Chicago LEAF Test Drives, Aug 26-28, 2011

[bennelson]

Who wants to test drive a Nissan Leaf in the Chicago area?

https://www.drivenissanleaf.com/Even...ils.aspx?eid=9

Now's your chance, but sign up right away.

August 26, 27, 28 at Soldier Field!

I'll be there on Friday the 26th at 1:15 pm!

[SwamiSalami]

I drove one in Orlando about 6 months ago at a similar demonstration. Not that great.

The "test drive" also is seriously lacking. I think I got to drive the Leaf about half a mile before it was over. I wasn't really able to gauge much from this experience.

[NeilBlanchard]

I drove a Leaf a few weeks ago at Suffolk Downs in East Boston. It began with a short track laid out with traffic cones, and then we got a mile or two on the road. Brief, but I found it adequate.

When I started the battery was fully charged and it said 87 miles left. When I finished, it said 90 miles left...

[bennelson]

I went to the test drive yesterday!

It was fun! The Leaf is a nice car. Clean, quiet, nice interior.

The SL model has DC Quick Charging and a solar panel rear spoiler.

You can read about it at my blog: Nissan Test Drive – Chicago

I'll get some video of my test drive up soon too!

-Ben

[SwamiSalami]

Did you take your ev to the event? What did people think of it (if they saw it)?

later

[bennelson]

No, I didn't take my EV to the event. That was WAY too far away from home for my little low-budget EV to go. It was 120 miles each way.

A Tesla could have made it. There's EV charging at Soldier Field. Had I a Roadster, I could have driven there, charged several hours, and driven back.

[SwamiSalami]

oh, right. Sorry I forgot you're where you are. My bad.

Did you get to drive it enough to really get any kind of feel, though? When I drove one in Orlando, I didn't have time to really say whether I liked it or not.

[bennelson]

The test drive itself was not a great distance. It was all in the city, in a nice area near Lake Michigan where the museum, aquarium, ball-park, etc are all right next to each other.

Because of that, it was all pretty low-speed roads. There wasn't any freeway travel at all. But it wasn't just in a parking lot either. (I test drove a Ford Transit Connect Electric a while back, and that WAS just in a single parking lot!)

I think the actual test drive time was about 10-15 minutes. When I showed up at the event, I had to wait a while before entering, because they would only take groups at a time, and had to wait for the previous group to finish. I waited about 20 minutes at the door.

I think it did give a good sense of the car. It would have been nice to go on the freeway, but even without that, I got a good sense of the interior, headroom, steering, HVAC system (it was hot that day - electric AC rocks!) acceleration, braking, turning radius, etc.

Overall, I thought it was a very nice car. I really don't have the financial means of purchasing ANY new car, let alone one in the price range of the current offerings of electric cars. But, if I was in the market for a new car, I would definately consider it.

I personally know two people who are on the waiting list for a Leaf. As far as I know, neither person has even SEEN a Leaf, let alone driven one! I reported back to them my thoughts on the car.

[SwamiSalami]

I tend to agree with basically everything you just said.