A battery management system (BMS) in electric vehicles is typically tasked with monitoring the battery and estimating its condition, available charge and/or energy remaining. In an analogy using internal combustion engine powered vehicles, it calculates both the size of the fuel tank and the position of the fuel gauge.

 

The task is not trivial and sometimes vehicle manufactures come up with new ways to to do the job better, make corrections to their existing estimation algorithms, or find a bug in cars that they have already produced.  Fortunately, in many cases it is possible to update the firmware in the BMS to fix or improve its functionality without physically replacing or removing any parts.

 

Nissan’s official terminology for their BMS is a lithium battery controller or LBC. Nissan has offered many LBC firmware updates on it’s electric vehicles going right back to the original Nissan Leaf which was produced at the end of 2010.  One very notable case is the LBC firmware update for the 30kWh Leaf which fixes a bug that causes incorrect estimation of both battery capacity and remaining energy.   We were delighted in August 2018 when Nissan NZ made this update available through most of their dealer network around New Zealand which has taken the pressure off us trying to support the whole country. We applaud Nissan NZ for doing this, and as a result we are no longer offering these updates except in parts of NZ where there is no Nissan dealer offering the update.  In these cases, our service  is offered via scheduled update days conducted though our partners at their premises. If you are in need of this update and are out of reach of any of Nissan’s Leaf-certified dealers then please contact the nearest of our partners to express your interest.

 

We have extensive knowledge and experience regarding how to correctly apply BMS updates in all applicable variants of the Leaf.