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Nissan battery factory vs rumor

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by bwilson4web, Sep 20, 2014.

  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Source: Nissan Charged Up about Battery Rumors | TheDetroitBureau.com
    This is the type of cheap FUD I have seen over the past decade and others since the Prius and Honda Insight first hit our shores. It is a continuation of what killed the EV1 . . . often aided by the ignorant. In this case, even a little fact checking would have revealed this is a totally bogus, planted news story.

    In this case, Reuters employed the useful idiot.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #1 bwilson4web, Sep 20, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2014
  2. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I thought the rumors of Nissan buying much better batteries for future leafs and infiniti cars was good news not bad.

    We know that leaf batteries so far have lost capacity much faster than tesla batteries (panasonic) or those in the volt and focus ev (lg). Nissan said they would address this in future battery chemistries. If nissan licenses better lg technology, or assembles lg cells, as renault does, I think this would only be good news for nissan bev sales. Althernatively NEC/nissan can catch up and fix some problems, but I will believe they have gotten the battery logevity problem fixed only after they have those new batteries in the field awhile.
     
  3. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    It makes sense to read the original article:
    Exclusive - Nissan faces battery plant cuts as electric car hopes fade| Reuters

    Certainly this article does not have the snark of the earlier one:
    Now this sounds familiar to this former GE employee. "Neutron" Jack Welch made the same argument that instead of fixing problems called 'competing', sell them off. But he proved the best way to make a successful small Fortune 500 company is to start with a large one.

    Bob Wilson
     
  4. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    The question is whether this company will commit to build versus buy. My experience has been those who elect to 'buy' their critical technology ultimately find it leads to their own demise.

    Bob Wilson
     
  5. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ...would this be another case where the US govt funding did not hit a homer?
     
  6. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I've got to say that had a quite different spin than the one I read but here is the key quote to me

    It would seem strange if you are betting the company on plug-ins, that you would stick to in house R&D, if its behind. Then again its tough to see what is going on internally.

    Even toyota and tesla in their battery plants have a battery partner (funny its the same one) panasonic that is responsable for R&D. I'm sure if lg gets ahead of panasonic tesla would have them join the gigafactory either as a partner or licensing R&D.

    The vertical integration story on automakers is they typically fall behind. Ford gave up growing their own rubber, GM eventually sold off most of delco, the battery portion to JCI that supplies everyone in north america now including all the japanese transplants.

    +1
    Yep, the battery funding seems to have been almost completely wasted, but in nissan's case it was a loan, so the US government will get all of its money back. The program that has worked is the credits for plug-ins, which has driven demand for the cars. The biggest problem with the battery program was over building at a123, that after bankrupcy is now chinese, instead of a american battery manufacturer.
     
  7. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Renault electric car sales have bombed here. They're just not selling, though Renault's insistence in leasing the HV battery has a lot to do with it and some short comings with the Renault EVs too. Their smaller Zoe model can't be charged from a household plug! but needs a dedicated home charger. Their Fluence model (grand total of 71 cars sold in 2 years) almost can't be given away. It cost £24,000 new and a 2 year old example with 20k miles is advertised on Autotrader at £5,200 and the price keeps dropping and still it's for sale. People don't want the open ended battery lease at a minimum of £77/$125 per month for 5,000 miles a year.

    RENAULT FLUENCE (model family) - How Many Left?

    Nissan on the other hand seem to be steaming away with Leaf sales progressing nicely and the new e-NV200 van selling too. I just don't think they're selling in the original numbers envisaged. I think they're still a tad expensive for what they are. But they've sold about 5,000 compared to a few hundred Renaults;

    NISSAN LEAF (model family) - How Many Left?
    RENAULT ZOE (model family) - How Many Left?

    And this is from a country with petrol at over $8 a gallon.

    Maybe the Nissan UK battery plant is now more than able to handle Nissans Worldwide battery production?
     
  8. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    The things is, as you say, the reason we poured so much money into EV was to make U.S. a technology leader in that (hopefully growing ) area
     
  9. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    #1 reason for the tax credits was to reduce oil use by getting more plug-ins, by reducing the price of batteries which would get more plug-ins on the road. The program started in 2007. Back then Toyota told us BEVs were never going to catch on because batteries cost $1200/kwh. 250,000 plug-ins sold in the US so far and this nissan rumor comes with the idea that in Nissan's volumes batteries may be as low as $275/kwh. Tesla claims that they will be under $200/kwh after the gigafatory opens. DOE tax credits for the whole program 2010-today are around $1.5B, which is quite small compard to $4B/yr given for oil tax credits.

    Without the program, tesla would have a bigger lead on nissan and bmw, so I don't think it has helped american competitiveness, but.... I don't see how it could. The PNGV in the 90s was focused on american competitiveness, and was probably partially responable for 2/3 of american car companies going bankrupt.


    Probably, the american battery plant was built to be able to supply 200,000 battery packs, and only 47,000 were sold last year. Note 47,000 is the most in the world. Since the US is the biggest market for plug-ins, has lower labor and power costs than the UK, I don't think the UK is the factory Nissan would pick ;-)
     
  10. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    I hear those arguments, but who's in charge of Nissan/Renault? ;)
     
  11. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I think its a mess, but Renault saved nissan, the CEO is Brazilian, and headquarters are in Holland. The board is half and half, Renault owns 43% of nissan, Nissan owns 15% of Renault. Daimler owns 3.1% of each, and each owns 1.55% of Daimler.
    NISSAN | CORPORATE INFORMATION | Renault-Nissan Alliance | Structure of the Alliance

    The Renault side seems to want to purchase battery technology from lg. The Nissan side decided to develop it with NEC and produce batteries internally. The rumor is renault is pushing lg. I don't see why Nissan could not assemble LG cells in the UK. They need to have things in place by 2016 when the new leaf is rumored to be released. Battery volume will increase quite a bit if the car is successful.

    UK has capacity for 60,000 packs a year. It is doubtful that it would be able to export tham to nissan japan, because of japanese politics.
     
  12. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    I could buy one and have it shipped out of the EU... Then no more battery lease fees :)
     
  13. ftl

    ftl Explicator

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    Sorry, I first read this as "Flatulence model" and wondered how it worked...
     
  14. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    One of my engineering magazines had an article about LiON batteries:
    Design News - News - LG Chem Aims for Affordable, Long-Range Battery by 2017

    Curious about the chemistry, Battery University had this chart:
    [​IMG]

    So I'm seeing a lot of the 'churn' we saw in the early days of PCs when promise of "Beta" was used to hold back sales of existing "good enough." There are alternate LiON battery chemistries but I'm seeing incremental progress, not a show-stopper:
    • 155% (62/40) NiCd/Lead acid
    • 145% (90/62) NiMH/NiCd
    • 116% (110/90) Li-phosphate/NiMH
    • 127% (135/110) Li-manganese/Li-phosphate
    • 103% (140/135) NMC/Li-manganese
    • 121% (170/140) Li-cobalt/NMC
    There are other metrics described in Types of Lithium-ion Batteries – Battery University:
    1. Specific energy
    2. Specific power
    3. Safety
    4. Performance
    5. Life span
    6. Cost
    I look at this report as being more along the lines of letting perfect be the enemy of good enough. But we are at the cusp of battery technology that appears to be running fast enough that in 5-10 years, we may see the market shake out to an optimum battery solution. But I'm still rooting for 'air-<anything_but_hydrogen>' batteries as taking the prize. <grins>

    Bob Wilson
     
  15. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    You need to add some height the chart. The cells tesla uses are a special verision of these standard cells, which are 240wh/kg
    Cylindrical Type | Lithium Ion Batteries (For Europe) | Batteries & Energy Products | Panasonic Industrial Devices Europe

    We have companies that have 400 wh/kg batteries for automotive working in the lab, and I would guess the iphone 6 battery beats that. In less than 10 years tesla says costs should drop to less than $100/kwh. LG should easily be able to hit its goal of 200wh/kg, the rumored $275/kwh in 2016 is a tougher target, but they should get there eventualy. Tesla to get under $200/kwh is building a factory.