knightmb said:
From what I've read here, owners that are down to nearly warranty replacement (8 bars I think) were still getting 50 miles a charge. The condition of the battery depends on the environment it came from (super hot or mild, cold, etc.) and next by how the previous owner treated the vehicle (left it dead all the time or moderately charged for example)
50 miles per charge should be doable for me since the most I do is 40 miles. Since summer is being small I don't think I will even be using up to the 40 miles.
knightmb said:
You can certainly get the most accurate reading this way, but also a little research is helpful. Mainly, where did the used leaf come from (some place where the extreme hot weather has already been done to damage range like Phoenix, AZ) or some place cooler. Also, how many miles does the vehicle have. I bought my 2013 with only 12k miles and both came from Michigan so I know hot weather wasn't an issue. If leafspy is not a good choice, you can always test drive the vehicle and use the battery percent meter and trip mileage meter as a manual way to estimate battery health. Reset the trip, make sure all the AC/heat/whatever is turned off and drive the vehicle for about 5 miles. See if this depletes the capacity by 5%. If it were to deplete the capacity by 10% for example, then a couple of things could be an issue such as low air tires or battery capacity is reduced quite a bit. It's not perfect, but after doing a lot of test driving used leaf vehicles this way, I could quickly spot the ones I wanted to avoid and after looking at the vehicle history it usually confirmed my suspicion.
So basically get something that has low miles, is from california, double check if it truly has lived in california all its life, test drive it! Even if I were to get one with lower battery capacity wouldn't I be able to qualify for a battery replacement if it has enough battery loss anyway? I think someone said the battery replacement warranty for 4 bars or less is 5 years? So 2013 - 2015 = 2 years? So I'd still have about 3 to 2.5 years for the last battery bars to die?
knightmb said:
The 10 years is for the battery to not just up and fail completely, then there is a "sub-warranty" on capacity that it will retain at least 8 bars for 5 years or 60k miles that must be maintained by an annual (first 2 are free) battery check done by Nissan. If you purchase a used 2013 with low mileage, then you will have until 2018 on that capacity warranty. You can search the forum for others that have 2011 or 2012 models that hit the battery warranty and got brand new batteries from the deal, but a lot of those had severe, hot weather related degradation issues and the new battery packs are suppose to remedy the issue. I have not read any reports of the 2013 models having this issue and it is suspected that the battery chemistry was upgraded for the 2013, 2014, 2015, etc. models to fix the issue but not made public until 2015.
Okay great, thank you I think that answer bits of my previous question. What if the previous owner did not do the annual battery checks? Does that void the warranty? If so, that would be a big thing to check upon. That would be something i'd be very afraid of.
Also, if the battery loses the 4 bars after 5 years you can't qualify for a battery replacement that way, but you still have the other 5 years for the battery to completely die (Not start up anymore?) that can give you a brand new battery pack? So if for example the leaf only gets 1 or 2 bars... you would still not qualify there? it MUST completely die? would you even be able to get 5 miles out of a single bar?
knightmb said:
Well yeah, the gas engine still needs gas, motor oil, manifold, exhaust, etc. I don't know how well hybrids perform when just "idle" all the time vs. when driving. You still have engine noise, exhaust fumes, etc. to deal with. I've spent hours in my Leaf during both the winter months and hot weather now. I was surprised by how little energy the AC or heating system uses when you are just sitting idle to keep a comfortable temperature, all while not plugged into any charger. Your mileage many vary on that. :mrgreen:
That is great news
That means i could run the AC just to stay cool and not worry too much about the battery draining. Though if i can I will likely try to be plugged in when idle and waiting. Just not go over 80% in charge since that is what people mention.
mbender said:
Still better than $12-15k on gas, oil changes and other maintenance for your "ICY" van without getting anything back!
Besides, you would of course get to
use it, a nice new 2015 Leaf, and you'd also have the option of buying it. For some, that's the only way to take full advantage of the $7,500 federal incentive. If the e-NV200 comes out a little early, you might be able to get out of your Leaf-lease to move into a new one for the van. $230/month tax included isn't so bad, as long as it includes the quick-charge port (and especially if it is for 15k miles/year).
From here on though, I'm just going to be a spectator in this story!
ps. If you do buy a 2013, be
sure to learn how to use LeafSpy before purchase, lest you experience
a nightmare scenario.
I actually don't make enough to get full use of the 7.5k but I believe the dealer eats it up if you lease the car anyway. I think I would definitely want to lease the e-nv200 if it were out right now. i think I would be better off buying a used leaf then reselling it for some cash back in about 2-3 years, get my savings worth of gas in that time, and hopefully do a big down payment on the e-nv200 or buy it out right if possible!
Thank you for the link to that thread
sounds like a nightmare. It's so long I still haven't read it all but I am curious about the end so i will finish it up for sure. I don't think I will need the DC port though it would be nice if there is an emergency, but that doesn't happen with me. Usually I just idle for a long time before doing anything. When i said Idle I didn't mean like with the engine on, but more like waiting parked. I think it would be a killer for the ice engine if it were that way. idling does seem much better with an electric though.
cwerdna said:
edit: re: the range chart at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=4295" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, to read the non-degraded battery version at the top, if you drove a steady 35 mph on level ground w/no rain nor slush w/no HVAC usage and no headwind, you should average 6.3 miles/kWh and should be able to achieve 132 miles of range. If you drove 75 mph, you should achieve 3.0 miles/kWh and achieve 62 miles of range.
Besides battery degradation, battery capacity temporarily goes down when it's cold and the running the heater saps energy as there's no "free" waste heat. You need to take energy out of the battery to run the heater.
Thank you that is a lot of info. I have so much reading up to do. I will go through then and read what I can. I appreciate all the help
. This should bring me closer up to standard in terms of knowing the basics of the leaf battery pack and what not >_>.
This might require a whole NEW thread for itself, but I was wondering if it would be possible to use an induction cooker inside the leaf? Someone mentioned to me using a pure sine wave inverter connected to the car battery (Suggested to switch it for a deep cycle AGM odyssey) and use the leaf's dc to dc converter to charge the battery if it gets low. what are your thoughts on such an attempt? I know the pure sine wave will have to be big on capacity so it will not be a cheap investment, but i spend so much time in the car sometimes I like to make a litlte bit of soup and other nice little conforts.... also, wire sized was mentioned to be large to avoid 'capacity loss' which i am not sure what that is exactly.
minispeed said:
Although I'm not the expert on used battery range even to get a new one under warrantee which is around 70% I think you'll have to deal with the 80-70% slide. This will mean some time with a battery that can't do much over 50 miles some days with confidence.
I don't have a volt but I have had 2 prii. It definitely isn't like having 2 cars. The maintenance on an electric is limited to pretty much to wear items, same items on a hybrid. It is NOT like having 2 cars. It's like having 1 ICE car that does way less millage on the engine. Spark plugs go 100K+, many ICE cars need nothing for the engine other than oil for a long time now. The volt can go 2 years on oil if you don't use the ice. Things like a manifold and exhaust don't typically go on any new car now for 10 years. It will cost you more than the leaf to run but not from suspension, brakes or tires, they will be equal. They still don't have transmissions which is a huge benefit to the maintenance savings of electric. If you compare the cost savings of a leaf to your time spent charging at public stations it would be like slave labour rates sitting there waiting.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has a plug in hybrid estimator. I did a driving estimator for a volt.
40 miles a day 52 weeks a year 5 days a week with 1 charge 50% stop and go and free power. Weekends 2 days a week 52 days a year 40 miles 25% stop and go with 2 charges free power. 17 extra trips of 84 miles (what a leaf can do) 0% stop and go with 1 charge only (so the rest gas at $3.10 a gal) and it will cost you $125 a year with an estimated 5 trips to the pump in a year. It would be possible to do that all on electricity in a brand new leaf and if you stop more it's still possible to do it all on electricity in the volt (assuming you never drive when it's below 15F and the volt runs a warm up cycle for 30 sec).
To get a real cost savings on the used leaf vs used volt you are in the territory of higher millage and less battery warrantee plus the slow charger and the bigger chance of a lower capacity pack. In my opinion the volt could cost you a few hundred more a year, the leaf will cost you $6500 for a new battery if you need it.
Since you use your car for work (if I remember your original post correctly, sorry if I got it confused) with the volt you will never get stuck or miss any work or be late ever. You'll just have to pay a few bucks for gas to save hours of time.
I'm a big fan of the volt and kick myself all the time since we bought my wife's prius 6 months before the $5000 price drop back in 2014 (there was a $5000 rebate in the states but not in Canada and I refused to pay full price for something GM was clearing out somewhere else). When I was shopping I did all the calculations and figured the prius had a $5000 lower total cost of ownership for us over 6 years.
That is pretty interesting I didn't know fueleconomy had that estimator program on there. I was looking at the dimensions for volt vs leaf and they are almost identical: 175" L x 70" W x 61" H LEAF and 177" L x 70" W x 57" H VOLT. Now I have been told that electrics have less parts and therefor have extra space over ice and more over hybrids is this true? Volt is 2" longer, but leaf stands higher. If the volt has less storage that would be detrimental for me since I will use all the storage I can get. I know you mentioned a rack in the hitch on the back, but I believe you can also do that with the leaf with the right adapter even though it is not encouraged by the dealer....
I am also considering getting an inverter+induction cooker for comfort while waiting for work, thus saving a trip to a fast food place which tend to be really pricey, and those induction cookers seem to have a big draw on watts. What kind of battery pack does the volt have? I wanted to hook the inverter to the car battery... and have the battery pack top the battery off if it gets too low.
I'm thinking that since my job involves me waiting around a lot of the time I should be able to charge the electric even if it doesn't give me much over 50 miles. I usually have to wait about a few hours before doing about an hour of work and so on. Summer is going to be pretty slow, but fall will pick back up again. I am not sure on winter but it might be similar to summer. I'm not sure if I would need a completely new battery pack? I'd really only need about 35-40 mlles from the leaf on a single day. That wouldn't be constant driving either so I'd likely have some time in between too charge. Unless the places are crowded for charging. how badly can it get? Are charging spots hogged like crazy? I think some of those times are even illegally parked vehicles, right?
I think what my friend, who told me that having a hybrid is like having to cars, meant that once you own one long enough you'd have to repair the eletric motor and ice engine in a hybrid when an all eletric would only have an electric motor. Really, not my idea! He just mentioned that to me and I thought it made sense.... Unless the volt only has an ice and the electric motor bit is something else entirely different from what the leaf has?
rexki said:
The savings for a BEV for you are quite large!! - @ avg 4.00 gas in a 12mpg ICE for the next 8 years - you can save $345 per month on Gas versus Electric ($0.046/mile). Putting that into an interest bearing account 8% at 8 years yields $128,000.
This will buy you a $90,000 Tesla - with $47,000 spare after Gas and repair cost savings. This could be used to build the best garage and solar system for free electricity that you could imagine. If you put in a solar garage or carport at $61,000 then you would still have the same $47,000 left over in the account!!
The numbers get even crazier good if you put avg gasoline over next 8 years at $5.00:
$500 a month savings - Future Value (FV) Gas savings at 8 years = interest bearing 8% = $384,500. Assuming you are solar charging your BEV.
I have a great spreadsheet for these ICE vs BEV calcs.
Now you can see why Exxon Mobile was the largest company in the world before Apple took-over Chinese $1.20 per day labor rates.
That is some crazy math right there. I have no idea where I will be in 8 years or what I will be doing or how my life will be like, but having money like that I would like. I wonder how much the Tesla cars will cost in 8 years? My family and I have spoken about making a garage with solar panels on top once we get some land. You pretty much read my mind and that is wild. I really do want to make the switch to an ev like the leaf. I would love it if I could live in there and save rent, which is even worse than monthly gasoline bill, imagine how much money I could save then. Rent in L.A. is crazy. Save Gas, Save Rent, what else is there to save? However, don't they want to tax EVs for roads in the future because they pay no gas tax? I read somewhere they want to charge a yearly fee of about 500 usd or more. Can good things like cheap EV last forever? How long till it all crumbles? No more free charging, special charging taxes, registration, road taxes?....
