'Shockingly bad': Nissan Leaf drivers voice anger over app shutdown:
Owners of some Nissan Leaf electric vehicles are angry after the carmaker announced it would shut down an app that lets them remotely control battery charging and other functions.
Drivers of Leaf cars made before May 2019 and the e-NV200 van (produced until 2022) have been told that the NissanConnect EV app linked to their vehicles will "cease operation" from 30 March. This means they will lose remote services, including turning on the heating, and some map features.
Experts said they expected other drivers to experience similar problems in future as "connected cars" – vehicles that can connect to the internet – get older.
One driver and Guardian Money reader, Alan Clucas, said he was upset by the switch-off, adding that some of the affected vehicles were less than four years old. "I think Nissan should do better," he said.
Talking about his seven-year-old Leaf, Clucas said the "most annoying thing will be not being able to smart-charge the car or remotely warm it up on frosty mornings". He added: "We could previously check the charge levels from a mobile phone."
Other affected motorists have been discussing the matter online. "Looks like going forward, only paid-for remote connectivity will be supported," said one, adding that it was "amazing" that Nissan "only supported a core EV feature for seven years. Considering [an] average car can last for 12-plus years, that is shockingly bad."
Another driver added: "My car is almost 10 years old now, but those with an early 2020 model won't be too happy that their not-even seven-year-old car is having remote access removed with a month's notice."
Nissan faced criticism in 2024 when it dropped the first generation of Leaf cars after the switch-off of the UK's 2G network. The carmaker said the latest move was because the app could not be "upgraded to support future enhancements".
In-car services such as climate control and charging timers would still be available through the infotainment system, Nissan said, but remote services and some map-related features would not.
Steve Walker from the motoring magazine Auto Express said the situation was a preview of what would happen when "today's cars" get old.
"As modern cars that are even more reliant on connected services and updates than the Leaf age, it is likely that manufacturer support for their systems will drop away, too," he said.
This could mean other features including navigation systems, touchscreen controls and even subscriptions for features such as heated seats, autonomous driving aids or extra engine power could stop working or be turned off further down the line, he said.
"Nobody wants to see cars rendered obsolete before their time," Walker said. "The best way to minimise the environmental impact of cars is to build them to last. Software and digital systems need to be as durable and reliable as mechanical components."
Benjamin Gorman, a senior lecturer at Bournemouth University, said the tech world was shifting towards software-as-a service (Saas) models.
"A good example is software like Adobe Photoshop – historically, you could buy it once and use it for as long as you liked, whereas now it typically requires an ongoing subscription," said Gorman.
This worked well for things such as games and entertainment platforms, where people are used to subscriptions and shorter upgrade cycles, he said. However, it is more problematic when applied to expensive physical products such as cars, which people expect to keep working for a decade or more.
"I suspect we will see this issue more often in the coming years as vehicles become increasingly software-driven," said Gorman. "We are seeing more manufacturers experiment with subscription fees for connected features ... but it raises important questions about what consumers feel they should permanently own versus what they are effectively renting through software services."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Sunday April 05, @09:38PM (11 children)
Wow. I don't need a smartphone at all to put gas in my fucking gas tank.
A car should not need a smart phone for anything at all. Even optionally. That is just retarded.
Cell phones get thrown out every five minutes and communications methods change every five seconds. Cars just roll around on the road. For years. The two don't go together.
Don't buy cars with this shit. I *think* there is still some competition in that market.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05, @09:58PM (7 children)
> Wow. I don't need a smartphone at all to put gas in my fucking gas tank.
Almost like you don't need a smartphone at all to plug the car in and charge it. Or walk out to the garage and start the environmental system. Or...
but these are features that they had, and want, which your no-smartphone-car _doesn't_ have, whether you want it or not.
To say nothing of standardization and protocols which could/should/will eventually happen.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05, @11:51PM (1 child)
> Almost like you don't need a smartphone at all to plug the car in and charge it.
I believe this is correct for home charging, but I've yet to see a public/pay fast charger that works without a smart phone. Once public fast chargers have credit card readers and don't require an app, I'll start to think about getting an electric car. Anyone, does this exist in USA?
I don't have a smart phone and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything worthwhile...
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday April 06, @09:13PM
There are many chargers that work with a NFC chip in a card.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Dr Spin on Monday April 06, @08:11AM (4 children)
I borrowed a Nissan Leaf recently. The process of charging it was hell on earth. It has an effective range of just under 120 miles if you need to use the heater,
and the car's UI is clearly designed to be confusing.
When you get to a charger, the UI is at knee level for some reason, and often so small and badly illuminated you can barely read it.
You often need to sign up for one app to charge and a second one to pay. Both require all the personal details you have, and quite possibly those of other family members as well.
Then you have to get the thing to work, which often requires a call to the "help line" and a ten minute reboot. Thankfully, not all of them are staffed by complete idiots.
In the unlikely event that the charger eventually actually works, you probably have to spend several hours there charging. Plus they charge three to for times the RETAIL price of electricity.
Then you have the problem of unplugging the cable. In my case, on one occasion, the instructions were "open the door and then close it, then lock and unlock it three times".
I was glad to return it to the owner without it setting fire to any airport car parks.
There is no doubt at all that diesel is the right answer if you actually want to go somewhere!
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Monday April 06, @01:37PM (3 children)
People give Tesla a lot of shit, much of it deserved, but charging is one of the things they get right. You plug a credit or debit card into the app. Then drive up to a supercharger and a button on the charge handle opens the charging door. When you plug it in, the car sends identity and it starts charging. You can lose your wallet and your phone can be dead and it just works.
.. the charging cable is maneuverable, not a girthy elephant trunk like the CHADEMO on the Leaf.
.. if a supercharger at a station is messed up, the car tells you *before* you park at it.
.. you can see prices per kwh before you get there.
.. the nav system will auto-route you to a charger if you need it.
.. and the superchargers are usually cheaper than ChargePoint.
I usually charge at home; My plugged-into-a-wall-outlet charger covers me 90% of the time. When I do have to charge out-and-about, I'll usually choose the superchargers for convenience even though I have adapters for non-Tesla charging.
On the "much of it deserved" front, Tesla needs to step up their game on 800V charging. They're creating a market opportunity for competitors to legitimately claim faster charging as a selling point.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Monday April 06, @04:37PM (1 child)
>When you plug it in, the car sends identity and it starts charging.
Is it like an RFID, or is this more complicated, where it networks and communicates with the on board computer and the ID/account is set by owner?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday April 06, @06:15PM
There is an industry standard data exchange protocol, I don't recall the IEEE number, that sends control signals to the charger including the authentication data. I read enough of the spec to understand there's a key exchange mechanism in the auth part, but I refuse, on principle, to pay to read a standard that was invented by, written by, and edited by unpaid volunteers. :|
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday April 06, @09:03PM
Even if your credit card has recently expired, your car will still be charged by a Supercharger.
(Score: 5, Touché) by epitaxial on Monday April 06, @01:28AM
None of these features are required to operate the car. The point is people paid for these things and they're now being taken away.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Monday April 06, @02:37AM
My 35 year old truck doesn't have any of these problems. What am I doing wrong??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Monday April 06, @01:23PM
It's wrong to frame this as an EV vs. Gas car argument.
Look at it like this: The manufacturer decides to disable a feature on your car, that you paid for, after the sale, and you have no recourse or compensation.
Would you be pissed? Yes, me too.
Nissan was just about to age off the naughty list for the terrible batteries in the first generation Leaf, but no. They're choosing to double down on "disposable" cars, so they're back on the naughty list for another decade.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday April 05, @10:45PM (2 children)
Superficially, just provide a web page interface. However, as a thought experiment, imagine buying a Y2K era Ford with an embedded web browser. The TLS certs will have expired years ago, it was probably written using some abomination like Flash as a UI... not so good.
IF there's enough demand and the users are not intentionally locked out to encourage the environmental disaster of forced replacement, I would imagine it would be possible to plug a RasPi grade piece of hardware into the ODB-II port and run the car features remotely, make your own app, do whatever you want.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday April 05, @11:56PM (1 child)
I would be quite happy with a simple web server that mimics the OBD Diagnostics tool.
Standard HTML ( Maybe even 4.0 )., work with any browser. Especially expired cellphones.
No security to read. Bonus if I can change settings and exercise peripherals - with login.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 07, @01:29PM
There are apps that turn a phone plus a bluetooth dongle into a code scanner... I have one it works great.
I was motivated to look for a web UI for my "connect a pi" idea that matches your idea and the closest I can find is
https://docs.openvehicles.com/en/latest/plugin/repidscan/README.html [openvehicles.com]
But its very bare metal protocol analysis give a list of hexadecimal bytes to put on the bus low level.
Would be "obvious" to have something like "Torque" phone app but a web page or even better a REST API, but I've not found it yet. Hardly proves it doesn't exist of course.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snospar on Monday April 06, @06:24AM (1 child)
I can't believe the auto manufacturer doesn't have some legal responsibility to keep features alive that will have been advertised as selling points at time of sale. They're talking about some cars as young as four years old - now, I know they're trying to make these things as disposable as mobile phone handsets but car life spans should be measured in decades. It does look like, for some of the cars, a paid subscription can bring back the functionality that has been free up to now... I'm not a fan of the subscription model on cars (e.g. BMW heated seats FFS) but conversely I don't mind a small monthly charge to pay for in car telecoms.
As mentioned elsewhere, hopefully this is something that can be worked around and these people will be able to buy a dongle to regain lost features, but they simply shouldn't have to. Shame on you Nissan!
Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Monday April 06, @08:14AM
Shame on you Nissan!
See my above post, and avoid buying electric cars, especially Nissan.
I noticed the guy that suggested I buy a Tesla drives a diesel Peugeot and loves it.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bentonite on Monday April 06, @09:05AM (1 child)
It's almost like it's the consequences of proprietary software and SaaSS yet again?
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday April 07, @03:21PM
Some people seem unaware that SaaS normally stands for Software as a Scam.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday April 06, @09:08PM
Nissan killed an app that worked with 1st gen Leafs (via Bluetooth only). Frankly, the app barely worked, so losing it wasn't a big deal.