Why I Love My LEAF, is the Majority Too Silent?

[Boomer23]

I think that with all the negativity and disappointment surrounding pack capacity loss in AZ and TX, and the resulting focus on range and Gids, we run the risk of our active threads being too negative. It's time for a thread about what we love about our cars. Threads about our favorite things about our LEAFs were started a year ago when our cars were new and novel to us. But I think that readers need to know that despite recent events, many of us still love our LEAFs.

We are a very influential forum and we have to realize that we have an impact on buying decisions. I'm concerned that we have the potential to fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy of further reduced popularity of the LEAF and other EVs. I'm not talking about stifling free speech or artificially creating good news, and I applaud the way the AZ LEAFers banded together to effect change with Nissan. I'd just like to see a current discussion about why some of us are still happy about our choice.

Personally, though I've seen a 13% drop in range in the first 15 months, I still love my LEAF. I still get 70 to 75 miles from a full charge if I drive at my average 4 mi/kWh. Like most drivers, my usual daily driving averages 28 to 38 miles and I rarely drive over 50 miles a day, so I don't have range issues. Nothing else about our LEAF has changed. It is still rock solid reliable. It has needed no repairs and little maintenance over its 15,000 mile, 15 month life. It is just as economical, in fact more so since I learned to drive it more efficiently, as the day I drove it home. I get to drive the first affordable family EV of this generation, one that is roomy and flexible enough to be our family's primary car, from Nissan, the first company with the guts to build an affordable BEV for widespread sale around the world. I get to drive electrically, with zero fuel cost and very low emissions by combining my home's existing solar panels with TOU rates, and I get to ignore gas prices and gas shortages when they occur. I get the fun of that torquey motor, surprising ICE cars at traffic lights and quietly humming along without the noise of an ICE drowning out conversation. I love the technical connection I get from this car. And it's the car that's here now that lets me drive all of my miles electrically, not just most of them like a PHEV would.

What are your thoughts? Yes, I'm leasing, and I realize that is different from ownership at this particular time. But I know that many of you bought your LEAFs with long term ownership in mind, and that you are still happy that you did. This is the thread where it's okay to talk about why you like your LEAF without feeling like you are arguing with our brothers in the warmer regions.

And whistle blower lady, you have your own thread, please leave this one alone.

 

[lkkms2]

Yes Boomer, I agree this is the first affordable family EV of this generation.

I am very happy and satisfied with my Leaf! And I am very willing to "invest" in the future and this technology.

Very low maintenance, nice quiet ride, no ICE cold start with corresponding pollution, no hot engine to heat my garage, no oily smells. Love it, Love it, Love it.

Instead of spending $2000 dollars in gasoline driving my Camry (with about $600 or 30% going to pay for foreign oil) I only paid $440 in locally produced electricy my first year and 11,000 miles. More money to spend in the local economy! Less pollution.

Give me a few years and I will be ready to buy the next generation EV Leaf!

 

[Herm]

Boomer, sorry to get you off topic here.. Why do you have so much battery degradation?.. Orange County is a fairly temperate place.

 

[mwalsh]

I'm still loving mine. Though I have to be honest that I can't be as a big a cheerleader for it, or Nissan, as i have been until we have a better idea of what's going on with the batteries.

Phil, bro, you got to get tht pitiful energy economy up. 4.0 miles per? Seriously?

 

[adric22]

Well, I'm still in the camp that loves my Leaf. I've had it for a year and a half and I still love it. People ask me about it in parking lots and I tell them its the best car I've ever owned and that I'll never go back to gasoline again. I have no regrets about buying the Leaf. Well, technically I leased it. But i did that because it was the only way i could afford the payment. When the lease is up, I plan to purchase the car.

And although the Leaf works perfectly for my situation, I do find myself recommending the Volt to interested people more often these days than the Leaf. Primarily because either one costs roughly the same to lease and the Volt does offer more freedom. And even though the Volt has less EV range, I actually think it really has closer to the same EV range for me. The reason is that the Volt really does get around 40 miles almost no matter how you drive it (despite the EPA rating of 35) and since I never let my Leaf get below 20 miles remaining on the battery, that means I really only allow myself about 50 miles of useable range. With the Volt, it is no uncommon for us to drive it down to 1 mile remaining or even switch over to gasoline for a few miles. So in practice, the Leaf only has about 10 extra EV miles for me.

I didn't want to hog the thread about Leaf vs. Volt I just wanted people to understand my statement about recommending the Volt to strangers.

 

[abasile]

At 18,700 miles and 15 months of ownership, our "Mountain LEAF" is going strong. Most of its miles are from driving in the San Bernardino mountains, and between our home and the Valley that is 5000' below us. This past April, we took it on a 700+ mile road trip north of San Simeon, on California's Central Coast. As far as battery degradation, our Gid count at 80% charge has recently dropped (after no changes for the first year), so we might have roughly 5% loss at this point, which doesn't seem out of line. It's the coolest car we've ever owned, hands down!

By the way, some have asked why I bought a LEAF instead of a Volt. In April 2011, it was much less costly for me to acquire a LEAF. But aside from that, I wanted as many all-electric miles as possible, we can use a 50 mpg Prius or an all wheel drive car for trips on which the LEAF won't work for us, we do use all five seats in the LEAF at times, and the simplicity of an all-electric car appealed to me. That said, I don't hesitate to recommend the Volt whenever it seems appropriate.

 

[thankyouOB]

i have no gid
no sirree,
my leaf's going to live
to be 23.

love the leaf, and hope it lasts for years.
use it to do a 50-mile round trip. no worries. no fuss with charging to 80%
when folks ask me about it and whether it makes sense, I always ask:

Do you like buying gasoline?
Well, actually you dont have to.

I have seen very little degradation, if i can judge from my regular commute and the bar readings along with the typical leftover on the GOM meter.
it is all about the same, when i get home, as it was 15 months and 15k miles ago.
i bought and am happy with it.

 

[KJD]

I would agree with everything Boomer23 said in the original post.

I would also like to add that before owning a leaf, I built 3 different homemade EV's.
The first one was a motorcycle.
http://www.evalbum.com/1414" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The 2nd one was a VW Golf
http://www.evalbum.com/2058" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The 3rd was a Toyota pickup.
http://www.evalbum.com/3175" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They all used flooded lead acid batteries and they were all low range vehicles. The LEAF is so much more car than anything I could build myself, it is really hard to compare them. Battery degradation was a fact of life with these lead acid batteries. Lithium is so much better. I wore out the first lead acid pack in 6 months time. This was a common thing in the home built world.

The main point I would like to make is that building these 3 EV's gave me a taste of how difficult a job Nissan is taking on. This is why I have a high level of tolerance for the problems that have been reported.

Is the Nissan LEAF perfect? No it is not, but I still love it and I am sure Nissan will make it better every year.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Boomer, sorry to get you off topic here.. Why do you have so much battery degradation?.. Orange County is a fairly temperate place.

not the Orange County i knew back in the 80's (should be a bit warmer now).

the difference in temps between Anaheim and Costa Mesa could EASILY be 10º. go farther West, the difference is greater.

Boomer; you are right. it does seem like most posts these days are negative and it does not have to do with actual personal experience anymore. we have people from the NW who have not lost an inch in range who are just as vocal about the "what ifs?" as anyone in AZ.

i have tried to "balance" the discussion a bit i asked if this is too much degradation then what isnt too much? the answer; well, this and that. blah blah, but most based their answers not on what they were expecting but only on experiences and the results of people who did not have degradation.

when truthful answers were supplied. most expected a 5-10% loss of range in the first 12-18 months, but most who said this also basically said "if Dave can go 20,000 miles without degradation, then mine should too" and its hard to blame them for that line of thinking, but when i got the LEAF, i decided that 50 miles is what i was buying the car for. EPA said 73 and i knew from extensive past experience that i could beat that in the best of circumstances, meet that in the worst and that is EXACTLY what the LEAF does for me.

now, i am 18 months into ownership which is obviously a long way from 5 years but what i have really begun to realize is that the #1 failure of EVness is not Nissan, its the public charging station fiasco.

by now; we were supposed to have had 40 Quick charge stations supplied by Blink. we have 2 (one supplied by Paul Allen so it does not even count in the 40!!) and only the Allen one is working. the other completed construction this past week and we wait for it to come on. how significant is this delay??

you can go back to "MY" posts from 18 months ago where i said that quick charging was over-rated and that i would use it rarely. i must eat those words. the other half is AV. they have installed now 11 of the 13 promised stations including 2 within 25 miles of me. the ability to gain a 30-40% charge in 10-12 minutes has GREATLY enhanced my LEAFs usability beyond my wildest dreams.

to prevent multiple repostings of the trip i made yesterday using quick charging twice (posted it twice already...) it completely changes the game. i still dont look at my LEAF as a long distance driver but I no longer look at it as a just a city driver. it is now a regional driver. if Blink had completed its promised DCFC network, there is no doubt in my mind that the LEAF sales would be much greater in this area

so imm, what has happened here in the past 26 months is actually very little.

Back in April 2010, Nissan all by its lonesome came out of nowhere announcing a revolutionary product waaay beyond what anyone else had to say. they stood alone. many jumped on their bandwagon promising much.

today in August, 2012. Nissan basically still stands alone minus very small support from Mitsubishi. the public charging network promises have what?? 10, 15% completion?? if that. the #1 EV area, CA has virtually nothing. if they would have had their promised 150 QC stations in the ground running right now, i cant help but believe that the atmosphere of current LEAF owners would be much different right now.

but Blink has proven to be disappointing. how much more time do they need.
Both state and federal governments have proven to be just as unsupportive. a few tweaks necessary to ease the EV adoption road have not happened. the PUDs are still toxic to EV growth. its like EVs were thrown a life ring but with no rope attached.

in the middle of it all is us. the negativity on this board is due to our hanging onto that lifering floating aimlessly in the ocean. sure the ring keeps us from drowning but without the rope, we see no solution, no path, no support.

 

[Volusiano]

I thought we already had a thread or two about why people love their LEAF? Why not post their instead of starting a new thread?

 

[lkkms2]

+1

I drove a converted EV (Ford Escort Wagon) over 8-9 years for 68,000 miles in the '90s. It was great, but no air conditioning, no power windows, no sporty power driving (except in first gear ), no modern amenities.....and yes I too used flooded deep cycle lead acid batteries, and changed them out about three times over those 8-9 years.

Nissan has done a fantastic job on the Leaf. They are advancing the technology (it does not happen overnight) and I look forward to seeing improvements in the coming years.

 

[edatoakrun]

What's not to Love?

14 months and 11,500 miles.

Total maintenance:

Free Carwings update.

Free 12 month battery check.

Total repairs:

One flat tire repair.

Lose of capacity/range:

Insignificant, as determined by regular range tests. Most recently, ~113 miles, including ~6,000 ft of each of ascent and descent, from 100% to VLBW.

And In a week, I'll even have a full year of accurate and complete Carwings energy use reports!

Sorry, that some still can't seem to get their CW to work.

My only significant complaints, have nothing to do with the LEAF itself:

No DC chargers within 200 miles. I can't really blame Nissan for my choice to live in an undeveloped Country.

It took much too long, and was too damn frustrating. getting my LEAF. Too bad I will remember this one experience of lousy customer service, every time I consider buying a Nissan in the future.

Nissan treated me, and many others, very poorly during the delivery delay in early 2011.

Just as Nissan now seems to be treating the capacity-bar-loss owners, IMO.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

19,342 miles and estimated range degradation of maybe 3.5% (GID count this morning 271. but yesterday was 279 so probably somewhere in the 1-2% range)

the GID meter i love but dont consider the #'s it provides to be absolute. now, i dont have solar but to date; i have paid less than $500 verses the "approximate" cost of $1814.94 in paying for gas only in my Prius (during this time, it averaged 50.1 MPG) which in fairness; the Prius did drive 800 miles farther...

the recognition of driving EV. the talking to people daily, the looks I get. Now i drove a ZENN for 3½ years and 14,500 miles before the LEAF. it also got looks but those looks were pretty mixed (smirks, sympathy, you name it!) and that car was range anxiety hell. the LEAF is like heaven, nirvana, or whatever you want to call it. i laugh when people riding in my LEAF start freaking on the GOM. i tell them, unless you relied on a ZENN as your daily commuter, you simply dont know what anxiety is.

now, if you go back to posts here 2 years ago, there were a lot of people who were relying on a lot of things not Nissan to make their LEAF work. public charging, work charging, favorable wind directions, whatever. i knew that people who thought their 75 mile commute would work for them would have issues.

 

[FLBoy]

I've had my LEAF for about six months, and I still love it. I love its quiet, powerful torque. I love its air conditioning, which quickly cools the car down after parking in the sun--very important here in Florida. I love its high-techiness. When I need to haul some stuff, I love the spacious trunk and the fact that it's a hatchback. The only thing I disliked enough about the car to make a change was the wimpy horn, which I replaced myself, thanks to OrientExpress's helpful thread.

The car suits my driving needs exceptionally well, because I average only about 10 miles per day with occasional round trips of 20 miles and rare ones up to 40 miles. I charge to 80% unless I am planning an unusually long trip, and I often go for several days without bothering to plug in.

 

[Norway]

I think most people in Norway are happy with their Leafs. I know of people who save over USD 6000.00 per year just in gas/diesel and road toll charges! :shock:

I haven't heard of a single car which has lost battery capacity.

Ironically we have the opposite problem of many of the people in the USA - our batteries are very cold in winter, and that means quick charging is much slower than in summer.

However, I am impressed with the Leaf as an electric car. I think Nissan has thought of most, but of course not all, issues. The next generation will be even better!

 

[etracing]

The rest of us are just happy driving along in our cars!


EV smiles for everyone!

 

[Boomer23]

Boomer, sorry to get you off topic here.. Why do you have so much battery degradation?.. Orange County is a fairly temperate place.

I've discussed that in the "I want my 281" thread.

 

[SharonaLA]

I luv luv luv using the carpool lane, particularly on the 405. Saves me so much time on my commute to Santa Monica College.

Also, it is fun to wave at my fellow Leafers as we pass each other. We are a friendly community.

I've only got 8,000 miles so far, mostly because I had a baby and have been staying close to home. It's also a perfect mom-mobile.

 

[Boomer23]

I'm still loving mine. Though I have to be honest that I can't be as a big a cheerleader for it, or Nissan, as i have been until we have a better idea of what's going on with the batteries.

Phil, bro, you got to get tht pitiful energy economy up. 4.0 miles per? Seriously?

Well, it's more like 4.1 to 4.2, Mike, which is better than the 3.8 I used to get last year.

 

[Caracalover]

19,000 oil free miles, and I wouldn't think I have to say more.

I bought this car, flat out and have no regrets at all.

Will the battery last forever? Does a gas tank last forever? How many fuel filters have to be replaced? How many other parts need repair that don't exist in the Nissan Leaf? Ask how big my gas tank is on my families ICE vehicles (I have two motorcycles, a Silverado, and a Cougar) and I can't tell you - I can tell you it costs a lot to fill them up. Some of those costs are in blood (Wars) and lung capacity (Pollution) loss. If they were to lose 50% of thier ability to carry fuel it would be no big deal, provided I could fuel them up at home - which I can't - which makes them damn inconvenient compared to the Nissan Leaf.

No emissions at all now that I have solar. In fact I moved into my house (Solar already on and paid for) and can't get a bill from LADWP since my meter runs backwards - and that is with me driving as fast as I can without getting unsafe or getting more tickets than I want. (My water bill should be interesting when I do finally get it.)

Love the way this vehicle handles. When I first bought it I was scared that someone would hit it and I wouldn't be able to replace it. Now that fear is slowing somewhat, so I am able to enjoy the ablity this car gives you that my other vehicles simply don't give me. Even the motorcycles are not instant smooth acceleration devices. Can't say enough about that aspect.

Another way of putting it -



Oh, and all the threads here could be about the love people have for this car, and really, they all are, even if they point out what could be better. Might I add that BMW has a lot of EV vehicles in London for the Olympics, taking dignitaries around and being pace vehicles. While I have not seen the television highlight this, the fact is more people are being exposed to the best way to get around in our age, and Nissan is going to have to compete with not only Tesla in the near future.

Last point that needs to be made. While the Volt is mostly electric and I support the effort, it is like trying to quit smoking during the week and still smoking on the weekends. It is still committing slow suicide. I look forward to the day when I wil alter my families vehicles to be all electric. As with most addictions, it is going to take a shift in the community, and we Nissan Leaf owners are part of that shift. Feel proud.