How often do you take 'long trips' in the Leaf?

[CMYK4Life]

I talk to a friend at work who is a 'car guy'. He is always floored by my weekend trips in the Leaf where I go to the edge of the range of the car (70-90miles) and back in a day. Saying 'you are using the car in a way it wasnt intended'. He does not mean it in a negative way but just surprised and interested.

I dont feel like I am using the car in a way it wasnt intended. I guess I am... it just does not feel that way. Cars are meant to be driven, right?

So it got me thinking. How often do others take the Leaf far away from home; depending on a 'charging plan' at your destination or along your route to get home?

I do it at least 4-5 times a month to visit friends, family, and attend events 80+ miles away.

Reading the forums it seems somewhat typical for owners to do this?

What about you?

 

[apvbguy]

I talk to a friend at work who is a 'car guy'. He is always floored by my weekend trips in the Leaf where I go to the edge of the range of the car (70-90miles) and back in a day. Saying 'you are using the car in a way it wasnt intended'. He does not mean it in a negative way but just surprised and interested.

I dont feel like I am using the car in a way it wasnt intended. I guess I am... it just does not feel that way. Cars are meant to be driven, right?

So it got me thinking. How often do others take the Leaf far away from home; depending on a 'charging plan' at your destination or along your route to get home?

I do it at least 4-5 times a month to visit friends, family, and attend events 80+ miles away.

Reading the forums it seems somewhat typical for owners to do this?

What about you?

You are using your car to the limits of it's range, there is nothing wrong with doing that at all.
as for frequency of long trips since getting my car in April I have only gotten down to low battery three times and once down to a VLB warning. I usually don't get it too much lower than 22% remaining

 

[mirko]

I have an evening class that I take once a week about 8 months out of the year. It is an 80 mile round trip that is all highway speeds. After the class I stop off at one of two places and have dinner and charge the car so that I can make it home. Other than that my daily round trip commute to work is only 50 miles.

 

[09Bamb00]

Cool, me too! the fun part is trying to figure out how to get to a charging station once I've visited wherever. (I have found that touristy places are very not happy when you want to charge at their place, even if you are willing to pay extra).

 

[Nubo]

As far as trips that require more than a single charge; I'm averaging about one every other month.

 

[TomT]

Very rarely. I believe only about a half dozen times have we planned an actual trip where charging was necessary to make it back home (which is not to say that there have not been a few unplanned charges on outings due to unforeseen circumstances). When we have a trip planned that is longer than the unrecharged range of the Leaf, we usually take the ICE.

How often do others take the Leaf far away from home; depending on a 'charging plan' at your destination or along your route to get home?

 

[Deleted member 9549]

We're still feeling out the car and its range. Its such a huge disparity between 75mph highway and 40mph country roads, it can be hard to predict range.

We've had the car 1 1/2 months. We've done a couple of 100+ mile days with charging mixed in. Even before we leased it, I had been planning a long day trip, 83 miles each way. But when it ended up time to do the trip, we chickened out and took the ICE. I was very disappointed. Ended up that spending the time to charge mid-trip going and especially coming back at night didn't seem worth the hassle and time for my family of four. I kept debating if we could drive slower and make it there without a mid-trip charge. But I researched and even the non-highway road had its speed limit recently raised to 70 which makes most of the traffic flow at 75+. I couldn't see poking along at 50ish to make sure we'd make it there on one charge. And at the time, the Leaf Battery app was reporting our capacity was already down to 92%.

If there had been one quick charger along the way it would have made it worthwhile. But were were going to have to spend an hour each way charging to have comfortable range.

 

[CMYK4Life]

I have an evening class that I take once a week about 8 months out of the year. It is an 80 mile round trip that is all highway speeds. After the class I stop off at one of two places and have dinner and charge the car so that I can make it home. Other than that my daily round trip commute to work is only 50 miles.

Cool!

 

[CMYK4Life]

We're still feeling out the car and its range. Its such a huge disparity between 75mph highway and 40mph country roads, it can be hard to predict range.

We've had the car 1 1/2 months. We've done a couple of 100+ mile days with charging mixed in. Even before we leased it, I had been planning a long day trip, 83 miles each way. But when it ended up time to do the trip, we chickened out and took the ICE. I was very disappointed. Ended up that spending the time to charge mid-trip going and especially coming back at night didn't seem worth the hassle and time for my family of four. I kept debating if we could drive slower and make it there without a mid-trip charge. But I researched and even the non-highway road had its speed limit recently raised to 70 which makes most of the traffic flow at 75+. I couldn't see poking along at 50ish to make sure we'd make it there on one charge. And at the time, the Leaf Battery app was reporting our capacity was already down to 92%.

If there had been one quick charger along the way it would have made it worthwhile. But were were going to have to spend an hour each way charging to have comfortable range.

Great to hear you got a Leaf. I can empathize with the above. It was wierd for me at first. It does take 20-30 mins longer to get there taking the country roads... but I have found there is almost NO TRAFFIC on them! It makes for a great 'sunday drive' with the windows down. I kind of like that. I found myself traveling on two lane highways I never traveld before despite living in this state my entire life - which has been fun so far.

 

[CMYK4Life]

Cool, me too! the fun part is trying to figure out how to get to a charging station once I've visited wherever.

I find this exciting too! I know the stations are there (I look up and plan routes before I go) but there is always that thrill 'are they working? is anyone parked there?' its a different kind of excitement like I am exploring or something lol

 

[Stoaty]

About 30 Saturdays a year I drive to Claremont (50 miles one way), hike Mt. Baldy while my Leaf is L1 charging at my sisters house, then drive back to L.A. While occasionally this was marginal (L1 charging barely adequate if hike was short), I can L2 charge at Pomona College instead if desired. Even better, my sister is getting L2 installed soon, since she bought a RAV4 EV.

 

[BiosDude]

I routinely drive my Leaf "long" distances. I've gone over 100 miles on a charge. Always a thrill to hear that oh so helpful lady telling me my battery charge is low and again when it's really low. Since I live in the Portland, OR area, there are DCQC almost everywhere. I didn't charge at home for the first 3 months since there was a Blink or AV QCDC on the way home, near work, near my ex, on the way to the coast, at the coast, along the coast, etc. and they're all free at the moment. If you get into the L2 network, then I would estimate there is at least one public L2 in every square mile in the PDX area. So I think nothing of jumping in the Leaf and driving 50-60 miles, regardless of the state of my charge. I'm planning a coast trip that is around 250 miles this weekend. With the upgraded EVSE and a large selection of adapters, I really don't worry about the DCQC being on the "blink".

 

[91040]

Steve Taylor is the man. He does a daily 140miles(?) to work and back.

My day trips:
Approximately 10 round trips a month are 100 to 125 miles. Typically L2 charging at destination for ~3 hours.
A 270 mile round trip with an L2 and 2 QCs.
Two 200 mile round trips.
Four 160 mile round trips.
About six 140 mile round trips

Overnight-
About four 200 mile round trips.

There have been a number of times when I drove more than 200 miles in a single day. Only use another car when the turn around time for charging is not sufficient to accomplish the mission. Thanks to Mitsubishi and now Nissan for deploying CHAdeMOs which are becoming more of a necessity with my lower capacity battery.

 

[klapauzius]

About once per month we are undertaking round trips of 100 miles or more, using QC.
The longest trip was 170 miles roundtrip along I5 at 60-65 mph using 4 QC stops (2 each way). Probably could have done with 2 QC stops....

 

[Stanton]

Only when I go to the airport (about 75 miles RT), but I'm going to make my first "have to charge" trip in a couple of weeks when I go out to Dallas Cowboys Stadium. There are some GE WattStation L2 chargers in the parking lot that I will have to use (I'll be there all day) if I'm going to make it home that night; it's about a 100 mile RT--almost all highway.

 

[UkrainianKozak]

For me I almost never went far away from home in Leaf, longest was 35 miles (70 roundtrip)
But I do put over 100 miles in a day fairly often, driving around the area where I live, It pays to know the charging stations and having multiple quick charger options.
But I do try to evaluate every long distance trip for a Leaf, and only once it was actually feasible, the biggest obstacle is the absence of any charger at destination and not having L3 on the way, and having to stop somewhere in between for few hours to charge is really big inconvenience that dictates the choice of ICE instead of Leaf. If we would get more L2s at really convenient places (like trailheads at the parks, swimming pools, museums, etc) that would double my comfortable range of Leaf, without it, ICE would be my choice for trips outside of the 35 mile circle.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I don't take long trips very often, since there are no charge stations where I live, but, by coincidence, I am on one now: at the Nissan dealer in Durango for my P3227 update. The dealer is 92 miles and three mountain passes from my home:



The hard part is getting home, it takes a full charge to make it to the top of the second pass. After that there is a motel in the tiny mountain town of Silverton, mile 48, that has a 240 V L6-30 outlet that I can use to get enough charge to get to the top of the final mountain pass. Last September I was able to do the entire 92 miles home on one charge but with my degraded battery (~92%) there is no way to do it now. My trip report from last September is here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6330&start=47" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So, 92 miles and 8000 feet of cumulative elevation gain on the trip home; 184 miles total for the day. As I've said before: I am envious of those of you who have charge stations where you live, it would make a big difference for me in taking longer trips.

 

[springbank]

BiosDude - you live in an environment of hills and mountains. How do you go 100 miles on a single charge? :shock:

 

[HighDesertDriver]

Very rarely. I believe only about a half dozen times have we planned an actual trip where charging was necessary to make it back home (which is not to say that there have not been a few unplanned charges on outings due to unforeseen circumstances). When we have a trip planned that is longer than the unrecharged range of the Leaf, we usually take the ICE.

How often do others take the Leaf far away from home; depending on a 'charging plan' at your destination or along your route to get home?

+1 Only once have we taken a trip longer than the unrecharged range of our Leaf. There was not L2 near our destination, so we had to charge twice at the Nissan dealer at the trip midpoint. The dealer charger was a necessity and the stops were scheduled to coincide with breakfast and dinner. That trip was an "adventure", but taking the ICE is much more practical and requires much less time. Convenient DCQC would change the equation, however, especially as our Leaf's capacity shrinks.

 

[kubel]

Every work day I drive about 55 miles. While I was on vacation a few weeks ago, I was pushing 100+ miles per day. No QC port. I'm now charging to 100% every morning.