The news was circulated on the Push EVs website, citing what it describes as internal information from Nissan itself, which guarantees that the Japanese brand is determined to face up to its North American counterpart, in the field of electric mobility. Which, remember, is already seen by many consumers as a reference in the electric car.
At a time when Tesla attacks the market with what will be its high volume model, the Model 3, Nissan will already be preparing a new version of the Leaf, to launch in the market later this year, of arguments heavily reinforced and able to directly compete with the creation of Elon Musk.
Among the main weapons of this new Nissan Leaf, stands out a larger capacity battery, approximately 64 kWh (40 kWh on the Leaf already on sale), accompanied by an electric motor producing something like 218 hp and, finally, an integrated charger whose capacity can vary between 11 and 22 kW.
Batteries become LG Chem
The leap in battery capacity led to the choice of another supplier. Instead of AESC, which currently supplies this type of components — a company created by Nissan itself, but which the car manufacturer decided to sell last summer —, for this more powerful variant, the choice will fall to LG Chem.
By the way, the same supplier of Renault, which uses them on Zoe, and General Motors, which uses them on Ampera-e. Tesla, on the other hand, uses Panasonic batteries in its models.
The new batteries from LG Chem should also include a temperature management system, unprecedented at Nissan, in addition to allowing fast charging with powers of up to approximately 100 kW.
Moreover, and demonstrating the evolution that this new battery system represents, Nissan will have even drawn up a comparative table, between the regular version and the future version of the Leaf to be launched this year, which we will show you here:
More power and autonomy
Although the information now released by the Push EVs website still lacks official confirmation, the truth is that there is no lack of data to reaffirm this new positioning that Nissan wants to give to the second generation of the Leaf.
In an internal presentation of the brand itself, the Leaf is no longer placed face-to-face with proposals like the Volkswagen e-Golf, the Hyundai Ioniq Electric or the Ford Focus Electric — this in the North American market — but rather with opponents of greater autonomy or power.
This is the case of the Chevrolet Bolt, which announces, according to American parameters, the ability to travel up to 383 km on a single charge, or the aforementioned Tesla Model 3, electric that should come with a power of 258 hp, as well as with an autonomy of 354 km.