Nissan Leaf all electric car

Daegerty

ted1 wrote: »

a three phase supply would be ideal. You could then use a quick charge.

gl trying to gett it installed in Ireland

I can only imagine calling the ESB about it

"You want three phase? are you sure you don't just need a new fuse for your kettle?"

"Noooooo sorry we only do that for factories in Dublin but if you're really stuck we can give you a 65 amp main fuse instead of the 60 that's in there now"

ted1

a three phase supply would be ideal. You could then use a quick charge.

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

Back when Citroen made electric Saxo's and Berlingos they had the sense of putting a little petrol or oil heater in it. You'd actually fill the car up with petrol as normal but it would only take 5L and was only used for the heater

Of course now that doesn't look good with green fanatics whom this car is targetted to be sold to but those heater coulld see a resurgence in future electric cars

I could be wrong now but for the Leaf it might use the air conditioner on reverse as heating so the range reduction wouldn't be so bad

Yes an air conditioner can reverse the evaporator with the condensor to heat the inside, the problem is, when transfering heat into the car the evaporator is now taking heat from the cold air outside so it needs a high volume of air to get heat from, and releasing it from the condensor inside the car, so the compressor would be running a lot, but probably still would not use as much as an electric heater, but an electric heater would probably not need to be a very high wattage to heat inside a car anyway.

I would think an electric heater would be more efficient in this setup, but it will be interesting to see what they do.

Daegerty

A bunch of Peltier modules would be better than a purely resistive electric heater but i find it hard to imagine that even those would be more efficient than the AC heat pump

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

A bunch of Peltier modules would be better than a purely resistive electric heater but i find it hard to imagine that even those would be more efficient than the AC heat pump

Heat pumps work great when there is a source of heat to collect with the evaporator and transfer to the condensor. If an evaporator is in water then a decent amount of heat can be collected, water at 10 degrees can provide heat to heat a house up to 25 degrees using a heat pump as a made up example. But when your taking heat from 10 degree air, or 0 degree air, a far far higher volume of air would need to be passed through the evaporator than if it was water. But at least the inside of the car is a relatively very small volume to be heated.

The bigger the difference between the outside temp and the inside one, the more the compressor would be running and a point comes when there is a max differential temperature difference.

puppetmaster

Jasus its ugly, how many AA's does it take?

Daegerty

puppetmaster wrote: »

Jasus its ugly, how many AA's does it take?

Assuming you're using 2500mAh NiMH cells it would take 7680 of them to make a 24KWh pack. You can get it to below 7,000 AA's if you use higher capacity ones like 2900mAh but those cost more

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

Assuming you're using 2500mAh NiMH cells it would take 7680 of them to make a 24KWh pack. You can get it to below 7,000 AA's if you use higher capacity ones like 2900mAh but those cost more

Looks not too far off alright, would need about 166 aa`s in series, and 48 or so of them series packs in parallel. Thats 7968 AA`s roughly.

Daegerty

robbie7730 wrote: »

Heat pumps work great when there is a source of heat to collect with the evaporator and transfer to the condensor. If an evaporator is in water then a decent amount of heat can be collected, water at 10 degrees can provide heat to heat a house up to 25 degrees using a heat pump as a made up example. But when your taking heat from 10 degree air, or 0 degree air, a far far higher volume of air would need to be passed through the evaporator than if it was water. But at least the inside of the car is a relatively very small volume to be heated.

The bigger the difference between the outside temp and the inside one, the more the compressor would be running and a point comes when there is a max differential temperature difference.

Battery coolant might be a source for this? I know the Leaf has a pre - heat function that can be switched on with a phone while its still charging

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

Battery coolant might be a source for this? I know the Leaf has a pre - heat function that can be switched on with a phone while its still charging

Yes it could if the coolant heats up a little as it cools the batteries. Its interesting anyway the entire thing.

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

the good news is that the battery won't deteriorate nearly as fast in our cold and miserable climate

Thats true, that should help them maintain capacity over time alright.
if you want your notebook batteries to last far longer, store them in the fridge when you dont need to be partable. And at half charge is even better.

Daegerty

robbie7730 wrote: »

Thats true, that should help them maintain capacity over time alright.
if you want your notebook batteries to last far longer, store them in the fridge when you dont need to be partable. And at half charge is even better.

what about condensation? would it be better to store them in a sealed container maybe with a couple bags of silica gel. don't want them contacts to be ruined when its time to take them back out

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

what about condensation? would it be better to store them in a sealed container maybe with a couple bags of silica gel. don't want them contacts to be ruined when its time to take them back out

Yes that would work. Probably would not be that much condensation though when drop to 4 degrees or so. Just actually taking them out of notebook at half charge and storing in a press would improve battery cycle life. The heat from notebooks is the big killer, and battery always fully charged.

Daegerty

robbie7730 wrote: »

Yes that would work. Probably would not be that much condensation though when drop to 4 degrees or so. Just actually taking them out of notebook at half charge and storing in a press would improve battery cycle life. The heat from notebooks is the big killer, and battery always fully charged.

a lot of them are poorly designed so the battery gets heated by the processor or some other component

One (cr)apple I had was terrible for this, I left it on for a month with the battery still in and when I was finished the battery only lasted 20 minutes anymore. The laptop i have nowthe battery is at the back and hardly heats up at all. Once over 30 degrees they really start to deteriorate

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

a lot of them are poorly designed so the battery gets heated by the processor or some other component

One (cr)apple I had was terrible for this, I left it on for a month with the battery still in and when I was finished the battery only lasted 20 minutes anymore. The laptop i have nowthe battery is at the back and hardly heats up at all. Once over 30 degrees they really start to deteriorate

Yes all true, bad design alright. They should have a half charge option on the notebooks as well. This helps improve battery life also by not constantly having them fully charged.

Paparazzo

Daegerty wrote: »

gl trying to gett it installed in Ireland

I can only imagine calling the ESB about it

"You want three phase? are you sure you don't just need a new fuse for your kettle?"

"Noooooo sorry we only do that for factories in Dublin but if you're really stuck we can give you a 65 amp main fuse instead of the 60 that's in there now"

They'll give you your own substation on a dedicated circuit fed from 2 different locations if you pay for it.

positron

Casati wrote: »

What are you comparing it against, an auto Micra? The Leaf is a Focus sized car (just about) so a realistic comparison would be something like Auris 1.6 MM Sport, or an Audi A3 1.2 TSI DSG... with a similar level of spec those cars will run you over €25k, so the initial delta is closer to 5k than 15k

I was thinking Nissan Note - looked vaguely similar, and saw a new 2011 Note for sale somewhere for 15k.

positron

Adding to the above, I agree, if you try and spec a Note upto Leaf's standard it would cost at least 20k, if not more.

From HonestJohn.co.uk:

The Nissan LEAF will be considerably cheaper to run than a conventional compact family hatchback. Depending on an individual’s electricity tariff and time of charging, it will be possible to run the LEAF for less than 2pence per mile. Additional financial benefits include reduced servicing costs, exemption from London’s congestion charge, zero vehicle tax and zero benefit in kind for company car drivers.

Available in five exterior colours and one high-specification trim level, all models will come with air conditioning, satellite navigation and a parking camera as standard, plus smartphone connectivity that enables owners to check charging levels plus heat or cool the interior of the car remotely via their handset.

The more I read about Leaf, the more I like the idea.

Going back to the "Friday night to Donegal" scenario again, Dublin to the very north of Donegal, is about 278 kms. I guess this can be done if you leave Dublin with full charge, and you should take a 30 minutes break in Omagh for a bite to eat while your car charges to 80% capacity in 30 minutes. This should see you thru to as far away in Donegal as you could posssibly go. 30 mins added to your journey, and about €30 saved on fuel. :cool:

Bruthal

Paparazzo wrote: »

They'll give you your own substation on a dedicated circuit fed from 2 different locations if you pay for it.

Any electrician can install a dedicated circuit to charge a car. An immersion, a shower, a cooker are all dedicated circuits. Nothing amazing or special about installing a supply to charge a car on an 8 hour charge cycle.

Bruthal

positron wrote: »

Adding to the above, I agree, if you try and spec a Note upto Leaf's standard it would cost at least 20k, if not more.

From HonestJohn.co.uk:



The more I read about Leaf, the more I like the idea.

Going back to the "Friday night to Donegal" scenario again, Dublin to the very north of Donegal, is about 278 kms. I guess this can be done if you leave Dublin with full charge, and you should take a 30 minutes break in Omagh for a bite to eat while your car charges to 80% capacity in 30 minutes. This should see you thru to as far away in Donegal as you could posssibly go. 30 mins added to your journey, and about €30 saved on fuel. :cool:

I would certainly use it anyway, if there were the fast charge outlets.

Daegerty

Paparazzo wrote: »

They'll give you your own substation on a dedicated circuit fed from 2 different locations if you pay for it.

Great, I always wanted to have my own substation. With barbed wire fences and a sinister 50Hz hum.

Bruthal

Daegerty wrote: »

Great, I always wanted to have my own substation. With barbed wire fences and a sinister 50Hz hum.

Ye know you put identical to what i was thinking about writing:D

Best get the 10kv switchgear manual out again as well.