Category: Nissan

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Nissan “seriously testing” wheel motor powered 380Z like EV sports car

We reported almost a year ago that Nissan were “really seriously testing” in-wheel electric motors for the new-generation of electric-powered cars. The automaker's global design chief Shiro Nakamura has again confirmed this during an interview with Motor Authority at the recent Detroit Auto Show.

“It's not just at the concept level...We are making serious progress with in-wheel motors; cost is becoming less of an issue, and at a certain point we would like to use in-wheel motors.”

While Nissan's BladeGlider EV concept has in-wheel motors on the rear axle, Nakamura admitted that Bladeglider has some design attributes (like its narrow front track) that might prove insurmountable for a global product—especially with respect to safety—and that any production car would likely have to be wider in front.

He suggests the ESFLOW EV concept, which from behind looks alot like the Bladegliber and at first glance could easily be mistaken for a 380Z, could be a production direction.

The ESFLOW concept presented at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show was said to have a cruising range on one charge of 240 kilometer (150 mile) and was rear-wheel drive powered by two motors that where placed above the axis of the rear wheels, in a mid-ship position.

These motors independently control the left and right wheels, and so the torque is optimized to ensure outstanding vehicle stability and control as well as efficient power regeneration. The motors produce enough torque in an instant for the ESFLOW to reach 100 kph in under 5 seconds.

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Nissan lifts Leaf output as US sales rise

Nissan has lifted U.S. production of its all-electric Leaf by about 50 percent to 3,000 units a month to meet growing demand for the car.

The Leaf logged record sales of 2,500 units in December and was now the best-selling car in some dealerships in Atlanta, where the government is helping promote the technology, outpacing the Altima sedan.

The pickup in sales was driven in large part by Nissan's decision to cut its price by more than $6,000 to $29,650 at the beginning of last year after a shift in production of the model to the United States allowed it to lower manufacturing costs.

While volumes are still at relatively low levels for a production car, sales more than doubled last year to above 22,000 in the U.S. market, momentum is building.

One factor is the increase in charging stations in Atlanta and cities such as Seattle and San Francisco on the West Coast. There are currently 554 quick-charging stations, and more than 15,000 slower "level 2" public charging stations across the U.S., Nissan estimates.

The Leaf's customer base is also evolving. While at first most Leaf buyers were green enthusiasts, increasingly customers focused on the potential cost benefits of owning an electric car are showing up at its dealerships. As a result, it has recently increased prices on some versions of the Leaf. Nissan produces the Leaf at its Smyrna, Tennessee plant.

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Nissan Expect U.S. Leaf Sales To Double in 2014

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said he expects to double Leaf sales in the United States in 2014.

Sales of the battery-powered Leaf jumped 130 percent last year to a record 22,610, aided by 2,529 deliveries in December, the most ever in a single month for the carmaker. That figure should keep rising, Ghosn said in a CNBC interview.

"We are now on a trend of 3,000 cars a month in the U.S., which is about 36,000 cars" a year, Ghosn said. "The next step is moving up to 4,000 a month, which is going to be approximately 50,000," he said, without setting a target date.

Nissan and other automakers delivered a record number of hybrid and rechargeable cars and light trucks last year as the industry remains under U.S. pressure to boost fuel efficiency. Sales of vehicles powered partially or entirely by electricity totaled at least 578,000 units last year, up more than 100,000 units from 2012 and accounting for about 7.5 percent of all new cars sold in the U.S. last year.

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Nissan Leaf to Launch in China April 2014

Recent Chinese media reports indicate that the Nissan Leaf will soon be launched in China under the Venucia sub brand name from Dongfeng-Nissan. The Leaf will be renamed for the Chinese market where it will be named the Venucia E30, or ‘Qi Chen’ in Chinese.

What is surprising is that the Leaf/e30 is exceptionally close to being produced in China, reports indicate that the model will be on sale in April 2014 in the Beijing and Shanghai areas, and will receive government subsidies of around 100,000RMB (US$16,500) owing to municipal subsidies along with central government subsidies.

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Nissan LEAF reaches 3,000th UK sale

The Nissan LEAF has reached a milestone with the 3,000th sale of the model in the UK.

The landmark was reached in November and came as Nissan's second-generation LEAF secures more than 1,300 UK sales in the six months since its launch.

Jon Pollock, sales director at Nissan GB said: ‘The fact the we have been able to reach the 3,000 mark is a fantastic achievement and shows not only what a wonderful car it is but also that motorists are keen to experience the revolutionary new technology it introduces.

He added: ‘The low running costs of the LEAF, not to mention its many other benefits, make it an incredibly attractive proposition and we have been seeing steady growth in sales.

‘We expect that trend to continue rising as the model's visibility increases and the rapid charging infrastructure expands across the UK.’

With the price of unleaded petrol in the UK this year as high as 132.9p per litre (AUD$2.42/lt) equal to US$8.21 a US gallon, EV sales can surely only accelerate.

To date, more than 16,000 LEAFs have found owners across Europe, while global sales have now topped 87,000.

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Nissan tests new Leaf battery chemistry

Nissan believes it can create a longer-lasting battery pack for its electric Leaf next year by altering the recipe used to create the component.

The proposed change in chemical composition, which is still under review at the automaker, should make the lithium ion battery more resilient to hot-weather aging, says Billy Hayes, vice president for Nissan's global electric vehicle business.

"We're working on an improved chemistry to improve the longevity of the batteries, especially in these prolonged extreme heat situations," Hayes told journalists during the Tokyo Motor Show last month.

"We're optimistic that we would use that for replacements going forward."

If approved, the new chemistry would go into production at Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn., Leaf and battery module assembly plant in the first half of 2014, he says.

Leaf owners in hot-weather markets such as Arizona and New Mexico have complained that their batteries appear to be aging faster than the manufacturer envisioned.

This year Nissan addressed the complaints by vowing to replace underperforming batteries.

Hayes says the new chemical composition will not extend the Leaf's driving range, which averages 73 miles on a single charge, according to Nissan marketing material. But he said it should delay the degradation of the battery over its lifetime.

EV batteries are produced in a baking process in which 48 modules of cells are sealed, injected with electrolyte and allowed to age.

Altering the chemicals involved can produce differences in performance, weight, cost and other characteristics.

Andy Palmer, Nissan's chief planning officer, says the Leaf battery has already gone through two other product enhancements since it entered production in Smyrna a year ago, to reduce weight and cost. He estimated that, after the expected change in chemical composition next year, it will likely see two more generations over the next two years.

Meanwhile, Nissan is working on other EV batteries, as well as other battery-powered models, Palmer says. In 2014, Nissan will introduce a lithium-powered NV200 compact cargo van. And Nissan is also studying plans to build an EV sports car based on the recently unveiled BladeGlider concept.

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Norweigian Electric Car Sales hit 12% market share in November

Electric car sales in Norway have set yet another record. According to OGV battery electric vehicles sales increased sharply with 1434 new EVs being sold in November giving them an 11.9% market share amongst passenger car sales. This is a 357% increase on the same month last year when EVs accounted for only 2.6% of the market.

After topped the list of new car registrations in Norway in September, the top selling electric car for November is the Tesla Model S with 527 sold, accounting for 4.4% market share on it's own and second over-all of all cars sold behind the VW Golf.

After leading the market for the first time last month, the second most popular EV is the Nissan Leaf with 512 sold and 4.2% market share.

In fact EVs are so in demand in Norway another 249 used EVs were imported in November bring the total to 1683 electric cars.

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On Holiday in Hawaii with the Nissan Leaf

During a recent holiday in Waikiki, a beach front neighbourhood of Honolulu in Hawaii, EV News took the opportunity to rent a Nissan Leaf for the day. Having scanned the available cars on the Enterprise Rent-A-Car web-site and noticing they had Nissan Leaf available and for approx the same price as others in the same bracket I couldn't resist test driving one.

We picked up our Silver 2013 Leaf with 544 miles on the odometer with a full charge and only a vague idea where we were going. Earlier in the week we'd hired a 3rd generation Toyota Prius to lap the Island of Oahu a couple of times. (I've driven a Holden Volt and a Mitsubishi iMiEV, but not a Prius so I had to tick that box)

Having just hopped out of a Prius the controls in the Leaf were immediately familiar. It wouldn't be a wild guess to say the mouse-shaped gear selector in both could be from the same supplier. The start procedure in both is almost identical too, put the wireless key in the centre console, foot on the brake pedal, push button to start, select 'D' on the 'mouse', foot parking brake off, push the throttle and start moving forward - silently.

Aside from the steering wheel being on the wrong side of the car and having to drive down the wrong side of the road, (we're RHD here in Australia) we were still a bit navigationally challenged after only a few days in Hawaii. For a start, we hadn't been able to source an old fashioned paper road map of the place and being cheap skates (read: having a strong aversion to being ripped off) neither my better half nor myself had set-up International roaming on our iPhones so consequently they only worked when-ever WiFi was avaliable. Infrequent checking of Google maps required a quick visit to the nearest McDonalds to use their free WiFi.

Of course, the Leaf has GPS as standard built into the dash but a) you can't type in an address unless stationary (which frustrates the passenger no end) b) the address look-up isn't as good as Google and more often than not failed to return a result so it becomes a two device routine to actually find the route to any particular land mark.

I soon discovered range anxiety is real, at least within the first hour of being in a unfamiliar car. Like any typical Hawaiian day it was 30c so having driven out of the hire car lot and straight onto an expressway with the air conditioning on (i.e. maxium possible energy consumption)... the range indicator started to fall rapidly. Obviously if you owned a Leaf you would soon grow accustomed to it's range capabilities, but in unfamiliar terrain and in an unfamiliar electric vehicle, straight off the bat, it's all an unknown.

When we got the keys the range indicator said 84 miles (134 km). We hit a few outlet stores, hill climbed the 1,186 feet (361 meters) elevation to the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, depleting indicated range to less than 20 miles - which we regenerated back up to 37 miles (60 km) by the time we returned to our hotel by late afternoon.

Fortunately Hawaii has plenty of accessible public changing stations, which most of the time are very popular. (see above) Even though the parking itself isn't free, the charging is and as luck would have it, there was a charging station within 5 mins walk of our hotel. It was not being used when we arrived with our Leaf (although it had been ICE'd by a minivan – who promptly moved and starting asking questions about the Leaf) and after a quick 3 hours plugged in we set off for dinner with the dash showing 100 miles (160 km) of range.

When confined to level ground, city driving, as opposed to expressways and hill climbs, the Leaf consumes amazing little energy. What you use during heavy acceleration is mostly regenerated while pulling up at the next set of traffic lights. The leaf has the same blended brake set-up as the Prius and Volt so any use of the brake pedal kicks in more regeneration as opposed to dissipating energy through the friction brakes.

In fact, having driven 2 full laps of Ohau in a Prius, I now understand why Prius owners are often quoted as saying brake wear is minimal even after 200,000 km as like the Volt, the Prius uses full regen braking most of the time. Incidentally, on a recent trip to Darwin to cover the World Solar Challenge it was interesting to note 80% of the taxis in Darwin are Prius – frugal on both fuel consumption and brakes - sounds like a perfect combination for a taxi.

From a drivers perspective, due to the “pedal feel simulator” in most hybrids and electrics, it's hard to tell the difference between regn and friction braking based on pedal feedback alone. The tell-tale is watching the dash displays and how they ramp up to full any time the brake pedal is pressed while the vehicle is at speed.

For urban driving the Nissan Leaf is a great choice. It's surprisingly big for a 'small' car, costs virtually nothing to run, takes only a few hours to get back to fully charged on a 240v outlet and as we have seen with DC fast chargers it can easily cover 500 miles (800 km) in a day.