BoHenriksson
Member
A quick write up after about 6 months and 6 K miles on my beautiful 13 SV:
I decided to lease for several reasons. I wasn't sure that the Leaf would fit my mission (72 miles drive to/from work about 3 times a week) reliably all year round. I am also somewhat worried about battery longevity, even in North Carolina, and not at all impressed by Nissan's initial response to loss of battery capacity. Also, the Leaf is clearly a 1.0 effort with a 2.0 version around the corner. Or maybe a Tesla E not to far away?
I am in no way a tree hugger but I am worried about our country's energy vulnerability. Using domestically produced energy in a slowly more "green" grid however does matter to me. If my house was situated better I would definitely consider solar power too. The promise of an extremely reliable vehicle requiring virtually no maintenance is also a big draw.
I am not a hypermiler but I drive defensively and "intelligently" and have always gotten published or better mpg in the ICE cars I've had. I was therefore optimistic that my Leaf could do the roundtrip commute to work. Lifetime I have a 4.4 m/kwh indicated. So far so good, I usually get home with 10-15 @ battery left and a LBW. During the recent cold spells I've come home with VLBW driving with minimal heat necessary to clear windows but still fairly comfortable with seat and steering wheel (WAYYYY too hot!!) heat. If we get any significant snow this winter I expect the added rolling resistance will however push me over the edge and not be able to make the trip.
My workplace (an airport) has shown interest in adding some charging stations in the employee lot which of course would solve all my problems. However, those gears grinds exceedingly slowly....
I have only had one problem with the Leaf, a bad power distribution module that needed to be reflashed. The dealer here in the boondocks surprised me by having a dedicated technician who took care of the problem in less than an hour. I was very impressed! I also have the sizzling steering wheel and sprinklers that just barely squirt out any fluid, I'll have that looked at when I bring it in for the recall I got in the mail the other day. But so far so good, I feel very comfortable with the cars reliability.
In summary I am very impressed by this car! I had expected it to feel compromised in many ways, especially being based on the Versa. But it doesn't. It's great fun to drive, feels rock solid on the road. I pump the tires to 44 pounds for maximum range while keeping ride good and now adverse wear pattern that I can see. Its very quiet of course, everything works well and has a "Mercedes" feeling about it. Room is adequate for the size of car, the black interior I've got looks pretty classy. The optional high quality sound system is also great and all around its got a little luxury feel too it.
The driver dash is high tech looking, and except for the silly tree, I have no complaints. Except of course for the GuessOMeter. Surely Nissan could figure out a better algorithm than this?!! I always keep the battery percentage display up, much more useful! I don't much like the navigation system / screen. It feels very 20:th century and I always end up using my iPhone for navigation. With which the car is fairly well integrated with.
So Nissan gets an A+ for effort in the electric car market. They've invested billions in making this vehicle come true and they deserve a lot of credit for that. They receive a D- for infrastructure!
I live in a million + population area (Greensboro - Triad, NC) and there is no public charging infrastructure.
Yes, none. Zip, zilch!
This is very disappointing, and totally unacceptable. Just a few level 2 charging stations at shopping centers or other hot spots would make my car dramatically more useful. An hour / 20 miles of extra charge during some shopping and a cup of coffee would eliminate my charging issues for 90 % of the trips I do. But, alas, no....
For Nissan (why not together with the other plug in car makers) to throw out a smattering of level 2 around town would be complete chump change in relation to the 5 billion they reportedly put in to the developing the Leaf. Very, very disappointing....
For my next Leaf I want a next generation effort. Tesla has shown that electric doesn't have to mean frumpy! The Leaf is, well, cute I guess - but that's not good enough to sell it to a bigger market. It needs to looks fast and sleek and be on a purpose built platform. The interior needs to be copied right out of the Tesla with big touch screens and such. Why not just graft an iPod on the dash? And, of course, it needs more range!
I don't think EV:s will be mainstream until they can have a real world range of 200 + miles. Unless there's some revolutionary breakthrough in the price/performance equation, that's not going to happen. However, Elon says he's going to deliver that in a couple of years at around 30 K... We'll see.
Bo
I decided to lease for several reasons. I wasn't sure that the Leaf would fit my mission (72 miles drive to/from work about 3 times a week) reliably all year round. I am also somewhat worried about battery longevity, even in North Carolina, and not at all impressed by Nissan's initial response to loss of battery capacity. Also, the Leaf is clearly a 1.0 effort with a 2.0 version around the corner. Or maybe a Tesla E not to far away?
I am in no way a tree hugger but I am worried about our country's energy vulnerability. Using domestically produced energy in a slowly more "green" grid however does matter to me. If my house was situated better I would definitely consider solar power too. The promise of an extremely reliable vehicle requiring virtually no maintenance is also a big draw.
I am not a hypermiler but I drive defensively and "intelligently" and have always gotten published or better mpg in the ICE cars I've had. I was therefore optimistic that my Leaf could do the roundtrip commute to work. Lifetime I have a 4.4 m/kwh indicated. So far so good, I usually get home with 10-15 @ battery left and a LBW. During the recent cold spells I've come home with VLBW driving with minimal heat necessary to clear windows but still fairly comfortable with seat and steering wheel (WAYYYY too hot!!) heat. If we get any significant snow this winter I expect the added rolling resistance will however push me over the edge and not be able to make the trip.
My workplace (an airport) has shown interest in adding some charging stations in the employee lot which of course would solve all my problems. However, those gears grinds exceedingly slowly....
I have only had one problem with the Leaf, a bad power distribution module that needed to be reflashed. The dealer here in the boondocks surprised me by having a dedicated technician who took care of the problem in less than an hour. I was very impressed! I also have the sizzling steering wheel and sprinklers that just barely squirt out any fluid, I'll have that looked at when I bring it in for the recall I got in the mail the other day. But so far so good, I feel very comfortable with the cars reliability.
In summary I am very impressed by this car! I had expected it to feel compromised in many ways, especially being based on the Versa. But it doesn't. It's great fun to drive, feels rock solid on the road. I pump the tires to 44 pounds for maximum range while keeping ride good and now adverse wear pattern that I can see. Its very quiet of course, everything works well and has a "Mercedes" feeling about it. Room is adequate for the size of car, the black interior I've got looks pretty classy. The optional high quality sound system is also great and all around its got a little luxury feel too it.
The driver dash is high tech looking, and except for the silly tree, I have no complaints. Except of course for the GuessOMeter. Surely Nissan could figure out a better algorithm than this?!! I always keep the battery percentage display up, much more useful! I don't much like the navigation system / screen. It feels very 20:th century and I always end up using my iPhone for navigation. With which the car is fairly well integrated with.
So Nissan gets an A+ for effort in the electric car market. They've invested billions in making this vehicle come true and they deserve a lot of credit for that. They receive a D- for infrastructure!
I live in a million + population area (Greensboro - Triad, NC) and there is no public charging infrastructure.
Yes, none. Zip, zilch!
This is very disappointing, and totally unacceptable. Just a few level 2 charging stations at shopping centers or other hot spots would make my car dramatically more useful. An hour / 20 miles of extra charge during some shopping and a cup of coffee would eliminate my charging issues for 90 % of the trips I do. But, alas, no....
For Nissan (why not together with the other plug in car makers) to throw out a smattering of level 2 around town would be complete chump change in relation to the 5 billion they reportedly put in to the developing the Leaf. Very, very disappointing....
For my next Leaf I want a next generation effort. Tesla has shown that electric doesn't have to mean frumpy! The Leaf is, well, cute I guess - but that's not good enough to sell it to a bigger market. It needs to looks fast and sleek and be on a purpose built platform. The interior needs to be copied right out of the Tesla with big touch screens and such. Why not just graft an iPod on the dash? And, of course, it needs more range!
I don't think EV:s will be mainstream until they can have a real world range of 200 + miles. Unless there's some revolutionary breakthrough in the price/performance equation, that's not going to happen. However, Elon says he's going to deliver that in a couple of years at around 30 K... We'll see.
Bo
