New Battery In The Old Nissan Leaf - 160 Miles of Range?

A Reddit user based in Oregon, USA has cunningly upgraded an old Nissan Leaf with a newer car’s battery and has managed a realistic range of 160 miles per charge. By comparison with the older, standard battery, 74 miles was possible. 

The Upgrade 

Redditor SCTBKE bought his car from a firm called EV Rides. EV Rides are a company that has the ability to take a cheap old Leaf with a 24kWh battery and put in anything up to a 62kWh battery as part of the deal. 

SCTBKE looked carefully and chose to upgrade it to a 40kWh battery that has the added benefit of taking up to a 50kW charge on a rapid charger. All in, he says, the car and upgrade cost him US $15,000 (around £12,500). 

Unlike the UK, Oregon offers a $5,000 (£4,200) voucher off any EV used or new, so with the voucher he paid around £8,000 for a car that could do decent distances and take a big charge. 

Realistic Pros And Cons 

After four months of use, SCTBKE reported some pros and cons. As a first issue, EV Rides didn’t upgrade the battery cooling system. They found that with a rapid charge or two, the car could get around 300 miles in a day before having to pull over and let the battery cool down overnight. They had converted it into a ‘camper car’ so usually ended up in a campsite and slept in to overnight while the battery sorted itself out. 

While the car can do 160 miles of town driving it can do about 100 miles of highway driving before running out of battery. That’s still a big step up from a Leaf with a standard battery. They have done some epic road trips since including a 600 mile route into California.   

Could It Be Done In The UK? 

A major problem with EVs in the UK is even a banged up old Leaf can cost you a lot of money. As such it would be tempting to see if any clever EV upgrade company could do this for you. 

Car prices are a bit different over here. A quick look will find you a car of a similar generation to SCTBKE's machine for around £12,000 with a really old one selling for £9,000. That includes a 24kWh battery so would struggle to do a 100 mile run. 

Unless you’re a brilliant - and certified - battery engineer and can do it yourself this story likely won’t happen in the UK… Upgrades? This is ‘Rip-off Britain’ and while we can’t say any EV conversion specialist is a con artist (they are anything but!), things do cost a lot more here than they do in the USA. 

A final issue is that the government never has and likely never will offer a voucher for a used EV like Oregon does. Knowing used car dealers they’d likely put their prices up to take the cash themselves, not unlike petrol stations have been with the recent fuel tax cuts!