Drove a Leaf today

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by Daox

Buying a new car never makes sense from a cost perspective.

How true! I think if you plan on keeping your new car for 10+ years it may be more cost effective than purchasing a similar, but used car. Who keeps their cars for that long anyway?

Being a car guy (an ego-mechanical?), I have to realize that cars and motorcycles are my hobby. There are very few hobbies that make sense from a cost perspective. I might consider buying a leaf if it wasn't so ugly, regardless of whether it is cost effective or not. Actually, it definitely wouldn't be, as my wife and I only put about 12K miles/yr on our Matrix and I only put 2500 miles/yr on my ultra-short commute with my Volvo (the $h!t Brick). Even a cheap EV conversion makes little sense, cost-wise, but I am going to do it anyway!

[redpoint5]

Sunday evening I observed a very ugly vehicle parking on the street, but I didn't know what it was. Now I have come to learn it was a Nissan Leaf. I'm a "form should follow function" type of person, so I would give the hideous vehicle a pass if it had to look that bad for aerodynamic purposes, but with a Cd of .28, I expect a better looking car.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I believe my TSX looks quite nice, and it has a Cd of .27. How can an all electric vehicle with no radiator grill have a less efficient design than my car, which was likely designed primarily to look cool?

This car is certainly begging for a boat-tail, both aesthetically and aerodynamically.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by mechman600

How true! I think if you plan on keeping your new car for 10+ years it may be more cost effective than purchasing a similar, but used car. Who keeps their cars for that long anyway?

...I do:

1974-to-1984 = '72 Pinto, 10 years
1984-to-1999 = '84 Honda, 15 years
1987-to date = '87 Astro Van, 25 years
1999-to-2009 = '99 Malibu, 10 years

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...I do:

Eep! You are one of the smart ones. Your cars owe you nothing!

[drees]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I believe my TSX looks quite nice, and it has a Cd of .27. How can an all electric vehicle with no radiator grill have a less efficient design than my car, which was likely designed primarily to look cool?

The LEAF has a tall hatch which greatly improves interior room. Traditional cars with a similar overall shape typically have a Cd in the low 0.3x range.

Could Nissan have made it more slippery? Definitely - but at the expense of function and cost.

For sure, an active grill shutter, lower ride height, more aerodynamic wheels, less head room all could have contributed to lower Cd (probably getting it down to Prius territory) but overall Nissan did a good job for their first iteration.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by mechman600

I think if you plan on keeping your new car for 10+ years it may be more cost effective than purchasing a similar, but used car. Who keeps their cars for that long anyway?

You would have to be extremely unlucky or just bad at making car buying decisions to end up spending more money buying used- ever.

Warning, worthless anecdote- I bought a 1996 Subaru Legacy with 119,000 miles on it that went through a quart of oil every 1000 miles and needed a clutch right away. Cost was $4k at the time. I drove it 8 years, averaging 29mpg, and got another 100,000 miles out of her before getting rear-ended. Insurance gave me $2.5K

Total costs excluding regular maintenance:

$1,500 car
$100 clutch

I didn't treat her nice either


Perhaps buying a a brand new unreliable car is cheaper than buying a used unreliable car (I'm thinking European makes), since you get a warranty and parts are expensive, but then again if you are buying European in the US, you aren't concerned with cost in the first place.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by drees

I'm still a bit surprised we haven't seen any real aero mods for the LEAF yet - one could probably easily pick up 20% highway range with a boat-tail mod or similar.

Any plans to mod yours (to any extent)?

---

Originally Posted by drees

Could Nissan have made it more slippery? Definitely - but at the expense of function

Audi's ICE-powered A2 had the same form factor (a "functional", conventional looking four door hatchback) yet scored Cd 0.25.

I think Nissan did a lousy job in the aero department! For one thing: if they'd extended the roof line, they would have INCREASED cargo volume and improved Cd. The hatch opening, however, would have been slightly smaller.

Obviously Nissan is aware of what can be done to improve the Leaf's energy consumption, and for the reasons stated (styling, bean counting and "consumer acceptability") they ended up with what they ended up with. EV's are new (mass market), but I look forward to the day EV makers start to compete with one another on energy efficiency as is happening with ICE vehicles these days.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

You drove it more efficiently than the previous person, and this changes the estimate on the dash. I drove a Leaf at a demonstration event, and it said 87 miles when I started and about 91 when I finished. I drove it about 2-3 miles.

That "range remaining" guess-o-meter has contributed to 2 somewhat negative Leaf press reviews that I've read (mainstream press). I think Nissan's doing a fairly poor job explaining the vehicle to journalists.

Both of the reporters I read panicked because (of course) they drove the car far LESS efficiently than the previous driver. As a result, they lost range at a faster rate than the distance actually traveled. Result? Panic! Declarations along the lines of "the electric car is not ready for prime time". No surprise there.

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

You would have to be extremely unlucky or just bad at making car buying decisions to end up spending more money buying used- ever.

I don't know how it is where you live, but here in BC it seems that decent 3-5 year old imports (the only used car/truck I would buy...except for my $400 winter beater, of course!) hold their value way too well. Here they seem to depreciate at a rate proportional to the value on the odometer. For example (in Canadian Pesos):

a) Brand new Toyota RAV-4: $28K
b) 2007 Toyota w/65K miles: $21K

Supposing you run your car to 150K miles, car a) will cost $0.19/mile and car b) will cost $0.25/mile (as 65K miles have already been "spent"). THAT'S how my logic works in this area.

Sorry...this thread has completely lost its original purpose.

Back to the Leaf, then. I can't wait to see what EVs we'll see soon. Even if they aren't cost effective, they will hopefully be cool. Being cool while reducing pollution? That's DOUBLE cool! I'd buy that.

[drees]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Any plans to mod yours (to any extent)?

Not yet. The car's ugly enough, I don't need any coroplast or cardboard hanging off it. Probably eventually will end up lowering it to tuck the wheels into the wells a bit more - though primarily to stiffen up the ride a bit and not efficiency. If someone makes some decent looking, light and aero wheels in 16" I might consider them, but the cost would never make it worth while. The underbody is already basically flat - nothing to do there. Maybe some sort of grill block, but I suspect that keeping the motor/inverter as cool as possible also improves efficiency.

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Audi's ICE-powered A2 had the same form factor (a "functional", conventional looking four door hatchback) yet scored Cd 0.25.

The A2 is not quite the same. It's roofline is basically the same as the Prius, complete with split rear window. No wonder they got a similar Cd.

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

I think Nissan did a lousy job in the aero department! For one thing: if they'd extended the roof line, they would have INCREASED cargo volume and improved Cd. The hatch opening, however, would have been slightly smaller.

Yes, by extending the top of the roof a bit they could have easily increased storage space a bit and perhaps picked up a few points of aero, but nothing significant without going to a split rear window.

I had a Subaru wagon before the LEAF and it was very similar in functional interior space, but it had a horrendous Cd.

As far as overall efficiency compared to other plug-ins, the LEAF barely beats the Volt (primarily because the Volt weighs nearly 2 TONs), the iMiEV slightly beats the LEAF (primarily because it has a small frontal area and is light) and the Tesla Roadster also beats the LEAF (also because it has a small frontal area and is light).

But the iMiEV and Roadster are not all that different than the LEAF so I'd say that Nissan did OK on it's first production EV.

Compared to the Fisker Karma (a hungry pig of a plug-in which uses nearly double the energy per mile of the other plug-ins) it's awesome. It's expected that the Tesla Model S will be a bit less efficient than the LEAF despite the far superior aerodynamics of it's body - I'd guess primarily because of weight and the HUGE wheels they are fitting it standard.