GTi gone (woohoo!)

[steeve]

Rapid charging will affect the battery's long term life. So you wont notice it when the vehicle is relatively new, it's further down the ownership road the the damage will become apparent.

[monkeyhanger]

Rapid charging will affect the battery's long term life. So you wont notice it when the vehicle is relatively new, it's further down the ownership road the the damage will become apparent.

The powers that be don't seem to be able to tell us to what extent the affect will be. If its an extra 2% capacity lost then who cares, if its 20%, it will matter to a lot of people. There is battery conditioning going on for most cars (including the ID3) that the MK1 Leaf doesn't have, which will minimise the effect. Most people buying an EV now, before there's a gun to their head (2030) are doing so because they have the means to charge at home and the big fuel savings that come with that. For those with no possibility of home charging, they'll do most of their charging via DC rapid charging.

[Andy Beats]

Rapid charging will affect the battery's long term life. So you wont notice it when the vehicle is relatively new, it's further down the ownership road the the damage will become apparent.

This is the perceived wisdom of many but, as I stated earlier, there are examples where this is shown to be inaccurate.
Leaf taxi operators who've only ever been rapid charging (for obvious reasons) for years and very high mileages and battery life isn't adversely affected at all.

[Andy Beats]

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[Andy Beats]

There is battery conditioning going on for most cars (including the ID3) that the MK1 Leaf doesn't have, which will minimise the effect.

The Mk2 Leaf doesn't have active battery cooling either, assuming that's what you mean.
Overheating of the battery can still be a problem for owners driving long distances at speed, then rapid charging to continue their journey.
The battery can get too hot and reduced performance.
Not something I'll encounter.
Doesn't seem to affect taxis as they're not going very fast and the battery isn't heating up much between rapid charges.

[monkeyhanger]

There is battery conditioning going on for most cars (including the ID3) that the MK1 Leaf doesn't have, which will minimise the effect.

The Mk2 Leaf doesn't have active battery cooling either, assuming that's what you mean.
Overheating of the battery can still be a problem for owners driving long distances at speed, then rapid charging to continue their journey.
The battery can get too hot and reduced performance.
Not something I'll encounter.
Doesn't seem to affect taxis as they're not going very fast and the battery isn't heating up much between rapid charges.

I did mean that, but also battery warming for cold starts (I don't think this happens with ambient temps at least 13C). Don't know if Nissan employ battery warming in the cold - apparently hits economy hard fir first few miles of a frosty start on the ID3.

[Stuart_Rendall]

I work for a vehicle technology company and we have used a lot of the nissan leaf batteries for various testing applications and I can say from real world testing that they do deplete over time with rapid charging. Irrelevant to what taxi drivers are seeing the fact is they do deplete more when you allow them to drop to 0% charge or even fill up to 100% and keep it plugged in even after it has hit 100%. The tests we did were real world and in a dyno environment and over time the batteries became more and more numb to charging with their over all capacity and reliability reducing at an increasing rate of x^2. It does take a while for this to happen and in reality would maybe take 6-9 years of hard life but it will happen. With the vehicles we protobuild now we use either our own batteries or a different manufacturer as we have found nissan to be behind in technology when it comes to charge rates, and battery protection systems.

I think normal people who do normal commutes won't ever need to worry about the batteries in their car especially if you buy new thanks to how long it does take after mistreating the batteries and the manufacturers warranties but it will be the used buyers in years to come that will suffer.

Also if you look at the original I.D.3 t&c's for the warranty they state the battery will deplete along with a percentage that they believe is reasonable. I believe it is something like 30% over an 8 year period or 100,000miles and won't replace the battery until it is worse than this. 30% reduction in battery taking into account the current range is a large amount of the battery that will be effected.

[Andy Beats]

30% reduction in battery taking into account the current range is a large amount of the battery that will be effected.

Only a problem to those who need that 30%, the 70% range may well still suit loads of owners - I know I could lose 30% of my Leaf battery and still manage perfectly well.
If it doesn't suit them, replace the battery.
Let's say replacing the battery pack in 8 years, when aftermarket batteries will be more prevalent, costs £6000 for the sake of argument.
Over 100000 miles that's 6p per mile.
And my figure doesn't take account of what you'd get selling the 70% pack to someone for use as battery bank in their house (or trading it in perhaps).
An ICE owner would potentially have spent a good bit on ICE related maintenance during that time too, oil/filters/DPF/GPF/EGR/timing belt/water pump/fuel/roadtax

[monkeyhanger]

30% reduction in battery taking into account the current range is a large amount of the battery that will be effected.

Only a problem to those who need that 30%, the 70% range may well still suit loads of owners - I know I could lose 30% of my Leaf battery and still manage perfectly well.
If it doesn't suit them, replace the battery.
Let's say replacing the battery pack in 8 years, when aftermarket batteries will be more prevalent, costs £6000 for the sake of argument.
Over 100000 miles that's 6p per mile.
And my figure doesn't take account of what you'd get selling the 70% pack to someone for use as battery bank in their house (or trading it in perhaps).
An ICE owner would potentially have spent a good bit on ICE related maintenance during that time too, oil/filters/DPF/GPF/EGR/timing belt/water pump/fuel/roadtax

That £6000 seems to have been plucked out of the air, I think that replacing a 60kWh battery might cost a fair bit more than that. I couldn't put a number on it myself. I'm sure some batteries are going to be far more difficult to remove and replace than others, especially when they form part of the floor pan structure.

If you have an 8 or 9 year old car that used to do an honest 200 mile range and now does 140 miles, and it's worth £7k, are you going to realistically spend £6k on it to get another 60 miles range? No way. For those people used to buying a 9 year old car at 25-30% of new RRP, it's a big ask for them to double their investment in a car.

If you've done that 100k miles yourself and then pay out £6k, then yes, it's 6p a mile. However when you're the 2nd or 3rd owner and have to lay out £6k, it's costing you a hell of a lot more than 6p a mile, unless you intend to do another 100k miles in it. You're trivialising a huge cost by dividing it between miles someone else will have done.

People will end up buying old EVs based on whether the remaining effective range plus some allowance for further deterioration while they own it still meeting their needs. I personally wouldn't go near a car with less than an honest 200 mile Summer range. A MK1 Leaf with an effective range of maybe 60 miles now might suit a pensioner who only drives to Morrisons and back.

It would be interesting to know if EV batteries are pretty resiliant to a point and then steeply drop off at a certain time point e.g. 10 years. Those taxi drivers hammering their cars on rapid charged miles over a relatively short period of time and still seeing decent levels of charge capacity would seem to suggest that time is as big a factor as literal miles.

If these EVs end up relatively useless at 10 years old due to heavily diminished range, those batteries need to get a lot cheaper and be easy to exchange.

If VW are backing theirs to retain 70% original capacity at 8 years or 100k miles, that seems an incredibly Conservative value - reality is likely to be a lot higher than that for most owners.

[Andy Beats]

Of course £6k was plucked out of thin air, how do know what replacing a 60KW pack will cost in 8 years?
But it's a fair figure for replacing a 40KW right now, and battery replacement companies are bound to become more common, with increased competition driving prices down.
If you don't think it's a fair figure for replacement in 8 years, make your own one up.
Article released the other day saying Tesla batteries are doing 200K miles with only 10% loss.
I don't get your 'pensioner to Morrisons' comment for a Leaf (or any other EV) with a reduced range as the likes of 60 miles is a perfectly useable range for a huge number of people.
Also who determines when the range is "useless"?
40 miles will do some
30 miles will do some
So do we say a dead battery is the only truly "useless" EV? - that's NOT going to happen in a 10 year old EV! (barring faults).
it's only the range that's affected, it's not like the cars limp along like a knackered ICE, misfiring and spewing smoke.

You clearly still have ICE demons and range anxiety to shake off.

[Stuart_Rendall]

I wonder how, in years to come, a prospective used EV buyer will determine if their battery is a good one during test drives etc. Engines are easy to see faults, multiple signs and an OBD port to read errors but EV's are different, if a person strolls into a dealer in 4 years time and wants to buy a 2018 Leaf, could potentially be a big risk not knowing the history or exact situation with the battery.

Be interesting to know what happens going forward. Maybe EV's will be subject to new systems for owners to freely view this or extended return policy periods?

[Andy Beats]

I wonder how, in years to come, a prospective used EV buyer will determine if their battery is a good one during test drives etc. Engines are easy to see faults, multiple signs and an OBD port to read errors but EV's are different, if a person strolls into a dealer in 4 years time and wants to buy a 2018 Leaf, could potentially be a big risk not knowing the history or exact situation with the battery.

Be interesting to know what happens going forward. Maybe EV's will be subject to new systems for owners to freely view this or extended return policy periods?

The car will give you an indication of battery health (for example a Nissan Leaf has a 12 bar display for the battery with the first bar disappearing around 87% health).
For a more detailed report any dealer can do those, or the prospective owner can plug a bluetooth dongle into the OBD and get a phone report.
Those reports can give individual cell health and records of how many rapid charges v trickle charges etc.
It's actually a lot easier than knowing the health of an ICE engine, which would involve compression checks etc.

[monkeyhanger]

Of course £6k was plucked out of thin air, how do know what replacing a 60KW pack will cost in 8 years?
But it's a fair figure for replacing a 40KW right now, and battery replacement companies are bound to become more common, with increased competition driving prices down.
If you don't think it's a fair figure for replacement in 8 years, make your own one up.
Article released the other day saying Tesla batteries are doing 200K miles with only 10% loss.
I don't get your 'pensioner to Morrisons' comment for a Leaf (or any other EV) with a reduced range as the likes of 60 miles is a perfectly useable range for a huge number of people.
Also who determines when the range is "useless"?
40 miles will do some
30 miles will do some
So do we say a dead battery is the only truly "useless" EV? - that's NOT going to happen in a 10 year old EV! (barring faults).
it's only the range that's affected, it's not like the cars limp along like a knackered ICE, misfiring and spewing smoke.

You clearly still have ICE demons and range anxiety to shake off.

No range anxiety issues for me. I decided that for the range offered, the ID3 would suit me for 95% of my miles without needing to charge away from home, with a realistic 220 Summer miles on the Motorway. As soon as you start chipping away at the range, the number of people it suits diminishes. When you get down to 60 usable miles on a full charge, there's very few people who are going to stomach that,because most people will regularly need to go beyond a 30 mile radius of their home. Who would buy a petrol car with a 1.5gallon tank? Not many.

As I said pensioners going to Morrisons and back a few times a week won 't mind, most others will.

[monkeyhanger]

I wonder how, in years to come, a prospective used EV buyer will determine if their battery is a good one during test drives etc. Engines are easy to see faults, multiple signs and an OBD port to read errors but EV's are different, if a person strolls into a dealer in 4 years time and wants to buy a 2018 Leaf, could potentially be a big risk not knowing the history or exact situation with the battery.

Be interesting to know what happens going forward. Maybe EV's will be subject to new systems for owners to freely view this or extended return policy periods?

OBD11 will read off data from my ID3, and has allowed to eliminate my primary annoyance with the car. I adjusted it so that the lane assist remember to stay off when you switch it off, rather than coming back on with every ignition cycle.

[Andy Beats]

No range anxiety issues for me. I decided that for the range offered, the ID3 would suit me for 95% of my miles without needing to charge away from home, with a realistic 220 Summer miles on the Motorway. As soon as you start chipping away at the range, the number of people it suits diminishes. When you get down to 60 usable miles on a full charge, there's very few people who are going to stomach that,because most people will regularly need to go beyond a 30 mile radius of their home. Who would buy a petrol car with a 1.5gallon tank? Not many.

As I said pensioners going to Morrisons and back a few times a week won 't mind, most others will.

We'll have to agree to disagree here.
It's feasible people will need 'one' of their cars to do more than a 30 mile radius, I get that.
But there's plenty will never stray farther than that, or will be happy for their second car not to go over that.
So, for the right price, a 60 mile ID3 will still appeal to someone doing town and school runs.
I don't get the fixation with pensioners, 60 miles between charges is still a pretty busy day!
60 miles of a busy mum running around, or a commuter, then plug in and you've got 60 miles the next day - where's the problem with that?

Let me frame the debate another way.
Do you think, for the right price, there is a market for an electric car that only does 60 miles?
I'm convinced there is, so why wouldn't an ancient ID3 be that car?