Another such story. He replaced the battery in a Nissan Leaf (2016), and the range increased from 60 to 400 km. The Chinese Vivne has ready-made ones.

A Dutch man grew tired of his 2016 Nissan Leaf only having a range of 60 kilometers in winter, even though under optimal conditions the gauge promised around 150 kilometers. He decided to replace his battery and found that ready-made packages designed for specific models were available online. He purchased a 62 kWh version, which cost approximately 32,000 Polish zlotys. Now he can regularly drive over 400 kilometers on a single charge.

Nissan Leaf, a car that begs for battery tuning

The story was reported by the Swedish portal Allt om Elbil; it first appeared on YouTube (embedded below the paragraph, in English). The battery of the aforementioned Nissan Leaf already showed signs of degradation, with only eight bars out of twelve remaining (about 60 percent of its original capacity), indicating the onset of problems. This is evident in one of the footage clips, where the car shows a range of over 154 kilometers [in good conditions]. For a battery with an original capacity of 30 (~27) kWh, this is quite impressive.

It turns out that there are companies on the internet that prepare complete packages for Nissan Leaf vehicles. One of them is the Chinese company Vivne (website HERE), which offers packages for the ZE0 model (the first Leaf) and ZE1 model (the Leaf after the 2018 facelift), as well as for the BMW i3. These packages use CATL Li-NCM batteries. For the owner of a Nissan Leaf, the new battery was 2.5 centimeters thicker than the old one, but the supplier equipped it with special spacers and longer screws, so the only potential concern is a slightly reduced vehicle clearance.

The old battery from the YouTuber’s Nissan Leaf

Vivne batteries (c) Vivne

Partially open Vivne battery

The CATL cells used in the new battery promise better performance in cold conditions and greater resistance to high temperatures during charging, which should result in reduced degradation. The slowdown in degradation is attributed in part to the battery’s capacity; now one charge cycle provides the owner with about three times more range than before. Right after installation, the battery showed 260 kilometers of range with only 44 percent charge. It turned out that it can achieve 500 kilometers of range when fully charged. After six months of use, the owner claims to regularly get over 400 kilometers of range.

Disadvantages? There are some. The first is obviously the price of the package, which is close to the cost of buying an old Leaf. The second is the “fast” charging. This version of the Nissan Leaf is equipped with a Chademo port that can reach up to 50 kW, so charging the battery from 10% to 80% will take about an hour. But if someone buys the car on a good deal and charges it mainly at home, they can keep the electric system functional for not 10 but 20 more years of use. Vivne mentions 2,000 charge cycles and offers an 8-year warranty. Under such conditions, the cost of buying the battery becomes negligible.

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