What are eco trees?

[daniel]

... A light touch on the gas pedal...

GAS pedal??? Your Leaf has a GAS pedal??? I sure hope my Leaf, if it ever comes, doesn't have a gas pedal!

And if you come from a farm you may call it a "foot feed"
If you used to drive a diesel it was called the "loud peddle"
Some might just use the generic "throttle"

Any others

On the Xebra board we usually called it a "go pedal."

 

[ElectricVehicle]

... A light touch on the gas pedal...

GAS pedal??? Your Leaf has a GAS pedal??? I sure hope my Leaf, if it ever comes, doesn't have a gas pedal!

Accelerator pedal

The LEAF manual and numerous other sources (Ford, Toyota, Nissan, etc.) refer to it as the "Accelerator pedal". Gas pedal has many references, mostly less formal. I guess we also need "Bio-Diesel pedal", "CNG pedal", etc.

An automobile may have two to four foot pedals. The arrangement is the same for both right- and left-hand traffic. From left to right:

normally operated by the left foot:
clutch pedal, not in the case of automatic transmission
normally operated by the right foot:
brake pedal, which is sometimes wide and elevated above the car floor
throttle (known as the 'accelerator' or 'gas pedal'), controls fuel and air supply to the automobile's engine. It is usually narrow and close to the car floor allowing the driver's heel to rest on the car floor. It has a fail-safe design in that it automatically returns to the idle position when not depressed by the driver.
Source: Wikipedia: Automobile pedal

Personally, I think I'll start calling it the Electron pedal!

Or Renewable pedal, PV pedal, Wind pedal, Smogfree pedal, Hmmm... I like this one: GasLESS pedal, maybe GasNO pedal, Nogas pedal, Green pedal, Zoom pedal, Fun pedal, Happy pedal, Wow pedal, Vroom pedal (requires digitized Vroom tones)...

 

[daniel]

Personally, I think I'll start calling it the Electron pedal!

I sometimes call it that in my Zap Xebra.

And, off topic, I once calculated that my Xebra gets a billionth of a billionth of a mile per electron. But of course electrons are very small, so there are many of them in an amp.

 

[theaveng]

I found this site that demonstrates visually how trees are earned.
http://www.nissan.co.uk/vehicles/electr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... drive.html

Microsoft Explorer 8 refused to play it. Worst browser ever.
And yes I'd rather have a display similar to my insight/the civic hybrid. On my testdrive today I couldn't tell if I was driving efficiently or not? The Leaf needs an instant miles/KWh bar to show instantaneous energy use. Plus a trip meter that shows your overall average since you last bought gas..... I mean electric. Or over the last 10,000 miles (or any other interval). It needs real feedback that can be used to adjust driving.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I found this site that demonstrates visually how trees are earned.
http://www.nissan.co.uk/vehicles/electr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... drive.html

Microsoft Explorer 8 refused to play it. Worst browser ever.
And yes I'd rather have a display similar to my insight/the civic hybrid. On my testdrive today I couldn't tell if I was driving efficiently or not? The Leaf needs an instant miles/KWh bar to show instantaneous energy use. Plus a trip meter that shows your overall average since you last bought gas..... I mean electric. Or over the last 10,000 miles (or any other interval). It needs real feedback that can be used to adjust driving.

The LEAF has all that. instant miles per KW is on driver dash and center display along with ability to reset miles/KW history in trip A, trip B and energy screen on center display

 

[SondreB]

Here is the results of trees:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/06/nissan-owners-plant-leaf-forests-while-they-drive/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[LeftieBiker]

What the "trees" seem to primarily measure is how gently you accelerate. Regen is as likely to remove segments as to add them - maybe more likely. Once I noticed that the segments tend to get added when I'm not looking, I watched a bit more carefully, and sustained gentle acceleration adds them more than any other obvious factor.

 

[theaveng]

I got 5 trees during my 120 mile test drive. I probably would have had more, but the display ran out of room. :lol: And yeah I used gentle acceleration of just 1-2 circles while driving. Sometimes I hit 3 circles during the steeper hills, but I tried to maintain just 1 circle most of the time.

 

[TomT]

Microsoft Explorer 8 refused to play it. Worst browser ever.
Perhaps it might be time to update - IE 8 is three major versions old... Or better yet, go to Firefox.

The Leaf needs an instant miles/KWh bar to show instantaneous energy use. Plus a trip meter that shows your overall average since you last bought gas..... I mean electric.
You DO know that it already has both, right?

 

[theaveng]

IE8 is installed by my office IT..... I cannot change it.

 

[TomT]

My deepest condolences.

IE8 is installed by my office IT..... I cannot change it.

 

[rumpole]

ECO trees are a silly marketing feature thought up by those that have no EV driving experience. GIve it a year and see how few use this and would prefer more helpful instrumentation like SOC or kw consumption. Look at all the real estate they give you for battery temp that never moves and can have an alert VS something that people could actually use and learn from.

True, I don't even look at them anymore. But, the best way to quantify Ecotrees is to check out thw "World Eco Forrest" in the Carwings section of the owners portal and divide the worldwide number of Eco Trees by the estimated CO2 tailpipe emission reduction. A quick glance today has those two numbers at 99,157 tonns of CO2 for 31,207,404 trees, making each tree worth a grand total of 0.00318 tons. Is that a metric tonne or a short ton, it's not clear, probably metric, in which case one Eco Tree is worth precisely 7 pounds (avoirupois). Why 7?

 

[Nubo]

...A quick glance today has those two numbers at 99,157 tonns of CO2 for 31,207,404 trees, making each tree worth a grand total of 0.00318 tons. Is that a metric tonne or a short ton, it's not clear, probably metric, in which case one Eco Tree is worth precisely 7 pounds (avoirupois). Why 7?

One estimate:

http://sustainability.tufts.edu/carbon-sequestration/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[theaveng]

Most useful gauge I've seen is in the Ford C-max. It shows the # of kilowatts being used by the engine (or motor) and a nice box which says "If you stay in this box, you will remain in EV mode." It really makes it easy to drive with minimal energy.

I also like the Instant MPG bar in my Honda, which I try to keep above 80. The Leaf needs one of those (except it would be instant miles/kilowatt-hour).