Nissan Leaf

[NeilBlanchard]

Right, and in our case, it shortens the distance we can drive on the lease before paying a penalty. I think we will be driving it farther anyway and that means we are probably going to buy it at the end of the lease.

I will check the speedometer against the GPS. It is a digital speedo in the Leaf.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by wdb

Given the computerization of modern cars I'd expect them to be in lockstep; IOW if one is off so is the other.

I'd actually expect the opposite: digitally driven values are easy & cheap to manipulate separately; mechanically driven ones less so.

EG: The new (to Canada) Nissan Micra has a speedo that reads a bit high, but the odometer is good.

[Astro]

The GPS might read high as well depending on the unit and especially the number of satellites it can see.
If you are travelling in a straight line and the GPS signal is jumping 5 meters to the left and then 5 meters to the right your GPS track will be full of small zig zags that will inflate slightly the total distance covered.

[redpoint5]

Best is to travel a known distance and record the time and compare to spedo/odo.

I imagine GPS is generally quite accurate though. The TSX and GPS in my phone are less than 1% out of agreement. I haven't checked it against my odometer, but after reading Neil's post, I'll be sure to test it.

[RedDevil]

My brother in law had an old style Garmin that did jump about, and it did indeed increase the indicated travel distance and speed.

My old Quest aligned the calculated position with the road in its map so it was pretty accurate, as long as the map corresponded with reality.
My current TomTom does that too. It seems to be dead accurate compared with the road distance indicators, switching digits behind the point in the same rhytm as the road markers.
The odometer in my Insight underreads slightly (compared to GPS and road markers), but as the tires wear that will no doubt get even.

[NeilBlanchard]

Google Maps says the same as my GPS, so I think it is good.

I will check the tire inflation on the Leaf today.

[redpoint5]

My wife just interviewed at OHSU for a graduate program. If she gets in, I'll buy a Leaf and sell the parents Camry. Electricity in Oregon/Washington is cheap, and the infrastructure and culture promotes EV use.

She has been accepted to Arcadia in Philly, so if we end up there I might have to get something else. Perhaps a Prius or Outback.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Is it just the odometer, or the speedometer too?

FWIW, the local speedometer shop (which also calibrates the Arizona Highway Patrol vehicles) states that on GM veicles the ECM data is ≈100% accurate to the odometer, but is automatically artificially *incremented* by +2 mph -- by the ECM -- to the speedometer.

So, the odometer is purposely MORE accurate than the speedometer.

And, I *see* that ≈+2 mph offset on my SGII on both 2004 & 2009 Pontiac Vibes, 2011 Chebby Cruze, and newest 2014 Prius. So, it looks *universal* to me.

[NeilBlanchard]

The odometer is the only one I can verify with any real accuracy, though the speedometer looked to also be slightly high vs my GPS unit. I confirmed the GPS against Google Maps:

26.0 miles actual distance + ~2.3% = 26.6 miles indicated on the odometer.

So, I have corrected all my garage log entries. I drove it yesterday (mostly - my spouse did a small part of the driving) and we logged the most miles in a day, so far: 74.4 odo - 2.3% = 72.6888. The charge was 16.87kWh, so this is the best energy efficiency so far, as well. We did drive a bit after dark, and we did use the HVAC a bit as well.

The day included out for breakfast, grocery shopping, dropping off styrofoam recycling, picking up my son at his grandmother's house, picking up some things at my brother's house, driving him to buy a new gaming mouse, and then out for dinner with all four of us.

Not bad for no gasoline at all! We had about 31 miles left on the charge.

[Cobb]

Be interesting to see if you keep driving in an economy manner or let loose. Many ev owners I speak to who have capacity to spare talk about about 100% torque at 0 rpm, chirping tires, etc. Those with range issues talk about hypermiling.

Having a leaf as a rental I did both and being more aggressive really ate into the range est of the dash. Likewise being conservative gave me triple digits for range.

I know for many evs they either do not have regen braking or the regen is wasted as a surface charge if the vehicle is equipped with lead acid batteries. I believe with the leaf its able to take it all in and allow you to successfully reuse it on your next launch.