Nissan Leaf Owners Survey

I'm at Doctoral Researcher at the University of Birmingham in the UK and am conducting a survey on the ownership of Nissan Leaf's. The aim of the study is to ultimately increase electric vehicle sales in Europe as they currently are lagging behind sales expectations. The survey takes around 10 minutes to complete and explores issues such as how owning a Leaf has impacted you, what you enjoy about the vehicle and your views in general of owning a Leaf. Please use the link below to take part in this survey. The questionnaire is aimed at US owners, but responses from anywhere around the world are very welcome

https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/bham/nissanleaf/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your responses would be very much appreciated. Any queries just ask.

Scott

Done. There were some good questions asked...

Yep, good survey... tough choices for the 6 top / 6 worse factors.

That was an interesting survey but I wonder how the answers will be able to shed light on the slower EV adoption rates in Europe. Given higher petrol/diesel prices in Europe and the much shorter driving distances, for the most part, I would think that EVs would be more popular than they are here. Go figure.

Dear Scott,

I started filling out the survey, but had difficulty with the social-network questions, in particular 4a-4d.

I felt I need an example, as to what constitutes an interaction per your intent.

In this era of online forums, does this forum for example constitute a social interaction? How about a work environment? And so on.

Once I'm clear on that, I'll go ahead and finish the survey.

Thanks!

Assaf

Done ~

sometimes they just gather data to pass on to other entities who seek to gather opinions/data.

.

Thanks everyone for filling out the survey. I will try and answer some of your queries as best as possible.

hill
We won't be passing any of the data on to any third parties, its purely an academic research activity.

Assaf
I would consider forums as a social activity, and other social networks. I would consider you local community and your network to be people that you interact with regularly, say on a weekly basis. So people outside of your community would be people you don't see regularly, so people not close friends, colleagues, family etc... I hope that helps you a bit.

dgpcolorado
I am also perplexed as to why more people in the UK aren't buying more BEVs. There are less than 4000 Leafs in the UK to the best of my knowledge, considering petrol is £1.30 a litre, which if my conversion from £-$ and L-gallons is correct would be $9.80/gallon! It is hard to understand why people don't purchase more EVs.

There is quite a lot of interesting research looking into why people don't buy BEVs. What I'm trying to do is find out why people have brought BEVs, and hopefully be able to convince more people to adopt a BEV.

Thanks

took the survey.
please add a percentage done meter on the sidebar so surveyed can assess how much time they have in and time left.

this is well done, a tad confusing about social circles, however.

sxh993 said:

There is quite a lot of interesting research looking into why people don't buy BEVs. What I'm trying to do is find out why people have brought BEVs, and hopefully be able to convince more people to adopt a BEV.

Thanks

Click to expand...

One thing that I think is often discounted in these sorts of studies is the influence that public transport has on vehicle purchasing. I'm not as familiar with the UK situation, so I'll use Vancouver as an example. Vancouver is a city that is very progressive and with geography that makes EVs an ideal solution, yet EVs are still somewhat slow to be adopted. Petrol is costly but electricity is from hydro and relatively inexpensive. Vancouver has a good public transport system though, and I think that many people when confronted with changing their lifestyle to accommodate an EV will also simultaneously consider public transport as a viable alternative.

In places like Los Angeles, public transport is not adequate enough to be a viable competitor to a personal car for many people so when looking to leave an old-fashioned gas car, EVs are part of a smaller set of alternative categories. Additionally, vehicle availability is a factor since there are far fewer EV models available in British Columbia than in California (i.e. Toyota RAV4 EV, Fiat 500E, Chevy Spark EV, etc). British Columbians receive no government incentive to purchase an EV whereas Californians are eligible for $10,000 of incentives, and the price for the same car is lower. A Nissan LEAF S in the US starts at US$29,830 before incentives and the same car in Canada starts at C$33,788 (US$30,943). Factor in incentives and the LEAF is over US$11,000 cheaper in California and in LA it doesn't have a world-class public transportation system competing against it.

sxh993 said:

Thanks everyone for filling out the survey. I will try and answer some of your queries as best as possible.

... snipped ...

dgpcolorado
I am also perplexed as to why more people in the UK aren't buying more BEVs. There are less than 4000 Leafs in the UK to the best of my knowledge, considering petrol is £1.30 a litre, which if my conversion from £-$ and L-gallons is correct would be $9.80/gallon! It is hard to understand why people don't purchase more EVs.

There is quite a lot of interesting research looking into why people don't buy BEVs. What I'm trying to do is find out why people have brought BEVs, and hopefully be able to convince more people to adopt a BEV.

Thanks

Click to expand...

After driving in the UK and US I suspect the high speed and the range loss for such speeds would decrease the appeal of the electric vehicle. There are high speed requirements in the US but there are many more low speed routes and choices in the US compared to the options I experienced in the UK (Scotland / Edinburgh & Glasgow). I found the UK driving to be much more demanding in both the width and straightness of the road infrastructure and the expectations of the UK drivers. Now electric cars in Singapore - I would think they would be a wonderful match except for the electric energy generation sources.

Devin.
I think you may be correct, I'm sure public transport does have a significant impact of peoples choices. Public transport in the UK is pretty good for the most part, so I think if someone was struggling to afford the running costs of a petrol car they could quite easily commute to work via train or something. It certainly could be an interesting factor to look into in the future!

We're also quite fortunate in the UK as we can get £5000 off the purchase price off an EV, I think when more EVs are available and the choice is better that grant is going to help a lot!

On a non-Leaf related note good to here your from British Columbia, a favourite skiing destination of mine!

Nekota.
I think you may have hit on something there. I think the biggest impact is the expectations of UK drivers, most people in reality could adopt a BEV without much interference with their daily lives. But people have come to expect 400 miles off a tank of fuel. Some drivers seem quite set in there ways as well, and often quite willing to change.

Done. Good luck!

Done.

Of my dozen relatives and friends in the UK, only one has a car, the rest bike, bus, and train.

Here, two car (and more) families are common.

What are the relative per capita rates of car ownership, US and UK?

Very well done survey.
MUCH better than Nissan surveys.
Well worth the time.

Really like that it gives you easy means to save all the questions, all the potential answers, and how you answered.
Very well done.
Only improvement would be % complete indicator and details on finishing later.

Thanks jhm614.

TimLee.
Thanks, I'm glad you found the survey to be worthwhile!

DNAinaGOODWay.
Thanks. Car ownership is lower in the UK, according to the World Banks stats its 516 vehicles per 1000 people in the UK and 786 vehicles per 1000 people in the US.

Defiantly a reason for there being fewer BEVs in terms of units, but BEVs have lower % market shares compared to the US as well.

Done.

Would like to see the results/analysis paper.

Thanks bbrowncods. I'll share the final report or publication on here. Although its still a while off as I've only just started the research!

Devin said:

sxh993 said:

There is quite a lot of interesting research looking into why people don't buy BEVs. What I'm trying to do is find out why people have brought BEVs, and hopefully be able to convince more people to adopt a BEV.

Thanks

Click to expand...

One thing that I think is often discounted in these sorts of studies is the influence that public transport has on vehicle purchasing. I'm not as familiar with the UK situation, so I'll use Vancouver as an example. Vancouver is a city that is very progressive and with geography that makes EVs an ideal solution, yet EVs are still somewhat slow to be adopted. Petrol is costly but electricity is from hydro and relatively inexpensive. Vancouver has a good public transport system though, and I think that many people when confronted with changing their lifestyle to accommodate an EV will also simultaneously consider public transport as a viable alternative.

In places like Los Angeles, public transport is not adequate enough to be a viable competitor to a personal car for many people so when looking to leave an old-fashioned gas car, EVs are part of a smaller set of alternative categories. Additionally, vehicle availability is a factor since there are far fewer EV models available in British Columbia than in California (i.e. Toyota RAV4 EV, Fiat 500E, Chevy Spark EV, etc). British Columbians receive no government incentive to purchase an EV whereas Californians are eligible for $10,000 of incentives, and the price for the same car is lower. A Nissan LEAF S in the US starts at US$29,830 before incentives and the same car in Canada starts at C$33,788 (US$30,943). Factor in incentives and the LEAF is over US$11,000 cheaper in California and in LA it doesn't have a world-class public transportation system competing against it.

Click to expand...

In addition to the above, the U.S. has a much higher % of people living in detached single family suburban homes which they own, with a high % of families owning multiple cars. [Edit]: See the chart here for a breakdown of U.S. vehicle ownership by household from 1960 to 2011:

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/09/chart-of-the-day-rising-household-vehicle-ownership-over-time-belies-middle-class-stagnation/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Given suburban sprawl and zoning regs that separate residential, commercial and retail uses, you pretty much have to use cars to get around. In Europe, in addition to the shorter distances people travel, far more live in (often rental) multi-unit housing or row houses, which provides the density necessary for public transit. And then there is the lack of land available for parking off street in older European cities.

I imagine far fewer European households have (or can afford) multiple cars, or have any way to charge them at/near home given the above. [Edit]: But maybe that belief is increasingly out of date, with the Millennials. See

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its-official-western-europeans-have-more-cars-per-person-than-americans/261108/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you're only going to have one car it pretty much has to be at least partly fossil-fueled (unless you can afford a Tesla), because you need it to do everything and home recharging isn't an option (by and large). Then, if you have good public transit and/or walkable/bikable cities, the need to use a car for commuting and errands isn't present. I've been living that sort of lifestyle in the U.S. for almost 15 years now, and my car sits in my driveway at least 5 days a week, as I bike to work, do my errands on foot and often use public transit w/bike for longer regional trips. But the car's ICE, because I use it for out of town trips to remote destinations that would be inconvenient or impossible to get to with current affordable BEVs, with their short range and lack of enroute and destination charging infrastructure.

Thanks GRA.

I think the information on on passenger cars per 1000 is misleading. In Europe people that own a car pretty much always own a vehicle officially classed as a car. In the US many drivers have large SUVs and Pick-ups which are not classed as cars (i think they're classed as 'light trucks') so wouldn't be on that list.

The world bank data may be more representative of the truth. Although this data not perfect as it includes buses and commercial vehicles.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.VEH.NVEH.P3?order=wbapi_data_value_2011+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=desc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

sxh993 said:

Thanks GRA.

I think the information on on passenger cars per 1000 is misleading. In Europe people that own a car pretty much always own a vehicle officially classed as a car. In the US many drivers have large SUVs and Pick-ups which are not classed as cars (i think they're classed as 'light trucks') so wouldn't be on that list.

The world bank data may be more representative of the truth. Although this data not perfect as it includes buses and commercial vehicles.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.VEH.NVEH.P3?order=wbapi_data_value_2011+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=desc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Click to expand...

We unquestionably have a much higher number of 'passenger vehicles' per person than the 439. The number I remember is a peak around 810 Light Duty Vehicles (LDV: includes cars/pickups/vans/SUVs/CUVs)/1,000 persons, so that agrees pretty well with the 803 listed by the World Bank for 2009, and the number declined since then owing to the recession. But it's also true that the Millennials aren't getting driver's licenses or buying cars the way their parents did - it remains to be seen how much of that is a long term shift due to valuing spending time on their smartphones/tablets and living in dense cities with lots of services over driving cars, and how much of it is due to their under/unemployment and delay in starting families.