We’re both niche drivers….

Fate decided to take away my Infiniti V6 sedan in a double near fatal car accident and survived. I thought of buying a Testla but I want the Model X (SUV due out in summer 2015) so I went for Nissan Leaf so that in 2018, I can buy the Model X (2nd refined revision).

My significant other always love Leaf’s look since the beginning! I thought she was crazy. For some strange reason, the look of the Leaf get less uglier and NOW – I LOVE the look – in fact, if you make it look like a normal car, I would be PISSED. I want people to know this is an ALL-ELECTRIC vehicle and I expect the look to reflect that because I am proud.

It’s distinguished, unmistakable and CHP (highway patrol) officer on the freeway don’t even bother to look for the HOV (carpool) sticker. Drives likes a space ship dream, quality, ultra smooth glide-on-air, silent, powerful 208 ft-lb torque right off the bat, performs and corners likes a sports car with ECO mode off.

I will save $11,000 USD on gasoline every year, that more than pay for future battery upgrade, higher density, lighter polymer, etc.

“The 60 or 85 kWh lithium ion battery is encased in an armored enclosure divided into 16 internal compartments. Inside are about 7,000 Panasonic NCR18650 lithium ion batteries, each about the size and shape of a standard consumer AA battery. The batteries are wired in series in order to produce the more than 300 kW required to drive the 2.5-ton Model S forward at speed.”

And when you dig down look at this: http://industrial.panasonic.com/www-data/pdf/ACA4000/ACA4000PE4.pdf

They may, for example, know that there’s >400 Wh/kg battery that will cost <$200/kWh almost ready to go. If there's a beast like that about to emerge then it would make less sense to offer multiple battery options. We could have 200+ mile range EVs at ICEV prices.

If a big jump in battery capacity is far away then selling 100 mile range EVs that can hold another pack or two makes a lot of sense to me. People who really need 200/300 mile range could purchase it.

It's frustrating having to be only an observer….

GM appears to be testing a 400 Wh/kg battery. That’s about 2.8x more capacity per weight than the LEAF battery. They could produce an EV that gave 100 and 200 mile range options with smaller (cheaper) batteries than are now used in EVs.

They could even design the car so that someone could buy the 100 mile version and add a second “100 miles” later if they wanted.

MrEnergyCzar

With overall EV sales so low it probably wouldn’t make sense for a car manufacturer to build a new model to capture that few sales. Right now they need to concentrate on the portions of the market where they can sell the largest numbers.