SF BayLEAFs May Meeting (Santa Clara)

Minutes from the April meeting in San Francisco can be found here:
http://sfbayleafs.org/past-events/2013/ ... s-meeting/

Thanks to everyone who attended, and to our host and speakers...

...The second guest speaker from Nissan was Craig Pike (Nissan Technical Center North America, Arizona), who discussed “2013 Nissan Leaf – What’s New!” Craig has worked on the LEAF since pre-production of the MY2011 and attended Refuel 2012 at Laguna Seca, Monterey, CA where he met several SF BayLEAF members. To date, three MY13 LEAFs have been driven 30K miles in Phoenix and on/near test track and Fairbanks AK. Topics discussed include improvements to MY13 LEAF: efficiency: power train control logic, power train weight (10%) and volume (30%) reduction, reduce number of high voltage harness from 14 to 7, reduce water pump power by 50%, developed integrated power delivery module (charger, DC/DC converter), which is discussed in more detail at http://www.sae.org/mags/aei/11993. Other efficiency improvements involve lower drag coefficient from 0.29 to 0.28, brake design change so there is less rubbing or drag of pads on rotors, use of high efficiency heat pump instead of electric heater, and more regen braking from 80% to 90% SOC...