Sacramento area?

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Visual

Well-known member
Joined
May 5, 2010
Messages
71
Location
El Dorado Hills
Anybody here from the Sac/surrounding area? I'm hoping we can encourage Nissan to bring the Leaf here for test drives sooner rather than later...

Amit
El Dorado Hills
 
Yes and no. They have a program. But, when I spoke with them about it. I was told that the only vehicle that will qualify for it is the CNG Honda Civic. They claim because the Leaf will get the fed and state incentives that it will not qualify. However, I did some checking and found that the sources they are supposedly are using for the grant money list the Leaf as a qualified vehicle. After July, I will dig into this a bit more.
 
I am located at 3,000 foot elevation 70 miles east of Sacramento.
My concern is that I have a nearly 2,000 elevation change in my daily commute. That is fine going downhill, but will The leaf make it back uphill without becoming an obstacle to traffic?
Knowing that there will be charging stations along the major highways will make longer trips possible.
 
Calaveras said:
I am located at 3,000 foot elevation 70 miles east of Sacramento.
My concern is that I have a nearly 2,000 elevation change in my daily commute. That is fine going downhill, but will The leaf make it back uphill without becoming an obstacle to traffic?
If you are worried about having enough power to climb the hills - fear not. Range is another story. My Rav4EV has less than half the power that the Leaf will have, and there are no hills it cannot climb at normal freeway speeds.

Oh... and I'm in Davis. :wave:
 
darelldd said:
Calaveras said:
I am located at 3,000 foot elevation 70 miles east of Sacramento.
My concern is that I have a nearly 2,000 elevation change in my daily commute. That is fine going downhill, but will The leaf make it back uphill without becoming an obstacle to traffic?
If you are worried about having enough power to climb the hills - fear not. Range is another story. My Rav4EV has less than half the power that the Leaf will have, and there are no hills it cannot climb at normal freeway speeds.

Oh... and I'm in Davis. :wave:

So I'm extremely interested in this - have you been able to figure how how many "flat" miles of power you burn for every uphill mile?

For instance - if you have an average of a 6% hill, how many normal miles of juice do you consume for each one you go up hill? What's your best estimate?

If the Leaf can go up a decent hill at 2 miles of battery for every mile of road, or even 3 miles of battery for every mile of road - it vastly expands the area that I can use it in. If it is more like 5+ miles of battery for every mile uphill, then I'll be fairly limited where I can take the car.

My only electric experience is the 30 seconds or so you can drive the Prius on battery only, so that doesn't give me enough data to make an educated guess.
 
LakeLeaf said:
darelldd said:
Calaveras said:
I am located at 3,000 foot elevation 70 miles east of Sacramento.
My concern is that I have a nearly 2,000 elevation change in my daily commute. That is fine going downhill, but will The leaf make it back uphill without becoming an obstacle to traffic?
If you are worried about having enough power to climb the hills - fear not. Range is another story. My Rav4EV has less than half the power that the Leaf will have, and there are no hills it cannot climb at normal freeway speeds.

Oh... and I'm in Davis. :wave:

So I'm extremely interested in this - have you been able to figure how how many "flat" miles of power you burn for every uphill mile?

For instance - if you have an average of a 6% hill, how many normal miles of juice do you consume for each one you go up hill? What's your best estimate?
If the Leaf can go up a decent hill at 2 miles of battery for every mile of road, or even 3 miles of battery for every mile of road - it vastly expands the area that I can use it in. If it is more like 5+ miles of battery for every mile uphill, then I'll be fairly limited where I can take the car.
My only electric experience is the 30 seconds or so you can drive the Prius on battery only, so that doesn't give me enough data to make an educated guess.

In the last 6mos I have been getting quite a bit of experience with a 10KWh converted Prius in the hills of norcal...and I can tell you that for MANY reasons the Leaf should offer a comparitively vigorous level of cruising, both at highway speeds and over varied terrain....But untill we see some real world numbers for the Leaf, it is all speculation...Even if I had the Leaf's bigger battery available to me in the Prius, the Prius was not designed to use EV solely....On the other hand, no range anxiety.
 
Potential Energy = mass * g * height.

So, for example, for a 1,000 foot climb in a 3,500 lbs LEAF (estimate; incl. 1 driver),

PE used = (3,500*0.454) [kg] * 9.8 [m/s/s] * 304.8 [m] ==> [kg*m*m/s/s] =[Joules]

1 Joule = 1 Watt * Second

PE = 1,589 * 9.8 * 304.8 = 4,746,407 [Joules] ==> 4,746,407 / 3.600 [Wh] = 1.3 kWh.

So ... IN ADDITION to whatever driving distance you complete (as if you are on flat ground, for example 250Wh/mile), you also spend 1.3 kWh to climb 1,000 feet. If the regen is totally efficient (and the LEAF's charger let's you) you can gain all of that potential energy back on the downhill. (The level of incline on the rise does not matter so long as the car can handle it. On the descent it depends on the firmware allowing regen or coasting if you can. If you need to use the friction brakes you're wasting the Potential Energy.)

Hope this helps :)
 
LEAFer said:
PE = 1,589 * 9.8 * 304.8 = 4,746,407 [Joules] ==> 4,746,407 / 3.600 [Wh] = 1.3 kWh.

Nice. My normal driving distance is 5.5 miles - and a difference of about 1000 feet. Looks like the altitude doubles my energy consumption on the way up :lol:
 
I can tell you that the instantaneous fuel consumption gauge on my ICE car reflects about 2X fuel consumption while climbing hills, and about 1/2 on the way back down.

Of course the only hills around here are man-made: overpasses, underpasses, freeway ramps, bridges...
 
Sacramento area buyers can contact the following dealer only slightly out of area for a MUCH BETTER selling price than ANY of our more convenient local Nissan outlets. I gave up on our local dealers after trying to get any of them to discount MSRP for the Leaf. Heck, the selling dealer has NO COSTS in this sale since all the cars are assigned by us to the delivering dealer. Every LEAF sale is above the dealer's allocation of new vehicles, so every one is "clear profit" above some minimal handling costs for writing the order and final prep on the car. I offered every local dealer the proposal to "split the difference between MSRP and their Invoice cost" and NONE accepted that. However the CHICO NISSAN dealer responded....

Hello there! Thanks for getting in touch with us about the Leaf. I wanted to E-mail you and let you know that splitting the INV and MSRP will not be a problem on your purchase. Feel free to let anyone you know who is interested know that I will gladly honor this deal for them as well.

Feel free to contact me direct, or my EV Leader Ron Ricci, or our EV Specialist Antonio Leon if you have any questions.

Thx Again for the oppertunity Mr Parrott


Ryan Sutton
General Sales Manager
Chico Nissan-Hyundai
(530)891-1777 Ph.
(530)891-4060 Fx

George Parrott in W. Sacramento with an August order time for a RED Leaf with the option package
 
Thanks for this post - its great to find a dealer who's willing to be reasonable, though I guess times have been so tough for them they're having a hard time letting go of the margins on cars that ARE selling...
 
As of today (Aug.17) there is still not public or dealer understanding of the "invoice price" of the Leaf. Giving a selling dealer "fair profit" for services demands that some $$ above invoice be charged. Splitting that difference seemed reasonable to me and to Chico Nissan. "Theory" suggests that the invoice price is probably $1200-2200 LESS than MSRP, given typical differentials at the MSRP range of $34,000. I am sure we are all eager to have actual "invoice" and since there was a big recent dealer's meeting, MAYBE that information will become public soon?

George
 
GeorgeParrott said:
Giving a selling dealer "fair profit" for services demands that some $$ above invoice be charged.

What about holdback ? Given that there is no inventory cost - that is more than enough. We, the customers, have done all the hard work - we have researched everything, figured out all the details. Dealers don't need to spend any time "selling" the car.

Any profit on Leaf a dealer makes is essentially subsidizing that gas guzzler sitting on the lot.
 
I read that the dealer willing the split the profit was discounting the car by $1600 or so. That leads me to believe that the invoice is probably somewhere around $31K.
 
For those of us in the Sacramento area....there is one silver Nissan Leaf being regularly used by the California Fuel Cell Partnership based off Industrial Blvd. in W. Sacramento. I have seen it driving around downtown and TODAY (18 Aug.) saw it parked in front of the CFCP headquarters. I talked at some length with one of the Nissan engineers who are field testing both the Leaf and other fuel cell technologies here.

Anyway, if you want to check out one, I cannot guarantee it will always be parked there, but it often is....during office work hours. Apparently it is on some kind of employee rotation for who gets to drive it for a week at a time. Heck, it even had a kiddie car seat in the back today.

George Parrott
W. Sacramento
 
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