Re: How much does a Nissan leaf and cost to Operate?

[MOD NOTE] A spammer started this thread, hence the lack of context -drees

You need to tell us more about your electric plan. What's your average rate per kwh?

Does your provider have tiers? If so, what tier are you up to? Will charging an EV push you into more expensive tiers? Some folks have time of use (TOU) based plans or switch to them, complicating the calculation.

Someone who seems to have never bothered to return started a lot of discussion at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7234" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Someone ran hypothetical numbers for me based upon now old PG&E rates at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=155519#p155519" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Knowing your price per kwh is critical to getting an answer that is within the ballpark of being right. Compare those ripoff rates to those of Seattle City & Light (in the post the follows).

You're confused when you mentioned "the Level 2 leaf". All Leafs can be charged at level 1 or 2. And, for L1 and L2 charging, the charger is already in the car. What you're looking for is an L2 EVSE vs. the stock L1 (cord set w/a brick) EVSE.

Do you plan to lease or buy?

$40 to $80 a month for electric in most circumstances. Do you need to be more specific? How fixed is your budget?

a rough figure is about two cents a mile if your rates are about 12 cents a kWh.

My husband drives our Leaf to work 5 days a week about 60 miles round trip. I drive it on the weekends. Our electric bill has gone up between $15 and $20 a month since we got the car. We've calculated that it costs us right about 2 cent per mile to drive. We LOVE it!

whitalockz said:

How much does a Nissan leaf and cost to Operate? And is it possible to get a level 2 charger for the car? Im aware of the price But i cant find how much it will cost me on my electric bill to charge it. If I do get a Leaf i will get the Level 2 leaf. I drive AT MOST 60 miles a day 6 days a week from home to work then to school. I live in Texas and TXU is our energy provider i want

Click to expand...

if you drive 360 miles a week, figure 3.5 miles /kwh. so 103 Kwh abouts. then multiply it by your rate and multiply that by 4.3 (weeks in a month)

pretty general answer there but you have provided almost no info on what you pay but use the figures above and you will hit it plus or minus 10%. now 10% may seem like a lot to you but it will only be $3-4

If you have the option, use free public charging whenever possible! My rates are cut in half because I have free charging at the ramp i use in Downtown Minneapolis.

MarvGordon said:

If you have the option, use free public charging whenever possible! My rates are cut in half because I have free charging at the ramp i use in Downtown Minneapolis.

Click to expand...

While I very much appreciate having access to public charging, I don't believe one should use public charging simply to reduce one's electric bill, as someone ultimately has to pay for it. If you can charge at home, then it's usually better to leave public charging docks available for those who might truly need them to complete longer trips. On the other hand, it's not a bad idea to occasionally take advantage of little-used public charging docks so that others can see them getting used.

It's interesting that 3 weeks after the OP asked the question, they've logged in but failed to reply w/any additional information that would help us give a more accurate figure.

Some of the guesses thrown out could be off by as much as a factor 4 or 5x...

whitalockz said:

How much does a Nissan leaf and cost to Operate? And is it possible to get a level 2 charger for the car? Im aware of the price But i cant find how much it will cost me on my electric bill to charge it. If I do get a Leaf i will get the Level 2 leaf. I drive AT MOST 60 miles a day 6 days a week from home to work then to school. I live in Texas and TXU is our energy provider i want

Click to expand...

I have a spreadsheet you can use to calculate cost of running the LEAF. You can substitute your KWh rate and get a reasonable estimate.

I can drive 1,200 miles for about $30 per month. I agree with others that 2-3 cents per mile is typical.

JP
http://wp.me/p1sK3k-i
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2881567/Leaf Charging Costs Pub.xlsx

TX, my guess is less than $40 per month in electric and zero $ maintenance in first two years.

I just rolled into 15,000 miles this morning after 13 months of ownership. I am guessing my electricity charges at 10c per kWh would be around $375 to drive these 15K miles or around $30 a month.

Zero maintenance or service charges (touch wood) so far. That can all change with a blown tire !!

JPWhite said:

whitalockz said:

How much does a Nissan leaf and cost to Operate? And is it possible to get a level 2 charger for the car? Im aware of the price But i cant find how much it will cost me on my electric bill to charge it. If I do get a Leaf i will get the Level 2 leaf. I drive AT MOST 60 miles a day 6 days a week from home to work then to school. I live in Texas and TXU is our energy provider i want

Click to expand...

I have a spreadsheet you can use to calculate cost of running the LEAF. You can substitute your KWh rate and get a reasonable estimate.

I can drive 1,200 miles for about $30 per month. I agree with others that 2-3 cents per mile is typical.

JP
http://wp.me/p1sK3k-i
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2881567/Leaf Charging Costs Pub.xlsx

Click to expand...

I haven't looked at your spreadsheet carefully but I assume column B is how much your Leaf is using, not your whole house. If I average all your monthly values except the first and last, I get 301 kwh.

On PG&E, I consumed 327 kwh for my last bill (covers 2/13/13 to 3/14/13). If at http://www.pge.com/myhome/myaccount/charges/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, I put in winter, 95136 (it's not the zip I live in but the baselines, tiers and rates are the same), gas and no for CARE, I'm within baseline/tier 1 and it comes out to $42.38 before taxes and fees.

If I raise the slider to 627 kwh (adding 300 kwh), I'm into tier 3 and being charged $0.15/kwh for some and $0.30/kwh for the some. The bill comes out to $112.23 before taxes and fees. So, adding the EV would have a marginal cost of $69.85 (before taxes and fees) and the marginal rate is $0.238/kwh. This comes out to more like 5 cents/mile.

This why it's crucial to know the rate info and structure of the OP.

While his local rates matter some, he is TX not PG&E land. So there is no way he is over 20 cents a marginal kWh. He is probably 12 or at most 14 - which is why 2 or 3 cents a mile is a fine guesstimate.

cwerdna said:

JPWhite said:

whitalockz said:

How much does a Nissan leaf and cost to Operate? And is it possible to get a level 2 charger for the car? Im aware of the price But i cant find how much it will cost me on my electric bill to charge it. If I do get a Leaf i will get the Level 2 leaf. I drive AT MOST 60 miles a day 6 days a week from home to work then to school. I live in Texas and TXU is our energy provider i want

Click to expand...

I have a spreadsheet you can use to calculate cost of running the LEAF. You can substitute your KWh rate and get a reasonable estimate.

I can drive 1,200 miles for about $30 per month. I agree with others that 2-3 cents per mile is typical.

JP
http://wp.me/p1sK3k-i
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2881567/Leaf Charging Costs Pub.xlsx

Click to expand...

I haven't looked at your spreadsheet carefully but I assume column B is how much your Leaf is using, not your whole house. If I average all your monthly values except the first and last, I get 301 kwh.

On PG&E, I consumed 327 kwh for my last bill (covers 2/13/13 to 3/14/13). If at http://www.pge.com/myhome/myaccount/charges/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, I put in winter, 95136 (it's not the zip I live in but the baselines, tiers and rates are the same), gas and no for CARE, I'm within baseline/tier 1 and it comes out to $42.38 before taxes and fees.

If I raise the slider to 627 kwh (adding 300 kwh), I'm into tier 3 and being charged $0.15/kwh for some and $0.30/kwh for the some. The bill comes out to $112.23 before taxes and fees. So, adding the EV would have a marginal cost of $69.85 (before taxes and fees) and the marginal rate is $0.238/kwh. This comes out to more like 5 cents/mile.

This why it's crucial to know the rate info and structure of the OP.

Click to expand...

Yes 300kwh is about how much I use per month for the leaf. The spreadsheet is for the leaf only as you assumed correctly.

The beauty of the spreadsheet is that the kwh rate can be entered to match the utilities rate plan for anyone's situation. Clearly it gets more complex if time of day or total kwh triggers a rate change.

Here's in TN it's the same price no matter what time of day nor the amount consumed.

JP White, how did you calculate theenergy used by your LEAF? Did you uinsert some sort of meter in line to your EVSE? Or are you simply compareing your previous years electricity bill to this years?

I am now a two month owner of a 2014 LEAF, totally happy with it. My electricity is flat rate at 9.6 cents KWH.

So if the leaf has a 24kwh battery, worst case is a complete full charge is 24 KWH? So that is simple math of 24 x $.096 = $2.30 a full charge?

I'm not too concerned about true to the penny cost.

I used to pay ~ $50/ week for gas
I now pay ~ $50/month for home charging.

I sometimes have as much as $15/month in public charging fees (Blink), but it averages around $3/month for level 2 public charging.

I drive almost 90/day and just noticed the other morning that my EVSE said I used $1.72 to return to a full charge after driving 90 miles, probably charged for an hour during luch, so add on another $0.33 to that for a total of $2.05. I would say that's close to 3 gallons of gas ~ $10.00

I tell people it costs about 1/4 of what it would cost you in gas. And you only get billed once a month (I find that convenient)

I live in Tennessee and find gas & electricity a little lower than national average & a lot lower that the left coast people pay.

Since having an EV allows favorable solar TOU rates I think my fuel cost is actually negative in that energy cost for the house dropped more than the EV increases the cost. My 3kW solar would cover maybe 50% of the kWh used in the home and still cost some money. But with the TOU rates the home cost is brought to zero saving another $50+ per month and the EV uses less than that. Cost is just insurance, minimal maintenance and the lease.

CUBldr97 said:

JP White, how did you calculate theenergy used by your LEAF? Did you uinsert some sort of meter in line to your EVSE? Or are you simply compareing your previous years electricity bill to this years?

I am now a two month owner of a 2014 LEAF, totally happy with it. My electricity is flat rate at 9.6 cents KWH.

So if the leaf has a 24kwh battery, worst case is a complete full charge is 24 KWH? So that is simple math of 24 x $.096 = $2.30 a full charge?

I'm not too concerned about true to the penny cost.

Click to expand...

I calculate the energy used thanks to the Blink EVSE having a web page where I can query the current and previous months usage. So the 'meter' is inside my EVSE at home. I make estimates of 2 kWh per bar added when using public charging without access to a meter (this estimate is probably overestimates the amount consumed by a small amount).

Yes the LEAF has a 24kWh battery but the very top and bottom of the capacity is not made available to the driver. So for a new LEAF like yours one can estimate 21kWh as the actual total usable capacity from 'full' down to turtle. This reserve prevents over or under voltage of the battery pack and accelerated degradation of the battery pack. My battery has degraded some now and I have under 18kWh available.

JPWhite said:

CUBldr97 said:

JP White, how did you calculate theenergy used by your LEAF? Did you uinsert some sort of meter in line to your EVSE? Or are you simply compareing your previous years electricity bill to this years?

I am now a two month owner of a 2014 LEAF, totally happy with it. My electricity is flat rate at 9.6 cents KWH.

So if the leaf has a 24kwh battery, worst case is a complete full charge is 24 KWH? So that is simple math of 24 x $.096 = $2.30 a full charge?

I'm not too concerned about true to the penny cost.

Click to expand...

I calculate the energy used thanks to the Blink EVSE having a web page where I can query the current and previous months usage. So the 'meter' is inside my EVSE at home. I make estimates of 2 kWh per bar added when using public charging without access to a meter (this estimate is probably overestimates the amount consumed by a small amount).

Yes the LEAF has a 24kWh battery but the very top and bottom of the capacity is not made available to the driver. So for a new LEAF like yours one can estimate 21kWh as the actual total usable capacity from 'full' down to turtle. This reserve prevents over or under voltage of the battery pack and accelerated degradation of the battery pack. My battery has degraded some now and I have under 18kWh available.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply...good stuff

I don't use Air Conditioning because I like the Heat, So in the summer time I don't waste electricity on cooling the interior.

But in the Winter time I like to Pre-Heat my LEAF. That costs Money!, in the summer time it costs me around $7.00 to drive 300 miles.

In the winter around $10.00 to drive 300 miles.

$33.33 in the wintertime for 1000 miles.

$23.33 in the summertime for 1000 miles.

I pay 10.5 cents per kWh

One thing to consider:
Since I don't take the LEAF in to be serviced every 3000 miles (oil changes and such) nobody fills my wiper fluid. So I have to do that myself. So there is some additional maintenance costs that GAS cars don't need to worry about because when they get their oil changed they get wiper fluid for free!

I've used 3 gallons in the past year, so $9.00 plus I had my tires rotated twice, That's about $60.00

So, Electric costs plus wiper fluid and tires being rotated is just about $439 for the year!!!!!!! DAMN!!!!!

I used to spend $3500, easily with my Gas car for the same amount of miles per year!!!

That's easily $3000 in my pocket per year, In 7 years I'll have $21K to put down on a New EV