought confirmed or contradicted by an eV jacket who actually knows. The one thing that I do know is that the Prius hybrid tries very hard to keep its battery in that sweet zone, and I'm guessing that that is the reason the Toyota engineers designed it that way.
@@trueriver1950 Yes, with any battery chemistry you will extend the life by keeping within limits such as those. In addition switching chemistry to LFP or something can again multiply the life another 2x or 3x.
Got really excited when I thought this was official from Nissan that they had given approval to this kind of work. So it brings a question, how does Nissan feel about any of this? I only ask because tesla gets into people’s business so much.
I like how my leaf is a hack friendly car. I think a new EV would be too locked down for me. I really like my self hosted OVMS, and leafspy. Having to go from that to a subscription for heated seats or whatever would make me mad.
I think the information provided in this video can easily fit in less than 5 minutes video. Respect for the time of the audience is also important thing to be followed from the video creators. If someone is really slow and can’t get, could watch 3 times if he wishes. ;)
I have a 2018 Leaf with 135000 km and it is still working well. I’m encouraged to think that in a few years I could possibly swap out my battery for a 62 KW upgrade
I have taken 2x 24kWh Nissan Leaf batteries and built a 48kWh 48v solary battery storage, which powers my house. I would be happy to try a 40kWh nissan leaf battery upgrade on my wifes Nissan Leaf using Dala's techniques (giving me another 24kWh of storage for another battery project)
There is a company in Australia that is coming out with an LFP battery replacement for Nissan Leafs. The LFP battery chemistry will preform and last a whole heck of a lot better than any NCM battery currently available.
Thank you. This is a huge step in the right direction. Scrapping serviceable vehicles and building new ones is an eco catastrophe, regardless of motive power source. But scrapping serviceable EVs and building new ones is doubly stupid, yet it’s what we are being told to do. This, finally, helps reduce that particular insanity. There’s nothing as green as preservation of existing equipment in good working order, whether that’s a 100 year old Model T, 40 year old VW Golf ( Rabbit, in some markets), or 10 yer old Nissan Leaf.
Thanks for the update, what a top bloke! I’d love a simple way to improve the range on my ENV200 in NZ; no-one is doing this and bigger batteries aren’t available. So looks like the only option for me is buy a secondhand Vivaro-e or similar in Britain, and ship it over 🤑😪
Even in antipodean Australia we now have people changing out Leaf batteries and replacing them with better batteries with proper temperature management. A little bit expensive at $18 K Aust $$ but that is for a 50 kwh battery which has been remanufactured. Exciting times indeed.
It’s difficult to find batteries for the leaf in the uk and I don’t think anyone is doing a replacement for the original leaf battery yet, so I’ll be waiting a while before I attempt a battery swap.
I think the next step is to open source a LFP repack for the leaf. there are many many suppliers of LFP cells from China, which are much more affordable. The advantage of these cells is they are much more resilient and less susceptible to heat.
We have a 2015 Leaf, and it has been great so far. With roughly 75.000km driven so far, the battery reports from out service center still show 100%. We mostly charge at home, but quick charge on longer trips a few times a year. It's good to know battery replacements will likely be cheaper and easier in the future, because I really like the car, and it's still in great shape inside and out - even with driving on salty Norwegian winter roads 4-5 months each year.
This should be a requirement of all EV manufacturers. Upgrade battery capabilities must be made compulsory.
agreed, everyone's LOST THE PLOT that the only way to "Fight Climate Change" with an EV is technically to keep it on the road and in use for as long as possible, otherwise it can't "pay off" the sizable CARBON DEBT the vehicle incurs at the time of it's manufacture. both generations of Leafs would be great vehicles for this, but of course as i've stated previously, Capitalism and the Free Market System is WHOLLY INCOMPATIBLE with the idea of "Saving The Planet".
Upgrade of engines is not compulsory so why should traction batteries. However, at least we own them. The way electric cars are going we will never have the right to swap or upgrade batteries.
@@Dave5843-d9m If the vehicles software prevents you from upgrading the battery, you do not own it.
To own something means being able to upgrade it as you see fit without the manufacturers permission, cracking encryption, or using devices meant to trick the software in other ways.
It's also a conversation that comes with Right to Repair.
@@Dave5843-d9m You can upgrade ICEs though. Aftermarket turbo, forged pistons, engine remapping, more robust head gasket, exhaust, radiator even a whole engine swap. ICE's can be taken apart and put back together. If you want it to be like it is already you should be able to swap battery packs.
@@Dave5843-d9m
"Upgrade of engines is not compulsory..." - Google 'Japanese Engine Replacement Law'
When the day comes that my Camry engine dies, I'm pretty sure I won't have Toyota breathing down my neck telling me I cannot buy another engine from them, another of the dozens of engine manufacturers, a salvage yard, or from a competent mechanic who's capable of rebuilding it...while not having to worry about software blocks...
Thank you so much Nikki for featuring the LEAF upgrade efforts 🙏 CCS next! 😎
No problem!!
Thank YOU!
I'd like to see the CCS mods. When will that be available?
There is a channel that uses Chevy Bolt battery packs in Leaf`s the same channel has a tesla with a 125kw battery pack...
Also there`s another channel that uses new 18650 custom battery cell packs in Leaf`s.....
So glad to see this happening! Amazing work Dala!
I do believe the most likely way to keep our oldest EVs on the road will be third party battery packs. The vehicle manufacturers likely won't find it as profitable to update their battery packs, similar to how our cellphones are nowadays. Hopefully, manufacturers will always make their battery packs removable, unlike our modern cellphones.
It may require that there be a law to force it. Without that, manufacturers have an incentive to make the car so it can't be repaired beyond a certain date.
There is a company in Australia that have developed their own aftermarket active cooled packs for the leaf.
@@salibaba: Correction, they’re in New Zealand. You were close, I’ll give you that.
@@jacobcarlson4010 what’s the name?
@@jacobcarlson4010 apologies, a henous mistake if ever there was one. 🤦♂️
We need more of this to keep reusing before recycling. We need more battery replacement options for more makes before they end up in recycling.
Recycling is a fantasy, unless you believe in the miles of floating plastic in the ocean cycling from ocean to ocean.
I have Leaf 2016, 30kWh, 250.000km and the battery has about 60% SOH. That would be fine, if it would be useful in winter. So I asked our official Nissan dealer for replacement. He politely told me to scrap the car and buy a new one, since the battery cost is in range of 30.000€. Yes, not a typo. So, if this is green, then I'm a hippo.
Dala is such a nice guy, his work will help many, maybe even me. Thank you for this informational video.
I own a 15 and the battery only charges to 70 miles. Although it has 135,00@ miles on it
See my comment at the top, $35,000 in 2019, Nissan HQ then said $9,985 + 5.8hrs but Nissan Australia will not give me a present cost, not interested.
Honestly, we cannot be 'green' until we get rid of the profit motive and 'business' becomes a cooperative and/or public entity in general. And that scares people, because it requires genuine socialism. Not social democratic stuff, the real thing... And the "s" word can't be handled at present day by many people.
I would love to upgrade my 2012 Leaf with a newer battery and for good measure, replace the CHAdeMO charge port with NACS.
Yep, Dala is awesome! It's definitely not an easy decision to take a _lot_ of work and make it open source when he could be making some money off it. But this is definitely great news for Leaf owners of current and future time.
Just because you make something open source doesn't mean you can't still sell it, you're just no longer selling the design but the implementation. Red Hat became so profitable that IBM bought them and their product is a Linux-based OS and support for it.
@@BringMayFlowersTrue, but pricing of open-source hardware does tend to be cheaper than most full commercial implementations, in my experience. But yes, hopefully he does get some good sales from it. :)
@@Mattstech12 God how I wish that were universally true. I would be able to afford a Raptor Blackbird so easily.
He can chose to use the free publicity to pursue paying projects
I had a 30 put in my 2011 Leaf by Cleevely during lockdown. So far, so good. The CAN bridge came from Muxsan. Dala has always responded to my emails and is super helpful. He’s also boosted his leaf power up to 200kW.
Dala is a hero.
I bought s 2015 Leaf with a new traction battery, ive had it a week and ive already started planning battery and inverter upgrades. It helps that ive been buildong c-max packs for aftermarket equipment for several years and own all the fun special tools like osciliscopes, hydraulic crimping machine, TIG welder, ect. Actually, i have a 12' x 8' enclosed trailer stocked with tools for this stuff.
Woot! Dala’s channel is super cool! This seems like a fun thing to do. I hope this goes well for him. I look forward to his whole pack usage as stationary storage.
He is a genius, but unfortunately his 63kWh batt at 6,900 Euros had a short to the container, so he had to replace one module.
When I clicked, I thought Nissan had open-sourced their info. Now that would have been news.
I agree that would have been a major attitude shift from an industry player.
But open sourced software that is based on reverse engineered code has made Linux get where it is today in computing: and OK it's only on a few percent of home and office machines but it has totally grabbed the IT infrastructure and web servers and so on
Hopefully this is the thin end of a very long wedge that can only do us all good
Vendors that have locked-in users opening up the vendor-lock-in without being absolutely forced by large countries?
Nah.
Heck, even when 500M+ country unions push them they'll still try not to.
This is what hackers do.
Wow thanks for sharing. Have a 2023 and totally could do this kind of work just knowledge is power thanks my frewn
Imagine putting a 10th generation solid state battery in a leaf!! that would be epic! it would get the range of a Model 3 at least!
Ah but it would have to be actively cooled,
@@ram64manSome solid state batteries actually don't need active cooling (within reason) like the ones that work in space or some in testing.
Or at least imagine a future battery technology that isnt as sensitive to temperature changes. It seems reasonable to assume that some research dollars will go towards finding a battery solution that doesnt care so much about temperature. Especially on the affordable end of the EV space, reducing the cooling requirements for a pack would reduce manufacturing cost and assembly complexity quite a bit.
Although regardless of the battery, anything that wasnt specifically built to be put into a LEAF will require some pretty exotic software and hardware in terms of the battery management system.... which is one of the most complicated and safety-critical systems in the vehicle.
There are some battery chemistries that have a wider range of acceptable temperatures, like sodium-ion, and some that need their own heating, like oxygen ion.
love the idea for kids 1st car
Recently saw a page about a company in New Zealand which has a blade type battery which fits into the original tray and also has a BMS with heating and cooling.
Hey, do you remember who the company was?
Nikki, Champion of EVs for the common folk!
Thanks for your vigilance on this.
Most Leaf owners cannot do swaps themselves. Our social enterprise (nonprofit) offer this service to Leaf owners, in Ireland. The owners purchase the used battery pack themselves and we install using LeafSpy battery matching and Muxsan CAN-bridge. Next: an amazing Dala project offers "plug and play" integration of the old Leaf pack in a solar installations. Brilliant.
That's amazing. I live in the US and am low income. and my parents can trace their family back there. do you know if there is any way that I could buy a car there in Ireland and have it worked on there ? it might be easier than here in the states.
@@jbz7736Might be the opposite. They have more regulations than US and left side traffic when driver side is right side of the car.
Additionally it will cost a lot to get car from ireland to US.
Dala is doing a great job and has earned my patreon support. Good news for the Leaf community
I drive a Ford Focus Electric from 2014. I would love nothing more than to find a similar solution for this great car.
I'd love to see another visit to the LEAF shop in PDX and the work they're doing on refurbishing old LEAFs for new owners. Especially when it comes to 2011-2012 cars with the flawed onboard chargers.
@@anthonyc8499 In PDX also and have been looking into getting a leaf, they are everywhere in marketplace, sometimes really cheap. I rarely leave the Westside, 30miles even, would last me a few days if not the whole week.
Excellent video, Nikki. I've been following Dala's UA-cam channel for awhile. He's also put out a few videos on Mitsubishi i-MiEV (Citroen CZero & Peugeot iOn in Europe) repairs and upgrades, which hits home for me keeping those running, as my example celebrates its 11th birthday this summer. Let's keep these older EVs functional and viable options for used car buyers on a budget for as long as we can.
I'm glad Dala is doing what he's doing. Personally, I'd be way too afraid to mess with electricity, but some people would be competent to do this kind of work.
Even if you don't want to mess with it, the chances for someone around you being willing to do it is a lot greater, either someone you know, or a shop that will do cheaper than was the case before.
Start small get a cheep rc car..then an ebike.. same thing just scaled up.. you will be programming speed controllers, and building battery packs before you know it.
Kudos to you for your support of another You-Tuber who some might think of as a competitor channel. But no: not competition but co-operation.
That also is part of the Open Source ethos.
That is really cool. Open source? I love all things open source, that is just too awesome. Honestly, and I say this with my bias as a gamer, but if you have something that is open source or easily modded, you'll have a community of enthusiasts who can keep something alive.
A company in NZ is building a real TMS (liquid cooled) Leaf replacement battery!
Nice video. Whenever I see an old Leaf it brings a smile to my face.
And anyone who went with one before EV’s took off deserves full credit.
An early model LEAF with a current gen 60kWh battery will out-range a new LEAF as they had more aluminum components that were replaced with heavier steel parts later on.
One feature that the Leaf has that I've not seen on any other EV to this day is, the "state of health" indicator right there on the dashboard. Not just the state of charge, but the actual health status of the battery. I'd love to see this on other EVs. Sure, this info can be found using apps like "torque pro" with a special OBDII dongle, but it'd be nice to have that info right there on the dash, or at least available buried in a "system" menu or something.
Yes, it means the SOH is visible when a dealer lists the car, even if they don't know what it is.
@@robinbennett5994 I wonder if Nissan's newer EV, the Ariya, has this feature.
The SOH figure may be misleading if the battery cannot be charged. Always best to check the cell voltages as well, so really a plug in dongle is essential when looking to buy a second hand EV or battery.
@@identiticrisis Of course, but it's still nice to have as a baseline for further investigation.
What good is an indicator that would show something interesting in 8 years at the earliest? :D Leaf and its first battery, that was history where it was needed. It would be completely useless today.
It has been harder for me to watch the channel for a bit. Lot if negativity in the world and though I would not wish this channel to change, I have been reducing my daily intake of the negativity. This episode was fantastic. Lots of facts and information about EV and just a joy to watch. Picked up my day. Thanks.
There was a change in the channel a while ago, and this is the first episode I have watched in a long time. I used to watch every one.
1:25 “didn’t last as well as other EVs” is understatement for 2012 Leafs😊
That line should have been "didn't last as well as *modern* EVs".
Truly great that this guy has open sourced his solution.
Sure, but why couldn't Nissan have done it? There should be no such thing as closed-source anything. Openness should be a requirement of doing business.
My 10 year old Leaf at 60k miles still has 10 bars on the display. Would love to upgrade it not so much due to the battery condition but as, at 24kWh, it never had much range anyway.
I’m so psyched about this! Thank you Dala for going open source and making this happen!
How do I find a local shop that performs this service?
Thanks!
I live in Kent England and have a almost 4 year old 40 kWh Leaf that’s only got 18,000 miles on it. Looking into have a 60 kWh battery fitted by Cleverly near Gloucester. Seen them fitting them on UA-cam and had a chat with them at FullyCharged a couple of months back at Farnborough England.
Thanks for the programs Bob Blood .
That’s interesting that Clevely themselves said they could do a battery swap as they officially said, about six or so months ago, that they’d stopped doing it as it wasn’t economically viable for them. I hope you’re right and they’ve changed their minds.
Surprised that you would already be wanting an upgraded battery. Have you lost an bars? What kind of range can you get? What kind of range do you need?
Daala is incredible guy.. because of him we will have a huge shortage of Leab batteries... His use of Leaf battery to keep cars in use, and work on different inversters to accept diffeternt batteries as sourse of power for solar backup is amazing... he deserves much more following. Good that you introduced the guy
That’s pretty amazing. 🎉
Dala is a legend! This will make it fairly easy, with a modicum of understanding and a large chunk of high voltage respect, to keep earlier Leafs going for many years to come. The rest of the car seems to last well, so a battery solution like this will increase the appeal of the early Leaf. I remember someone saying they were developing a better cooling solution for the Leaf/eNV200. I'm going to have to find who it was again! If anyone is interested in the technical side of EV fiddling, Dala's channel is very interesting.
Re the sad demise of your Traveller, it reminded me of a time when I was working in Exeter and one of my colleagues said her radio was playing up in her Golf and could I have a look. I removed the stereo and as the loom came into sight, the live feed had just been twisted together! No insulation either!! She had paid a garage £60 for fitting too! I had to make it safe and brought the proper connectors, tools etc into work the next day, to wire it properly. Some people should simply not operate screwdrivers or heavy machinery like kettles!
If you are practically minded though, Dala has how to videos on installing replacement Leaf batteries and his software workaround.
Our Leaf will be eight year in October, and it has held up amazingly well so far. No mechanical issues, and it runs great. We also have an older diesel Mercedes B class, and that started pretty much falling apart before it was as old as our Leaf in now. The Leaf battery still reports full capacity, both in the car, and in the reports from the service center. That's pretty impressive for a nearly eight year old EV with 75.000km, and driven every day in at times pretty rough Norwegian conditions.
Really great to hear that this is now a thing! Well done Dala. Will have to check them out
I had a 2012 Leaf briefly before I bought a model Y. 45 miles of range and I never ran out of charge as I only drive about 25 miles a day. Nice driving and zippier than you would expect. Great cheap solution if you don’t need a lot of range.
You are so right! The only reason I am now driving an EV is because I found a LEAF locally that while banged up and with limited range, was something I could afford. I love it and being retired and having a ICE car for backup when I need to go farther away than the 20 miles I can go (50 mile max range) with the LEAF, it works for me 99% of the time.
I've been thinking of saving up for a Bolt when the LEAF gets to where even I can't use it. I don't think anyone around here would do a battery swap even if the parts were available. At my age I don't think I would attempt it either. BUT I love that Dalas has opened his heart to the world.
I'll be sub'ing to Dala, we need more people like him. I upgraded my EV battery but since it's a moped there were no issues with software etc., more than doubled the original capacity though. All solar charged too, from my home made power wall.
I'm a bit bummed, as I let the clickbait get my hopes up only to have them dashed. It is great that Dala has open-sourced the firmware, but it doesn't move the needle with regards upgrade costs. As the fleet continues to age, the quality of those remaining used packs continues to degrade. The supply of used packs will just continue to dwindle, and scarcity only drives up costs. The absence of aftermarket packs is the unsolved problem. Alas, litigation cost (at least in the USA) will likely deter would-be vendors. (I could go into a side rant about insurance auctions letting batteries discharge for months in wrecked vehicles long before they can even be purchased... degrading remaining packs even more.)
I just bought a 2019 LEAF SV. I love it and I want it to be my daily driver for many, many years. I expect some day I will want to spend several thousand to replace the battery rather than buying a new car. Dale is a good egg. Great video.
I'd love to see this kind of project for the old Spark EV or Fiat 500e. The latter is even popular enough for its styling to maybe warrant an open source battery swap.
The Spark remains my favorite EV, it's such a hoot to drive and has tons of usable space inside, despite its diminutive dimensions. And 10 air bags including side curtains!
We had a 2015 Leaf we bought used on 2017.. We loved it. When we traded it last year for our Bolt the battery was still at 80% SOH. When I figured out our total cost of ownership, it was less than what it would have cost us in gas to drive the ICE car it replaced to drive the same number of miles. The cheapest car I have ever owned.
How many miles did you have on it and how many bars did you lose? I have around 57,000 on my 2015 and have lost one bar so far. Curious to know what other people's experience is. I want to get a OBDII dongle for use with LEAFSpy but was afraid to short something out as some of the cheap ones have problems from what I've read in reviews.
wow! A 2-yr old car was the cheapest car you've owned. Still running a small lpg car after buying it 4-years ago for 350 quid. Living in the world I live in, where good cars are had for sub-500 quid and cars need to be fixed by the owner, i worry about how we keep moving ourselves around and not return to a time when car ownership was for the rich only.
Replaced my leafs battery with a 40kwh battery myself a year ago with the help of Dallas hardware am now looking at flashing a few can bridge's my self to help others out
where did you find the 40kw battery?
@@deathcake9000 ev breakers in northern Ireland
can you plug in at home?
@@Lelandlipe with a bit of modification yes
EVs Enhanced in New Zealand (see their UA-cam channel) just announced a replacement battery pack for the leaf that features active cooling. They are preparing to put it on on the market in that country and have plans to sell wherever the leaf is sold.
Hooray for open sourcing wherever you find it! In other news nice to see comments return, hope that goes well for you 🙂
Apparently not so much...I just happened on a live stream where poor Nikki was distraught about more vicious hate communication. Bless her she basically vented, cut off and deleted. We must all be vigilant at this end and block and report anything horrid that gets through. Sadly though it's still Nikki or one of the team that suffer the brunt of all the murderous hate speech. Just awful, feel so sad they have to deal with such crap.
Thanks for the heads up. And, thank you, Dala, for your invaluable aid to Leaf owners. I have been on the fence regarding purchasing a used Leaf with a not-so-great battery pack. This has me leaning a little more to the 'YES' direction. If I can locate a local mechanic willing to take on the job the adventure will begin.
Thanks for this very informative video for those of us still wanting to join in the used electric vehicle market. I keep wanting to add an around-town Leaf. I’m now more interested than ever! Again, thank you.
I would love to try to upgrade the battery on my leaf. I am also looking at (dreaming of) the EVsEnhanced battery which reportedly is actively cooled. But not available yet and looks to be very expensive.
OPEN SOURCE!!! Yeah!!!
I LAUGHED when you referred to "Just Rolled In" videos! I love to watch them and SMH with some of the cars that he shows! HOW the HECK do these things still run????
Sorry to hear about your Morris!!! LOVE the triangle sticker (rainbow)!
Thanks for the info! I watch Dala also.
Wow Dala, you’ve made your contribution to save the world!
but where are the affordable batteries ? how much do they actually cost ?
Hi Nikki, this is Rick from the declining oil capitol of the world and rising renewables and EV capitol of the world, Houston, Texas. The open sourcing of battery upgrades on the Nissan Leaf is music to my ears. My 2015 Leaf has the lizard battery but has still lost 3 of its life bars. So far so good though. The thought of a 62 KW pack in my car sounds awesome. The possibility of converting the CHAdeMO connector to CCS is incredible news but for now I'll take the 62 KW pack. I can hardly wait for a V2G interface between my Leaf and my home incase we get another freeze or we get power loss during a heatwave. Thanks for another awesome and fascinating video!
I have a 2015 as well. I lost one bar around 50,000 miles. I'm at around 57,000 now. How many miles do you have on yours? Have you been using fast charging?
@@idmhead0160 I have just over 83,000 miles on my Leaf but I use level three rarely. I live in Houston, Texas and my garage gets very hot, combine this with the freezes and it’s usually after a freeze that the battery pack loses a bar.
@@radiotec76 Thanks for the info. That's worse than I hoped. Hopefully, I can stave off losing any more bars for awhile. I'm in the Chicago area and don't really use it in the winter. It's kept in a heated garage. So, I'm hoping I will have better luck than you. would like to make it until at least 100,000 before a lose another bar.
@@idmhead0160, you’ll probably fare better than me then.
Wow amazing news. As a current 40kWh owner I even hold out hope for a CCS kit, CCS relaunch (it would sell like crazy without the Chademo cloud hanging) and a better cooled version battery like on the ENV200.
I wouldn’t even have Nissan redesign the running gear, maybe glean over the interior trim, but keep it the same form factor. It would be modular to keep even old banger leafs on the roads for decades, that’s gotta be more sustainable.
Johannes Hübner and others have a work in progress CCS/Chademo adapter!
Now that this episode is about a year old it would be interesting to see a follow-up episode.
The worst part is that sourcing the batteries is almost impossible withput a contact network.
Yes, the CAN bridge is only half the problem. Finding alternative (affordable) cells and a design to put it together is the next problem.
Yeah, and if the battery is out of a wrecked car, who knows if there are internal problems to it or it could end up catching fire.
which is why I think its been open sourced.. because there is no competition in offering this service, and everyone sees its not worth it... until there is actually an alternative cells that are cheap.
Definitely Open sourcing the install procedure and canbus interface is a huge benefit to the Leaf community. Huge props to Dala!!
But it's not magically going to make "known good" Leaf battery packs available in Sri Lanka.
Even in remote Western Australia we can now buy a refurbished Leaf batt from AUG Energy in Shenzhen and get it installed.
I'm all for this. Been wrenching on my own cars since i starting driving, and managed to land me a career in industrial maintenance so this makes an older Leaf way more feasible for me.
I’ve viewed Dada’s channel a few times. Tech is a bit beyond me, but the mention of a CCS conversion brings a glimmer of hope for my Soul’s future. Especially with the adoption of Tesla plug standard here in North American.
a little left field, I have not watched your channel for a while. You are looking really well like your life is going very well. Great to see
There is a community trying to crack the software code of the Chevy Volt as well and will open source it! Brian Batista and Monroe Lee King are hard at work. My 2013 with 310K miles has significant degradation, hold mode at 9 miles remaining keeps full power when flooring.
This is the first video from your channel to show up in my feed and I'm so glad it did! I found this video most informative. Many thanks.
Personally, I have a background in electronics and I am no stranger to making electrical and electronic repairs to vehicles as well as other technical repairs and modifications with great success. I approach tasks carefully and methodically and plan everything out beforehand. I feel quite confident in being able to replace a battery pack myself in the need arises.
And it’s really…. Really old.
@@transportevolved For some reason UA-cam has started recommending really old videos. Mid-2023 is quite recent compared with other recommendations of up to 6 years old I've been getting...!
In 2019 a Nissan Leaf owner was quoted $35,000 for a new battery in Australia for his $20,000 Leaf, so he put that onto the web and as a result Nissan Australia had to issue a statement of $9,985 and 5.8hrs of labour. When Total Nissan in Perth (WA) just now quoted me $35,000 plus one week of labour for $5,000, I took that 2019 Nissan HQ letter along and asked them to give me a present cost and am still waiting. The 1800 HQ Nissan number was also contacted and I am still waiting!
The solution: AUG Energy in Shenzhen will sell you refurbished Leaf batteries with new CATL modules and a 23kWh batt will cost you US$4,400 door-to-door and they also sell batts up to 63kWh in steps. One shop in Balcatta will install the battery for $1,000. Am still waiting now for a cheeep 2014 Leaf!
I saw this video's title, and I knew already Dala's EV repair was the reason for this video. He (Daniel) was my colleague some years ago, and it's been amazing watching him do what he does.
Oh yeah, one more thing... its great to see Dala doing this - I hope it inspires some others to do likewise... specifically, I would LOVE for Nissan to finally feel enough of a guilty conscience that they start offering Leaf battery packs openly for sale, and also the OEM cells, so the shade-tree pack-rebuilders can get fresh new cells instead of scrounging for wrecked Leafs!
I could get REALLY hopeful and wish they would open up their internal design and communication protocols for the Leaf pack's communications, so we are not so dependent on all this reverse engineering, but that is probably just too much apoplexy for their patent attorneys.
My favourite EV YT channel is Mguy Australia
Knowing I can drop the battery on my own and that there is a community supporting the leaf is convincing me to buy a used one this week!
I loved my 2012 LEAF. I just wish the Nissan hadn't dropped the ball. The were out front, and still could be, but… refused to improve their EV with thermal management, CCS, and more range.
There should by a mandatory faire use ip liberation when battery packs warranty expires, api's and technical specifications should become open source by law. Still there should be some third party regulation to ensure that builders, rebuilders of battery packs can produce packs with an acceptable quality levels.
You are looking very well today.
Wow yay Dala. This is so needed. Upgrading older vehicles to make them usable longer is great.
In Canada, it is near impossible to source used leaf batteries that have an acceptable capacity remaining in them. The very very few companies that do "replacement" swaps create an additional demand for the very few that come available. The costs for a 62KW battery runs at about $20K CDN.
It's great and anything that keeps these cars on the road longer is to be applauded. That said doing it yourself isn't going to be a thing unless you have access to a car lift (so you can work under the car) and a table lift so you can drop the battery out. Both of these are outside the scope of most home DIYers and I'm not sure you can hire them? Defo worth a go if you can though.
EV MAKERS CAN'T LOCK OUT SELF REPAIR BECAUSE IT WILL KILL THE MARKET . HOW MANY LOW INCOME PEOPLE AFFORD TO PAY FOR REPAIRS OR A NEW CAR EVERYTIME SOMETHING MAYJOR . DON'T FORGET POOR PEOPLE ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO SURVIVE , WE WILL DO OUR OWN REPAIRS WEATHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT . COME ON AFTERMARKET PARTS ' THERES A HUGE MARKET TO BE FILLED .
Try to find an insurance company for open source batteries insurance. Getting sued is no fun.
This is fantastic news!
Wow, Dala!
Thanks for sharing this turn-of-history change in keeping Nissan Leafs usable for the long haul.
I wish you the best Nikki!!!
The real big question here, is why do we tolerate manufacturers making things intentionally difficult for parts replacement? There is no excuse for the process of replacing the battery to be more than the physical replacement of the battery, and MAYBE a button in the software menu to ask it to recalibrate. The fact that you have to add hardware to the CAN bus to trick the car into accepting the fact that you replaced a part is the real thing we should be talking about, and talking about to our legislators. The only explanation for that is pure malice on the part of the manufacturer. They do it to lock you into their repair shops and their parts chain, and to extract more money from you. These practices need to stop!
I absolutely love this concept, and now know what brand I’d get.
Being into Linux open source is a huge part of my computing life. Great to see this!
Likewise. I think it was the "Open Source" that have the Y-T algorithm the idea that I'd be interested. It was right (on this occasion)
When I learned about the hotrodding community around the Leaf motor/inverter and Dala's backhacking of CANbus systems, I idly wondered if the Leaf was going to become something like the Ford Model A and T; this dead-simple vehicle that has this MASSIVE cottage industry of power and use upgrades because the creators made it so cheap it would be easily understood. Even swapping to a gas engine is still fine, because those people are most likely recycling a good chassis and reusing it.
I wonder if Dala will also be working on entire custom packs for the leaf as well; if it had modern thermal management it could DC charge, and Nissan won't be making the Leaf cells forever. Being able to covert a Leaf to using packs from GM or Tesla or anyone else could make them virtually immortal as entirely unique creations, assuming it can fit in the space.
Great idea by why do you question the possibility of DC charging a Leaf? Thet can already DC charge, don't you know? And there is a cooling system for the inverter when it's charging, see ?
I own a 9y opd 2015 LEAF SV for 6 yrs. I bought it used at 3 yrs old. Few would buy EV's if not for incentives and substudies. However, I'm glad to hear battery open source. I can DIY. I am down to 75 mile range. Still works for me. 8 years from now, not so much.
Good explanation of the Leaf thermal management problem, but I think misses on the other problem: battery life is a number of cycles of the full vehicle range, so a ~20kWh battery like the original Leaf will only give half the total range before it dies compared to a 40kWh battery, as it goes only half as far on the same number of full battery cycles.
It's actually more even better than that. (Probably, see my final paragraph)
If you keep a Lithium Ion battery in the sweet range of 40% to 80% charge it lasts a lot longer than if you do the same power throughput from say 20% to 100%. So if you manage your charge regime appropriately for commuting use then I reckon you get more than double the number of effective full cycles from a doubled battery.
My experience of this is with mobile phones, not eV batteries, bit the chemistry is the same so I figure it SHOULD be similar.
I'd be glad to have this thought confirmed or contradicted by an eV jacket who actually knows. The one thing that I do know is that the Prius hybrid tries very hard to keep its battery in that sweet zone, and I'm guessing that that is the reason the Toyota engineers designed it that way.
@@trueriver1950 Yes, with any battery chemistry you will extend the life by keeping within limits such as those. In addition switching chemistry to LFP or something can again multiply the life another 2x or 3x.
Got really excited when I thought this was official from Nissan that they had given approval to this kind of work. So it brings a question, how does Nissan feel about any of this? I only ask because tesla gets into people’s business so much.
I like how my leaf is a hack friendly car. I think a new EV would be too locked down for me. I really like my self hosted OVMS, and leafspy. Having to go from that to a subscription for heated seats or whatever would make me mad.
I think the information provided in this video can easily fit in less than 5 minutes video. Respect for the time of the audience is also important thing to be followed from the video creators. If someone is really slow and can’t get, could watch 3 times if he wishes. ;)
I have a 2018 Leaf with 135000 km and it is still working well. I’m encouraged to think that in a few years I could possibly swap out my battery for a 62 KW upgrade
I wonder if it will help EVenhanced in NZ to lower their costs. They are replacing the Leaf Battery with an LFP liquid cooled one.
I have taken 2x 24kWh Nissan Leaf batteries and built a 48kWh 48v solary battery storage, which powers my house. I would be happy to try a 40kWh nissan leaf battery upgrade on my wifes Nissan Leaf using Dala's techniques (giving me another 24kWh of storage for another battery project)
There is a company in Australia that is coming out with an LFP battery replacement for Nissan Leafs. The LFP battery chemistry will preform and last a whole heck of a lot better than any NCM battery currently available.
Maybe in AUS. Here, where it gets to minus 30 C, not so much
@@kkarllwt I thought LFP was supposed to be better at cold temperatures, unless, I'm getting it backwards
Dala is an absolutely incredible engineer!!!
Thank you. This is a huge step in the right direction.
Scrapping serviceable vehicles and building new ones is an eco catastrophe, regardless of motive power source.
But scrapping serviceable EVs and building new ones is doubly stupid, yet it’s what we are being told to do.
This, finally, helps reduce that particular insanity.
There’s nothing as green as preservation of existing equipment in good working order, whether that’s a 100 year old Model T, 40 year old VW Golf ( Rabbit, in some markets), or 10 yer old Nissan Leaf.
Thanks for the update, what a top bloke! I’d love a simple way to improve the range on my ENV200 in NZ; no-one is doing this and bigger batteries aren’t available. So looks like the only option for me is buy a secondhand Vivaro-e or similar in Britain, and ship it over 🤑😪
Search for "EV Enhanced". I believe that they're a company based in NZ making new batteries for Leaf and the EV200
Even in antipodean Australia we now have people changing out Leaf batteries and replacing them with better batteries with proper temperature management. A little bit expensive at $18 K Aust $$ but that is for a 50 kwh battery which has been remanufactured. Exciting times indeed.
It’s difficult to find batteries for the leaf in the uk and I don’t think anyone is doing a replacement for the original leaf battery yet, so I’ll be waiting a while before I attempt a battery swap.
I think the next step is to open source a LFP repack for the leaf.
there are many many suppliers of LFP cells from China, which are much more affordable.
The advantage of these cells is they are much more resilient and less susceptible to heat.
As an open source ethosaisst and with a Nissan EV in the family, I very much support this.
We have a 2015 Leaf, and it has been great so far. With roughly 75.000km driven so far, the battery reports from out service center still show 100%. We mostly charge at home, but quick charge on longer trips a few times a year. It's good to know battery replacements will likely be cheaper and easier in the future, because I really like the car, and it's still in great shape inside and out - even with driving on salty Norwegian winter roads 4-5 months each year.
That's a little less than where I lost one bar. Would be curious to know if that happens to you. I think I lost the first one at about 50,000 miles.