Converted Nissan EV cause of fire onboard "Pearl of Scandinavia"

[TEG]

...a rebuilt Nissan Qashqai...

Is this the vehicle Better Place used for their Tokyo taxi battery swaps trial?

Yep..., same model

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010...ay-taxi-trial/

...Better Place’s delivery platform in Tokyo is the Nissan Dualis, a compact S.U.V. marketed in Europe as the Qashqai...

(Edit: the conversion to electric was probably done by a different firm.)

[doug]

I shoulda been more clear. I realize it's the same model of Nissan. Curious if these are the guys that did the conversion for the Better Place trial. If so, you'd think they'd brag about it. They do have a single image of a vehicle that looks like it has a Better Place logo, though.

[TEG]

It does sound like Better Place contracted with an "outside firm" to do their conversions.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6880E5.htm

...The current test vehicles are converted Nissan Dualis SUVs, called Qashqai in some markets. Nissan is not involved in the scheme directly: an outside company has re-engineered the cars with batteries provided by U.S.-based A123 Systems ....

[tdelta1000]

What an unfortunate situation for A Future and hopefully we all learn from this incident. Please use veted materials.

[mpt]

The Roadster can detect when an underspecified extension cable is being used to charge from by looking at the voltage drop as the load increases. It's this sort of stuff that separates conversions from manufactures products IMO. Today my MINI-E is getting a firmware update to increase the communication paths around the vehicle to increase redundancy in the overall system, do conversion developers have the time/resources/heterogeneous view to be able to match that I wonder.

[vfx]

..., do conversion developers have the time/resources/heterogeneous view to be able to match that I wonder.

I do hope they will. The conversion business will be huge as vehicle electrification gains hold.

[domenick]

I believe the ones used in Tokyo were prepared by a Japanese company.

[TEG]

Moderators may want to split off all this Better Place speculation to a different topic.

[PopSmith]

The Roadster can detect when an underspecified extension cable is being used to charge from by looking at the voltage drop as the load increases. It's this sort of stuff that separates conversions from manufactures products IMO.

The voltage detection software/hardware is very important and something all manufactured EVs should be required to have. This would reduce, if not eliminate, charging-related EV fires.

Sorry for stating the obvious but fires like this one have the potential to cause extreme harm to Tesla (and EVs in general) because news outlets may mislead Joe Average into thinking this EV was a manufactured EV, not a conversion.

[TEG]

Is this the vehicle Better Place used for their Tokyo taxi battery swaps trial?
http://afutureev.com/technology.aspx

AFutureEV under hood:


Better Place Taxi under hood:

(They look different)

Check out page 9 of this:
http://www.r-d.co.jp/news/info/EV.pdf
Under heading "Better Place DUALIS EV".