[REVISED] - POLL - DRIVE vs ECO - CITY vs HIGHWAY - RE-VOTE!

[TonyWilliams]

But that still doesn't really answer my question.... we've all seen/read that WOT/100% is the same in EVO vs DRIVE ... but my question would be, what are the relative motor outputs from 1% to 99% in ECO vs DRIVE... that would be nice to know.... can't seem to find a thread on here that has any data ....

TickTock answered this question some time ago... ECO is constant power and D is constant acceleration (in a nutshell). He has it all mapped out in nerd drooling detail !!!!

 

[planet4ever]

The poll doesn't include relevant answers for me. I drive a mix of surface streets and freeways. On streets I almost always use ECO to be able to get more regen by backing off the accelerator pedal without having to brake. On freeways I almost always use D so that slight variations in speed necessitated by surrounding traffic will not incur regen drag.

I'm with Walter all the way: No poll answer is right because I'm half ECO, half D. Like him I use D on the freeway, but for a slightly different reason. Most of my freeway driving is fairly level, so I set cruise control at 61 mph and don't have my foot on the A-pedal at all. If I come up behind a slightly slower truck I drop my speed a notch or two with the COAST switch. If I need temporarily to slow more than that I'll use CANCEL. Later I'll RESUME/ACCELERATE. In D those actions yield gentle speed changes; in ECO they would be more abrupt. The truth is I rarely touch the A-pedal once I get up to speed on the freeway. (Fortunately I almost never have to drive freeways during rush hours.)

I always pop it into ECO once I'm on the exit ramp, and start using my foot to control my speed. My only complaint is that I never seem to have mastered the double-shift when I start out, so find myself driving a few blocks after power up before I get it in ECO where I like it for city driving, due to better control and less frequent foot shifting to the brake.

I have a very simple suggestion to Nissan: When I shift to park, or go there automatically as I power off, remember which shift I was in, and resume that the next time I want to go forward. I guess maybe the same thing should apply if I shift to reverse, though I rarely do that after driving. If I do ECO - R - forward, do I end up in D instead? I'm not even sure, though I know that does happen if I do ECO - PARK - forward.

Ray

 

[Shaka]

TickTock answered this question some time ago... ECO is constant power and D is constant acceleration (in a nutshell). He has it all mapped out in nerd drooling detail !!!!

Thanks! When I have time (not now, headed to work) I'll be sure to search for that thread and learn/read...

 

[Shaka]

I'm with Walter all the way: No poll answer is right because I'm half ECO, half D.

Ray-- okay yeah I guess I should have placed an "OTHER" or "NONE OF THE ABOVE" option on there, huh? It sounds like you'd be in the middle category as far as "mixed driving" goes -- but as you said, you also mix your D/ECO usage accordingly. Which means you're probably an outlier is my guess. But still worth including......


OH CR*P .... okay so I added a new poll option and apparently it ERASED the entire poll results... admin/mods if you see this, is there a way to fix/undo that? That sucks... totally erased all the results... I was trying to add a new "none of the above" type option for these guys and in-turn it just nuked the entire results... that is sort of stupid it did that, but now that I read the fine print, I see it even told me it was GOING to do that... this is what I get for rushing through things .... all I did was add one more option.... ... SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Randy]

No way that I know of to fix/restore...

 

[Shaka]

No way that I know of to fix/restore...

Yeah I sort of FIGURED that would be the answer... so I just went ahead and made the poll FAR more in-depth... added one more option per each sub-section .. and added a none-of-the-above option too... and changed title to hopefully get people to re-vote... we'll see what happens.... thanks Randy!

 

[Shaka]

Thank you everyone for re-submitting your vote... we're already back up to 35-votes again.....

As of this moment:
58% of people spend most of their time in ECO mode, regardless of driving on city, expressway, or a mix.
54% of people say their driving is mixed, compared to 31% city drivers and 15% expressway cruisers
23% of you are DRIVE mode drivers, regardless of where you do your driving...

KEEP THOSE ANSWERS COMING IN !!!

 

[dgpcolorado]

I chose your "none of the above" answer because I don't drive freeways at all, since there aren't any within LEAF range, and very little of my driving involves city streets in any usual sense of the term. I mostly drive mountain roads, not all of them paved, or rural highways, all of them one lane in each direction except for short passing lanes. There is only one stoplight in my entire county, at the intersection of the only two highways here.

That said, I nearly always drive in Eco because the accelerator mapping makes it easier to hold a particular power level and drive efficiently. Early on when I happened to be in D I found myself having trouble keeping from going faster than I intended because of the acceleration mapping of the pedal, which was annoying. I do use D for the mild regen for gentle slowing after a period of coasting, as a way of calibrating my regen braking without using the brake pedal. So I've come up with ways to make the D setting useful. But, add me to the list of people who wish the LEAF shifting would default to Eco on the first push of the shifter.

To me, the D setting seems to be for the herky-jerky sort of driver who likes to stomp on the accelerator to get going and ends up stomping on the brake to come to an abrupt stop at the last second. It is the antithesis of the way I have been driving since I was a teen: easy-does-it, anticipate traffic and stops, keep a safe following distance.

 

[RegGuheert]

I chose your "none of the above" answer because I don't drive freeways at all, since there aren't any within LEAF range, and very little of my driving involves city streets in any usual sense of the term.

Me, too. The implication of the poll are that there are only two types of roads: CITY STREETS and FREEWAYS. While I have driven our LEAF on both of these types of roads, most of our driving is on rural roads.

 

[NSXTASY]

Anyhow.. hope this makes sense and hope my poll options were good enough.. this is far from being a controlled
We've had this discussion many times before, and to re-emphasize there is absolutely no difference in torque or acceleration between D and ECO. It's just a matter of how far you push the pedal.

this is incorrect. There is absolutely no difference in torque or acceleration between D and ECO at WOT only ! anywhere in between there is a large difference. And the other graph displayed was wrong too because it suggests that acceleration/torque is higher in ECO than D at the beginning => not true. Only the part of the graph with the positive values is somewhat representative of ECO vs D. my $0.02 (about 1kWh off peak) :lol:

 

[Shaka]

this is incorrect. There is absolutely no difference in torque or acceleration between D and ECO at WOT only ! anywhere in between there is a large difference. And the other graph displayed was wrong too because it suggests that acceleration/torque is higher in ECO than D at the beginning => not true. Only the part of the graph with the positive values is somewhat representative of ECO vs D. my $0.02 (about 1kWh off peak) :lol:

Thanks for that clarification. That makes a bit more sense. Regardless the poll is still showing over 50% of board members with Leaf vehicles prefer ECO mode which is really what I wanted to find out... which hopefully means someone at Nissan might think about this moving forward.

Oh and for those of you who say you drive rural roads, etc... that is why I put that last option there. Since I knew it would account for a rather small percentage of people who would not fit the other groupings.... thanks for your understanding!!

 

[NSXTASY]

my completely personal and speculative opinion on why Nissan engineers put D mode by default versus ECO mode, is for test drives. If a new potential customer gets in one of these for the very first time and puts it in D vs puts it in ECO... which mode will leave him better first impressions ? I know it did the trick for me. otherwise I would have (mis)judged the LEAF big time thinking it was a sluggish vehicle VS the "wow, instant torque !" reaction I got...

 

[planet4ever]

I'm a bit surprised that nobody has picked up on my suggestion. If the car would just remember the ECO vs. D state when going to Park, and restore that state when you jockey the "mouse" to go forward, new drivers of a test car would be impressed, hotrodders would still be happy, and us laid back folk would finally be satisfied.

Ray

 

[abasile]

I picked the last option (NONE of the above...) as the majority of our driving is on semi-rural mountain roads, with some driving on freeways and city streets as well. We always use ECO mode.

 

[LEAFfan]

my completely personal and speculative opinion on why Nissan engineers put D mode by default versus ECO mode, is for test drives. If a new potential customer gets in one of these for the very first time and puts it in D vs puts it in ECO... which mode will leave him better first impressions ? I know it did the trick for me. otherwise I would have (mis)judged the LEAF big time thinking it was a sluggish vehicle VS the "wow, instant torque !" reaction I got...

Sorry to disagree, but I get just as much torque in ECO as in D, but still will do better in m/kW h. I can squeal/chirp the tires equally in either mode. I've already done this over a year ago when Nissan did their LEAF Tour.

 

[NSXTASY]

my completely personal and speculative opinion on why Nissan engineers put D mode by default versus ECO mode, is for test drives. If a new potential customer gets in one of these for the very first time and puts it in D vs puts it in ECO... which mode will leave him better first impressions ? I know it did the trick for me. otherwise I would have (mis)judged the LEAF big time thinking it was a sluggish vehicle VS the "wow, instant torque !" reaction I got...

Sorry to disagree, but I get just as much torque in ECO as in D, but still will do better in m/kW h. I can squeal/chirp the tires equally in either mode. I've already done this over a year ago when Nissan did their LEAF Tour.

Then the ECO mode does not works the same on all LEAFs...
I drove 2 LEAFs and both behaved as I reported. And btw, I can only make the tires chirp in WOT (either mode). if you are telling us that you get same acceleration from dead stop with half depressed pedal on both modes, then yours behaves differently than the 2 I drove.

 

[Shaka]

As of right now, 55 out of 90 people use ECO mode almost all the time... 61% as it calculates out to be. Not bad!!

And to the replies above... from a dead stop, I can spin tires at WOT in either mode which makes sense because, as the manual says, WOT = same in both modes. However, in Eco mode, I can't get wheel spin otherwise. However, in D mode, especially in this cold weather, I can light up the tires by accident at only 50-60% throttle (Based on about half the "dots" on the dash lighting up, partial pedal press). For sure then, the D mode gives you more torque/power more swiftly.

 

[dgpcolorado]

...And to the replies above... from a dead stop, I can spin tires at WOT in either mode which makes sense because, as the manual says, WOT = same in both modes. However, in Eco mode, I can't get wheel spin otherwise. However, in D mode, especially in this cold weather, I can light up the tires by accident at only 50-60% throttle (Based on about half the "dots" on the dash lighting up, partial pedal press). For sure then, the D mode gives you more torque/power more swiftly.

"Swiftly"? While the acceleration mapping in D is more aggressive, one has full power available in Eco. It doesn't take more than a fraction of a second to push the A pedal farther when needing more power for passing or whatever. It is the notion that Eco is somehow "power-limited" compared to D that is a myth. Rather, Eco is power constant: at a given A pedal position you will get the same power regardless of speed or terrain. Very different from D mapping and much more conducive to efficient driving.

 

[Shaka]

It is the notion that Eco is somehow "power-limited" compared to D that is a myth. Rather, Eco is power constant: at a given A pedal position you will get the same power regardless of speed or terrain. Very different from D mapping and much more conducive to efficient driving.

When I press the pedal down in ECO mode, at say 75% throttle, the "power dots" on the instrument cluster never get more than about half-way even when I'm at 75% throttle. However, in D-mode, the throttle at 75% will show about 75% of those "dots" populated. And the car will accelerate at a faster clip. Our car is a 2012 Leaf SL, picked up just a month ago (so assume all latest software). Does this not jive with how it should work? Because those are my "unscientific" results....

 

[Shaka]

Found TickTock's thread:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=8102" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And as I had mentioned, at the "same" throttle input the car accelerates more swiftly which is shown here (speed over time, the green line). I'm not personally that concerned with the tech-speak version of power as it relates to kWh or whatever. The bottom line is this: press the pedal the same amount in ECO mode, and the car will accel more slowly. That is fine... but this also means that you don't get the same amount of "power" (where power, in my case, means acceleration speed).

Or to put it another way, in layman terms.. you cannot "light up the tires" in ECO mode unless you go WOT... at least, not in my car...