Clubeletricos.com

CEO Unplugged: Nissan’s Battery Business



"Q1) How has the Zama battery factory been a template for Nissan to expand the business in other global production centers?

CEO Carlos Ghosn:

Zama is a very important place for our battery strategy because it’s a mother plant, and it’s a place where not only do we fine tune the process, we enhance the process, we train the people, we prepare the equipment, but we also try to imagine the process of tomorrow. So, it’s not only a production facility, it is also a facility where we are trying all the improvements we can make in order to make the battery much more efficient.

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Frankly, I’ve been very impressed. This is my third visit to Zama, and compared to my last visit, a lot of improvements have been made. And the most striking one is the fact that since the month of August, we have had zero problems with customers based on sales and based on packaging – zero.

This means that we’re not only the largest producer of cells, we’re also the best producer of cells, because I don’t think that anybody today has the level of quality and reliability that we are reaching. And this is very impressive.



Q2) What expectations do you have for advances in battery technology and how will that advance the global rollout of EVs?

CEO:

When we reach zero level of quality problems, we need to keep that – those are excellent results. We’re talking about zero problems for the consumer, but, obviously, internally, we still have some [problems] that we are eliminating. That’s No. 1.

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No. 2 is reducing the cost. The cost of the cells and the battery is due to the fact that we are in Japan and we are facing the headwind of the yen, so we need to compensate for this by improvement on the material, by improvement on the process, by improvement on the indirect costs.

I’m very encouraged to see how many ideas and how many objectives the team has taken upon itself to overcome some of the challenges coming from outside headwinds.



Q3) Nissan has a joint venture with Sumitomo to develop secondary uses for EV batteries. What possibilities are there ahead for commercial or residential use?

CEO:

I think the battery has a much longer life than that in a car. In order to develop the cost-car life of the battery, we need people who are specialized into what are the different uses of the battery outside of the car.

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And our joint venture with Sumitomo is to make sure that after the battery is used in the car it is still a valuable good that can be used in other places.

I’m extremely confident that we’re going to find enough uses for the battery to continue a normal [product] life. By the way, it is going to benefit the owner of the car because the resale value of the battery will go up.

So, I think that by developing the different utilization of the battery after its use in the car, we are just making the battery much more cost effective for the owner of the car."

Em: http://blog.nissan-global.com/EN/?p=3937

Então mas termos de trocar o pack completo de baterias no nosso VE, quando a autonomia começar a ficar reduzida? Não basta a substituição dos módulos danificados?

Só trocamos se quisermos. Há dois tipos de coisas que provocam menor capacidade da bateria:

- Defeito num módulo
- Perda de capacidade gradual de todos os módulos

O primeiro caso está coberto pela garantia e é muito difícil que se manifeste após o término da garantia. A minha opinião é que será muito raro (até agora não há casos conhecidos). Já o segundo caso é inevitável mas será bastante gradual. A Nissan nunca iria colocar no mercado um VE que ao fim de 2-3 anos tivesse perdido 20% da capacidade. O anunciado pela Nissan é que é expectável que ao fim de 8 anos ou 160000km (100k milhas) a capacidade da bateria seja 80% da original. Relativamente aos 160000km penso ser um valor bastante conservador pois há LEAFs com quase 60000km sem qualquer degradação. Já os 20% de degradação aos 8 anos penso ser inevitável, pois mesmo paradas as baterias de lítio perdem inexoravelmente capacidade. Basicamente a degradação das baterias de lítio é proporcional ao número de ciclos e ao tempo de vida ponderado pelo estado de carga médio (uma bateria sempre a 100% pode perder 20% de capacidade num ano, uma das razões porque as baterias dos PCs portáteis duram relativamente pouco tempo).

Eu se ao fim de 8 anos e 240000km ainda tiver 80% da capacidade da bateria ficaria muito contente pois 80% de capacidade ainda dá para o dia a dia, e terei poupado pelo menos 16000€ em energia. Entretanto já terei comprado outro VE com mais autonomia e o LEAF passaria a ser o segundo carro.