Suggestions, Got to Get 75Miles From Dealer

Needing to drive my new Leaf 75 miles tomorrow from dealer pickup point to my brother's house. It can sit there overnight, charge, and finish the additional 45 miles on Friday. Conditions are supposed to be mid-20's, clear, light winds. No quick charges on or near tomorrow's drive. I was good at hyper-miling my old Honda Insight but I'm aware that this is a new game...Leaving tomorrow at 9AM, experienced suggestions mucho appreciated .

As long as you can resist using the heater and keep your speed in check, and you have sufficient time for the slow 120V recharge, you should be OK.

weekss said:

Needing to drive my new Leaf 75 miles tomorrow from dealer pickup point to my brother's house. It can sit there overnight, charge, and finish the additional 45 miles on Friday. Conditions are supposed to be mid-20's, clear, light winds. No quick charges on or near tomorrow's drive. I was good at hyper-miling my old Honda Insight but I'm aware that this is a new game...Leaving tomorrow at 9AM, experienced suggestions mucho appreciated .

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If you leave the dealer fully charged you have about 21kWh available. For 75 miles you will need to average 3.5 miles per kWh.

If it is flat and dry pavement than at 50-55 mph you should make it. From my experience lower temperatures impact is a lot higher above 50 mph. Water/snow on the road will impact you even at lower speeds.

If there are a lot of hills then I would slow down even more. Is there any elevation gain/loss?

I would avoid using the heat unless you keep above 4.0 miles per kWh on your average without heat.

In case you find yourself running short, is there any public (level 2) charging near your route? Have you checked http://plugshare.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ?

camasleaf said:

If you leave the dealer fully charged you have about 21kWh available. For 75 miles you will need to average 3.5 miles per kWh.

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We certainly don't know that. He stated temperatures in the 20F's, which means the battery may be at that low temperature. At 22F, he/she can expect about 12% loss of capacity (70F - 22F = 48F / 4 = 12% loss, or 88% of 21kWh useable).

First, where are you (update your location) and where are you driving from and to? Also, make sure you preheat the cabin while still plugged in before launch. Ideally, the car is in a heated garage prior to your launch.

So, 88% of 21kWh is 18.48kWh useable. With a 15% margin of error (for snow, new to the car, accidentally turned the heater on, etc) and using NO heater except seat and steering wheel heater, that only leaves 15.7kWh to get the done (18.48kWh * 85%).

That means the car must average 4.85 miles/kWh to drive 76 miles. That's about 45-50mph steady speed (not average speed, or stop and go) on a level, dry, no wind, sea level road.

Make sure you reset the economy meter just before launch, don't exceed 50 mph, heater off (sparingly use defrost if needed) and don't let the economy go below 4.8. Assuming you follow my advice, you should be at or above the Low Battery Warning when you arrive.

Please check out the Range Chart link in my signature line. Also, if you find yourself in an OMG situation, the longest range speed is between 10 mph and 15 mph.

Good luck.

Slow and easy is the key. Use the power meter screen to monitor your power use, and plan on only having 19KWH to work with. If you are using 19Kw for an hour, that is how far you will go. You will need to drive for close to two hours, so try to average half that. The power use screen is found by pressing the blue button to the lower right of the nav screen. Choose the right option from there.

Keeping the energy use at 0 as much as you can will extend your range. Regen should only be used when you have too much speed.

If you are being really efficient you will grow 5 trees and max out the meter. If you can find a route that is 35 mph without too many stops, use it. Nissan says that 37MPH is the most effircient speed, so keep that in mind.

The Nav system will allow you three options, one is fastest, one is shortest, and one is avoid freeways. I would suggest the shortest route in most cases. Often the freeway at 55 is a better choice than a many stop road through a city. If you need to go over a mountain, don't believe the milage estimate. You will use a lot of power to get to the top, but once there you will be able to gain energy, rather than use it. The car has no way to know that. In general it is not good to believe the range estimator at all, many people place a sticker over it. Watch the bars, you want to get about 7 miles on each.

Bring warm clothes, and if the defrost is needed, try to crack the front and rear windows on opposite sides instead of using the defrost. If you have to use the defrost, use it in bursts. Pressing the defrost button tends to make quick work of the problem, and then turn the system off once the windshield is clear.

When you know you will make it, turn the heater on and warm your toes. Welcome to the world of electric drive! This will not be your best drive in your new car, but you should make it. If you hit the LBW, figure you have about 15% of your battery left so adjust for that at that time.

Any energy you save will make the recharge time less. Overnight may not get you to a full charge, but after the initial trip you will be able to figure out how much you will need to get home.

Just read Tony's post, so you may want to figure on 15KWH instead of 19, just to be on the safe side. That will be harder, but it is possible if you watch the energy screen.

Use one of your free tows and enjoy the ride. Before running out of juice, scope a bar or restaurant so you can wait comfortably. My dealer was 150 miles from my house. They offered to bring the car home for free and I accepted. i signed all the paperwork in my dining room and had a car delivered with a full charge.

Appreciate all suggestions. Mostly flat terrain with a few small rollers. Will let it fully charge and warm up while plugged in. Dressing warm for the trip and will become familiar with all pertinent guages, meters, etc, prior to leaving the dealership. I'll post late tonight on the results and wishing for tailwinds. Thanks to all for your input/support.

weekss said:

Appreciate all suggestions. Mostly flat terrain with a few small rollers. Will let it fully charge and warm up while plugged in. Dressing warm for the trip and will become familiar with all pertinent guages, meters, etc, prior to leaving the dealership. I'll post late tonight on the results and wishing for tailwinds. Thanks to all for your input/support.

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Probably too late, but if you could have your LEAF charged in a heated area, inside the dealership, the warmer battery will have considerably greater capacity, close to 21 kWh if allowed to warm from the inside ambient temp, or to heat from charging, to ~70 F or above.

The range chart is not very accurate re range loss due to lower temperatures, as is does not differentiate between the two separate factors in range reduction caused by cold weather, lower battery capacity and lower driving efficiency (m/kWh) due to lower ambient temperatures.

Every LEAF has a built-in range extender-your right foot. Remember the golden rule of covering long distances in a LEAF without DC charging, the slower you drive, the faster you'll get there.

Success! 2 hours 5 minutes, traveled 77 miles, 28 degrees, accumulated '5 trees' (whatever the trees mean), had two bars left. According to the guess-o-meter, I had 13 miles remaining. All travel was after dark as car continued to charge until 7PM. Feet got cold but seat & steering wheel were comfy. The Leaf will sit overnight, plugged in approx 9:10PM, at my brother's home. I'll probably pick it up noonish tomorrow to finish the final 50 miles home.
Learned from the good suggestions provided here and the challenge was a positive experience. I think I'm going to like this car ! Thanks to all for your input and I look forward to learning much more.

You're a braver man than me. Good job! I'm guessing from the travel time, your average speed was about 40 MPH, maybe a little less, right?

weekss said:

Success! 2 hours 5 minutes, traveled 77 miles, 28 degrees, accumulated '5 trees' (whatever the trees mean), had two bars left. According to the guess-o-meter, I had 13 miles remaining. All travel was after dark as car continued to charge until 7PM. Feet got cold but seat & steering wheel were comfy. The Leaf will sit overnight, plugged in approx 9:10PM, at my brother's home. I'll probably pick it up noonish tomorrow to finish the final 50 miles home.
Learned from the good suggestions provided here and the challenge was a positive experience. I think I'm going to like this car ! Thanks to all for your input and I look forward to learning much more.

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didnt see your post until just now but was going to say you could make it easily without heat. I just drove 76 miles on Monday and it was very low 30's (had light snow/rain mix) and my LEAF has 2 years of "light" range degradation. as many have stated, you probably had 18.5 to 19 Kwh to use so keep it at 4.1 miles/kwh and you be golden.

congrats on your successful trip!

weekss said:

Success! .....I had 13 miles remaining....

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Now you know from experience. With more experience you will learn when you can "waste" energy, either driving faster or turning on the heat. After a year, I am much better at using just enough energy (speed or heat) arriving home from a long trip at the VLBW (I've only done it a few times). My first out of town, cold trip was just like yours. Now I think back and realize that I needlessly wasted time (and cold feet) because I was concerned about not making it. Now I have several alternative charging spots pre-arranged for those unexpected emergencies (or changes in weather/wind conditions).
Reddy

Reddy said:

Now I think back and realize that I needlessly wasted time (and cold feet) because I was concerned about not making it.

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You could always keep an emergency set of electric socks in the trunk just for those rare occasions.. slip off your shoes, pop the socks on and plug them in.

Could you please post what the dash economy meter indicates (it should be something like 4.8 miles/kWh)?

TonyWilliams said:

Could you please post what the dash economy meter indicates (it should be something like 4.8 miles/kWh)?

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Tony---I reset the meter prior to leaving BUT I think it kept the accumulated KWh rather than the new. I watched the econ meter as it varied over different terrain and took it off cruise control on measureable inclines to 'feather' it over the top. No time to travel to my brother's today but I'll look when we pick it up tomorrow. Seemed significant that the overall hx of the meter was 3.0 kWh at the start, 3.3kWh when finished. Guessing, I was probably 4.5-5.0 avg range for the trip...And what are those crazy trees??

weekss said:

... overall hx of the meter was 3.0 kWh at the start, 3.3kWh when finished. Guessing, I was probably 4.5-5.0 avg range for the trip...And what are those crazy trees??

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The trees just mean you max'd out the economy. It's a nutty "feel good" thing that just about every electric car has. My Rav4 uses leaves growing on a bush (thankfully, I can hide it and never look at it).

If you started at 3.0, it wasn't reset. When looking at the dash economy gauge, press and hold the button to the left of the steering wheel with a black dot on it. You'll see the gauge reset to "---".

Yes, your economy had to be 4.5-5.0 in order to complete the trip as you did, with two fuel bars remaining. if you look at the Range Chart, you probably had 19-29 miles to go at 4.5 miles/kWh at 70F degrees, minus whatever reduction in range for a cold battery. Even a 10% range reduction for cold still left you with plenty (17-26 miles at fuel bar number 2).

That puts your total range at 77 miles plus 17 = 94 miles up to about 77 + 26 = 103 miles.

It would depend on how many miles you drove with the number 2 fuel bar illuminated. For instance, if you drove 5 miles with the number 2 fuel bar illuminated, I would say that you could have driven about 77 + (26 - 5) = 98 miles at the same economy. You most probably were actually above 4.5 miles/kWh, however.

Good job.