Just a couple of updates/comments on all this - and be sure to check out the bad news at the end
camiev said:
What is SCiBs offered in JDM? GS Yuasa sounds like made in China? Who made the Leaf battery? Why many members think the miev battery is better than Leaf. I know miev has a/c and single row. Is there anything else? I think the jury is still out on the battery.
I guess the reference to Japanese battery options was a little obscure, I probably should have spelled that out better. GS Yuasa is Mitsubishi's partner in Lithium Energy Japan (LEJ), a company dedicated to manufacturing largish Li-ion batteries optimized for EV use. Nearly all of LEJ's released materials are vague or silent regarding the battery chemistry, but a European regulatory filing shows this:
Cathode ：
Lithium-Manganese Dioxide (activity)
Polyvinyldiene Fluoride (binder)
Graphite (conductivity)
Anode ：
Carbon (activity)
Polyvinyldiene Fluoride (binder)
Electrolyte ：
Organic Solvent (non aqueous liquid)
Lithium Salt
. . . abbreviate all that any way you like, I guess, but in any case it's quite different from both Toshiba's SCiB batteries, described as "lithium titanate", or the GS Yuasa batteries involved in the "burning Dreamliner" incidents, which are "lithium cobalt oxide", an older battery chemistry noted for greater energy capacity but also greater thermal instability.
While introduced to the i-MiEV product more recently, the SCiBs aren't a pure improvement, just a different set of tradeoffs, so Mitsubishi continues to offer both as far as I can tell. The big advantage for SCiB, as noted, is longer life, especially when subjected to frequent high-voltage Level 3 DC quick-charging. The downsides are greater cost and more weight per kWh. That's why the SCiB battery packs appear to be "reduced" - they're probably about the same size and weight as the alternative LEJ batteries, but for the same weight they store less energy.
I have no idea how these battery options are priced in Japan, but there are arguments for both. The big advantage of the LEJ battery pack is greater range with a full charge, and if you don't have good access to CHAdeMO chargers on your regular routes, that's kind of a big deal. Thing is, in Japan, they have a pretty good CHAdeMO network (they hit 1000 chargers last year, not sure how many there are now), so many buyers have more to gain with a battery that has a slightly shorter range but can be quickly recharged at CHAdeMO stations multiple times per day.
I'm pretty sure the reasons that SCiBs aren't offered in the U.S. are that (a) range with the LEJ battery already seemed marginal to American buyers, so it was obvious that shorter range wouldn't sell at all, and (b) there's not much of a CHAdeMO network in California, and virtually none in the rest of the country. The LEJ battery tech is just a better fit for this market.
As for the Nissan Leaf, its batteries are made by Nissan, and yes, they are being manufactured in the U.S. near the plant where U.S. market Leafs are now built. One can debate battery chemistry tradeoffs until the cows come home, but the Leaf's main problem is that the batteries are in a sealed box, with no outside cooling. As I understand it, air is actively circulated within the pack, but that only helps reduce hot spots, and doesn't do that much for reducing battery pack temperature overall. For that, the Leaf depends on "passive" cooling, i.e., just the ordinary exchange of heat with the outside air through the walls of the battery pack. In high ambient temperatures this may not be enough, as some Leaf owners in AZ and TX learned last summer. By contrast, our i-MiEVs circulate air between the battery pack and the cabin, allowing the batteries to be cooled or warmed by the same climate control keeping the passengers comfortable. It's not as robust a thermal management system as the fancier liquid coolant systems used in American EVs like the Volt or Focus Electric, but it's a lot cheaper and probably adequate for the i's modest battery pack. It's certainly better than nothing at all, which is pretty much what the Leaf's designers inexplicably opted for.
Finally, that bad news I mentioned, and back to the original topic of this thread - the advisability and/or folly of selling the L1 EVSE bundled with the car. As Don has observed, having a single EVSE seems awfully dicey. As if to prove the point, my stupid expensive Eaton Level 2 EVSE broke Saturday night - the Service light is on, indicating a permanent "contactor or circuit board" failure, and it no longer charges. Annoying, but because I have a backup, not the end of the world - I plugged in my Level 1 EVSE and back in business until I can get the installing electrician out to fix it. I'll be skipping longer trips for the next few days (or however long it takes for repairs), but that beats having to leave the car parked in my garage - which is where I'd be had I dumped my Mitsubishi EVSE (though doing that never crossed my mind, truth to tell).
