Nissan Leaf official EPA rating: 99 mpg-e combined, "best in midsize class"
 

EPA Rates the All-Electric, Zero-Emission, Nissan LEAF 'Best' in Class for Fuel... -- FRANKLIN, Tenn., Nov. 22, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --

After five-cycle testing, MPG equivalent of ...

• 106 city, 92 highway for a combined 99 MPGe.
• Based on the EPA's formula of 33.7kW-hrs = 1 US gallon gasoline energy.
• EPA label also displays a charging time of seven hours on a 240V charge
• Driving range of 73 miles, based on the five-cycle tests using varying driving conditions and climate controls.

Electric is fine and dandy, but here's hoping this rating is the first step on the road to automakers competing to improve the efficiency of their EV's, just as we're seeing in the ICE marketplace. "Electron hog" is no better than "gas hog". And there's lots of room to improve the Leaf.

Anybody know offhand if the Tesla Roadster has an official EPA rating?

135 mpg according to Tesla. I wonder if they came up with the rating at the same time as the fine for not finding a tailpipe.....

Tesla Motors Begins Regular Production of 2008 Tesla Roadster | Press Releases | Tesla Motors

135, eh? Hmm.

I'm not seeing Tesla actually listed on the EPA's fueleconomy.gov site.

I wonder if it has something to do with the volume of cars they (don't) sell.

340Wh/mi. :( I think we were all expecting much better than that.

The NYT article has a picture of the FE sticker:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...eaf1-popup.jpg

Of course, no doubt we could all get much better than 340 Wh/mi from it...

I'l say "good for Nissan." It's a start. But it's not particularly efficient.

A step in the right direction, but not that impressive for an electric car.... There are Diesel cars in Europe like the Toyota Yaris Diesel that gets around 60-70MPG highway... and its 1/2 the price!

Also even in California gas is $3/gallon right now.

Electricity is 10c per Kw/hr, so at 340W/mile that would be 87MPG as far as money is concerned.

An automotive journalist recently got about 110 miles from a charge, or 225ish Wh/mi.

Nissan should have used a sedan body style instead of the SUV/Hatchback. It would be much more aerodynamic.

Nissan's 2010 best offering was the Altima hybrid at 34mpg combined so the Leaf at 99mpge is almost 3x better. Not too shabby.

Nick Chambers drove a Leaf 116 miles, and got ~197Wh/mile on average. And he used A/C for much of the time. Pump up the tires and do a few aero tweaks and do lots of coasting, and maybe one could get 150-160Wh/mile?

The Prius would cost $867 to go the same 15,000 miles at 50MPG:

Nissan Leaf rated at 99 miles per gallon equivalent - Nov. 22, 2010

So, the Leaf costs about 45% less to drive that the Prius (using the $0.12/kWh and ~$2.89/gal prices that the EPA appears to be using).

So, the EPA says that the Leaf is almost 2X more efficient than the second most efficient car -- so, while we were hoping for even better; we can't be too upset with Nissan!

Edit: Here's another site that would have gotten about 97 miles on a charge:

http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/...electric-range

GM's Volt is EPA rated at 93 MPG (US) equivalent, when operating solely electrically (37 mpg with the generator running).

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/bu...volt.html?_r=1

Nissan wins. For now.

I wonder what kind of range we could all get from the car if we whittled the Cd down to .20 or less.
A .28 drag coefficient is horrible - especially when you consider that the GMC Syclone pickup truck was less than .30 when it ran at Bonneville !
http://assets.bankspower.com/friday_..._FNN_may28.jpg


( BTW, I'm still wondering what an electric car needs a grille for. A very ugly grille )

The silver grill on the Volt is mainly aesthetics, yet the bottom black grill is functional. It' so the ICE generator can breath.

Here's an idea: miles per dollar. If that were the case than the Volt wouldn't be the same MPG with the generator running as a Cobalt XFE, and one more than the normal Cruze, a car on the same platform.

If only the leaf had smooth wheels, and a better back.


Seriously the back on that thing is horrendus.
It looks like they took up a bunch of engineering papers, ate them, and then vomited.

Whew, that's a bit harsh. :) The back is certainly the worst part, though in person, the thing I notice about the back is the cool line of LED's in the taillights.

looking at this logically..

1. 99us mpge combined is great! Thats 3 times as efficient as my saab- only issue is the range.
2. Its a positive and reasonably accessible step forward from the pious(i mean prius):)
3. no one car is ever going to be viable for every tom dick and harry on the street-in this instance, body styling issues should not detract from propulsion advances
4. The high cost will limit sales, even with the car being much more economical than the majority of cars. Most people replace their car on a 3-5 cycle-the fuel savings wont cover the additional depreciation.
6. 5 is likely to change if fuel prices continue to increase.
7. I could only see widespread adoption of this tech if company car users were given facilitg to charge at work, rather than a car benefits package-tightening carbon management over here could boost that.
.
All in all, its a stepping stone, and a robust one at that

320touring -

I could also see a niche for retired folks that don't have a large daily driving radius. The incentives in California put it in the range of a small car with an upgrade package.

Nissan Leaf May Only Cost $20,000 in California | HULIQ
CarloSW2