Who plans to NOT change their driving behavior with a Leaf?

[Rat]

I drive pretty conservatively. When I was in law enforcement I was ribbed about driving like a little old lady but my wife thinks I drive too fast, so I'm probably just about right. I don't have a commute and am usually not in a hurry, so I expect to take it easy in the right lane on the freeway mostly, but stay with the flow of traffic. Unless I take up a new activity, hobby, etc., I will drive little per day and thus have no range anxiety. I plan to ignore all that as much as I can and just drive normally, but I imagine I will experiment with all the features and readouts for a while, try ECO mode, etc. Eventually I'll settle into a routine and not think about it.

 

[LEAFguy]

I am very curious of the effect on performance and milage on changing out to some
Softer tires, I plan to see if my normal commutes will allow for a sacrifice in milage and then make the change.

Check out this article on Low Rolling Resistance tires. They can improve (or reduce mileage) by over 7%. 7% energy savings could well be worth it for some.

 

[EVDRIVER]

I am very curious of the effect on performance and milage on changing out to some
Softer tires, I plan to see if my normal commutes will allow for a sacrifice in milage and then make the change.

Check out this article on Low Rolling Resistance tires. They can improve (or reduce mileage) by over 7%. 7% energy savings could well be worth it for some.

I would not be surprised if people find it to be more than 10% with the leaf based on the regular tire used.

 

[TomT]

The article also points out that their tests showed that just a slight under-inflation reduced mileage by as much as 10 percent. Thus, I suspect that most people would get just as much of an improvement from regularly checking tire pressures cold as they would from switching to the best LRR tires... I've always run the higher tire pressure recommend by the manufacturer for maximum gross weight. This usually gives better handling as well. (No, people should NOT simply run the maximum allowed tire pressure on the tire sidewall.)

I am very curious of the effect on performance and milage on changing out to some
Softer tires, I plan to see if my normal commutes will allow for a sacrifice in milage and then make the change.

 

[Herm]

I've always run the higher tire pressure recommend by the manufacturer for maximum gross weight. This usually gives better handling as well. (No, people should NOT simply run the maximum allowed tire pressure on the tire sidewall.)

Actually they should, running at max sidewall pressure (measured COLD) will give you best performance/safety/economy and modern radials will still wear evenly (unless your car is out of alignment). Many people will exceed max pressures by a lot to get better economy, I am a bit leery about that.

 

[TomT]

I'm not going to get in to a point by point discussion of this except to say, no, that is not entirely correct. All that number on the side of the tire denotes is the maximum safe pressure for the tire, it is not an inflation guideline. Read the Tire Rack article (or various tire manufacturer articles) on why this is a bad idea for further info.

I've always run the higher tire pressure recommend by the manufacturer for maximum gross weight. This usually gives better handling as well. (No, people should NOT simply run the maximum allowed tire pressure on the tire sidewall.)

Actually they should, running at max sidewall pressure (measured COLD) will give you best performance/safety/economy and modern radials will still wear evenly (unless your car is out of alignment). Many people will exceed max pressures by a lot to get better economy, I am a bit leery about that.

 

[rainnw]

It depends on how much range i get out of it the first trip....but if that ends up not being the problem for my use case, I plan to drive the heck out of it...within legal means of course.