Percentage who use Leaf as only vehicle?

I'm trying to get a sense of the percent of people who are in my boat (had to retain ICV when getting Leaf) and the percent of people who use the Leaf as their only vehicle (might rent an ICV for longer trips, or take a taxi or train, etc.).

Has there been any discussion or study of this, does anyone know? I'm excited to have my Leaf for around-town trips, but it's clear to me that I did have to retain my old Ford for longer trips.

While I have no idea how you will find the answer to your question of wanting to know the exact percentage, I can offer my opinion.

I could definitely get by with my Leaf as my only vehicle. Now that would be under the assumption that I was single. Obviously since we have 4 people in our household and my wife and I both work, we both need cars. For some time we actually considered a second Leaf but went with a Volt instead. During the 6 months we've had the Volt I think we've run it on gasoline maybe 20 times. And the sad part is there are probably only 2 or 3 trips out of those 20 that the Leaf would simply been unable to make. Even of those 2 or 3 trips, we could have made it in the Leaf had we been willing to plan around the issue by locating a place to charge or carpooling with somebody else.

We have two Leafs, only the Leafs. After 16 months we realized that there were only 3 trips that I could not have done in the Leaf. So are giving all electric driving a chance, now close to two weeks. I find it more relaxing as I do not have the "gas anxiety" anymore. We have a good QC network coming up in Portlan Metro area and that makes it easy to get around farther, if needed. I am still open to the idea of a 4x4 ICE, but I would likely wait for something like the 4x4 PHEV with QC and around 40 miles EV range that will get me between the QC stations if I wanted an all QC trip to the coast or to the moountains.

We have an ICE (a CUV) as our second vehicle. The lack of a QC infrastructure in our area coupled with our driving and carrying requirements, and the need to often go different places simultaneously, make it necessary.

We have a Range-Extended Non-Plugin EV, more car than guzzler.
Yes, we call the Prius a Hybrid, not an RENPEV, but I was using
the terms that GM would understand.

Of course we mostly use the NREPIEV, our great LEAF, which we
refer to as a "real" EV.

I'm solo with just the Leaf. I sold my Prius 9 months ago when I calculated that for the cash I got for the Prius I could easily pay for a rental ICE if I ever needed it. So far I've spent $0, hitching rides with friends or for a recent trip I traded cars with a friend who had a Volt. I do anticipate needing to rent an ICE at some point.

We have a leaf and a gas car. Now having said that, we haven't yet reached the point where it would be plausible to be otherwise - we only replace a vehicle when necessary. My old vehicle died so I replaced it with the leaf.

When the subaru dies, I still haven't completely decided which way we'll go ... We could get by ~98% of the time with two leafs. However, we may end up getting a PHEV instead just to avoid the inconvenience of renting that 2%. There's no doubt that we'd be financially better off with a simple EV and renting, but I just haven't decided which is more important to me, the inconvenience of renting or the added expense of PHEV.

i know a few people who are strongly considering a LEAF as their only vehicle because they are retired, only one driver and they literally never leave town. Their daughter lives in Federal Way (about 45 miles away) and she comes down to pick them up for family gatherings because they dont drive at night and in Winter when its dark at 4:30, you dont have much chance to go far

but for me; i could do it but have 2 drivers, two commutes, two different directions. i will say the Prius has been used 7 times in the 21 months that we have had our LEAF. in those 7 times. 4 of those could have been done by the LEAF now that DCFCs were installed on the route to Portland. it would require 2 stops going and 3 stops coming back (15 minute charges for all except the one in Portland)

either way, the Prius generally does the longer commute of 64 miles RT, the LEAF has a commute that varies widely due to my various working scenarios but generally is under 20 miles RT. despite this; the LEAF is getting more miles on it. now with Winter, that might change because SO does not like LEAF due to Climate controls issues affecting range but i have ordered a heated jacket to try this winter to see if that will allow more winter driving...

We could do with two most of the time, and at this point the Leaf gets the bulk of the miles, but being hamstrung to the city only and having to rent any time we went anywhere of distance (though it's not frequent) wouldn't fly with my wife, plus would make me far less likely to want to do a trip.

The leaf replaced a Prius and I dearly want my current ICE vehicle to be replaced with another Prius (possibly plug-in depending on prices), but it's on lease at the moment and too upside down to bother terminating lease early. I really do hate driving it, though, now. Nice car that I simply hate to drive due to gluttonous consumption of gas.

We only have the Leaf, no other vehicles. On occasions where I might need another vehicle I keep a Zipcar membership handy.

Since we bought the Leaf, I've used Zipcar exactly once and that was about 3 weeks ago for us to take a spontaneous trip for the day down the Oregon coast. Blew through almost 300 miles that day!

Currently have an ICE SUV along with the LEAF. The LEAF gets the bulk of the miles. Although my wife has driven the LEAF, she is much more comfortable driving "her" ten year old Buick.

I have a reservation for a Tesla S, but have not yet ordered. If we ever get it, I will try to pry the Buick out of my wifes hands.

Should we turn this into a poll? Perhaps something like this:

* Single EV household
* Dual EV household
* EV / PHEV household
* EV / hybrid household
* EV / ICE household
* PHEV / hybrid household
* PHEV / ICE household
* Other (No plug-ins, if you have 3+ vehicles choose the closest match above instead of this)

Wasn't there another thread about this? :?

Yep!

eclecticflower said:

Wasn't there another thread about this? :?

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camasleaf said:

So are giving all electric driving a chance, now close to two weeks. I find it more relaxing as I do not have the "gas anxiety" anymore. We have a good QC network coming up in Portlan Metro area and that makes it easy to get around farther, if needed. I am still open to the idea of a 4x4 ICE, but I would likely wait for something like the 4x4 PHEV with QC and around 40 miles EV range that will get me between the QC stations if I wanted an all QC trip to the coast or to the moountains.

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LOL Wow, that's a new one on me. A lot of us seem to have "Range anxiety" with the electrics, but I've never heard of "Gas anxiety".

I have my own business, and occasionally have to go out on service calls, so electric only was not really an option for me. I assumed that I would be able to do 90-95% of my driving in the Leaf, but after 2 1/2 weeks, all of my driving has been electric.

EV plus Prius here. LEAF does about 65% of the miles. Prius is a bit more than 5 years old, has 75k miles on it. Will probably replace it with a PHEV that gets at least 40 miles of AER in the next 3 or 4 years. Right now it doesn't make financial sense to replace a perfectly good hybrid.

Boomer23 said:

EV plus Prius here. LEAF does about 65% of the miles. Prius is a bit more than 5 years old, has 75k miles on it. Will probably replace it with a PHEV that gets at least 40 miles of AER in the next 3 or 4 years. Right now it doesn't make financial sense to replace a perfectly good hybrid.

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my thoughts as well although i am VERY curious to see the real world performance of the C-Max Energi. the price is right and if efficient drivers can squeeze say 30 miles out of one, that would be at the top of my very short list.

I am Leaf only and it works for me. When I travel other than locally I fly. I never have had more than one vehicle.

I have a Leaf plus a Gas Guzzler (Honda Insight - the Prius drives like a punishment car!). 90% of my trips are done in the Leaf, but only about 30% of my miles. I leave town a lot, and sadly I can't afford a Tesla (which could handle the trips with a supercharger in Albany). When I'm local, I've very local, averaging about 15-20 miles per day. When I'm not, I'm long-distance driving at least 250 miles each way, and that's 2-3x per month. I wish that I could do them all electric but alas...

GetOffYourGas said:

I have a Leaf plus a Gas Guzzler (Honda Insight - the Prius drives like a punishment car!). 90% of my trips are done in the Leaf, but only about 30% of my miles. I leave town a lot, and sadly I can't afford a Tesla (which could handle the trips with a supercharger in Albany). When I'm local, I've very local, averaging about 15-20 miles per day. When I'm not, I'm long-distance driving at least 250 miles each way, and that's 2-3x per month. I wish that I could do them all electric but alas...

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Great answers from everyone, glad I asked. On this answer, it is somewhat similar to my own so far (high percent of ordinal trip numbers, but the long trips are a high percent of miles... maybe 50-60%, done in my retained Ford Escort wagon at about 28 mpg).

The closest public charger to where I live is 40 miles away, downhill toward Tucson. Should be interesting trying to get home, if I fail to stop there and drink deep at the river.