Nissan Leaf electric car diary

forgotmyname

99.8% may say that their perfect car is the one they drive now.

Carol the difference between 78 and 124 miles to be is a little bit more than drastically different.

The weather can get much worse, -15 degree mornings with snow where you need the heater going and your journey take 3 times longer than normal.

It once took me 4 hours to travel 2 miles.

bigjl

If I had a Leaf I would likely just ignore the on board range estimator and just use 80miles as a good guide.

BykerSands

bigjl wrote: »

If I had a Leaf I would likely just ignore the on board range estimator and just use 80miles as a good guide.

Well at 11 grand you'll never have on as a used tt was out of your price range yesterday.

michaels

WE drive sensibly and get about 3 miles per kwh but it is all short journeys in stop/start traffic. A 60 mile round trip at night with motorway sections and heating+AC is certainly enough to generate severe range anxiety and that is not doing over 70 (speedo indicated 70 actually about 63).

Then again same driving pattern we used to get very low 20s in a 1.6 petrol and then low 30s in a 1.9 diesel.

carolwat

I didnt say the range wasnt drastically different, my point is that is is different depending on the weather conditions. I dont think id ever get the high end of that but I always get the lower end.

The heater energy usage is nether here nor there, it uses very little and switching it off with a full charge will only give you an extra 3 miles average. As for being stuck in traffic, the great thing is ou dont use any energy so you could be stuck for hours but your mileage range wouldnt go down so you misunderstand the vehicle there.

forgotmyname wrote: »

99.8% may say that their perfect car is the one they drive now.

Carol the difference between 78 and 124 miles to be is a little bit more than drastically different.

The weather can get much worse, -15 degree mornings with snow where you need the heater going and your journey take 3 times longer than normal.

It once took me 4 hours to travel 2 miles.

carolwat

That seems a very low mpkh rate. for driving sensibly. Even when im rushing around and driving faster than I should ive never been lower than 3.3 mpkw. A 60 mile round trip really shouldnt generate range anxiety. Do you have full battery bars? I would use the battery percentage as a better indicator of range than the guessometer.

michaels wrote: »

WE drive sensibly and get about 3 miles per kwh but it is all short journeys in stop/start traffic. A 60 mile round trip at night with motorway sections and heating+AC is certainly enough to generate severe range anxiety and that is not doing over 70 (speedo indicated 70 actually about 63).

Then again same driving pattern we used to get very low 20s in a 1.6 petrol and then low 30s in a 1.9 diesel.

patman99

I used to work at Siemens and they gave one of their senior managers in Germany a Nissan Leaf for a one month trial.
He liked it up to the point it left him stranded 50 miles into a 70 mile journey to a very important meeting.

A local journo on Colchester's Daily Gazette was also given one. He lived in Chelmsford so had a 40 mile round trip. The nearest rapid charge point was 2 miles from his office (and when he tried to use it, the card provided didn't work) and he had no way to charge it at work, so had to rely on charging it at home overnight.

By Wednesday, he only had enough charge for 50 miles and knowing how bad the A12 was for delays, decided to leave it on charge and catch the train instead.

Once they sort out the range issue, then I am sure that EVs will be a more common sight on our roads.

DevilsAdvocate1

I have a Leaf. Will have owned it for 1 year tomorrow. I've done over 15000 miles in it, so I'm not a low user. Think I get 80-90 miles on each charge. I'm lucky because there is a rapid charger just 5 minutes from my son's primary school and I use this at least once a week.

I absolutely love being able to switch the heating on in my car using my mobile. I have an android mobile. All my neighbours are there scraping away the frost. I leave the house, disconnect my car, get in and go. Takes all of 30 seconds. No more standing in the cold trying to defrost a car. The car is hot so I don't have to wear my coat in the car.

If I had one wish, it would be to extend the battery to around 400 miles.

Love my Leaf. :T

gzoom

Another happy long term Leaf owner. Coming up to 10 month in, 5200 miles, spent £70 on home electricity so far on charging. Haven't been stranded once, and though the range is more limited in winter, for my use its absoutly fine.

Nissan have just started to deliver a new Leaf with a bigger battery this months. Real life reports are just coming back but looks like 100miles+ even in cold/wet weather - My Leaf will manage 60-70 miles in worst conditions.

BMW have said they will be increasing the range of the i3, and GM+Tesla have promised 200 mile range EVs for around $35,000 come 2017. The future of motoring is coming, and I really cannot wait for longer range EVs to become more affordable

gzoom

patman99 wrote: »

A local journo on Colchester's Daily Gazette was also given one. He lived in Chelmsford so had a 40 mile round trip. The nearest rapid charge point was 2 miles from his office (and when he tried to use it, the card provided didn't work) and he had no way to charge it at work, so had to rely on charging it at home overnight.

By Wednesday, he only had enough charge for 50 miles and knowing how bad the A12 was for delays, decided to leave it on charge and catch the train instead.

I wouldn't worry about going on a 40 mile trip with 50 miles of range left, regardless of traffic. EVs aren't like petrol cars, economy doesn't drop in traffic. Even with the heating, lights, wipers on my Leaf uses less than 1KW (more around 0.5kWH) when idle, where as accelerating even at a moderate pace uses upto 60-70KW. The worst thing for range in EVs is fast driving, if anything traffic will increased the predicted range

Regarding EVs and winter, Norway has the highest proportion of EV car sales in the world 1 in 4 new cars sold are EVs, and EVs with range of 100miles like the Leaf/Golf-E are the top selling EVs...So either people in Norway simply don't use their cars in winter or they love been left stranded at the side of the road :rotfl:

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/19/electric-car-sales-26-of-new-car-sales-in-august-in-norway/

As another poster has already eluded to, pre-heating is one of the best feature of the Leaf, and makes winter motoring a joy. Been able to jump into a warm/de-forsted car in the little cold weather we've had so far this year had been amazing