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Old 02-18-2019, 03:37 PM   #1
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Nissan gives EV batteries a second life powering camping trailers

https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/18/...er/?yptr=yahoo
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Old 02-18-2019, 04:09 PM   #2
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good to see recycling in use.....
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Old 02-18-2019, 05:54 PM   #3
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Sounds good if there’s still some life in them and they’re cheap enough.
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Old 02-18-2019, 07:40 PM   #4
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One reason that this could be practical is that nearly all EV battery packs are still under warranty (normally 8 years) so if even a single cell goes bad the entire pack is replaced. That leaves a lot of cells which are perfectly good, and could be used in smaller devices.

This particular prototype/concept unit is pretty small - they say it's good for a week, but they're talking about low power demands and assume a 400 watt solar panel feeding it. The storage capacity is only 700 Wh, or less than the capacity of the base single 12 V battery in an Escape. It looks like they are using pairs of 33 Ah Leaf cells, with three pairs in series (so it's a 66 Ah 11.25 V battery), or six 33 Ah Leaf cells in series (so it's a 33 Ah 22.5 V battery).

One complication is that Leaf cells have NMC cathodes, so their operating voltage isn't well suited to RV applications: the voltage of three cells in series is not quite high enough (11.25 V nominal) and when full charged the voltage of four cells in series is too high for use without regulation (16.8 V is charging to 4.2 V/cell). I don't know how they handle this in detail, and all of the articles that I've found are just rehashes of the Nissan promotional material so there is essentially no technical data, but it appears that they don't provide DC power directly from the battery at all. They are supporting only 230 V AC and 5 V DC (USB) loads, so everything must run on one of those sources. For a more typical RV full of 12 V DC appliances, this isn't ideal.
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Old 02-19-2019, 05:48 AM   #5
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One thing for sure there will be lots of these batteries out there so glad to see other than landfill something will be done with them. I have a family member who worked in some capacity with Nissan until recently for over 20 years and I know here in GA where they were giving a $5,000 tax credit he said this was the #1-2 market in the country for Leaf's. He remembers a day they sold 45 in ONE DAY!

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