PIP - Leaf - Or Volt ??? - Help Me Decide

I disagree.

GM gives a range 10-30% degradation AFTER 8 years
Nissan says 20-X% degradation AFTER 5 years
I guarantee that if a person can win in court for not getting the gas mileage promoted, then GM will be replacing batteries that have lost more than 30% capacity. There actually isn't much weasel room. To me this makes a huge difference. Honestly I would not even consider purchasing the leaf with such a lackluster warranty. I am very curious to see what the PiP does for the warranty.

 

You guarantee the outcome of a court case??? Wow!!! Then you are either the world's best lawyer or you are psychic.

The GM "warranty" gives an expected rate of degradation and then says that its techs will decide if it's within the proper limit given the age and mileage of the vehicle.

With a real warranty, you don't have to go to court unless there's something odd about the case, or you are dealing with a disreputable company (like GM). If you are pinning your hopes on winning a court case with your hometown lawyer against GM's stable of experienced, high-paid, in-house lawyers, then I'd say your hopes are pretty weak.

All of these companies are betting on their technology panning out. It will be a public relations nightmare if EV batteries do not live up to expectations. Nissan, GM, and Tesla have all put a lot of research into their batteries and battery management systems. But batteries, like brakes, are a wear item: They wear out. And nobody warranties wear items for other than defects. And the courts will side with a manufacturer who says that no promises were made for the longevity of batteries.

I'd trust any of these battery packs to last a reasonable length of time if used as recommended (i.e. within the limits recommended, and charged in the recommended manner).

But warranties? Nobody is giving a real warranty. Some companies are just more up front than others about the lack of any real promises.

Anybody who really cannot afford to see their battery degrade a bit faster than expected should hold off on buying an EV until there's a history on the car they're considering.

For me, the fun of driving electric more than offsets what I consider a minimal risk of early degradation. I bought my 2004 Prius because I didn't want to wait a year to drive that car, merely out of fear that it might have glitches. I ate the cost of the first (lead-acid) battery pack in the Xebra because that car did not have a BMS, but I was able to drive electric. And the second pack (lithium) never gave me any trouble.

Buyer beware: This is a new technology. I believe the risks are very small. But there are risks.

(I hedged my bets with the Roadster because it has so much range that even at 50% it will have more range than I'll ever use. And mine is the 4th iteration, after a couple of years of experience. And as a limited-edition car now out of production, there's a collector value involved when the time comes to trade it in for a car I can get in and out of when I am too old and arthritic for the Roadster.)

 

daniel; i would normally agree with you, but legal precedents has created litigation gone wild. i am sure you heard about the EPA MPG HCH fiasco by now. this really blows everything into a new light. i can only hope it gets overturned and keep in mind, this was a single lady up against Honda and its lawyer army. she won and she realistically should have sued the EPA but that is illegal in this country

 

Actually, I have not heard about the EPA MPG HCH fiasco. Juries being what they are, sometimes outrageous decisions are made. Our legal system is broken. But I was responding to sxotty, who is "certain" of a particular court outcome. Court outcomes are never certain, and I was arguing that the Volt battery warranty does not actually include a promise regarding the rate of battery degradation, though a loose reading makes it seem like it does.

 

The GM battery warranty is 5 years or 80k miles (whichever comes first), not 5 years.

Think about that: Drivers in 4 years are going to begin reporting 15 mile EV ranges in the winter. *

* 7.2 kwh / 500 wh a mile

 

Where did you get that?

It is 8 years 100k miles.

Every single one is the same.

You were not responding to me then as I cited that very case in my post. There was no jury either. We will see what happens I bet you GM will be replacing any batteries that lose 30% of capacity in 8 years. Whereas Nissan is clearly not going to. I cannot believe any rational individual can read those two statements and believe they are equivalent. They even have different years. It does not say "we will replace it if a manufacturer defect..." It specifically cites capacity as being the determining factor. It seems as though you are worried that GM is offering a better warranty for some reason. To me it seems clear why GM is offering a better warranty. They have a decent pack design and cooling as well as only allowing a small SOC swing. Their battery pack should last longer hence they can offer a better warranty.

I suppose your post saying

Just shows you are incredibly biased and hence explains your inability to read and comprehend relatively clear English. GM wasn't shady or tricky they simply said exactly what they meant. If you lost more than 30% capacity they will replace the battery or repair it. It will not be returned to new condition, but to an age appropriate condition. Meaning they can put a refurbished, used, etc.. battery back in the vehicle.

 

100k miles -- ok. 18 miles EV range in the winter in a few years.

Enjoy your trust in GM, and report back to us in 5 - 10 years. In the meantime you should read how GM handled the excessive tyre wear defect of last year in 100s of thousands of its cars. LOL

 

Are you british or something? Anyway I don't think their warranty says they cover tires last I checked. I don't see why people are upset to learn facts. What is bothersome about them? I already read about the excessive tire wear problem though I forget all the details if I recall correctly GM was accused of having something wrong in the rear suspension that led to misalignment and tire wear. Of course it is in the courts now so we will see what comes of it if anything. It really isn't clear without more information what went on there. I should not expect objective viewpoints I suppose, but I do not understand people's desire to laud or denigrate companies with no reason. I am simply curious how the PiP will do on warranty and whether they will follow the GM path of having a meaningful warranty on the battery or the Nissan path of protecting the bottom line by having a very loose warranty that they can easily weasel out of. I am not going to buy any of them at this point because none offer what I want and need in a vehicle yet. I do hope that they are all successful because I want some choice in the market place when I do find something I want.

This thread was about PiP, Leaf, and Volt. I think that the warranty information is relevant to that discussion. Most people apparently overlook it, or are misinformed. As you were thinking it was 5 years when it was not.

 

Yep, the suspension lead to early tyre wear. GM refused warranty repairs, based on a categorization of the problem as a "design decision" and not a manufacturing defect. Their other argument was that the suspension was a 3rd party part, so any claims should not be directed at GM.

Not enough to tell you how GM the company views its customers ? GM is refusing warranty work on cars bought under the 'old' GM, pre-bankruptcy.

IMO GM warranties are a joke, because GM is a joke. If you are comfortable with a warranty you will have to litigate to benefit from, then by all means knock yourself out. Just keep in mind that you will receive a $100 coupon good towards purchase of another GM piece of shit, while the lawyers laugh all the way to bank from the class action lawsuit.

 

Yes I am far more comfortable with a real warranty than a fantasy land warranty. I know plenty of people with GMs and none have had to litigate to get warranty coverage if they needed it. I am not sure what that has to do with anything you wrote though.

The volt wasn't sold pre bankruptcy. The tires were not covered. The situations are completely different. It sounds like you are talking about honda and their class action lawsuit to me.

 

All Volts being manufactured to meet California emissions rules now have battery warranty coverage that extends to 150,000 miles and 10 years (same as Prius and PiP). Same battery pack as every other Volt so presumably GM is confident that the batteries will last that long.

 

Or it is a calculated risk on their part.

(With their recent problems, who is to say they will be around then. They are probably not too worried about 10 years down the road).

 

No, they are not equivalent, Nissan clearly says degradation is not covered. GM seems to say it is covered, but leaves itself weasel room to slither out of any responsibility.

No, it does not. It makes two separate statements which appear to warrant capacity, but in legalese do not:

First, they state what is expected. Then they state that techs will determine if the capacity is low enough to be covered.

It never explicitly states that the techs will use the previously-mentioned "expectation" as the basis for their determination. That's the sort of language that tricks ordinary people, while actually being more of a disclaimer than a promise. And given GM's track record, they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I actually thought the Volt was a pretty decent car to drive. Almost as nice as the Leaf, better than my 2004 Prius, and a lot better than my Xebra . And I fully expect the battery to do just fine. (As I expect the PiP, Leaf, and Tesla batteries to do just fine.) But I don't much trust the complicated Volt transmission with its two clutches. (Compared to no clutch on the Prius, Leaf, or Tesla.) And I don't trust GM to do right by its customers if it sees a profit in leaving them out to dry.

And I don't like any car that uses gas, unless it's to drive farther than an EV can go. Even my Xebra could go farther than the Volt's EV range. And while the PiP is an improvement over the non-plug Prius, it's far too small an improvement.

 

Have you seen the warranty though? I was wondering if they would change the warranty language in California to read more like the Leaf so they don't actually have to cover the battery.

Well Daniel I still disagree with you, but the gap is less.

One company saying they won't cover battery degradation and saying they expect it to degrade by 20% or more in 5 years and the other saying 10-30% in 8 years is significantly different. I already said this actually makes sense given the different ways the batteries are handled. We will have to wait and see though at this point.

 

Both companies (actually all companies) have a battery warranty that covers the pack in case of defects.

I believe the California law actually relates to emissions systems. In the case of a PHV or REEV, a faulty battery could cause the ICE to run more and thereby affect emissions. But a pure EV would probably not fall under the CA law and so would not be required to have the extended warranty, though a manufacturer can always choose to give a longer warranty to re-assure wary buyers.

Battery cooling is an issue where I do not know all the facts: Some battery types, such as the laptop batteries in the Tesla, absolutely require active cooling to avoid reduced life. These batteries can actually experience thermal run-away if not cooled. The LiFePO4 batteries in my Xebra and in my electric Porsche do not experience thermal run-away, and from my experience with both lead-acid and LiFePO4 in the Xebra, the latter are far less affected, if at all, by colder weather, compared to lead-acid, which looses a great deal of power and capacity in cold weather. After 3 1/2 years of use, I could not detect any loss of range, and this was without any sort of cooling.

What I do not know is whether the LiFePO4, or the batteries used in the Leaf, would actually benefit from active cooling. Without knowing this, I have no opinion on Nissan's choice not to use active cooling. I'd be inclined to trust Nissan, but this is on the very soft evidence of my assessment of the company, not any knowledge about the pack itself. I'd have bought a Leaf, and was on the list for a long time. I cancelled my order only out of frustration after Nissan screwed up my order four separate times and refused to give me any information.

Only time will tell how much range the Leaf and the Volt lose with age. In ten years we will have a much better idea, though we may start to get some indications in 4 or 5 years. Early Tesla owners are starting to report range reductions, but I do not know if these people are abusing or babying their batteries. Tesla warns that charging in Range or Performance mode will shorten battery life, but some owners take the view that if they cannot drive their car to the extremes of range and performance there's no point in owning it, so they just figure that a new pack in 7 years is part of the ownership cost, and probably less than, for example, the maintenance and repair bills on a Jaguar. I bought my Roadster for being electric, not for being a sports car, and I do not see any need for either performance or range modes, and with more than double the range I'll ever need, I do not expect to have to replace the pack before I'm too old to drive the car.

 

I can tell you with 100% surety that they (LiFePO4) would benefit from active temperature control and so would the others, however it isn't clear if it is the best use of resources. Adding the controls increases weight and complexity, and adds a further battery drain so the range is decreased or the pack size and cost must be increased. But it is sure that actively managing the thermal state of the batteries will significantly help with degradation issues.

Those batteries do decrease in capacity with cooler temperatures, but it is far less than lead acid (which also have a pretty horrendous cycle life). The only "mainstream" manufacturer using such batteries though is Fisker (though GM said they would in the sonic EV) and the Fisker doesn't look so good at the moment so it is hard to know. I think they fall under the same umbrella as too costly right now for integration into a mainstream vehicle. Someone early was all grumpy when I said that if Toyota wanted to increase the electric capabilities of the PiP they would need to purchase better batteries (b/c the pack is small so strain will be higher), I was not implying that Toyota, GM, or Nissan are picking terrible batteries. Just that they are picking what they thinks is the best bang for the buck. The same applies to how they treat the batteries. Nissan may well not worry about degradation b/c they feel that the battery cost will decline, b/c they feel that range anxiety keeps most people well under the range limit anyway etc...

I actually heard through the grapevine so to speak that part of the reason GM was being so conservative on battery pack design was the emissions thing you speak of. That the emissions characteristics would change significantly if the battery were allowed to degrade.

 

I haven't seen the warranty for the new Enhanced AT-PZEV Volt that has the longer warranty coverage.

 

PRIUS is the lowest price EV to OWN & MAINTAIN. That would include quality since the cost to repair is also low

 

A lot has changed since the original post was made back in Nov 2011....