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sanfran

Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
12
Location
San Francisco, CA
Hello, everyone. I just wanted to introduce myself here. We took delivery of our '13 LEAF SL in Metallic Slate this afternoon, and couldn't be happier with the decision. In March, we turned on the 3.6 kW solar array on our roof, and tomorrow, I'm posting for sale our '12 Subaru Forester (great car, no qualms) and the 250.00 fuel bill every single month (yes, fuel is rather pricey here in the San Francisco Bay Area).

I'm waiting for the Carwings feature to find service (I understand it can take a couple of days to initiate?), and tomorrow the L2 station will arrive so I can get that installed at our home here in San Francisco.

We considered the Volt (impressive road car, just too expensive and the various interfaces would drive me nuts), the Ford Focus Electric (too small, especially considering half the cargo area is filled with batteries), the Fiat 500e (only as long as we considered keeping the subaru as the family car), and then fell in love with the LEAF. Our local dealer, San Francisco Nissan / Infiniti were gracious enough to give us a LEAF to try for a full day, which is what sold us. That, and a wonderful dealership experience.

Anyhow... we are super excited to join the ranks of you all, and excited that our son's first memory of a car will likely be an EV... Exciting times indeed.

peace, from San Francisco!

greg
 
Congrats! My biggest fear when I preordered the LEAF on the day of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill would be that the LEAF would not be luxurious enough since I was coming from a 10 year old Acura TL. Obviously that was not the case as the LEAF is a great car! Your dealer did a good think letting you do an extended test drive. It'd be hard to drive any other car after driving the LEAF (Well maybe a Model S would be easier :)
 
Congratulations. I just brought home a black SL with Premium, after two years with a 2011 LEAF. Loving the extra features and improvements.
 
Welcome and congratulations! I think you'll greatly enjoy (and benefit from) living in the epicenter of the nation's budding EV "wave". Driving all around SF should be no problem, but there are a great number of quick chargers sprouting up all around the area as well (especially down the peninsula and in Silicon Valley), making longer round trips easily manageable. Be sure to check out plugshare (.com) for locations, etc. in the unlikely chance that you have not already.
 
I'm surprised you didn't consider the RAV4 EV, but you picked out the configuration I wanted, but couldn't have (no Metallic Slate SLs to be found in my area with Premium). I just hit 1,000 miles on my car, been a blast so far!

My dealer offered to let me take the demo car for the day as well (and I'm not even on CA!), but I already knew I wanted the car. It did convince me I picked the right dealer, I hope other dealers offer the same opportunity, as it really helps with the acceptance of these vehicles.
 
lion said:
I'm surprised you didn't consider the RAV4 EV, but you picked out the configuration I wanted, but couldn't have (no Metallic Slate SLs to be found in my area with Premium). I just hit 1,000 miles on my car, been a blast so far!

We didn't consider the RAV4 EV because it's simply too expensive, at nearly 50,000 MSRP.
I thought perhaps Chevrolet would be more willing to negotiate on sale price for the VOLT, but alas they wouldn't.
The lowest (before rebates) quote we got was 42,500, firm. I was able to get our SL (with everything except Bose & Camera system) for $31,500 at Nissan / Infiniti of San Francisco (who were amazing).

I suspect the CARWINGS issues we're having is on account of the TCU (?) not being enabled, so I might swing by the dealership on Friday to have them look in to it. Any thoughts on that?
 
sanfran said:
lion said:
I'm surprised you didn't consider the RAV4 EV, but you picked out the configuration I wanted, but couldn't have (no Metallic Slate SLs to be found in my area with Premium). I just hit 1,000 miles on my car, been a blast so far!

We didn't consider the RAV4 EV because it's simply too expensive, at nearly 50,000 MSRP.
I thought perhaps Chevrolet would be more willing to negotiate on sale price for the VOLT, but alas they wouldn't.
The lowest (before rebates) quote we got was 42,500, firm. I was able to get our SL (with everything except Bose & Camera system) for $31,500 at Nissan / Infiniti of San Francisco (who were amazing).

I suspect the CARWINGS issues we're having is on account of the TCU (?) not being enabled, so I might swing by the dealership on Friday to have them look in to it. Any thoughts on that?
There is up to $13,000 instant discounts on the RAV4 EV, so it would have been cheaper than an SL with Premium package (granted, the RAV4 EV doesn't offer the same camera system, but you get more range) ;)

$31,500 for the SL without Premium is a pretty good deal tho!
 
Interesting, on the 13k discount for RAV4 EVs. When I talked to the local Toyota dealership, they indicated that A) there was a waiting list and B) no incentives outside of the normal fed/state/local tax credits. Like with the Volt, and many other products and services here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we deal with the whole "ability to pay" phenomenon. Things are more expensive just because the general population can and will afford it.

Anyhow, it was neat to see my wife drive off in the LEAF this morning for her 14 mile commute to Oakland, grinning ear to ear. She's not one to get excited about any car, really, and the LEAF has changed that for her.

Looking to install the L2 charger tonight! Fortunately, I have several 240v 50amp outlets scattered about the garage, for my welding equipment and other tooling, so it's only going to take a few minutes to hang it up. I went with the Siemens VC30BLKB 'VersiCharge'. Seemed highly rated from Amazon.

Last night, I just had to sneak out of the house for a wee-hours drive around the block....
 
mbender said:
Welcome and congratulations! I think you'll greatly enjoy (and benefit from) living in the epicenter of the nation's budding EV "wave". Driving all around SF should be no problem, but there are a great number of quick chargers sprouting up all around the area as well (especially down the peninsula and in Silicon Valley), making longer round trips easily manageable. Be sure to check out plugshare (.com) for locations, etc. in the unlikely chance that you have not already.

Hey mbender,

Thanks for the heads-up on plugshare... Just signed up, and also for Blink in addition to Chargepoint. I have listed, tentatively, my L2 station for use with plugshare, but will have to see how that all goes. Anyhow, I appreciate the welcome and information, everyone!

-greg
 
Welcome! I've logged over 5k miles since March when I bought mine. It's funny how driving a 100% electric car just seems so normal. At first, I will admit it was a novel experience. You get spoiled with the smooth, quiet drive. Any time I hop into one of my other rigs. They seem like a rattle trap!

Enjoy!
 
I've put ~1100 miles on our 2013 SV since we got it May 8, mostly with my 21 mile roundtrip commute and the weekend trips to farmers market etc. The longest trip so far was a 75-mile round trip to Mt Madonna - we thought we were pushing it, but got home with 21% charge left! We are getting a100 mile range consistently for weeks now. I get a 5.2 mi/kwh average so possibly the range is even greater but I am not going to test that. Learning to love this well-made car, the whisper quiet ride, the smooth handling on and off the freeway. I drove various Corolla models for ~30 years. If the Leaf is being called an electric version of the Corolla, that's a compliment to the Leaf. The Corolla is one of the world's all-time best-selling cars, and the Leaf may well become the world's best-selling BEV with comparable volume sales.
 
sanfran said:
Looking to install the L2 charger tonight! Fortunately, I have several 240v 50amp outlets scattered about the garage, for my welding equipment and other tooling, so it's only going to take a few minutes to hang it up. I went with the Siemens VC30BLKB 'VersiCharge'. Seemed highly rated from Amazon.

If you haven't installed it yet, you may want to consider the EVSE upgrade first. The man behind the company is a member of this forum and his work, while not UL-listed, is well regarded. It's also 1/3 the price of the Siemens and allows you to take advantage of both 240 and 120 volt charging on the go as long as you have the proper adapters.

http://evseupgrade.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
RonDawg said:
If you haven't installed it yet, you may want to consider the EVSE upgrade first. The man behind the company is a member of this forum and his work, while not UL-listed, is well regarded. It's also 1/3 the price of the Siemens and allows you to take advantage of both 240 and 120 volt charging on the go as long as you have the proper adapters.

http://evseupgrade.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hey there, thank you for this advice -- I looked at that option after reading about it elsewhere on the forum, and while intrigued, steered clear on account of the fact the original charger must be included with the vehicle upon expiry of lease. I figured it a safer long-term investment to install something more permanent in the garage, as this (hopefully) will be the first in a series of EVs for our family. Installation of the Siemens unit was simple, and it works great so far.

Thanks again,

-greg
 
sanfran said:
Hey there, thank you for this advice -- I looked at that option after reading about it elsewhere on the forum, and while intrigued, steered clear on account of the fact the original charger must be included with the vehicle upon expiry of lease. I figured it a safer long-term investment to install something more permanent in the garage, as this (hopefully) will be the first in a series of EVs for our family. Installation of the Siemens unit was simple, and it works great so far.

Nothing wrong with the Siemens, but if you hadn't installed it I wanted to let you know of an alternative. But it appears you already looked into it.

Enjoy your new Leaf.
 
Congratulations. We've had our 2011 LEAF for 27 months and nearly 25,000 miles and we still have 12 bars of battery capacity. Don't let the discussion about buying a new battery pack disturb you. Yes, there are some in very hot climates that have noticed premature degradation but they are in the minority. We have never seen our battery temp gauge go to seven bars and that seems to be when the battery gets into trouble. I believe that how we charge and drive the car have a great deal to do with the battery longevity. I basically drive in ECO with imaginary eggs between my feet and the pedals, yet I still keep up with traffic with no problem. Also, if we need 100% charge, we drive the car immediately after reaching 100% and do not let it sit. Most all of the time an 80% charge is enough for what errands we have to run. Enjoy your new LEAF!
 
ERG4ALL said:
Also, if we need 100% charge, we drive the car immediately after reaching 100% and do not let it sit. Most all of the time an 80% charge is enough for what errands we have to run. Enjoy your new LEAF!

Hey there, I've been reading up on the 80% versus 100% charge strategy with intrigue. Once we get used to our car and what the range is in real terms for the hilly / traffic that is Bay Area driving, I will likely employ the 80% rule. Also, I'm not terribly worried about battery degradation in our year-round mild (lows in the 40's, highs in the 70's) climate. Our use of the L3 charger between San Francisco and Sacramento will be limited to a couple times of year, at most, so we should be cool, so to speak!

It's funny, after just a few days of driving the LEAF, our 2012 Subaru Forester feels like the Flintstone Mobile, comparatively.

-greg
 
Hi everybody,
I am a new user to this forum and hope it would help in learn about the make Nissan..This is so nice to clarify our doubts..
 
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