12) 07/17/2011 Leaf Arrives and Batteries in the Boot

Installing the rear battery packs turned out to be an extended effort, both mentally and physically. In the meantime, our Nissan Leaf arrived and our ZENN sold, all in the same week!

The Leaf is a honey! Highway speed with no restrictions. It's in every way a real car: nice quality, great A/C, very smooth, lots of bells and whistles, seats five in comfort with luggage space. I don't come close to using all the available range and it just seems effortless.

Gobbling up electrons next to its brother EV!

Rear bank of 16 cells wired and ready.

Tidied up and covers in place.

Front bank of 24 cells wired and ready. For the entire pack that's 576 screws that needed attention, not to mention all the BMS boards that needed to have their wiring extended by two inches.

Covers in place and ready to drop into position.

Now in place on the boot floor

And secured with two 1800 pound nylon ratchet straps.

Front and rear packs in perspective. Eight more cells will be housed in the old gas tank to complete the traction pack.