My Nissan Leaf Forum

Thats right, I've now been driving Nissan Leaf for 3 months. Unlike what GM would have you believe, I've not been stranded ever - nor miss the smell & noise of the fossil fuel cars. Nissan Leaf has been an unqualified success.

So, how much does it cost to drive Leaf ? That is one of the questions I get asked regularly.

I've been noting down a lot of stats everyday about my Leaf driving. 3 Months is a good time to take a look at the collected stats.



First, let us see how I collect the stats. Leaf shows quite a few stats - the important ones I use are the the number of miles driven and the Miles/Kwh. I reset these stats before every trip. After the trip I note down these numbers and log them in an excel sheet. By trip, I mean starting from home and coming back home.

The other number I collect is the energy used to charge the vehicle every...

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It has been two months since I got Leaf - and after a modest 1,000 miles on the odometere I propose that both Leaf & Carwings Miles / KWh are wrong.

We have has these assumptions in this forum for a while now
- Carwings m/kwh numbers are too optimistic and wrong (acknowledged by Leaf CS)
- Leaf has 24 kwh usable battery
- Leaf dashboard m/kwh is correct (somewhat unstated)

I've been collecting stats for almost 2 months now. We have also had many others posting their observations and stats. From all these we now have
- M/KWh reported by Leaf & by Carwings
- Miles traveled reported by Leaf & by Carwings
- KWh consumption at the wall reported by Blink/TED/kill-a-watt

The above three need to agree with each other and with the assumptions stated above. They don't.

- We already know that Carings m/kwh is too high. So, let us ignore that.
- We already know that Leaf reported Miles traveled and what Carwings reports are slightly different. Possibly due to GPS being less accurate....

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[Cross posted at my C-Max Energi Blog - http://www.c-maxenergi.com/2011/03/livi ... th-of.html]

I took delivery of my 100% electric car, Nissan Leaf, on Feb 25th - culminating a buying process that lasted atleast 10 months, as I blogged last month. Even though Leaf is a brand new vehicle with a myriad of new technologies, it has been a totally trouble free month of wonership. Join me after the break as I talk about the experience so far.

First some background, before I talk about my experience with the car.

We are a 2 car family - I had been driving a '98 Nissan Maxima as my daily commuter. My wife drives a Hyundai Santa Fe. When we go out together, we took one of the cars - Santa Fe if we need more space or going on a long trips, the Maxima otherwise. So, yes we have 2 Primary cars. Reviewers should take note of this - not sure what planet they live on - but...

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Today I got my personal best efficiency of 5.0 on Leaf.

Starting SOC : 80%
Range (till battery low) : 100 Miles (est @ 20kwh)
Range (till turtle) : 110 Miles (est @ 22kwh)
Driving : Mixed with 10 miles freeway, 15 miles suburban (my home is about 6 miles the freeway).
Climate : Sunny & Warm @ 50. No climate control.

Yesterday was a different story : 4.3.

Starting SOC : 100%
Range (till battery low) : 86 Miles (est @ 20kwh)
Range (till turtle) : 94 Miles (est @ 22kwh)
Driving : Mixed with 10 miles freeway, 15 miles suburban (my home is about 6 miles the freeway).
Climate : climate control for 5 miles.

Charging to 100% reduces efficiency since I can't regen much when going downhill on my way out.

Yesterday I decided to use Krall's "Love Scenes" CD to check out the music system - to give a small report here. This was on the freeway for a while and then on a quite 2 lane highway (WA-900 from Renton to Issaquah).

As expected the mid-mids are ok. Mid-Highs and Highs don't have much definition, so the music sounds less-airy (make it non-airy). Low-Mids and high bass is really muddled. Cello was unrecognizable. There isn't much of a recognizable soundstage, either.

The road noise was intrusive enough that much of the dynamic range in the CD was lost. This is ofcourse the biggest gripe in any auto environment.

Needless to say I won't be popping in many CDs for serious listening.