J1000
Rising Sun Member
I met a new friend Scott through the EV world. He is a member of the Denver Electric Vehicle Council and has been helping me with some of my electric projects. He has a 2012 Nissan LEAF with terrible battery degradation. The early LEAFs suffer badly from degradation and his LEAF was down to only 25 miles range maximum!
Since I had an extra battery I helped him upgrade his LEAF! It was actually pretty easy. The old battery unbolted and came out easy and the new one went in easy. Since he had an early car we had to make some modifications to the BMS wiring and install a CAN-Bridge, both of which were also straightforward and easy.
We put a 2016 24kwh battery in his car with about 85% health. Also with the CAN-Bridge he can program it to charge to a higher voltage than stock unlocking a few more miles.
This opens up so many possibilities for the early LEAF cars. Even a brand new 2021 62kwh battery will bolt in and work! Also the 2021 200hp inverter can be installed in the early LEAFs doubling their horsepower! This is certainly easier than swapping an engine or transmission in a normal car! Although a normal car tends to get more than 85,000 miles before they require overhauls like this.
His old pack, badly out of balance and really bad stats. Down to 30 Ah from 60 originally!
New battery, nicely balanced and much better stats of 50Ah and 80% State of Health (SOH)
The car came alive and it worked with no error codes! The battery was only 60% charged but still he had more miles than the car has been able to drive for the past 2 years! Also it unlocked the 4 "regen bubbles" increasing his available regenerative braking that had been limited by the old battery.
Fully charged after some spirited driving and it's showing 78 miles. Should be able to get 85-90 miles easily with normal driving!
So now after all this work his LEAF is back to the range it had new
Since I had an extra battery I helped him upgrade his LEAF! It was actually pretty easy. The old battery unbolted and came out easy and the new one went in easy. Since he had an early car we had to make some modifications to the BMS wiring and install a CAN-Bridge, both of which were also straightforward and easy.
We put a 2016 24kwh battery in his car with about 85% health. Also with the CAN-Bridge he can program it to charge to a higher voltage than stock unlocking a few more miles.
This opens up so many possibilities for the early LEAF cars. Even a brand new 2021 62kwh battery will bolt in and work! Also the 2021 200hp inverter can be installed in the early LEAFs doubling their horsepower! This is certainly easier than swapping an engine or transmission in a normal car! Although a normal car tends to get more than 85,000 miles before they require overhauls like this.
His old pack, badly out of balance and really bad stats. Down to 30 Ah from 60 originally!
New battery, nicely balanced and much better stats of 50Ah and 80% State of Health (SOH)
The car came alive and it worked with no error codes! The battery was only 60% charged but still he had more miles than the car has been able to drive for the past 2 years! Also it unlocked the 4 "regen bubbles" increasing his available regenerative braking that had been limited by the old battery.
Fully charged after some spirited driving and it's showing 78 miles. Should be able to get 85-90 miles easily with normal driving!
So now after all this work his LEAF is back to the range it had new