I'm sitting in the back of a board meeting in Valencia, shuffling charts for an upcoming keynote, and thought I would share my favourite slide of the moment...
Brilliant slide Michael. As I own a 2011 Nissan Leaf and I've recently test driven the 2025 Nissan Leaf I can confirm the improvement is very substantial.
I never thought to project into the future so I'm very glad you have.
Love a good visualisation, so useful when explaining the trajectory of battery performance improvements and falling prices when painting a picture of the future. eTaaS is my favourite new acronym!
Minor correction: the 2011 Leaf charged at 22 kW, not 46 kW.
The second generation charges at 45 kW, not 46 kW. Having owned both, I can say they're lovely cars.
I'd echo what the poster below mentioned—the second generation does everything I need. I don't want more power, speed, or range, and I'm not interested in paying extra just to have more specs on paper.
For me, better maintenance costs and greater comfort rank far higher than power or speed
According to AI: “Did the first generation Leaf charge at 46kW DC?” “Yes, the first-generation Nissan Leaf could charge at a maximum of 46 kW DC using its CHAdeMO connector.”
Ask the AI how many Leafs it has owned. Ask it how long it has spent at DC fast chargers crawling along at 22 kW waiting for an 80% charge.
This is a textbook case of data contamination. Nissan has never officially categorized the Leaf by generations—that terminology comes entirely from users discussing the car on forums and social media.
This means the AI's training data likely contains no reliable correlation between real vehicle specifications and these informal "generation" labels. The AI is parroting patterns from unstructured conversations, not facts from authoritative sources.
Should we be surprised that AI gets this wrong? Not at all. I recently asked one to count the letters in a sentence, and it failed. I knew the answer had to be divisible by four—it was an encryption key for a German Enigma machine. Even my rusty math skills could tell that 22 doesn't divide by four.
It won't be long before we read about a serious accident caused by someone trusting AI-generated misinformation.
This answer was proof read by Claude, and now sounds nothing like the original though it is still correct
For some reason, I can't find an AI that can drive a Leaf, although if we believe our techbro masters, shouldn't take long :-)
It's a good lesson for me, I should not have just trusted the AI, I should have checked more carefully. However, when I did, I found this in the original Nissan USA 2011 Leaf owner's manual:
HOW TO QUICK CHARGE (if so equipped)
Quick charge uses public charging stations (up to 50 kW of power) to charge the battery in a short period of time.
So, it looks like maybe you did not have the top spec Leaf? Or maybe the first deliveries were not yet "so equipped?
No, the confusion stems from outdated wording in the manual. Remember, 2011 is ancient by EV standards.
Back then, public charging infrastructure was still in its infancy. The smallest widely available public DC chargers operated at 50 kW. However, smaller private DC chargers in the 15-25 kW range did exist—primarily designed for fleet applications where multiple vehicles would charge overnight from a shared system to be ready for service the next day.
The critical issue was that these smaller chargers were never standardized. This matters because DC charging relies on signaling cables that enable the car and charging station to "communicate" before any power flows.
Without standardization, these smaller DC stations couldn't recognize the Leaf's protocol, and the Leaf couldn't recognize theirs. So Nissan probably wanted to steer users away from these non standard units to prevent complaints that Nissan could not do anything about.
Result? No charging for you, Michael.
This communication barrier has been a persistent challenge in the EV industry. Even today, you can encounter situations where a fast-charge-capable car physically connects to a station that can deliver that power level, yet they fail to establish a connection because they can't "understand" each other (though you typically fall back to a minimum charging rate).
Some charging network operators—particularly in the UK, for some reason—have been notoriously slow at updating the software in their charging stations.
For context: all first-generation Leafs (24 kWh battery) maxed out at 22.5 kW on DC charging. And yes, I had a fully loaded, top-of-the-line model with all the bells and whistles.
By the way, I find it both fascinating and deeply unsettling that you're using AI to challenge my lived experience.
I’m at an age where I’ve already encountered people, face to face, telling me that events I personally lived through either didn’t happen or unfolded in a completely different way than I remember.
But now, over the past 18 months or so, I’ve noticed a troubling shift: people are doing the same thing, except they’re using AI as their source of "truth."
Here’s the thing: I was there. I lived it. I experienced it firsthand. I heard it. I did it. No AI, social media post, Twitter thread, or LinkedIn article can rewrite what I know to be true.
And yet, it keeps happening. Worse, it’s happening more and more.
I can't shake the feeling that this might be how civilisation begins to crumble—when we start outsourcing memory, truth, and credibility to machines that lack the depth of human experience.
Anyway, I guess I’ll just go back to shouting at clouds now.
I hear your frustration, but this has nothing to do with AI any more.
Let's recap: I did a quick search on AI and used what I found. You challenged it, so I went back to the primary source: the 2011 Leaf user manual, which quite clearly says that the car was capable of charging at 50kW. Now I can't tell if you are saying Nissan was lying, or if you are saying that's all very well but there were no 50kW chargers so, in practice, the limit was 22.5kW. Either way, it has exactly nothing to do with AI at this point - it's just you, me and the user manual.
Unless of course we're in the matrix. Maybe the Leaf doesn't exist, and I'm an AI, in which case I concede your point. Except then you're probably AI too :-)
Yes, that's exactly what I suspected—it’s the Wikipedia entry.
I got two of the AIs to reveal their source, and they’re both referencing the Wikipedia page.
The third one simply reported that it charges at 50 kW, adding that 50 kW aligns well with a 24 kWh battery. How it arrived at that conclusion is completely beyond me.
Great slide, curious to find latest consumer sentiment research, I read this in Sun.Times yesterday, biz. section piece about Norton motorcycles,
“Demand for electric motorcycles has been bad,” explained Arnold. Norton's bike, he said, would have been “spectacular”, but, reflecting what many car manufacturers are discovering, “the evidence is that this is something consumers aren't ready for”.
Will be interesting to see what the cost / performance trade off look like. Ie do you need >160kW for a small family / C segment car? Current ICE are in the 120 - 170 kW range. Similar thoughts with the energy stored onboard / range, for sure the batteries will be more energy dense from both a gravimetric and volumetric perspective but do you need to store more energy on board / need greater range than 300 miles? Charging rate is an interesting one ie 75kWh at 150kW 30 mins, at 300kW 1/2 that - what is the value of 15 mins? do you need to drink you coffee quicker or is more of a splash and dash ie max CCS (500kW) which would give 50kWh in 6 mins ? Possibly of more interest is does on board AC chargers become an option rather than standard and low power home DC charging solutions (wonder what N Tesla and T Edison would think). Probably the most significant piece is we should certainly see is a drop in vehicle price in real terms along with running costs.
Does the leaf have to be a performance and long range vehicle?
2040 consumers might demand a 100kW, 50kWh, 250mille range car that only costs $10,000. Charing can stay at 150kW.
p.s When you spoke at Imperial the last version of this slide was your least favourite. Constant iteration is the key to success ;)
Brilliant slide Michael. As I own a 2011 Nissan Leaf and I've recently test driven the 2025 Nissan Leaf I can confirm the improvement is very substantial.
I never thought to project into the future so I'm very glad you have.
Love a good visualisation, so useful when explaining the trajectory of battery performance improvements and falling prices when painting a picture of the future. eTaaS is my favourite new acronym!
Why not putting also the 2011 car in the same money Year for consistency?
:-P
Yes, I should probably do that.
Powerful image. We often benchmark on Tesla Models 3 and Y but thanks for the reminder that the Leaf is the only continuing original mainstream EV.
Say hi to Anil Srivastava for me. I enjoyed working with him at AREVA Solar.
Minor correction: the 2011 Leaf charged at 22 kW, not 46 kW.
The second generation charges at 45 kW, not 46 kW. Having owned both, I can say they're lovely cars.
I'd echo what the poster below mentioned—the second generation does everything I need. I don't want more power, speed, or range, and I'm not interested in paying extra just to have more specs on paper.
For me, better maintenance costs and greater comfort rank far higher than power or speed
According to AI: “Did the first generation Leaf charge at 46kW DC?” “Yes, the first-generation Nissan Leaf could charge at a maximum of 46 kW DC using its CHAdeMO connector.”
Ask the AI how many Leafs it has owned. Ask it how long it has spent at DC fast chargers crawling along at 22 kW waiting for an 80% charge.
This is a textbook case of data contamination. Nissan has never officially categorized the Leaf by generations—that terminology comes entirely from users discussing the car on forums and social media.
This means the AI's training data likely contains no reliable correlation between real vehicle specifications and these informal "generation" labels. The AI is parroting patterns from unstructured conversations, not facts from authoritative sources.
Should we be surprised that AI gets this wrong? Not at all. I recently asked one to count the letters in a sentence, and it failed. I knew the answer had to be divisible by four—it was an encryption key for a German Enigma machine. Even my rusty math skills could tell that 22 doesn't divide by four.
It won't be long before we read about a serious accident caused by someone trusting AI-generated misinformation.
This answer was proof read by Claude, and now sounds nothing like the original though it is still correct
PS: Wikipedia has it wrong as well - sigh.
For some reason, I can't find an AI that can drive a Leaf, although if we believe our techbro masters, shouldn't take long :-)
It's a good lesson for me, I should not have just trusted the AI, I should have checked more carefully. However, when I did, I found this in the original Nissan USA 2011 Leaf owner's manual:
HOW TO QUICK CHARGE (if so equipped)
Quick charge uses public charging stations (up to 50 kW of power) to charge the battery in a short period of time.
So, it looks like maybe you did not have the top spec Leaf? Or maybe the first deliveries were not yet "so equipped?
https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2011/2011-LEAF-owner-manual.pdf
No, the confusion stems from outdated wording in the manual. Remember, 2011 is ancient by EV standards.
Back then, public charging infrastructure was still in its infancy. The smallest widely available public DC chargers operated at 50 kW. However, smaller private DC chargers in the 15-25 kW range did exist—primarily designed for fleet applications where multiple vehicles would charge overnight from a shared system to be ready for service the next day.
The critical issue was that these smaller chargers were never standardized. This matters because DC charging relies on signaling cables that enable the car and charging station to "communicate" before any power flows.
Without standardization, these smaller DC stations couldn't recognize the Leaf's protocol, and the Leaf couldn't recognize theirs. So Nissan probably wanted to steer users away from these non standard units to prevent complaints that Nissan could not do anything about.
Result? No charging for you, Michael.
This communication barrier has been a persistent challenge in the EV industry. Even today, you can encounter situations where a fast-charge-capable car physically connects to a station that can deliver that power level, yet they fail to establish a connection because they can't "understand" each other (though you typically fall back to a minimum charging rate).
Some charging network operators—particularly in the UK, for some reason—have been notoriously slow at updating the software in their charging stations.
For context: all first-generation Leafs (24 kWh battery) maxed out at 22.5 kW on DC charging. And yes, I had a fully loaded, top-of-the-line model with all the bells and whistles.
By the way, I find it both fascinating and deeply unsettling that you're using AI to challenge my lived experience.
I’m at an age where I’ve already encountered people, face to face, telling me that events I personally lived through either didn’t happen or unfolded in a completely different way than I remember.
But now, over the past 18 months or so, I’ve noticed a troubling shift: people are doing the same thing, except they’re using AI as their source of "truth."
Here’s the thing: I was there. I lived it. I experienced it firsthand. I heard it. I did it. No AI, social media post, Twitter thread, or LinkedIn article can rewrite what I know to be true.
And yet, it keeps happening. Worse, it’s happening more and more.
I can't shake the feeling that this might be how civilisation begins to crumble—when we start outsourcing memory, truth, and credibility to machines that lack the depth of human experience.
Anyway, I guess I’ll just go back to shouting at clouds now.
This comment was brought to you my Poe.
I hear your frustration, but this has nothing to do with AI any more.
Let's recap: I did a quick search on AI and used what I found. You challenged it, so I went back to the primary source: the 2011 Leaf user manual, which quite clearly says that the car was capable of charging at 50kW. Now I can't tell if you are saying Nissan was lying, or if you are saying that's all very well but there were no 50kW chargers so, in practice, the limit was 22.5kW. Either way, it has exactly nothing to do with AI at this point - it's just you, me and the user manual.
Unless of course we're in the matrix. Maybe the Leaf doesn't exist, and I'm an AI, in which case I concede your point. Except then you're probably AI too :-)
Fabulous conversation, Bob, with one of the smartest guys in the room. A real lesson here.
Yes, that's exactly what I suspected—it’s the Wikipedia entry.
I got two of the AIs to reveal their source, and they’re both referencing the Wikipedia page.
The third one simply reported that it charges at 50 kW, adding that 50 kW aligns well with a 24 kWh battery. How it arrived at that conclusion is completely beyond me.
This answer was brought to you by Poe.
Thanks for the catch!!! I'll check it before I use it again.
Great slide, curious to find latest consumer sentiment research, I read this in Sun.Times yesterday, biz. section piece about Norton motorcycles,
“Demand for electric motorcycles has been bad,” explained Arnold. Norton's bike, he said, would have been “spectacular”, but, reflecting what many car manufacturers are discovering, “the evidence is that this is something consumers aren't ready for”.
And wondered what evidence this was based on.
Will be interesting to see what the cost / performance trade off look like. Ie do you need >160kW for a small family / C segment car? Current ICE are in the 120 - 170 kW range. Similar thoughts with the energy stored onboard / range, for sure the batteries will be more energy dense from both a gravimetric and volumetric perspective but do you need to store more energy on board / need greater range than 300 miles? Charging rate is an interesting one ie 75kWh at 150kW 30 mins, at 300kW 1/2 that - what is the value of 15 mins? do you need to drink you coffee quicker or is more of a splash and dash ie max CCS (500kW) which would give 50kWh in 6 mins ? Possibly of more interest is does on board AC chargers become an option rather than standard and low power home DC charging solutions (wonder what N Tesla and T Edison would think). Probably the most significant piece is we should certainly see is a drop in vehicle price in real terms along with running costs.
Perhaps equally compelling is opex+residuals, and therefore cost of ownership as a service. Owning a horse is more ruinous as an ICE, but not by much!