Electric cars have been (and still are) presented as the future of transportation, with special emphasis on their efficiency and zero fossil fuel consumption. But beyond their virtues, electric cars need maintenance like any other vehicle, including the replacement of the battery pack once its performance drops to minimal levels. Daniel Öster from Dala's EV Repair shows us the process on a 2012 Nissan Leaf, with an upgrade to a 2017 battery and some modifications to make the installation work.

The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
Nissan Leaf

The Challenge of Replacing a Battery

It is one of the most complex and demanding situations for any electric car owner: replacing the battery pack. I still remember the case of scoodidabop on Imgur, who was quoted 4,400 dollars to change an entire battery when all they needed was a cleaning of their connectors with vinegar and a brush. Batteries are not eternal, and over time they lose capacity, not to mention other factors that could affect their performance, such as climate.

A Case Study: The $10 Fix

The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
WARNING: This contains images of repairing a high voltage battery system. You must wear proper high voltage gloves and remove jewelry when verifying all disconnects of high voltage battery. Be safe people! This stuff can kill. Gloves. Eye protection. Long sleeves. Safety first, always. Go here for more info: http://www.nist.gov/el/isd/mmc/upload/high_voltage_rules_revised.pdf I worked as an electrician with my father (he's a master electrician) when I was younger so this kind of work is in my wheelhouse. Safety first! Now onto the story... Last Saturday this happened on the way home. Lots of scary lights. Did some Googlin and found out that the Camry brake actuator could be faulty but would be covered under an extended Toyota recall/warranty thingy. As long as the "Check Hybrid System" warning was a false error... Thats an expensive repair! I was especially nervous since I just bought this car 2 weeks ago (still don't have the plates on it!) from a used car lot with no warranty...
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
I took the car into the Toyota dealer Monday morning and after about 4 hours the service center called me with the news. "Are you sitting down?" he said. "Should I be?" I replied. "Um. Yea I think so" he said. "Your hybrid battery has 'gone bad' and needs to be replaced. It's a $4400 job." I just bought this car! $4400? That's more than half of what I paid for the whole car. Funk dat. I called Toyota's corporate customer support and after a few days they generously offered a $500 credit on the repair. My Camry's hybrid system is within range of the warranty in terms of years, but exceeded the mileage allowance. I'm starting to feel sick. Then I remembered reading about replacing single failing battery cells back when I bought our first Prius. I bet this Camry has the same (or similar) battery pack! There's only one way to find out...
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
First I watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaPHfA6LyZY Feeling confident about disconnecting the high voltage supply I proceeded. WARNING: This is a high voltage system! Take proper safety precautions!! Wear gloves. Use a meter on all connections to verify zero voltage before handling bare connections. Be careful! I got the heavy bitch into the house and opened it up. Looks just like the Prius cells - in fact they're cross compatible! So the idea here is that one (or more) of these cells is probably reading a lower voltage that's out of nominal range. Low voltage on a cell generally means the battery cell is failing. The good news is you can remove the individual failing cells and replace them for around $45 each. So simple! This is gonna be great!
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
I remove all the buss bars (the orange plastic things - there's copper connectors in there that connects the batteries in pairs and in overall series) and start testing the batteries individually... 8.11v, 8.10v, 8.10v, 8.11v... etc... all cells looking good so far.
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
These little lights weren't enough load so I used a spool of magnet wire. More on that in a sec... Look how bad those copper connections are. So corroded. That can't be good. I tested every single cell 3 times. All at normal voltage. I waited 2 hours and retested. Again - all normal. What? That's weird. I hooked a spool of copper wire (to add resistance/load briefly) and checked the voltages again. This test is also done one single cell at a time and you measure the voltage drop when a load is applied. The the voltage has an extreme dip then you're likely dealing with a bad cell due to high resistance and efficiency loss. I found no issues with any battery cell. Let me say that again: I found zero issues with every single battery cell in my hybrid battery pack. Wut?1 Replacing this pack would be wasteful since it's operating within all nominal values. Is the corrosion on those connectors bad enough to throw off the operating voltages of the whole system? Well it looks pretty bad. Let's pop all of those buggers out and clean them up...
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
Soaked all 34 buss bars in a vinegar solution then a gentle scrub with steel wool before going into a solution of baking soda and water to counteract the acidity of the vinegar. I'm holding one cleaned and one dirty buss bar. This process was also done on the steel nuts that hold the buss bars on. It took an hour or so to clean everything up and reinstall (with anticorrosion solution applied) before I reassembled the battery.
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
Fixing my hybrid pack for less than $10
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
Pre-cleaning. There's 34 total little buss bars, half of them on the backside as seen here. I quickly reassembled the battery and put it back into the car.
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
All error codes gone. When the error codes came up last weekend the gas engine ran 100% of the time and the hybrid system was non-functional. Now the battery pack is charging and discharging correctly, the warning lights are gone, and everything looks great thanks to improved current flow over the buss bars! This kicks ass!
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
Ha! Suck it! You work again you freakin golf cart!
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
High voltage can kiss my ass!
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
BAM! Running perfectly. Such a simple fix! TLDR; The dealer wanted $4400, I fixed it for about $7 and a few hours of my time. Toyota doesn't run a full breakdown on the battery and issues like mine are glossed over with a one-size-fits-all repair that's wasteful and expensive. If I ever do have a single dead/bad battery cell I'm totally comfortable with the system now that that would only cost about $50 to replace one cell. Be smart people! Do your homework and dig into the problem and sometimes you'll find that things can be simple and fun to repair. Happy fixing! "Nothin to it but to do it..." - Wayne White
The Challenges of Replacing the Battery in an Electric Car
Reddit front page bonus. Washed the beast. Ready to roll once again! Check me out on Twitter where I rarely post or on Instagram where I post more car stuff and other projects: @scoodidabop Listen to some of my music projects if you're bored or whatever: https://soundcloud.com/thenewtomorrowpeople https://soundcloud.com/wardenclyffeband https://soundcloud.com/officialcreedo Thanks for looking. Good luck out there and happy fixing! (For those of you that are asking here's more of my Jurassic Explorer: http://imgur.com/a/DMJKl)

The Nissan Leaf Battery Swap

Daniel Öster’s video shows the entire process of replacing the battery in a 2012 Nissan Leaf with a unit from a 2017 model. Let’s walk through the key steps.

After disconnecting the standard 12-volt battery and removing the high-voltage connections (identified in orange), Daniel shows the removal of the enormous Leaf battery, which requires sturdy and quality tools due to its 272.5 kilograms, while the 30 kWh battery is even heavier at 294 kilograms. Another key detail is the communication port for the batteries. In the 2011 model, the port has 22 pins, while the new version has 36 pins. Daniel offers a cable converter between the two generations (recommended option), but if you want to save money, you can change the entire connector using the available pinout.

https://old.neoteo.com/el-mecanico-rebelde-que-revive-coches-tesla/

Finally, Daniel warns that users will need to adapt the splash guards to the new battery by making additional holes and modifying the anchor points on the car. The last phase is connecting a CAN-bridge with the correct firmware and other elements that improve the electrical performance of the Nissan Leaf. In short, the process is not simple, especially considering the space and tools needed, but Daniel managed to reduce the total cost of the operation to just over 2,100 euros, thanks to the sale of the previous pack.

Source: Hackaday