I actually ran completely out of battery today. First time. Details follow.

If you are curious what happens when you totally run out, all the way past turtle mode, here it is:

Through a series of mishaps, I forgot to plug in my car last night, and it was already only at 13 miles remaining, in low battery mode. I parked it in a garage that was about 45 degrees F.

This morning I woke and realized as I headed out the door that I had not charged, and I had to pick up my daughter 4 miles away, drive her to the orthodontist 6 miles away, take her to school 6 more miles away, and then drive home. It is 28F here this morning. I drove VERY conservatively and I got her to school. When I turned the LEAF back on in the school parking lot, I got the turtle icon. It was a straight shot home down a 25mph street for about 4 miles, so I thought I would make it. I kept my power consumption to one white dot most of the time, occasionally hedging into a second dot as I started up from a stop sign. Unfortunately I had a hill over a freeway and that did me in. I crested the hill and the car beeped politely, like it does when you try to put it into the wrong gear or something, and she went into neutral. I coasted down the hill and stopped in the median. Some nice people came along and pushed me into a nearby church parking lot where I was able to plug into an external 110. That's where I'm sitting now.

I feel pretty irresponsible and the 4 people who helped push me probably won't buy an electric car now. :-(

I have a recurring daily reminder set on my phone to remind me to turn on the home alarm before going to bed, you may want to do similar to remind you to plug in your car.

I have ran out of juice on two occasions. first time was on purpose so I could see what would happen. I just drove around the neighborhood, then when it went to "turtle" I just drove around the block. Luckily it died just one house away from home and my neighbor who was watching me at awe helped me up to the garage.

The second time I know I was pushing it. I also ran out of juice at the crest of a hill over an interstate. I then tried to coast to the Chevy dealership which was at the bottom of the hill and had charging stations for the Volt that I could you...but did not make it. Ended up calling AAA to get me home.

Could happen to anyone. On the bright side, you'll probably never forget to charge again, and you did get the kid to school.

In four years, I've come close to turtle maybe 2-3 times, but luckily there are 120 outlets everywhere.

alicefoeller said:

I feel pretty irresponsible and the 4 people who helped push me probably won't buy an electric car now. :-(

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Thanks for the story!

My fear is the neighbors seeing me towed home, and saying, "I knew he was stupid to buy an electric car."

My wife has a somewhat-OCD habit of always checking a few things before we go to bed. One of them is that Leif (Leif Erikson--she's Swedish) is plugged in.

I, on the other hand, tends to tell people the down side of ev, so that they will not come back and blame me.
So far people around see the up side pretty well. (i am in bay area, CA, if that is part of the reason).

I cannot recharge at home. I totally rely on charging at work (free of charge, by the way) and public charging network. Imagine that I DO pay attention to the "percentage" meter and "leafspy battery capacity" closely. So far only one lbw for 3 months.... (that day i pushed to 70+mph sometimes for a 70miles round trip... )

Leaf is already a huge leap from electric conversion, back when I heard that the range is 30+miles.

How many miles could you travel after the SOC read 0%?

We want to drive to Tuscson from Calif.
My "Plan" is to cross the desert from Yuma to Gila Bend.. at which point the car will be dead.
Then Call Nissan and get a courtesy tow to the nearest Leaf Certified Dealer.. couple hundred miles away in Tucson.
where we are headed.

Well, it sounds good anyway. :roll:

craig said:

How many miles could you travel after the SOC read 0%?

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Actually when I tested my '12 the car shut down at ~3% using LeafSpy AFAIR. Wasn't too happy about that and it was only a couple flat blocks after getting the turtle icon. From this I learned VLB warning means immediately look for a charge, turtle means pull over now!

Good to know.

Cool story bro. Sorry, just had to post that.

My son purposely ran his 2016 30 kWh battery down a few weeks ago while using LeafSpy. Turtle came on with 500 Watts left.. The car quit when the reading was 200 Watts.