Nissan Leaf battery upgrade

SlowBlowin

n97 mini wrote: »

Got me thinking. When I was into cars years ago I knew a few lads who bought cars with blown engines, sourced replacements from breakers, and did the swap themselves. I'm pretty sure they informed the folks in Shannon that the engine number had changed, and there was no issue with insurance.

Not exactly the same, I know, but all things being equal there should be no problems.

Thinking further about it, if the cells are replaced with non-Nissan sourced cells, type approval might be required. People in the UK who build kit cars or import odd cars from Japan do single vehicle type approval all the time to make sure they're road legal. Is there somewhere here to go to to get type approval? I've never heard of anyone doing it.

As I said there is no issue swapping a Nissan battery with a Nissan battery, thats the same as swapping an engine with the same model engine.

Never seen a conversion where someone has made their own battery (like the OP), all I have seen use safety tested modules from the automotive industry.

pszemo

SlowBlowin wrote: »

As I said there is no issue swapping a Nissan battery with a Nissan battery, thats the same as swapping an engine with the same model engine.

Never seen a conversion where someone has made their own battery (like the OP), all I have seen use safety tested modules from the automotive industry.

You need to look more....
Here is another people using them own lg cells driving in Spain and with no active colling.

SlowBlowin

pszemo wrote: »

You need to look more....
Here is another people using them own lg cells driving in Spain and with no active colling.

Thanks for that, can you post a link to the conversion or is it just these 2 pictures of an untested conversion (his words), he had not even driven it yet !!!!

A picture post on Twitter means nothing:

rocket.jpg

As you said I dont look hard enough so post a link so we can all learn more.

Nissan do not use LG cells, I guess they heard about the conversions as they issued a statement:

“LG does not supply any cells for our batteries, both in the US and globally, for either the 40 or 62 kWh battery."

“LG is not a supplier for Nissan LEAF batteries or cells. Nissan manufacturers the batteries for the Nissan LEAF at our battery plant in Smyrna, Tennessee."

So this is a non Nissan battery, as such it needs a full engineers report before any EI based insurance company will consider insuring it (and most have said it may be uninsurable). I have checked with:

Power Insurances
EVInsurance.ie
Nonstandard.ie
Insuremycars.ie

You said earlier you will not disclose details of construction much less a full engineers report, so as far as I can see its a dead end with main stream insurers.

You must have insured your car with the DIY/ non standard battery, can you let us know the insurer so I can get a quote ?

Silent Running

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Thanks for that, can you post a link to the conversion or is it just these 2 pictures of an untested conversion (his words), he had not even driven it yet !!!!

A picture post on Twitter means nothing:

rocket.jpg

As you said I dont look hard enough so post a link so we can all learn more.

Nissan do not use LG cells, I guess they heard about the conversions as they issued a statement:

“LG does not supply any cells for our batteries, both in the US and globally, for either the 40 or 62 kWh battery."

“LG is not a supplier for Nissan LEAF batteries or cells. Nissan manufacturers the batteries for the Nissan LEAF at our battery plant in Smyrna, Tennessee."

So this is a non Nissan battery, as such it needs a full engineers report before any EI based insurance company will consider insuring it (and most have said it may be uninsurable). I have checked with:

Power Insurances
EVInsurance.ie
Nonstandard.ie
Insuremycars.ie

You said earlier you will not disclose details of construction much less a full engineers report, so as far as I can see its a dead end with main stream insurers.

You must have insured your car with the DIY/ non standard battery, can you let us know the insurer so I can get a quote ?

I've lived in Spain. Getting an engineer's report isn't a problem. I once got modifications certified on a VW without the engineer even setting eyes on the vehicle.

Loose translation was "what do you want me to put in the report?"

pszemo

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Thanks for that, can you post a link to the conversion or is it just these 2 pictures of an untested conversion (his words), he had not even driven it yet !!!!

A picture post on Twitter means nothing:

rocket.jpg

As you said I dont look hard enough so post a link so we can all learn more.

Nissan do not use LG cells, I guess they heard about the conversions as they issued a statement:

“LG does not supply any cells for our batteries, both in the US and globally, for either the 40 or 62 kWh battery."

“LG is not a supplier for Nissan LEAF batteries or cells. Nissan manufacturers the batteries for the Nissan LEAF at our battery plant in Smyrna, Tennessee."

So this is a non Nissan battery, as such it needs a full engineers report before any EI based insurance company will consider insuring it (and most have said it may be uninsurable). I have checked with:

Power Insurances
EVInsurance.ie
Nonstandard.ie
Insuremycars.ie

You said earlier you will not disclose details of construction much less a full engineers report, so as far as I can see its a dead end with main stream insurers.

You must have insured your car with the DIY/ non standard battery, can you let us know the insurer so I can get a quote ?

I'll prepare raport by the end of the year.

I'm planning next upgrade in late September and will share pictures here.
When will be possible to drive around the country I will do long driving test and fast charging and upload video on YouTube.
Mayby on the next car Nissan will use LG cells.

SlowBlowin

pszemo wrote: »

I'll prepare raport by the end of the year.

I'm planning next upgrade in late September and will share pictures here.
When will be possible to drive around the country I will do long driving test and fast charging and upload video on YouTube.
Mayby on the next car Nissan will use LG cells.

OK, be good to see your battery conversion n tested over long distances.

Can I ask again about your insurance, or your customers insurance ? Are you driving under garage plates or do you have separate cover on the Leaf, who is it with ?

The next Nissan might use LG cells, but I doubt it, they have a big investment in their own partners. The LG cells are great cells, need cooling though.

pszemo

SlowBlowin wrote: »

OK, be good to see your battery conversion n tested over long distances.

Can I ask again about your insurance, or your customers insurance ? Are you driving under garage plates or do you have separate cover on the Leaf, who is it with ?

The next Nissan might use LG cells, but I doubt it, they have a big investment in their own partners. The LG cells are great cells, need cooling though.

I'm with Aviva Fully Comprehensive insurance.

SlowBlowin

pszemo wrote: »

I'm with Aviva Fully Comprehensive insurance.

Did you disclose the battery modification and send them an engineers report ?

pszemo

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Did you disclose the battery modification and send them an engineers report ?

No i did not.

SlowBlowin

pszemo wrote: »

No i did not.

OK, that makes sense.

I am not knocking you for that (I said before its a great project), but if you want to offer it as a commercial service then you could be putting yourself and your customers at huge risk by not disclosing the details of the conversion to the insurers.

I have yet to see any insured EV conversion/battery swap that used non type approved modules (no matter how hard I look).

Cocoloco72

Do you do the upgrades that go into the boot so it adds to the existing batterys

Orebro

I'm glad Elon Musk didn't come on here when he was thinking about using a Lotus body for an electric roadster, we probably wouldn't have Tesla now

pszemo

Cocoloco72 wrote: »

Do you do the upgrades that go into the boot so it adds to the existing batterys

No i don't. In my opinion is safer to put all batteries into existing battery box so they don't get damaged during acident.

SlowBlowin

Orebro wrote: »

I'm glad Elon Musk didn't come on here when he was thinking about using a Lotus body for an electric roadster, we probably wouldn't have Tesla now

Ironically Elon says going for the Lotus chassis was one of the worst decisions he ever made. He said that he should have designed a Tesla chassis, the Lotus one caused no end of issues..

unkel

Interesting, wasn't aware of that. I know very little about the first few years of Tesla, must read up. No surprise really though as Colin Chapman's motto was to "add lightness". Lotus are extremely light and not very strong. Bad idea to add several hundred kg of batteries to one

Gumbo

SlowBlowin wrote: »

OK, that makes sense.

I am not knocking you for that (I said before its a great project), but if you want to offer it as a commercial service then you could be putting yourself and your customers at huge risk by not disclosing the details of the conversion to the insurers.

I have yet to see any insured EV conversion/battery swap that used non type approved modules (no matter how hard I look).

If I get my TDi remapped, the remapped didn’t do anything wrong if I don’t inform my insurer. The service provider is in no way associated to the insured not telling their insurer about modifications in my opinion.

Pkiernan

Gumbo wrote: »

If I get my TDi remapped, the remapped didn’t do anything wrong if I don’t inform my insurer. The service provider is in no way associated to the insured not telling their insurer about modifications in my opinion.

If the remap isn't certified and it sets your car on fire, the remapper certainly did do something wrong.

zg3409

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4a_HJQ-Yd4

From Spain. Battery type is in the video description.

Published on 7 Jun 2020
https://evbatteryrebuilds.com/
Upgrade process for a Leaf 2011 battery to 64 kWH with LG Chem cells.
Twitter: @evbatteryrebuil
Facebook: @renovablesdelsur

If the charging profile hasn't changed I wouldn't like to see this at a DC charger, it would take forever.

zg3409

See this report from 3 Irish people bringing their leafs to Muxan for battery upgrades

https://www.irishevowners.ie/guest-post-leaf-battery-upgrade-quadruple-the-range-part1/?fbclid=IwAR0A5pudEazqAeDjPA9y2oqKKJzJ0ltNski_rkVT_DouJYdaAZ2xshZ7fNs

pszemo

Hello.
Please see attached photos. The car is after installation can bus device and programing the VCM. I have done nearly 5k from the upgrade without any problems. Test drive coming soon.
Thanks

slave1

If SOH is 93.X% why are there not 12 bars showing?
Great admirer of your efforts by the way

pszemo

slave1 wrote: »

If SOH is 93.X% why are there not 12 bars showing?
Great admirer of your efforts by the way

SOH is growing with every charge cycle.. Eventually will hit 103%. It is showing oryginal 10 bars from 24 kwh battery. It can be reset easily. I'm still working on the can bus decoding. There will be some updates. The biggest problem was to show correct range and battery capacity. If you will use modules with higher capasaty then oryginal 24kwh you need to reprogram VCM.

Jeditraining1

pszemo wrote: »

7,000euro for 34kwh and 8,500 43kwh. I might have some discount for first costumer. 2 years warranty

Do you have any contact details? Site etc...

zg3409

I see a guy on Facebook in Ireland replaced his 24kWh battery with a newer 24kWh and now a 40kWh. He got the battery from an Irish crashed leaf and used a can adapter to get the new battery to talk to the old leaf. Says now getting 160km motorway and 200km mixed driving. He did it DIY and said not much to it as battery is physically easily swappable. 255 km showing on guess o meter when full

https://m.facebook.com/groups/107445206006743?view=permalink&id=3523644214386808&fs=1&focus_composer=0

extremetaz

zg3409 wrote: »

I see a guy on Facebook in Ireland replaced his 24kWh battery with a newer 24kWh and now a 40kWh. He got the battery from an Irish crashed leaf and used a can adapter to get the new battery to talk to the old leaf. Says now getting 160km motorway and 200km mixed driving. He did it DIY and said not much to it as battery is physically easily swappable. 255 km showing on guess o meter when full

https://m.facebook.com/groups/107445206006743?view=permalink&id=3523644214386808&fs=1&focus_composer=0

That's me, and I'm happy to talk about the effort but I'd rather not drag pszemo's thread off on a tangent. I spoke to the man over the phone as soon as I heard about him, and I cannot stress enough the importance of this skill set and industry developing.

EV's are only cleaner if they stay in service - scrapping an entire vehicle because its only major consumable has reached end-of-life is no sort of solution. Battery replacement needs to be a whole new thing. It's an early days industry yet, and there will of course be concerns regarding the characteristics and maintenance of any aftermarket pack but as long as those questions can be answered, and answered straight, then I see no reason to get hung up on it.

Fundamentally a replacement pack needs to:
- Not catch fire
- Not change the performance of the car
- Not require modification to the car during fitment
- Not alter the crash performance of the vehicle
- Not alter the emergency response procedures for the vehicle

This amounts to the pack fitting securely within the factory supplied enclosure, having an effective BMS, retaining the same safety and isolation hardware in the same locations, and matching the mass and mass distribution of the OEM pack to a good degree.

The pack cannot in itself alter the power performance of the vehicle, so if all of the above are met then I would have no reservations on the point.

I haven't seen pszemo's work and don't have any knowledge of the specifics of it, but if he's managed to cover a few thousand km with no loss of function then I'd say he must be doing something right - and I'm very happy to wish him well. At the prices he's offering I just hope he's leaving himself enough margin to honor warranty and service, and still keep things worth his while.

unkel

I'd say I'm not alone in wanting you to start your own thread on this, extremetaz. Please do!

SlowBlowin

Hi Extremetaz, I second that, really would be good to learn more about your upgrade and the issues you had to overcome.

I am super interested to know how much you paid for the Nissan battery, I have been looking for price but they are few and far between.

...Ghost...

Definitely start new thread on that upgrade.


I want to chime in here after reading most of the thread. I am really glad to see the OP making these efforts to increase the range of an old Leaf. It may well be a service I will avail of at some stage. I share much of the concerns shared here, but less on the safety aspect, as I am confident this will be overcome if it hasn't been already.

As I see it, extending the range with a better battery is not fundamentally altering the vehicle and it isn't comparable to replacing the engine, as we would then be talking about motors, not batteries. It also is not like putting a bigger tank in an ice car unless you are increasing the volumetric space the battery pack takes up, or you add a range extender pack. It's probably a better comparison to look at fuel additives which can increase the efficiency of an ICE vehicle, but even that is a loose comparison.

If the pack is built safely and is certified safe, checked and certified by an engineer, NCT'd and perhaps noted on the logbook for new capacity, there really should be no problem.

However, there is a problem and it's the insurance industry. They don't like anything outside their tight box ticking criteria and they will refuse to insure you, or make it difficult and expensive for adding a bigger pack which has passed the tests and is certified. To add salt to the wound, many will refuse to insure a car over 10 years old which is exactly when an old Leaf would likely benefit from such an upgrade to keep it out of the scrap yard.

extremetaz

Why is the NCT and the log book bring brought in to this? Neither have any thing to do with such a modification
The log book doesn't list anything about the battery and I see no need for that to change.
The NCT can check that the thing isn't about to fall out, but they're not qualified to do any more than that.

Anyone who knows what goes into building a reliable lithium pack, and how that pack interacts with the car to begin with, already knows that there's not much room for error and the safety interlocks are substantial. There needs to be standards and certification for aftermarkets packs, definitely - absolutely no question about that. Once that certification is achieved though, the insurance company will have to view it like any other servicable part, and you don't see them voiding claims because you switch your brake pads from EBC to Juratek, or your tires from Bridgestone to Firestone...

Once the part is certified as being fit for use they've no case, or justification, for concern. It's that simple. So the only question is what that certification process looks like. The standards governing EV packs, that I'm aware of, are IEC 12405, 19453 and 60254. Which components of each need to be observed I'd have to read through to find out (and I'm not going to because I don't need to - and lets face it, nobody would unless they do!), but that's the place to start where all of that is concerned.

*edit: A very quick google also brought up this (which I've also not read yet, but at least its free to view unlike most IEC standards).