The LEAFs Hidden Reserve; Yes, Its Another LEAF Spy Pitch!

**Disclaimer**

I am not a paid by LEAF Spy developer Jim in any way or form.  The opinions below are strictly mine and unbiased in any way.

We are now entering the 4th day of Winter which means two things;

Merry Christmas!!

and

We are quickly approaching post 1000 of "my range is dropping and I don't know why."

Forget that its cold and rainy and snowy.  Nearly all these statements are based on the GOM which pretty much explains everything. Do not use the GOM to evaluate your LEAF's performance.  It was never good for earlier model LEAFs but the 40 kwh LEAFs takes it a step farther by adding a significant amount of hidden range.


LEAF Spy Range Setting

LEAF Spy allows you to set your range based on "you" and "your" driving situation.  Now, there isn't any presets so you have to know a bit about your car.  This should be the easy part, right? You drive it every day and if you are resetting the trip meter every day, you have a pretty good idea of your miles/kwh performance.  There are a few settings you need to determine;

Efficiency

Now as we know, that number changes due to weather, rain, climate control usage, etc.  So a bit of data collection will go a long way towards getting you an accurate picture of just how far you can go but in reality, if you don't want to collect the data, that works too.  Simply pick a number and try it. At the end of the day, review the number against the car's and see if you need to adjust up or down while noting any specific situations that may have affected the numbers.

For me; I use a general average that low balls it a bit during Summer of 4.5 miles per kwh but use 3 different ones for Winter due to the much greater variance in weather and road conditions.

DoD   (Depth of Discharge)

This setting allows you to see what your range estimate is to a specific SOC.  There are presets for LBW and VLBW and a custom one you can choose from 1% to 25% in 1% increments.  Choose whatever you are comfortable with. For me? I want to know what my range is, period.  But 1% SOC is as low as it will go so that is what I chose.  Below we are looking at the two lower right boxes.

The one on top says I have 100.5 miles estimated to 1% SOC.   Tapping this box will toggle from my setting to LBW or VLBW.  The box below is using 3.6 miles/kwh to calculate my estimated range.

Now if 1% is just one of those "standing on a cliff peering over the side" kinda things for you, you can increase it up to 25% in the settings under the Range subcategory.

Drawbacks

Well nothing is perfect so knowing the limitations of the system you are using is simply a good thing, right?  First off, LEAF Spy range settings are a bit of trial and error.  There will always be a "first" time coming where your range will be well short of your LEAF Spy prediction.   After all, we are taking a full day's average and applying it minute by minute to our drive that includes uphills, downhills, tailwinds, headwinds and even unexpected squalls!  So how can one static number work for all that?

Well, obviously it doesn't so again, having an idea of your driving performance is the key.  Resetting the miles/kwh meter daily helps, is super easy to do and takes like 2 seconds.  Recording a daily log of driving for several months to cover the entire year of seasons you will see is not.  So like any good thing, there is no free lunch.

But as an EVer, I am guessing you already know that. The sheer volume of accessories you can buy to charge your car should be more than enough of a hint that being truly successful means thinking outside the box.

GOM Drift

This will make like what? entry #4 or 5 where I mentioned the inconsistency of the GOM range prediction.  The GOM is supposed to estimate your range remaining based on recent driving performance and the estimated charge available in the battery pack, right?

Uhhh, no.  Not even close.  In fact, I really have no clue how the GOM does its calculations and here is why I am confused.

The Test

Well driving around and recording GOM verses LEAF Spy numbers simply doesn't work due to the unquantifiable variability of real life conditions so, I figured the best way to overcome that variability is to use a static set of numbers for the GOM calculation just as LEAF Spy does all the time. To put it another way, I simply parked it.  This ensures that the "recent" driving history supposedly used by the GOM to calculate the range would not change.

GOM Bloat

So off to the charger I went putting 30 miles on the car to get a good reset of the miles/kwh meter.  Now we always complain our GOM drops fast in the morning completely deflating our elation at the lofty range we see first thing?  Well there is a reason for that.

From the dash we see the LEAF at 84% with a 137 mile estimate from a 4.2 mile/kwh performance. But LEAF Spy is telling us we will only get 123.7 miles at 4.0 miles per kwh.  So GOM is overestimating a range by 14.3 miles.

But wait!! you say. The car is doing better than LEAF Spy at 4.2 miles per kwh over the LEAF Spy's 4.0 miles per kwh so it should predict a higher range, right??  I will comment on this later but keep this in mind.

Like a Stopped Clock, the GOM is right...Once a charge

LOL!! Sorry couldn't resist that heading...  Now, here we are earlier in the same charge so the GOM is still using the very same "recent driving history" and guess what?? LEAF Spy agrees!! So the GOM is not "always" wrong, right?   Notice the SOC being so near the middle? Interesting, right!

Your LEAF's range is MUCH better than the GOM lets on

Truth be told; Who cares about how much range you have left when you have 100 miles? NO ONE!! What we care about is our range when the car has nothing to say but "_ _ _"

That is where LEAF Spy shines and quickly becomes an inconsequential expense when we realize just how much of a stress reliever it is!

Ok, now we have the GOM still using the same recent driving history saying we only have 32 miles of range (Which BTW, will disappear in about 22 miles...) while LEAF Spy says we have 43.1 miles of range.

Now for some reason, I don't have the shot I took before starting the charge which had my GOM at "_ _ _" and LEAF Spy at 17 miles but when I find it I will update it.


Drawbacks

Do I really need to list them out? Lets face it, even to most inexperienced EVer immediately recognized that the GOM was kinda...well full of it.   Now it should be a bit obvious that the GOM isn't as bad as we think with its bloated morning readings.   What is happening is a slow shift to the hidden reserve (This can be verified by the changing gap between LEAF Spy's real SOC verses the usable SOC on the dash)  resulting in a GOM error that ends up being relatively small or you could simply use the LEAF Spy reading which I find tends to be within 2-3%.  Of course this means you having had picked the correct number.


Finally, lets talk about that recent history a bit.  No one knows exactly how much "history" is used in producing the GOM figures (assuming the number is not pulled out from a magician's hat)  but since I was there, I can shed a bit more light on that.

First off, the 30 miles was done in two stints. The morning drive to work which was 12.1 miles and 3.6 miles per kwh.  So the afternoon part of the drive was MUCH more efficient than the 4.2 miles per kwh suggests which simply makes the error of the GOM larger than I have shown here.

IMHO, the GOM is Nissan's way of "babying" us.  Telling us what we want to hear.  Notice the SOC differences?  In the first pix, the dash SOC is 84% which represents usable SOC while LEAF Spy SOC is 83.2% which is real SOC.  In whose World does usable outdo real?? 

But as the SOC drops, Nissan moves towards making sure we don't put ourselves in a "tow of shame" situation which you can see in the last pix where usable is 19% while real is 29.2%   It's that lower gap that is really the whole point of this post.  What is really usable is completely dependent on your pack's balance since a single cell can shut the car down.  So there is no "magic GID" number that you can aim for.  I can say for certain, I have hit turtle at 9 GIDs and not seen Turtle at 5 GIDs.  So the bottom very much remains a mystery but at that point, we are talking less than a mile.

Conclusions

Said it once and will gladly say it again; LEAF Spy is by far the best investment I have made in helping to get the most out of my LEAFs.

The other conclusion; GOM is a very accurate name.  :)

Cold Verses LEAF!

Ok, so that long hot Summer is over and now the Mercury is dropping along with the LEAF range making public charging stops more likely than not.  With my light driving needs,  I have noticed a dramatic change in my LEAF's fast charge profile and its all about... You guessed it! Battery temperature again!

During the Summer, "RapidGate" was part of any trip planning. How to keep the pack temps low to ensure a reasonable fast charge speed during the trip.  There are really few options since normal driving was enough to raise temperatures during the warmer Summer days so it all became a question of which charge would be the one to shoot the battery temps beyond 110º F hoping that would be the last charge of the day allowing an overnight cool down.

Now, I noticed all this during our typical Fall weather which generally sees lows in the 40's, highs in the 50's.  Battery temps were in the mid to upper 50's.   But as luck would have it, we got a cold snap and a high pressure system parked over the Puget Sound region which means sunny days and COLD nights.  With temperatures plunging into the mid 20's, I felt this would be a good opportunity to see how far the knee moves.  It would also be nice to attempt a 3 TB reading as well!

The Test

To create a level playing field, I chose only DCFCs that will charge at least 122 Amps and they are not all created equal! The starting data is easy enough but I designated the "knee" when amperage drops below the max amperage for the machine at least 2 consecutive readings (This is not rocket science. The knee is VERY obvious) .  As always, the numbers fluctuate quite a bit so 124 amps is normal. Realize with a 50 KW charger, the theoretical max on a 400 volt pack is 125 amps.

Created equally??  The station I picked at Tacoma Mall

 simply because I know better.

A Tesla Model X who didn't. They got there first and selected 

the "runt of the litter" (this station also happens to be the

closest to the Mall. Things we do to save 4...no, 3 steps!)

 But it wasn't always this way. Same station 18 months ago when it

was only a 40 KW (100 amp max) charger.  Notice the knee on my 30

kwh LEAF?? Now THOSE were the good old days!

And yes, the 30 kwh LEAF was hampered by the cold (Notice I used the slow charger?

This was before they added the 3rd DCFC so selection was not nearly as good back then!)

But this slowdown I was ok with!

Below is a "worst to first" list of charge sessions. I bolded the key points of each observation which would be starting battery temperatures and the SOC of the knee.  The temperature of the charger does not appear to affect the speed of the charger. At least on OAT into the mid 20's.

From The Bottom!

Dec 5; start; Batt temps; 48.7/47.6/45.8  SOC;32.2 Max Amps; 123.901
Dec 5; knee; Batt temps; 61.7/61.3/58.3 SOC; 47.3

Cold Kills! This was a 26 min charge session, by far the longest one. I got 15.03 

kwh charging at 82 amps (31 KW) at 63% SOC with batt temps in mid to upper 70's. 

To contrast, I gained over 11 kwh in 15 mins on the "warm" battery charges!

Dec 3; Start; Batt temps; 56.5/55.8/52.7  SOC; 25.8,  Max Amps 124.015
Dec 3; Knee; Batt temps; 74.7/74.8/69.6 SOC; 49.2

Nov 30 . start;  Batt temps; 56.7/56.8/55.7  SOC; 27.5  Max Amps; 124.2
Nov 30   knee; Batt temps ; 75.9/76.8/73.2  SOC; 51.6%

Nov 26; start; Batt temps; 60.1/60.1/58.6 SOC; 29.5 Max Amps; 124.145
Nov 26; knee; Batt temps; 77.9/78.6/74.7 SOC; 52.6

Nov 22; start; Batt temps; 59.8/60.1/58.5  SOC; 26.5 Max Amps; 123.433
Nov 22; knee; Batt temps; 79.9/81.2/76.8 SOC; 52.9

Nov 23; start; Batt temps; 57.6/56.7/55.2  SOC; 37.9  Max Amps; 124.053

Nov 23; knee; Batt temps; 70.3/70.0/67.1  SOC; 53.2

Dec 06; start; Batt temps; 53.0/51.0/46.7  SOC; 47.6  Max Amps; 123.748
Dec 06; knee; Batt temps; 60.5/59.0/54.3  SOC; 56.4

12/6 EVGO Tacoma Charge 1

Dec 06; start; Batt temps; 68.9/67.3/60.3  SOC; 38.6  Max Amps; 122.948
Dec 06; knee; Batt temps; 83.7/82.8/74.3  SOC; 57.3

Dec 06; start; Batt temps; 86.8/84.8/75.6  SOC; 49.6  Max Amps; 123.765
Dec 06; knee; Batt temps; 97.2/95.8/85.4  SOC; 63.4

  12/6 Charge 3 knee

Warm Pack!

Now, all is not lost.  You can still get a good charge! It just won't be the first one. This can be an advantage. If you are like me, the need for stops on a road trip tend to be earlier in the trip. In my case, its due to my loading up on coffee in the morning along with taking a full cup on the road with me. This almost always means my first stop is required within the first 60 minutes.  For those without home charging, this can also work out especially if you have enough charge to get at least an hour down the road.    (Easy with 40 kwh!)

Now we all know the battery temps rise just from normal driving. Maybe its the higher regen profile of E-Pedal that is responsible? Either way, I decided to see if this is true when its REALLY (well for this area anyway) cold! On the three 12/6 charges, I drove from Lacey to Tacoma to Centralia to Tumwater.  It was Sunny and cold with OAT running 37-42º and I noticed that the battery temps rose steadily as it always does when on the freeway doing 65 mph but it seemingly hit a wall at 69-70º. This is good!

Departing Tacoma Mall

Arrive Centralia 51 miles later. Batt temps barely budged!

Depart Centralia.  Drive to Tumwater 65-70 mph. Heat use reduced

since its now so warm! Distance 23 miles

Arrive Tumwater. Batt temps down! Have to admit, my SOC
was a bit higher than I needed it to be so I drove a bit "less
efficiently"

Captain Crunch

All the charge sessions lined up pretty well except the first 12/6 charge at Tacoma Mall. On retrospect, I should have used a different location. It was one of the two EVGO sessions used. (Nov 22)  Notice the batt temps lower than the Nov 23 charge but a significantly higher knee?   The differences include;

Distance driven before charging;  All the charges except 12/6 sessions, I drove from Lacey to Tumwater, about 10 miles before charging. Tacoma was a 23 mile drive.  This suggests a less than optimal placing of temperature sensors. Guessing true pack temp was higher but had not yet equalized causing temperature sensors to read lower. 

OAT; Most of the others (despite low battery temperatures) were drives down with temps ranging from low 50's to low 60's. The only exception was 12/5 when it was 35º.  Tacoma Mall drive ranged from 22º in Lacey to 35º in Tacoma

SOC was a bit higher than other charge starts but I don't think that played a part. Back when I noticed the early knee, I thought unplugging the car after it warmed a bit and restarting charge would restore knee but...that didn't work. I am not sure if its was simply not enough time between unplugging and restarting charge or what?

Now this charge graph looks confusing but what happened is I started a charge and knee kicked in at 50% SOC which was a shocker. It is rare that I sit with car while charging but this was one of those times. I unplugged immediately suspecting cold pack and restarted it but batteries were only in low 60's so figured not warm enough so I let it run until batts got to low 70's and unplugged again. As you can see, on restart, the charge hit full speed for about...5 seconds and plunged immediately. This basically kept the pack from warming up at all.  I now realized my starting and stopping the charge made it worse (not to mention the 3 minute wind up time for Webasto stations!)  essentially resulting is a "Reverse RapidGate" 

Conclusions

Should be obvious here.  FYI; Probably not an accident, but for LEAF Spyless LEAFers, The sweet spot is dead center on the TB screen, 6 segments.   Obviously there are holes in the data but the cold is almost done and other opps to do this will come eventually but will have to wait. There are still a lot of holes to fill. Then we can chart! 

  So is "87 Heaven?"  Well, maybe. 87º still allowed the max amperage on a charge and as we know, that is very close to the point we see RapidGate kicking in.  Maybe its different in Winter? Maybe Nissan considers OAT in their algorithm?  Maybe the key is examining the spread of the 3 temperatures?  

As always, stay tuned! 

Sidenotes

Eco mode allows a moderation of pedal input designed to reduce motor response so you can drive more "smoothly."  Its like mouse settings on your computer where your mouse has to move a certain number of pixels before there is any movement on the screen.  Obviously for game players, this should be very small but for the rest of us, a bit of "dead zone" is what we generally prefer.

But Eco also lowers power output to climate controls as well but if looking to boost range in Winter there is also another thing to consider and that is fan speed.  Below is two LEAF Spy screenshots taken a few mins apart.  Each shows the "settled" power usage of heat with fan speed of 2 and a fan speed of 5. As you can see, there is quite the difference.

Some background. I left my house at 5:50 AM so wanted to "equalize" power a bit to eliminate the very high power output that happens initially.  Fan speed 2 usually starts at 2500 watts but drops down quickly to 2000 dropping again to the 1750 you see within 3-4 mins.  Depending on OAT, it could stay at 1750 for entire duration of trip (11.8 miles and 16-20 mins) but have seen it drop to as low as 1250 on those super mild days.  For some reason it takes what I consider to be an inordinately long time for OAT temp to settle. As you can see, there is quite the difference.  Based on weather station reports (not official national weather mind you) in the area, temps ranged from 39 to 41º

Fan speed 5 gets up to 3750 and about half the time, it may drop to 3250 during the trip in this temperature range. I have seen it as low as 2500 in warmer weather.

November 2018 Drive Report; Its Winter Which Means The Beginning Of "IceGate"

The expected rush at work has not materialized which is fine by me. We had one pretty busy week but things have settled down a bit and yes, I am enjoying the extra time off!  As is the norm, Winter means more staying at home, gorging on comfort food, wrapped in a blanket while taking full advantage of my Netflix subscription.  In previous years, work forced me to drive a lot but that is no longer an issue as my 24 mile RT commute means a 75 min charge every morning is more than enough to last the day!

The Stats

LEAF drove 927.6 miles costing me $7.71 on the power bill or .83 cents per mile helped out by 153.788 kwh from NCTC at zero cost.   Without NCTC, my cost would have been $20.93 or 2.26 cents per kwh.  There was a rise in my power bill going from 8.5 cents/kwh to 8.6 cents/kwh. Rounding?? Either way, it was an acceptable outlay of cash. There was a milestone reached when adding in the $7.71 in public charging fees to my home electricity costs to put me over the $100 mark for the LEAF over the first 13½ thousand miles or so.  Getting expensive...

The Battery

Well, its another one of those months when the BMS did not do any resets or calibrations. I lost .05% SOH during the month.  Now will have to say, I have continued my goal of keeping SOC fairly low. During the 4 day work week, I always have enough to drive one sometimes two days before needing a charge but on the last 2 or 3 days of the week, I plug in when I get up in the morning and unplug when leaving for work which means about 75 mins of charging a day. This keeps my SOC between 25-45% more or less but also keeps my pack fairly cold. The batts have pretty much been in the low to upper 50'sº F for the most part.  I would post my extrapolated degradation prediction but I think I will wait till Jan to do that in case an adjustment does pop up like it did in October.  But month ending numbers

Ahr; 109.31
SOH; 94.68
Hx; 117.97

As far as noticable range loss, that is a tough question so can only extrapolate from yesterday (SOC was up to 84%) and yeah, I know that would be December stats but...no one's perfect, right! :)

I would have roughly 162 miles of range. Now that is a very rough estimate and GOM based on city/suburban driving along with a lot of heat. (It has been FRIGID here!)

IceGate

Well, it didn't take long for me to notice my knee (the point when DCFC stops providing max amperage on a charge) was plunging almost as fast as the Mercury!   The other day, I recorded a knee at 45%!  Granted batteries were cold so repeated the charge a few days later getting similar results on the first charge but seeing a knee at 61.1% on the 2nd when pack was warmer (80º verses 55º)

As always, I will dissect the logs for specifics, collect several more charges and report back here.

eLEAF

Finally, a news agency has reported the eLEAF will launch in January at the CES in Las Vegas. Rumors state no liquid cooling. I am very much ok with that. During my visits to Nissan World HQ, they were pretty adamant in stating that liquid cooling opened up risks to the driver they were not willing to take on.  Now a well designed heat exchanger using using conditioned air in Summer and cabin air in Winter that also assists with cabin warming would be the way to go.

Beyond Carlos Ghosn and Andy Palmer, Was Nissan Ever A True EV Proponent?

In The Beginning

It was November 2010 and despite it being rainy Western WA, it was not raining but it was cold, very cold.  But that did not deter me or the hundreds of others who gathered at Southcenter Mall in Tukwila WA to get a chance to see and drive the new 2011 Nissan LEAF.

For years, it had been my dream to drive electric. There were no downsides I saw and it was a good for the environment, good for the economy (Especially in Washington State where we had no hydrocarbon resources but tons of clean electricity) and good for me.

But options were few.  I started with Priuses in 2004 and loved the the short stints of EV only operation and the challenges of getting higher and higher MPGs from each tank of gas.  The excitement ratcheted ever higher in May 2009 when I got the newly released (to few early adopters) 2010 Prius that now had a dedicated EV only button!

But like the ZENN I picked up in Oct, 2007, it was limited. The 2010 Prius wouldn't go much faster than 20-25 mph in EV only mode and only for a mile or so. My ZENN, despite being my daily commuter for 3+ years was barely any better. It had lead acid batteries and monumental battery issues (making LEAF a HUGE step up) complicated by the fact that I had mine modified to go 35 mph since Washington allows NEVs (Neighborhood Electric Vehicles) to go that fast along with Montana (of all places) the only 2 states that allowed NEVs to go faster than 25 mph.

But my employer allowed me to use a 120 volt outlet so I was golden for my 16 mile commute. My co-workers hated seeing me doing whatever they could to pass me on the 4 lane Yelm Highway (speed limit 40 mph) so they wouldn't get stuck behind me on Henderson Blvd (two lane road with big hill) where the hill would slow me to 25 mph...

But the desire to EV... to like another town was unfulfilled. It soon started to gnaw on me. I decided to take a two pronged approach by getting a Lithium pack upgrade for the ZENN to boost range to 50 miles and get a pack add on for the Prius to get me almost the same EV range but all that did not come cheap back then so a lot of investigating and comparison pricing was needed.

Now the add on pack for the Prius was easy enough. Other than a handful of DIYers, there was essentially only one option.  But the ZENN thing was completely different. It was all about choosing the right cells at the right price and the landscape was changing fast. I had finally decided early in 2010 on a Chinese source and was ready to order when I hear about the LEAF. It was January, 2010.

Here was an affordable, highway capable EV.  Realize at the time, the only option was the $100+K Tesla Roadster which was is and never will be an option for me.

So I read all I could find about this LEAF car (took all of 10 minutes) and decided that was what I get.  So now it was get in line to order,  start liquidating assets (after all, had 2 Pruises, F-150 and a ZENN.  Not only did I not need all that, I didn't have room to park what I already had!)

So April 10, 2010, I reserved a chance to RAQ (Request a Quote) and received invite for that Sept 30, 2010 which I did within 10 mins of receiving the email to do so becoming one of the first LEAFer in the state of WA on Jan 18, 2011 when I picked up my 2011 SL.  This began a long relationship that continues to this day with a company I thought shared the same ideology of EV mobility.

I realized as an early adopter, it was important to relay my experiences and feelings, both good and bad. There was little bad (despite HUGE range anxiety and a near absent public charging network) and a lot of good. Yeah, I was restricted to a circle of roughly 40ish miles I could drive but every day, it became better.  I was lucky to live in a town that received one of the first Chargepoint chargers in the Summer of 2010 but then again, it was 6 miles from home. What I needed was something away from home and that was just around the corner as Chargepoint, Blink, and Aerovironment came online.

My LEAF's useability was bolstered by battery monitoring apps like  GIDmeter and LEAF Spy.  The rapidly expanding public charging network was soon to be tracked with Plugshare. All of which soon became essential tools for any EVer.

Anticipating The Future

I was also lucky enough to be invited as part of a group to Nissan World Headquarters in Yokohama,  Japan where we were advised the 40 kwh LEAF would be arriving along with infiniti EVs in a program that was spearheaded by Andy Palmer. Each year would see a new EV or Plug in entry to the Nissan stable. His excitement over Nissan future electric mobility plans was infectious but as things turn out, he never go to see them thru.  Aston Martin lured him away fulfilling his lifelong dream to be the Chief of an auto company.

Well, the 40 kwh LEAF still happened but the infiniti EV did not nor did any other plug in.  What was even more surprising is that after nearly 8 years, Nissan still only had one EV entry in the North American Market.

The Bombshell

Ghosn was arrested by Japanese officials for income reporting irregularities and corporate spending spanning nearly a decade.  Soon it became apparent, the arrest was due to the concerted efforts by Nissan officials to discredit Ghosn.

In Japan honor holds a much higher place than most societies. In a situation where a powerful figure in a company makes mistakes intentionally or unintentionally, it is the generally accepted practice to minimize blame on a person especially in the public eye.  Punishment still happens but it done in a low key and private manner. But Ghosn's arrest was anything but literally creating arguably THE news story of the decade in Japan.

But as the details untangled, fault became murky.  Nissan accused Ghosn of using corporate cash for personal gain especially in homes Ghosn supposedly purchased. It soon degraded into a "he said, she said"  where Ghosn claimed he did not own the various houses and that they were corporate homes used while engaged in his corporate duties that involved extensive travel while running companies on two different continents.

There was also a question of how Nissan finance controls and bookkeeping could allow many many millions to spent illegally over several years without stopping or mentioning it long ago. IOW, there is a lot of indicators that Nissan knew what was going on but looked the other way because during this time, Ghosn was in the process of rescuing Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy.

The final step in his plan was a merger between Renault and Nissan to become one of the largest car companies in the World but it seems that Nissan had tired of foreigners running things and the arrest was their way of "purging" the company and putting it back in control of the Japanese.

What's Next?

The details of the arrest and the outcome are still pretty much up in the air so all the above is simply speculation but it does give me an understanding to several things including why Nissan has moved so slowly in the EV arena.  It would appear that Ghosn was very much fighting a battle with odds stacked against him.  Again, after nearly 8 years, no 2nd EV offering from Nissan while sister company Renault (obviously more accepting of Ghosn) has a few along with the Nissan's own eNV EV in Europe.

It is also interesting to note that the elephant in the room, Toyota has also nearly EVless in its offerings making me think if Nissan hadn't had financial issues and didn't need a bailout would they be offering "any" EV at all right now?

But the final straw happened earlier this week when Nissan announced that they would be delaying the announcement of the 2019 longer range "eLEAF" due to the possibility of the excitement level of the car being undermined by the headlines of the arrest.

SAY WHAT?? What kind of logic is that?  Its the logic of making sure that Ghosn does not rise from the canvas.  Its the "kicking the dead horse" move rubbing Salt in the wound so the Japanese don't forget.

But let's be honest. If Nissan officials were serious about "fixing things" after this supposedly disastrous Ghosn incident, the easiest way to forget bad is to replace it with good... and the sooner the better.  But that is apparently not Nissan's plan.