Nissan Leaf

[freebeard]

How is CarBEN coming?

[NeilBlanchard]

I hope to get some fiberglassing done soon - I will post progress on that thread.

[NeilBlanchard]

Okay, I had a third drive (in the Leaf) over 100 miles - ~111 miles (corrected) on 23.0kWh, so a new distance record for me.



It was just a tick higher consumption than the previous low - 207.24Wh/mile vs 206.96.

For some reason, the range remaining display goes to "---" flashing after I got down to 9 miles left. I don't know what is up with that.

[MetroMPG]

Nice going. Are you active in a Leaf community? What's the single charge distance record & circumstances?

[NeilBlanchard]

I am active on the Nissan Leaf Forum - Online forum for the Nissan Leaf Electric Car but they do not have an equivalent to EM's Garage - which is really too bad.

Also, many folks on other car forums really do not appreciate the various factors - like air temperature - that definitely affect mileage. Most importantly, most people do not have a reliable way to measure the charge for an EV, and they go by the dash display, only. In fact, I suspect that several of the other EV's in the EM Garage used the dash display to enter their consumption - which leaves out the 15-20% charging losses.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

used the dash display to enter their consumption - which leaves out the 15-20% charging losses.

Not to mention car companies like Chevy cheat their meters to be more optimistic.

[gasstingy]

Neil, I may have forgotten part of what you've written on this thread, but how do you drive your Leaf? I'm most interested in the terrain {as in how are you for hills} and what are the speed limits over that distance.

I'm pretty much a coward with money in this circumstance, but used Leaf's are starting to show up and I'm trying to justify one. I found a nice 2012 Ocean Blue SV at Carmax and can actually afford it. But, I have almost exactly 40 miles round trip commute and zero chance of charging at work. I also have a Prius that I'm keeping, so the very worst winter days, I could leave the Leaf at home. Still, cowardice remains....

[user removed]

Originally Posted by gasstingy

Neil, I may have forgotten part of what you've written on this thread, but how do you drive your Leaf? I'm most interested in the terrain {as in how are you for hills} and what are the speed limits over that distance.

I'm pretty much a coward with money in this circumstance, but used Leaf's are starting to show up and I'm trying to justify one. I found a nice 2012 Ocean Blue SV at Carmax and can actually afford it. But, I have almost exactly 40 miles round trip commute and zero chance of charging at work. I also have a Prius that I'm keeping, so the very worst winter days, I could leave the Leaf at home. Still, cowardice remains....

If you are trying to have a 40 mile range a Leaf will do that for at least 80k. That's 2000 trips or round trips. Seen them around here for $12k with less than 20k miles.

regards
mech

[Piotrsko]

the used leafs that I am seeing here in Reno have hot battery syndrome and are down a couple of bars in range. dealers either don't know or don't care but since most of the used one I see came from CA, I wonder.......

[NeilBlanchard]

I live in eastern Massachusetts, and there are some hills around here, but most are not too bad. My typical drives are 35-45MPH, but my spouse's commute is farther and faster. Her's is ~44-45 miles round trip, and she has never had trouble at that distance. I think the absolute worst range in the winter would be ~60 miles in an ice storm. If we had a heat pump instead of the resistance heater, that range would go up somewhat; depending on the air temperature.

We just drove Forest ~208 miles round trip out to western Mass, mostly along Route 2. We had a CHAdeMO charge after ~75 miles, that took it from 13 miles left to 79 in about 20 minutes, and we then drove ~58 miles through some BIG hills that took it down to 10 miles. This was round trip from the charger to the fairgrounds. We then charged again at the CHAdeMO all the way up to full that took 59 minutes, arrived home with~18 miles left, if I recall correctly.

The CHAdeMO was at a Big Y supermarket in Greenfield MA, and it was free! (They also have a J1772 EVSE there, as well.) We bought our lunch and dinner there, which is the least we could do. We ate dinner while the car charged, so very little time was taken to charge the car (nearly) twice. The charger was in the ideal location for this trip, it has to be said.

In the morning, temps were pretty cool (mid 40's) and I kept the speed to ~50MPH or less, and coasted down hills when possible. The elevation changed from ~250 feet up to ~1096 feet with the high point ~1360 feet.

On the way home it was well into the 70's and I drove faster - ~55MPH climbing and slightly faster, up to ~65MPH when it was easy to do this. There was much more traffic, and I did not want to hold things up too much. We also ducked off onto slower (though slightly longer distance) about 25 miles out, and this saved a lot on the range.

The dash display average dropped from 5.5 miles / kWh to about 5.1 by the end of the day.