Nissan LEAF: Battery Upgrades, Secondary Use Part Of The Plan Page 2

By Bengt Halvorson

Bengt Halvorson

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Bengt Halvorson is Deputy Editor of High Gear Media's portfolio of car sites, overseeing the production of reviews, evaluating vehicles firsthand... More

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2011 Nissan Leaf prototype

Nissan LEAF

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The Nissan LEAF's range of about 100 miles is enough for 95 percent of Americans' daily use patterns, according to Nissan, though they aren't completely shying away from the issues around range anxiety. "So now the question is, do we bring out a 200-mile battery just to kind of help those people who maybe still have some concern—the range anxiety question—or do we say it's a hundred-mile pack, but at a lower cost?"

"So all those variables are out there," explained Perry, and it will depend on how the LEAF is initially received and what people want. That's a question that is being addressed with help from a charging-station and infrastructure partnership with eTec and assistance from Idaho National Laboratories, to study use and charging patterns.

By then Nissan will likely have several new EV models, though these are all expected to share the same battery technology.

Nissan is also considering environmental end-of-use questions; it's has gone through the entire cradle-to-grace lifecycle for its cells and battery packs and insists that it's putting in place a recycling program, in addition to the secondary uses of the cells, that will be managed at least in part by the automaker. "These packs will not end up in a landfill," assured Perry. "They will be recycled, recovered and reused."

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