William Maley
Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com
December 28, 2012
After a number of complaints from owners saying that their Nissan Leafs were losing charge capacity, Nissan has announced a new warranty for the Leaf's battery.
“Nissan will protect against capacity loss in LEAF batteries that fall below nine bars, of the available 12 bars displayed on the vehicle’s battery capacity gauge, for the first five years or 60,000 miles in the United States, whichever comes first,” said Nissan executive VP Andy Palmer in a letter sent to Leaf owners.
The warranty will debut on the 2013 Leaf, but the warranty will be expanded to cover all 2011 and 2012 models before next summer.
Before, Nissan claimed the Leaf's lithium-ion battery would only lose 20% of its charge capacity after being driven for five years. However a group of Leaf owners in Arizona said their vehicles were losing charge capacity at a much faster rate and sued the company.
Palmer in his letter also said that the automaker is also working "to improve the precision of the battery capacity gauge that displays remaining capacity in the Leaf's electric vehicle battery."
“Our actions today are intended to put customer minds at ease regarding the topic of battery capacity loss,” wrote Palmer. “Even though it is expected the great majority of owners will never have to use this enhanced warranty, we want each Nissan LEAF owner to have the security that should capacity loss exceed this defined threshold, Nissan will cover the repair or replacement of their battery under warranty.”
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required), MyNissanLeaf.com
William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.
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