Can you lease the battery pack?

[ScooterCT]

As a potential Bolt buyer this fall (If the Leaf II doesn't steal me away), I'm wondering if battery leasing is or will be an option? I'm asking because I keep reading about lucky Nissan buyers worldwide who are doubling their range right now because they leased their batteries. It sure seems like a smart option at a time when batteries are steadily improving.

I suppose even a stated price for replacing your battery in the future would be nice. I think Nissan guarantees a battery pack replacement for $6,000?

 

[LeftieBiker]

Nissan never offered a battery lease in the US, and GM is very unlikely to do it either. A new leaf pack costs roughly $6k installed, not $6000 even, guaranteed. IIRC, $5500 is the price for the pack itself.

 

[SparkE]

The Smart had (has) the option of leasing the battery pack.

 

[Pigwich]

Yeah probably not. And who really knows how long these packs are going to last. They put crappy batteries in the LEAF back in the day, but they learned, and they're air cooled too. I drove the wheels off a Spark EV and didn't notice a ripple in capacity loss. My feeling is that this whole thing about capacity fade is overblown. The problem isn't licked, I'm sure, but I'll go out on a limb and say, that as long as they keep good QC with the chemistry, that it's mostly licked. It's a Chevy with LG Korean cells......which...granted, the Galaxy S7, yeah, but who knows where those batteries came from. At any rate, it's not a BYD. I'll bet these cars will go 200K before the first systemic reports of battery fade start.

 

[SparkE]

I drive a Spark EV, and have noticed pretty consistent reports of battery fade in them. It isn't HUGE, maybe 4-5% a year (with around 7-10K miles/yr) generally. But the Sparks have much smaller battery packs, so that they are discharged/recharged more (in terms of % of SoC). It is a noticeable fade, but not very large compared to early LEAFs.

I would expect the Bolt to lose 3-5%/yr in fade (depending on miles driven). We will see. Losing 10-15 miles/yr on a car with a range of ~240mi is no big deal in the grand scheme of things (IMO).