Leaves in the Wild

[malloryk]

That was me! It's been a fun first day.

Picked up the car this morning. By this afternoon, had my first stoplight q&a. While we were waiting for the light to change, a couple in a Prius honked for me to roll down my windows for questions about miles-per-charge, etc. Exactly what is the proper etiquette for holding up traffic at a stoplight for q&a? I think I need to drive around with my windows down for a while.

See ya' around.

haha very cool! Welcome to the fold! I've never been stopped by someone at a light before with questions. I guess answer what you can before the light turns and if it seems like they have more questions and you have the time, motion for them to pull over and you can talk to them more. Have fun with your Leaf!

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

my wife and I have been surprised to find two red leaf's in the wild while we were driving ours. One was in down town Seattle going from 520 to N I-5, the other was near the Alderwood Mall at an intersection. I ponder the probability of seeing two other red leafs in a state that surely doesn't have more than a dozen or so? In any case, it was exciting.

g

 

[earther]

Finally saw another Leaf in moving traffic tonight...

Here's my sighting story of the day...
My (recently laid off) girlfriend wanted to take the Leaf from our house here in Gilroy up to a job interview this morning in Menlo Park, which is ~115mi round trip (all freeway). Given the distance, I meekly suggested she might want to consider taking her Honda Civic, but she was anxious to push the limits of the EV (and also I suspect break in the new HOV stickers which arrived a few days ago). Her original plan was to charge up at a ChargePoint L2 near Stanford (listed as Marshall Parking Garage, I think?) while she ate lunch and did window shopping at a nearby Palo Alto mall -- but unfortunately she wasn't able to locate it (do the ChargePoint stations not show up on the onboard nav even when doing Find/Update Stations??). Anyhoo, she bravely decides to continue homeward and after a total ~75 miles of 65mph driving (with AC sometimes!) finally ends up using a L2 at Adobe in downtown San Jose just as her last bar was disappearing. I would have thought those would only be for employee use, but after quick call to double check, the guard at the lot waved her in and said it was open to the public (nice to see corporate kindness)! She spent two hours at the city library a few blocks away, and when she returned it had charged up enough to finish the remaining 35miles home (since we don't have Smartphones, we did it the "old fashioned" way: I texted to her at the library the battery status updates as I checked them from our home computer via the Owners Portal!)
So, our Leaf's first "long distance" trip ended successfully; and to top it off, on the way home heading south from downtown sj at ~5pm, a male/female couple in a Leaf spotted my girlfriend several lanes apart. She didn't see them at first, but they changed lanes to get closer to her and gesticulated to get her attention -- she finally noticed and waved back, and it made her feel happy to make that "leaf connection", which I still have yet to do!

Oh, I did make a "reverse Leaf connection" though: my boss spotted a Blue Leaf at a singing performance at the Morgan Hill community center about 3 weekends ago, and assumed it was me... except that it wasn't! (I'm guessing planet4ever perhaps?)

 

[malloryk]

Finally saw another Leaf in moving traffic tonight...

do the ChargePoint stations not show up on the onboard nav even when doing Find/Update Stations??

no, they don't! grrrr I know it's a lot of money, but a smartphone is a good investment for stuff like this. Glad it all worked out and hope she gets the job!

 

[myleaf]

I was the blue one at State Farm. In the Phoenix East Valley Area, I have seen a White one going down Warner a few days ago, a white one a couple of weeks ago at Einstein's Bagel (Ray and Rural), a Red one at Home Depot serveral weeks ago, and many weeks ago a Silver one on Elliot? with plates from Michigan or was it Minnesota (we had a laugh about seeing that one).

 

[mwalsh]

many weeks ago a Silver one on Elliot? with plates from Michigan

My guess would be Michigan, and that it would be a Nissan owned one doing some (more) hot weather proving.

 

[oakwcj]

I saw a Red SL, just like mine, on College Avenue in Oakland. It was parked in a little parking lot in front of a Victorian remodeled for professional offices. It had no plates and no dealer ID where the rear plate would be mounted.

 

[Devin]

Saw a white one in the SB170 carpool lane this morning. Maybe that's somebody from on here as I would think only the earliest of the early adopters would have received their stickers by now. Then again I'm not sure if it had stickers yet as I couldn't see it beyond the stopped traffic I was stuck in.

 

[LEAFfan]

I saw a cayenne red LEAF today leaving Costco and I thought (just for a few seconds) that someone had stolen mine because it had a temp tag on the back and really shiny just like mine. But then I saw it was a woman driving, and was relieved because you rarely hear of a woman stealing a car. :lol:

 

[astrorob]

I saw a Red SL, just like mine, on College Avenue in Oakland. It was parked in a little parking lot in front of a Victorian remodeled for professional offices. It had no plates and no dealer ID where the rear plate would be mounted.

today i was going down to pick up my wife at college and claremont and she saw another black leaf right before i pulled up. she wondered why i drove right past her

yeah - imagine my surprise when i saw *2* of them parked together on the next street over, the day after i got mine. i honestly never expected to see more than my own given the demographic in my neighborhood.

i'm starting to wonder if these cars might belong to a dealer who is hiding them or something. who buys 2 leafs and then just lets them sit on the street for a week without charging them? one of them still has the plastic on the seats. of course one of them is black, so maybe that's the one she saw.

 

[Rat]

I hadn't seen one before today except for the ones here for the test drive tour in downtown San Jose months ago. Today I saw three! One red (belonged to a friend on this forum in my running club) and two silver ones, one at Stevens Creek County Park and one at Hobee's. There is another blue one in my neighborhood, I've been told by my wife and by my neighbor, but I haven't seen it. Is anyone here living in S. Los Altos between Fremont Ave., Homestead, Foothill and the Sunnyvale line?

 

[idunk]

I've seen plenty in the last month. Probably 15 in the San Jose/Los Gatos area. I haven't seen a red one in the wild yet though. In our pediatrician parking lot one day there were three LEAFs parked (including my black). The owner of the blue with the zero emission decal almost certainly works there, since I see it there all the time.

 

[lambert]

Finally had my first sighting as I was driving my Leaf from Encinitas to Mission Valley on I-5 South this morning, about 8:30am. In my rearview mirror, I saw an ocean blue Leaf coming up from behind. Eventually passed me as I was dutifully plodding along in the right lane doing 65.

I know there are a bunch of us in Encinitas now, but I haven't seen one in the wild yet. Guess I don't get out enough...

 

[tailgate1234]

Finally saw another Leaf in moving traffic tonight...

Here's my sighting story of the day...
My (recently laid off) girlfriend wanted to take the Leaf from our house here in Gilroy up to a job interview this morning in Menlo Park, which is ~115mi round trip (all freeway). Given the distance, I meekly suggested she might want to consider taking her Honda Civic, but she was anxious to push the limits of the EV (and also I suspect break in the new HOV stickers which arrived a few days ago). Her original plan was to charge up at a ChargePoint L2 near Stanford (listed as Marshall Parking Garage, I think?) while she ate lunch and did window shopping at a nearby Palo Alto mall -- but unfortunately she wasn't able to locate it (do the ChargePoint stations not show up on the onboard nav even when doing Find/Update Stations??). Anyhoo, she bravely decides to continue homeward and after a total ~75 miles of 65mph driving (with AC sometimes!) finally ends up using a L2 at Adobe in downtown San Jose just as her last bar was disappearing. I would have thought those would only be for employee use, but after quick call to double check, the guard at the lot waved her in and said it was open to the public (nice to see corporate kindness)! She spent two hours at the city library a few blocks away, and when she returned it had charged up enough to finish the remaining 35miles home (since we don't have Smartphones, we did it the "old fashioned" way: I texted to her at the library the battery status updates as I checked them from our home computer via the Owners Portal!)
So, our Leaf's first "long distance" trip ended successfully; and to top it off, on the way home heading south from downtown sj at ~5pm, a male/female couple in a Leaf spotted my girlfriend several lanes apart. She didn't see them at first, but they changed lanes to get closer to her and gesticulated to get her attention -- she finally noticed and waved back, and it made her feel happy to make that "leaf connection", which I still have yet to do!

Oh, I did make a "reverse Leaf connection" though: my boss spotted a Blue Leaf at a singing performance at the Morgan Hill community center about 3 weekends ago, and assumed it was me... except that it wasn't! (I'm guessing planet4ever perhaps?)

Marshall parking garage is in downtown Redwood City, nowhere near walking distance to Palo Alto. FYI, there are two brand new charging stations in the parking garage at Stanford Shopping Center.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

Picked up the wife and baby at Sea-Tac airport today and just as I'm about to get to the airport I look in my rear view mirror and see a black Leaf trailing me! was that someone on this board?

Also, I made the call to airport parking folks and found that there are several airport dedicated charging stalls on the 5th floor, row G of general parking by the orange elevator, good for 110V charging! I'm sure this is written somewhere on the board, but the last thing I read was about it being in a special section, I was happy to see it in general parking, even though it was not L2. There were 4 other Leaf's parked and plugged in there!!!! I got all warm and tingly and tried not to get pissed that there were 2 ICE cars parked "illegally".

That makes 5 Leaf's in the wild today!

g

 

[TangoKilo]

It was a nice start to the morning.... Heading east on the 118 and another red LEAF with a very pretty lady pulls right up next to mine. We exchange waves, then it's back to reality... Good morning, whoever you are! Nice car....

 

[astrorob]

Marshall parking garage is in downtown Redwood City, nowhere near walking distance to Palo Alto. FYI, there are two brand new charging stations in the parking garage at Stanford Shopping Center.

that's great! are they chargepoints or something else?

 

[marccbr]

Have seen plenty of them here in San Diego. I'm thinking we almost have enough to make a tree. :lol:

 

[grommet]

Marshall parking garage is in downtown Redwood City, nowhere near walking distance to Palo Alto. FYI, there are two brand new charging stations in the parking garage at Stanford Shopping Center.

that's great! are they chargepoints or something else?

Stanford Shopping Center has 2 Aerovironment home style chargers.

 

[Deleted member 1295]

I hadn't seen one before today except for the ones here for the test drive tour in downtown San Jose months ago. Today I saw three! One red (belonged to a friend on this forum in my running club) and two silver ones, one at Stevens Creek County Park and one at Hobee's. There is another blue one in my neighborhood, I've been told by my wife and by my neighbor, but I haven't seen it. Is anyone here living in S. Los Altos between Fremont Ave., Homestead, Foothill and the Sunnyvale line?

If by Stevens Creek County Park you mean at the Picchetti Ranch area, that could have been me on Saturday around 3-something. If not, then there was more than one silver one in the area.

Today for the first time I parked next to another one, at the Cupertino Whole Foods (which is the first place I saw one in the wild).