A $1,000 electric car sounds like a bargain until you find out how far it can travel. When YouTuber Sarah Greenwood, known for her Sarah -n- Tuned channel, picked up a 2013 Nissan Leaf in Arizona, she knew its battery would be a problem.
Despite having fewer than 100,000 miles, a clean title, and working air conditioning, the hatchback could barely manage a short commute. Its aging battery had lost so much capacity that even a full charge wouldn’t get it very far.
Rather than scrap the cheap EV, Sarah and her friend Charlie came up with a plan. They would replace its worn-out battery with one from a much newer Nissan Leaf, hoping to make the car useful again without spending a fortune.
The replacement cost four times what they paid for the vehicle itself. Still, if everything worked, they could end up with a practical electric car for around $5,000. Getting there would involve a few surprises, including an electronic problem that nearly spoiled the upgrade.
Running on Empty
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Before replacing anything, Sarah inspected the Leaf to see whether it was worth saving. As shown in her YouTube video, the car had some cosmetic damage, worn tires, and cloudy headlights, but its underside appeared to be in good condition.
The real trouble became clear after charging. At 96%, the dashboard estimated just 36 miles of range, while the battery health display showed five of its original 12 bars.
For comparison, the EPA lists a 75-mile range for the 2013 Nissan Leaf configuration in its database. Sarah’s car was now showing less than half that distance.
Fortunately, the rest of the vehicle appeared healthy enough to justify another investment.
A $4,000 Gamble
The solution was a used 40-kWh battery from a 2019 Nissan Leaf. With about 22,000 miles on the donor battery and a warranty included, Sarah paid $4,000 for the replacement.
According to Nissan’s official specifications, the standard 2019 Leaf offered an EPA-estimated 150 miles of range when new. Its larger battery also stored considerably more energy than the original 24-kWh pack in the 2013 car.
Getting the newer unit underneath the older Leaf was surprisingly easy. Once Sarah and Charlie disconnected and lowered the worn-out battery, the replacement fit into the same space without major physical changes.
Sarah estimated that the actual removal and installation could take less than 25 minutes with the proper equipment. Their work took longer, partly because they cleaned several components before putting everything back together.
Unfortunately, fitting the battery was only half the job.
Something Doesn’t Compute
With the newer pack installed, the Leaf’s dashboard couldn’t properly communicate with it. Warning messages appeared because the car didn’t understand the information coming from the replacement battery.
To solve that problem, Charlie built and programmed a device called a CAN bridge. It translates signals between the newer battery and the older vehicle’s electronics.
This type of conversion isn’t unique to Sarah’s project. Specialists such as CanBridgeEV offer hardware designed to support battery upgrades between different Nissan Leaf generations.
Charlie chose to make his own device after the preassembled options they wanted were unavailable. Following some programming and wiring work, the dashboard finally began displaying proper readings, and the warning codes cleared.
Worth Every Dollar?
After the upgraded Leaf reached a full charge, its dashboard showed an estimated 162 miles of range. Switching to Eco mode with the air conditioning off pushed that figure to 172 miles.
Those readings were estimates, not results from a completed driving test, but they represented a huge improvement over the original battery.
One concern remained. A scan showed several battery cells with higher-than-average voltage readings. Sarah and Charlie hoped further charging and driving would help balance them.
Even with that issue, the project had changed the car’s prospects. For roughly $5,000 in vehicle and battery costs, they now had a Leaf with fewer than 100,000 miles, working air conditioning, and more than four times its previous estimated driving range.