Nissan Leaf
 

Hello folks,

We took delivery on a leased Nissan Leaf S today. Driving it home was pretty darn cool! It has the charging package, and a backup camera. All the seats are heated, as is the steering wheel, and the outside mirrors.

I checked out the EM Garage, and there are four Leafs listed, but none have any mileage data. Does the garage support EV's?

I will drive ours to work tomorrow, and then again on Friday (probably), and I will log my driving, when possible. I'll use a Kill-A-Watt with the stock EVSE for now - we plan on buying a JuiceBox Premium, which has charge logging.

Driving an EV is quite calm and quiet and smooth. A lot of fun. I am carrying over my ecodriving habits - shift into neutral (hold it in N position for 2s, just like a Prius) and coast.

Cool...

Oddly enough I got a new volt Saturday, couldn't pass up half off and also getting a tax rebate.

I greatly miss dials and knobs, but am getting used to it.

Sadly my apartment has improper grounding, I cludged it up but the charging usually haults with a ground fault in the middle of the night, luckily I don't need a full charge.

Also getting the volt into neutral is "challenging" I can sort of do it, I also really wish I could turn off the touch screen and power steering.

Ah well.

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Cool... :thumbup:

Looking forward to your reports.

:)

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Wow you guys are lucky!

Going to do some aero mods to the Leaf, Neil??

Also: do you have to switch to N? Is the accelerator "glide" position between power & regen too narrow/sensitive?

And yes, you can enter kWh in the fuel log. Don't forget I drove the ForkenSwift EV -- and logged its energy consumption -- for ~6 years.

Woohoo, congrats to you two. I look forward to hearing/seeing more about these cars.

The accelerator pedal feels reasonable at the balance point, but it is not as good as just putting it in neutral.

This is a leased car, and my spouse is the main driver, so I will have to live with the stock aerodynamics. The coasting is <i>okay</i> because it is heavier than my xA, but the aero is noticeably worse.

In the 13.2 miles I commuted this morning, I raised the displayed average from 3.6 miles / kWh to 4.0 miles / kWh.

The things that struck me, is that I no longer have to worry about warm up time, when driving and EV. And no idling. I drove it without the radio on, and you can hear a very faint gear whine. I turned on the defroster, and I was able to toggle off the A/C and the heat, to just get air flow - imagine that?!

I will be using my Kill-A-Watt until we get the JuiceBox Premium, so I will be posting the electricity mileage.

I'm a fan of the Leaf, although I've only taken one for a 10min test drive. Hopefully they will be very cheap when the leases end. It looks like leasing is the most popular option, and it seems once the novelty wears off, many people switch back to a gasser. My hope is to replace one of my gassers for an EV in the next 3 years. Perhaps the new Tesla will be out by then. The shape of the Leaf bugs me because it looks weird, and isn't even that aero.

Miracle of miracles. I don't know why most cars don't give the option to direct air at the windshield, but not run the AC.

My Legacy would initially turn on the AC when I set the vent to defrost, but pressing the AC button would disable it. That was the only car I can remember that gave control over the AC when defrosting.

Does it automatically heat all of the seats? Since they have had seatbelt sensors for years, they should be able to adapt that.

How similar is the leaf to the shape of the Fiat?

I like the look of the Volt, but that is pretty much all that I know about it.

I take it both vehicles are now more affordable? I was considering getting a prius V for a larger vehicle, but the Volt would be another story.

There are three switches for the seat heaters: one for each front seat, and one for the whole back seat. There is a switch for heating the steering wheel. We think the side mirrors are heated whenever the rear defroster is on, but I'll confirm that.

The residual value of our lease is ~$12,200 for the 3 year old <36,000 mile Leaf S. MSRP new was ~$31,500, I think.

We have a Massachusetts MOR-EV rebate program - $2,500 for a vehicle with a plugin battery pack >10kWh (so the Volt qualifies, and all EV's), $1,500 for vehicles with a plugin battery pack <10kWh (so the Plugin Prius qualifies), and $750 for an electric motorcycle.

We are naming her Forest. Geddit?

I am charging Forest for the first time. I drove 68.5 miles, and I am measuring the charge with my Kill-A-Watt meter, so I'll post that to my Garage in the morning.

The dash indicator said I raised the 3.6 miles / kWh (which includes the ~29 miles driven by us and other test drivers) up to 4.6 miles / kWh average - that is 155MPGe.

I test drove a used one for a couple miles, couldn't really do more as it only had ~8 miles of range left (how hard is it to plug in a car?). The silence was deafening even compared to my Prius. Seemed like a pretty good little car, but I totally agree about the looks. If it looks weird for aero, fine. If it looks weird just cuz, whyyyyy?

I would like our next car to be an EV. The Volt is the only option within our price range that would work for us with wanting to remain a one car household, nothing else can really be used as a road trip car. Unfortunately the used market for them is pretty much nonexistent around here. I guess the Prius and ebike will have to be good enough for the time being...

I believe the funky headlights are there to push air up and around the rear view mirrors. Its one of those things that keeps the car crazy quiet. I completely agree, its ridiculously quiet even compared to the Prius.

I assume the $7,500 US incentive was also applied. How much is your payment? These incentives really knock a lease payment down. I work at a Mercedes dealer and the employee price of the $42,000 electric B class car is $0 down, $253 for 2 years/ 20,000 miles. If it enters the Master lease program which is an incentive for the employees to stay master certified, I would get back matching $75 refunds from the employer and the manufacturer making the payment $100 for a base model. Both of the vehicles we have coming in have two option packages so they would be $130. Charging primarily at work will also save $700 per year in gas over my worn out Insight.

Since it is a lease, no the $7500 federal tax refund is not applied.

I logged the first charge!

Woohoo, very nice Neil!

Renewable Electricity options in Massachusetts
 

We have two options: 2.4¢ additional per kWh for the Green Start program, or 3.8¢ for the Mass Wind program.

https://www.massenergy.org/renewable-energy

We are paying (with NStar) 19.2¢ / kWh already. And that price is likely to go up by as much as 37% this winter.

On Forest (our new Leaf) it cost us 5.1¢ / mile which is less than a Prius - at 6.4¢ / mile at the current local $3.199 price for gas @ 50MPG.

I charged Forest last night - 16.17kWh and drove 68.5 miles = 4.236 miles / kWh = 142MPGe. At our current electricity rate plus the Green Start cost, that makes it ~$7.279 / gallon equivalent. Again that is 5.1¢ / mile.

It makes a solar PV system look even better!

When I was considering a lease on a Leaf the dealership discounted the price $7500. They got the tax credit, or at least that is what they told me. I think the OTD lease price was around $22.5k. Buyout after 36 months was around half that.

regards
mech

Nissan uses the same odd styling on the Juke. I'm not convinced it does anything worthwhile.
The Tesla does not have them, and neither do so many other low drag cars.

The air does indeed get channeled around those headlights, but is it really necessary ? If the noise was such a huge issue, they could have just reshaped the nose.

Do you have to be enrolled in a "green" energy program, or is it optional? Your electric utility rate is more than double what I pay, and our power is already mostly renewable as it comes from hydro.

That's my complaint with the Leaf. While I hardly care what a car looks like on the outside, considering I will spend 1% of my time looking at it, and 99% looking from within the cabin, there is no reason for it to look terrible AND not be aerodynamic.

In my opinion, the Tesla S is the best looking car on the market AND has a very respectable CD.

If metal has to be bent into a car-like shape, why not bend it in a way that is appealing to the eye, and advantageous to slipping through the air? It makes me wonder how much extra range, on average, lowering the CD by a single point would add to the Leaf. It could be the difference between the anxiety I would have driving from PDX to my parents house in Salem, and enjoying the journey.

There is a $7,500 credit listed on the lease of the B class which gets the employee price down to $253 on a $42,000 car. It doesn't say where the money comes from but the number is suspiciously the same.
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My electric in Syracuse 13066 costs around $0.15/ kWh at the end of the bill including taxes and transmission fees. But part of the lease agreement states that I am allowed to plug in at any MB dealer for free so I would only have to charge a few kWh on the 110v charger at home to pre heat in the winter and then 3-4 hours on level 2 at work to stay fully topped up once a day.

Congratulations. I trust that all the money you save will help to get CARBen on the road. I look forward to you announcing you're going to go with the Toyota/Lexus MGR.

I just checked my latest bill. I'm out-of-pocket to the tune of 5.17¢ per kilowatt hour. I think it comes from the Bonneville Dam that Woody Guthrie used to sing about.

I want to go electric so I can sit at stoplights and eavesdrop on people not-quite-shouting at each other over the sound of their car idling. :)

That is your usage in kWh divided by the payment amount? That seems incredibly low for anywhere in the USA where the average for residential is $0.13

Here is current electrical pricing. Note industrial rates for Washington state. Bonneville it is.
-mort

The Green Start program is optional, for sure. Not many people are using it, and it is not hard to figure out why.

They do the math right on the bill. Actually the way I stated it is inaccurate. it shows 227kwh X 0.051700 = $11.74 but there is a base charge of $9.00/mo so it's close to twice that.

Soooo cheap... those might have been the prices a hundred years ago where i live but not today.
Here in Australia, in the lovely state of Victoria the prices are about 30 cents / kWh peak times and about half that during off peak times (11pm to 7am).
Then there is the daily base charge (supply charge) of around $1.10 per day, roughly $33 per month.
So your bill for the same kWh + a monthly supply charge here in Australia would be just over $100. :eek:

Makes having solar panels on the roof attractive even if to just reduce the amount of electricity drawn from the grid. Any excess that can be sold back to the grid is a bonus.
I put enough panels on the roof to cancel out our average usage plus enough so that the excess can be sold back to the grid and cancel out the monthly base charge.
It has been working so far with the last 2 years averaging $25 credit per month.:D

Oh and if you want green electricity, from a hydro dam or wind etc then you add somewhere between 5 and 8 cents per kWh to the price depending on retailer.

At the prices you are paying why doesn't everybody have an electric car. :)

And back to the cars aero design. Maybe they should have removed the side mirrors and replaced them with rear facing side cameras and some LCD monitors either side of the steering wheel.
Then they wouldn't need crazy shaped headlights to move the air over the side mirrors.
The cameras could be mounted way up front giving you a really good view down the side of the car and not much of a blind spot.
With so many people putting cameras on their cars and posting accident videos on youtube it won't be long before insurers catch on and start making it a requirement on the policy. May as well have them integrated into the design of the car.

That is what I thought. Nobody in the USA pays $0.05 for electricity. The bills are intentionally misleading. The only way to know what you are really paying is for you to do the math. Base fees, transmission fees, and taxes can become 2/3 of the bill. Take the actual payment amount at the end of the bill and divide it by the kWh that you used.

Because gas in my town is only $3.20 / gallonUS, $0.85 / Liter right now and going down.
My electricity is $0.15 / kWh so a leaf is $0.045 / mile and a PriusC costs $0.058. A Ford Fiesta is $0.08. Add in the limited life of the Leaf battery at $5,500 every 5 years/ 80,000 miles (hidden cost of $0.07 / mile is probably quite a bit higher than a ice drivetrain), and the limited range, and the best gas cars are still cheaper to run and more versatile.
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Battery Capacity Loss - Electric Vehicle Wiki
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If gas were $9 / gallonUS as it is in Europe it would be a different story. But then electricity is more expensive there also. The other thing to consider is road tax. Eventually the free ride for electrics will end.
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But electricity is renewable and fossil fuel not so much so it is important to start learning how to use electric transportation now so we will be good at it when the oil runs out.
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https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...bf212d9c916bde
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In a way, battery capacity loss / replacement is just maintenance.

It is a big post, but then you would not have to change oil, clutch plates, mufflers, cats, timing belts, spark plugs, air filters (except the cabin one); you'd never blow a head gasket, have a radiator leak, gearbox trouble or faulty alternator.
You'd use the brakes less so they'd wear less.

That all might just make up for it.

I work at the single largest consumer of electricity, natural gas, and water in the county (silicon wafer manufacturing plant). I overheard someone say our electric bill is $3,000,000 per month. At $0.044/Kwh, that is an enormous amount of energy.

Recently we had motion sensing lights installed in most areas on the campus. I'd be surprised if it put the slightest dent in the monthly bill. The florescent bulbs have been burning out at an extremely rapid pace compared to the older lights that were run more continuously.

Your monthly base charge is my total summertime bill. My (deported) roommate is Australian, and it was my understanding that the cost of living in Australia is much higher than the U.S. Everything costs more, but the minimum wage is higher, and there is more socialized services.

Where I live, it is roughly 1/3 the cost in energy to drive an EV compared to a conventional gasoline car. EVs seem to make the most financial sense as a 2nd vehicle for families with more than 1 vehicle.

I would have a Leaf as a 4th vehicle, but I don't purchase new vehicles, and there aren't many other affordable EV options yet.

With gasoline at $3/gallon, it would take a very long time for a $30,000 Leaf to come out ahead of a used $10,000 gasser.

The average useful lifetime of the battery pack is estimated to go 10 years and over 100,000 miles. If you choose a worst case scenerio for an EV and compare it to a gasser, you must also choose the worst case scenario for the gasser.

According to Edmunds, the total cost of ownership over 5 years for a new Leaf is $31,600 compared to the Prius C, at $31,800.

Yeah, i am paying about $1.80 a litre so both fuel and electricity are expensive here.
Makes the electric car very attractive as it will recharge overnight on the cheaper electricity rates and likely be offset by my excess solar production. So zero cost transport. :D

I wonder how much that batteries will actually cost in 5 years. Even at 70% capacity loss the Leaf would still get me to work and back. So maybe i would get more than 5 years between replacements. :)

The Leaf battery is warranted for 8 years if I am not mistaken. Very few have needed a full replacement. The new so called "lizard" battery is likely to be much more robust.

So, I don't think you can count on a $5,500 expense every five years. My sister-in-law's 2011 Leaf is fine - not even lost one bar on the meter.

I think a battery replacement is going to be about as common as a engine rebuild / replacement.

My spouse will be driving Forest today through Thursday. I will post her energy mileage.

This is my peak usage, in the dead of winter, in a 2100 sq/ft home. Gas heating keeps the bill low. Water bill represents 2 months usage.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...nt/CPUBill.jpg

An EV makes perfect sense at this utility rate.

@redpoint5
We have a fourth utility which is sewerage. (So gas, water, electricity and sewerage)
They work out the sewage disposal charge by charging you again for a percentage of your water usage.

Your water usage here would have cost.
Water service charge = $36.43
Water usage charge = 520cu ft = 14.725 kilolitres @ $2.3060 per kilolitre = $33.95
Sewerage service charge = $41.21
Sewage disposal charge = 85% of water usage @ $1.7994 per kilolitre = $22.52
Melbourne Water waterways and drainage charge = $15.50
Parks Victoria charge = $11.77
Total water and sewerage for the two months would be $161.38

Your electricity for the one month listed would be
Usage charge = 460 kWh @ $0.30 per kWh = $138
Service charge = 33 days at $1.10 per day = $36.30
Total electricity charges = $174.30

Bill total would be $335.68 :eek:

This sort of electricity cost makes solar very attractive and the excess solar production makes the EV make sense. Especially as they only pay 8 cents per kWh for any excess you supply to the grid. So you save more by using the generated solar power yourself. Each solar kWh you use yourself saves you 30 cents, every kWh you sell makes you 8 cents.

This isn't my total utility bill, as I'm charged separately for sewage disposal. It's a flat $35 per month, so $70 every two. My total water/sewer bill for 2 months is $100, or $50 per month.

For the sake of giving a more complete view of my utilities in the NW, here is my gas bill for the year.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...nt/GasBill.jpg

I also pay $15 per month for garbage, $30 for internet (25mbps), $8 for Netflix, and $8 gym membership at 24hr Fitness.

It's just me and my wife in a 2,100 sq/ft home.

I remember a recent discussion on here regarding Prius batteries, that when they go bad, it is usually only one cell, which you can replace far cheaper than the entire pack. I watched a video of a guy from a company in the Phoenix area that did that. Would Leaf battery packs be similar, just larger? After 5-10 years you test each cell, replace the ones that area actually bad, and then go on your merry way?

Maybe. As time goes on and they're used, the pack capacity will diminish. Some cells will degrade faster than others. So, say you only have 5 cells and the capacitys are as shown after 5 years:

1) 80%
2) 84%
3) 74%
4) 79%
5) 82%

Obviously, the 74% one is the most degraded. You can replace it with a new 100% cell. However, now your weakest cell is 79%. So, you gained 5% more capacity which isn't a ton. If you want to get back to more than 84% capacity, you have to replace all the cells. This is most likely what will happen. Darin showed this when he capacity tested his Insight cells.

The other way things could go, if they are poorly designed or just have low quality batteries is one or two cells could just go bad much faster than the others:

1) 50%
2) 84%
3) 74%
4) 79%
5) 82%

Now, obviously the 50% cell would be replaced. Now you go from a pack capacity of 50% to 74% which is a huge gain. This case is much less likely IMO as OEMs have tested stuff to death and we really shouldn't have these issues. However, on DIY stuff, with using cheaper components and no BMS system sometimes, this is more likely.

My spouse commuted yesterday for the first time in Forest. And today she got stuck in traffic for a while, and the pedestrian warning noise gave her a splitting headache. Which sucks, because they no longer have the button to disable it. That was what got some "advocates" upset. Sigh ...

It seems like a solution in search of a problem, really.

We are also wrestling with the lease mileage limit of 12K a year. That is just 32 miles a day, and I for one, had hoped we could drive this car as much as possible, to save as much gasoline as possible.

You have got me beat.

This is the main thing I loved about the leaf, volt has no option for heated steering or heated rear seat.