Hi all,
This week I drove my second hand Leaf on kids shuttle duties while my wife is away. I charged it on Monday, drove kids to school, back home, and picked them up later. I had plenty of charge but charged it again just in case - this was not needed. On Tuesday, the car was fully charged and I did the same driving routine plus ran some errands. I haven't charged again since Tuesday, still holding to 30% charge on Friday. At the end of the week, I had driven only 65 miles total. While this fits the range we all love to talk about, one thing that came as a surprise is the amount of butt time I did in it: 6.2 hours.
Obviously we can't claim the car will drive 6.2 hours under every condition but for city dwellers, I think that's a much more compelling story than saying "84 miles EPA". It's quite impressive that the car can be driven with the AC on (I'm in Miami) for all of that time in stop/go traffic. The week started with 6.2 miles/kWh but I got lead-footed and finished with an average of 5.8 miles/kWh. Again, a nice surprise I didn't think it was possible in deadlocked traffic. My wife would have burned through at least half her gas tank, another impressive statistic. Sure, she drives an SUV with the efficiency of an M1 Abrams tank but its apparent that is all that idling that's burning the gas.
The next time someone asks me the range of the Leaf, I'm going to say "6 hours of city driving"
JR
This week I drove my second hand Leaf on kids shuttle duties while my wife is away. I charged it on Monday, drove kids to school, back home, and picked them up later. I had plenty of charge but charged it again just in case - this was not needed. On Tuesday, the car was fully charged and I did the same driving routine plus ran some errands. I haven't charged again since Tuesday, still holding to 30% charge on Friday. At the end of the week, I had driven only 65 miles total. While this fits the range we all love to talk about, one thing that came as a surprise is the amount of butt time I did in it: 6.2 hours.
Obviously we can't claim the car will drive 6.2 hours under every condition but for city dwellers, I think that's a much more compelling story than saying "84 miles EPA". It's quite impressive that the car can be driven with the AC on (I'm in Miami) for all of that time in stop/go traffic. The week started with 6.2 miles/kWh but I got lead-footed and finished with an average of 5.8 miles/kWh. Again, a nice surprise I didn't think it was possible in deadlocked traffic. My wife would have burned through at least half her gas tank, another impressive statistic. Sure, she drives an SUV with the efficiency of an M1 Abrams tank but its apparent that is all that idling that's burning the gas.
The next time someone asks me the range of the Leaf, I'm going to say "6 hours of city driving"
JR
