The Nissan LEAF is the elder statesman of the EV world—it’s not the most glamorous car you can buy, but it’s an affordable workhorse that has benefited from 12 years of incremental improvement. Now Nissan has released some details of the refreshed 2023 LEAF, ahead of its official debut at the 2022 New York International… Read more »
Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) fans tout bidirectional charging as a way for fleets (or perhaps even individuals) to generate income and defray the cost of going electric. Now Fermata Energy has announced the results of a summer-long pilot project in which a customer-owned EV earned over $4,200 by participating in a utility demand response (DR) program. In… Read more »
Second-life EV batteries are being used in pilots around the world to demonstrate their suitability for a wide variety of stationary storage applications. California company B2U Storage Solutions is using repurposed Nissan LEAF batteries in a commercial operation. The company has been bidding into the California power market for over a year, and is earning… Read more »
At Nissan’s Oppama plant near Tokyo, there are more than 700 automated guided vehicles, or AGVs, which deliver parts to workers in a car factory. Nissan, along with 4R Energy, is now repurposing used EV batteries, which no longer have enough capacity to provide sufficient EV range, to power its AGVs. The first-generation LEAF was… Read more »
Redwood Materials, the battery recycling venture founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, has signed an agreement to recycle scrap and defective battery cells for Envision AESC, which manufactures batteries for the Nissan LEAF in Smyrna, Tennessee. Recycling batteries is not only environmentally sound, but it may soon become an economic necessity, as demand for… Read more »
Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) was once seen as an ideal body material for EVs, because of its high strength and light weight. It was used in the Tesla Roadster and the BMW i3, but fell out of favor because of its high cost. Now Nissan has developed a new production process that speeds up… Read more »
A major government trial of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology in Australia will demonstrate the Nissan LEAF’s ability to supply energy to a home or commercial site, or to feed power back to the grid, thanks to its built-in bidirectional charging capability. The Realising Electric Vehicle Services (REVS) project is a precursor to the customer launch of… Read more »
Nissan was an early EV pioneer, but although the LEAF is still a common sight on the streets, sales have been flat in the US. In Japan, however, things look different. According to Nikkei, the LEAF and Nissan’s hybrid models accounted for 25% of sales in fiscal 2018, and the company aims to expand this… Read more »
4R Energy, a joint venture between Nissan and Sumitomo that focuses on EV battery reuse, will be the first group certified to the UL 1974 Standard for Evaluation for Repurposing Batteries. UL 1974 outlines how to sort and grade EV battery packs, modules, and cells, identifying state-of-health and determining viability for second-life use as storage…. Read more »
Nissan’s Global Director of Electric Vehicles, Nic Thomas, recently took a trip Down Under for the Australian launch of the Nissan LEAF Plus. In his speech, he highlighted the LEAF’s bidirectional charging capability, which he said is already being used in Japan, and is expected to be available in Australia within months. Nissan Australia’s Manager… Read more »