ravi100
Member
I've watched (with some amount of amusement and a small amount of chagrin :? ) the responses to my original post. Mixed with the cogent and well thought out comments are the "defend the Leaf under all circumstances" responses that Clippy referred to.
Lets all remember that the purpose of my post was to relate my personal experience. My Leaf was ordered the DAY it became possible to order it. I was an enthusiastic early adopter. As an electrical engineer myself, I had a pretty good understanding of battery technology and what it meant to be an early EV adopter. My goal (that I share with many of you on this forum) was to get as completely off the grid as possible. I fact I was in a battle with my city council to get them to allow solar panels on my roof while all this was unfolding.
Here's where I really feel Nissan fell short.
1. The advertisement of the 100-mile range, in fact even when we test drove the car (and fell in love with it) during the tour was I believe deceptive. And when the EPA estimates came out, this was borne out. For all of you that are going to jump on this and say I don't know how to drive an EV, I've been driving hybrids for the last 8 years, and even did some hypermiling to boot. At the end of the day in TX the range is about 65-70 miles with 3 passengers and the AC running. That too with not exceeding 60mph on the highway.
2. While I was willing to live with all that, the loss of capacity really brought this car to the
brink of becoming unusable. For those of you that are not familiar with the DFW area, its urban
sprawl to the extreme. While I did not expect to be able to drive anywhere in the metro,
a 12-15 mile loss of range when you had only 65-70 to start with is crippling. This coupled
with the fact that there are NO Quick Charge stations yet, not even at the Nissan dealerships.
3. As many of you on this board would agree, Nissan's response to this issue has been appalling to say the least.
Its funny to see a company make the same mistake that so many other large
corporations have made. A quick, effective response would have been to offer to convert these problem cars
to leases for example. Or offer a battery replacement if the capacity fell below 80% in 3 years or less. Any of these
would heve effectively quelled these concerns and made them look golden. Well one would think all the highly
compensated MBA types would have learnt something from their case studies
And to answer a question I did not seriously consider the Volt because of price.
Lets all remember that the purpose of my post was to relate my personal experience. My Leaf was ordered the DAY it became possible to order it. I was an enthusiastic early adopter. As an electrical engineer myself, I had a pretty good understanding of battery technology and what it meant to be an early EV adopter. My goal (that I share with many of you on this forum) was to get as completely off the grid as possible. I fact I was in a battle with my city council to get them to allow solar panels on my roof while all this was unfolding.
Here's where I really feel Nissan fell short.
1. The advertisement of the 100-mile range, in fact even when we test drove the car (and fell in love with it) during the tour was I believe deceptive. And when the EPA estimates came out, this was borne out. For all of you that are going to jump on this and say I don't know how to drive an EV, I've been driving hybrids for the last 8 years, and even did some hypermiling to boot. At the end of the day in TX the range is about 65-70 miles with 3 passengers and the AC running. That too with not exceeding 60mph on the highway.
2. While I was willing to live with all that, the loss of capacity really brought this car to the
brink of becoming unusable. For those of you that are not familiar with the DFW area, its urban
sprawl to the extreme. While I did not expect to be able to drive anywhere in the metro,
a 12-15 mile loss of range when you had only 65-70 to start with is crippling. This coupled
with the fact that there are NO Quick Charge stations yet, not even at the Nissan dealerships.
3. As many of you on this board would agree, Nissan's response to this issue has been appalling to say the least.
Its funny to see a company make the same mistake that so many other large
corporations have made. A quick, effective response would have been to offer to convert these problem cars
to leases for example. Or offer a battery replacement if the capacity fell below 80% in 3 years or less. Any of these
would heve effectively quelled these concerns and made them look golden. Well one would think all the highly
compensated MBA types would have learnt something from their case studies
And to answer a question I did not seriously consider the Volt because of price.
