The Nissan LEAF has been produced and sold in significant number for nearly fourteen years – and while the majority of those cars are some still happily rolling on their original, healthy battery packs many years later, others are in need of replacement packs.
To date, that process has either involved paying a Nissan Dealer a small fortune to have the battery pack replaced with an identical-spec one to that fitted in the car when new; or paying a specialist to replace the battery pack with a newer one from a salvage LEAF.
That latter process has relied on reverse-engineering of the Nissan LEAF’s CAN bus and developing a hardware and software solution that allows older LEAFs to happily work with more modern LEAF packs. And that reverse-engineering is reflected In the costs associated with asking a specialist to replace the battery pack.
But now Daniel (Dala) of Dala’s EV Repair in Finland has announced that he’s open-sourcing the technique he’s used to successfully upgrade customer’s LEAFs to larger, newer packs.
Here’s why that’s a MASSIVE deal, and could dramatically lower the cost of LEAF battery replacements.
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00:00 – Introduction
02:21 – What we’re covering
02:53 – The LEAF’s biggest flaw
03:17 – A refresher on acive vs passive thermal management
05:11 – Why so many LEAFs need battery replacement
06:21 – Nissan LEAF battery upgrade options
07:20 – The Cottage industry in LEAF battery replacements
09:12 – Going Open Source
10:20 – Why Dala’s opening up the information
10:59 – Support Dala
11:27 – Acknowledging the risks
13:13 – Why this is such a big deal
15:13 – Thanks, and Goodbye!
17:00 – (Not) A Classic Mac Segment
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Support Dala on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/dala
Subscribe to Dala’s YouTube channel at : https://www.youtube.com/@DalasEVRepair
See Dala’s Github at https://github.com/dalathegreat
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Script: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield, Kate Walton-Elliott
Presenter: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
Editor, Colorist: Michael Horton
Art and Animation: Erin Carlie
Producer: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
© Transport Evolved LLC, 2023
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Dala even has a way to use a whole battery pack for a house power battery backup lol. Dala is the man!
Kudos to you for your support of another You-Tuber who some might think of as a competitor channel. But no: not competition but co-operation.
That also is part of the Open Source ethos.
Archeilies heal of all electric cars are batteries; they are just not designed to last. Batteries dry out and then they loose their ability to hold charge. Buy yourself a new phone and after a couple of years the amount of charge it holds seriously deteriates; nuff said!
I never knew what LEAF stood for. Cool.
My main hesitation about replacing a Leaf battery is the lack of proper cooling issue is not solved. So the new battery will degrade quickly as well.
I appreciate very much the effort to open source battery replacement but I was honestly expecting an announcement for a new independent producer of batteries for Nissan. I'm surprised that after 13 years old sales, no one has come up with a solution for that. And at the same time integrating a couple of fans to cool down the battery pack, even if it's not a full liquid cooling system. Why is that ? There's obviously a market for it, right?
When I learned about the hotrodding community around the Leaf motor/inverter and Dala's backhacking of CANbus systems, I idly wondered if the Leaf was going to become something like the Ford Model A and T; this dead-simple vehicle that has this MASSIVE cottage industry of power and use upgrades because the creators made it so cheap it would be easily understood. Even swapping to a gas engine is still fine, because those people are most likely recycling a good chassis and reusing it.
I wonder if Dala will also be working on entire custom packs for the leaf as well; if it had modern thermal management it could DC charge, and Nissan won't be making the Leaf cells forever. Being able to covert a Leaf to using packs from GM or Tesla or anyone else could make them virtually immortal as entirely unique creations, assuming it can fit in the space.
Extremely dangerous if you ask me. Lithium batteries are not exactly safe objects and leaving free circulation to third parts low cost products is scary…
As ugly as a Prius
No non-mechanic, non-electrician should do this. These machines are electric chair deadly. This will make it possible for local mechanics or electricians to be able to offer this service, which is huge.
Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Huxley, Orwell, Turing and Transport Evolved should be forgiven for thinking their systems can last forever – finite fossil fuels are dangerously hypnotic to humans and their mental capacity.
Humans were not ready morally, ethically and intellectually to start the mass extraction of fossil fuels with the advent of the steam engine 300 years ago.
The Magna Carta requires now overhauling – adding to it the right for humans to understand what Energy really is;
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
Time taken in stocking energy to build an energy system, adding to it the time taken in building the system will always be longer than the entire useful lifetime of the system.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future" (2017).
I think right to repair and provisions for it are great but I wonder what view the insurance companies might take for a home modification made to a high power EV traction battery?!
Really enjoyed your video
GreAT SHOW, THANKS NIKS!! SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR WOODY 😉
LOL, I love "Just Rolled In"
240 000 km and SOH 81%
That acronym doesn't really work, does it? It's not so much the "LEAF" as the "LEFAF".
High voltage battery replacement at home? One mistake and you are dead.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is a good thing to live by.
What would be really cool is if someone develop a cooling device for the Leaf battery…..
While it's clear that the Morris Traveller was the new owners to do whatever they will with it, I'm sorry the noble and selfless sale of the car resulted in its destruction.
If only there were some way to have a healthcare system universally free at the point of treatment.
I cannot buy anywhere, drive batteries for my outlander Phev. Health and safety is not an issue, any electrician knows how to stay safe and Right to Repair is a crucial factor. Please can you shed any light on this.
Get to the point uuuuuugh
There should by a mandatory faire use ip liberation when battery packs warranty expires, api's and technical specifications should become open source by law. Still there should be some third party regulation to ensure that builders, rebuilders of battery packs can produce packs with an acceptable quality levels.
Babe, is a trans woman a woman? As a lesbian do you go along with the gender ideology nazis who say lesbians must connect with trans women?
Love Dala, and fantastic he's released this for others to do around the world…. but the problem is it's pretty impossible (at least here in Australia) to actually get hold of a decent battery to replace it with. There are new replacement batteries being developed in NZ, but they are very expensive (and some still without a decent BMS).
I had a 2012 Leaf briefly before I bought a model Y. 45 miles of range and I never ran out of charge as I only drive about 25 miles a day. Nice driving and zippier than you would expect. Great cheap solution if you don’t need a lot of range.