joeDees
Member
...at least for a while?
I'm considering buying a '13 Leaf SL, 48000 miles, from Carmax through a great program at Valleycan.org where, if you qualify, you trade your old smoker (car that wont pass smog) in. Then they give you $9500 to buy a (an all electric) car! Yes, I said that correctly. $9500! It's really something (which is why I'm doing it). Through this program the car would basically cost me a bit over $2000 plus my old car, which isn't worth much and would be a hassle to get rid of.
I have a 40 mile daily commute. The first half is done in the dead of night, with the last 10 miles basically a gradual uphill climb (only a very short stretch is a bit steep but not too bad). The back-home stretch, done in the morning after rush hour, has a good downhill stretch where a bit of coasting can be done. There's no charging station at work.
When I looked at the car (the first time I had ever been anywhere near a Leaf, except on the road) I saw it has 10 bars, and when turned on it had 99% battery and 66 miles on it (the “guess-o-meter”, right?). We sat there a few minutes talking before driving, with the A/C blasting away (it was hot) and at the start of the drive the miles had gone down to 58 (so I'm sure we used a few miles cooling down the inside of the car). We went on an 8 mile test drive (I had wanted to drive to my work but they wouldn't allow a drive that far), A/C on, with, I'd say about 5 miles start and stop driving and 3 miles on the freeway. At the end the car had 44 miles left after going 8 miles (8 miles caused the car to go down 14 miles). If this were my real commute, using that example, I would have 44 miles on the meter to complete 32 miles worth of driving (with both the uphill and downhill legs still in front of me).
Now, about me and my commute. I've been practising the last couple months driving to work at around 4o mph in anticipation of this new event, and, since there is basically no one else on the road, it's really not that bad. It takes a little more time but it suites me fine. Thats in the middle of the night, when its cool, so I need no A/C. I've also done a lot of night driving wrapped in blankets, so the heating isn't that big of an issue either. Then the drive home is fairly easy too, early enough so its not done in the big heat of the day, but with considerably more traffic.
So do you think this can work for me? I know 10 bars is not really good, I know it could go to 9 at any time and I'm sure 8 bars would probably really put me in the danger zone rangewise, if I could even go 40 miles far at that point. I've read about the new battery option and it sounds like a pretty good deal to me for when the time came, I'd just like to put that off for as long as I could.
I've committed to getting this car, but with the knowledge that I can take it back with no obligation up to 5 days after buying. I explained to the guy they didn't let me test drive the car to where I needed to go to see what its really like, so there could be a very real possibility I could bring the car back. He seemed ok with that.
What do you think? Yay or nay?
I'm considering buying a '13 Leaf SL, 48000 miles, from Carmax through a great program at Valleycan.org where, if you qualify, you trade your old smoker (car that wont pass smog) in. Then they give you $9500 to buy a (an all electric) car! Yes, I said that correctly. $9500! It's really something (which is why I'm doing it). Through this program the car would basically cost me a bit over $2000 plus my old car, which isn't worth much and would be a hassle to get rid of.
I have a 40 mile daily commute. The first half is done in the dead of night, with the last 10 miles basically a gradual uphill climb (only a very short stretch is a bit steep but not too bad). The back-home stretch, done in the morning after rush hour, has a good downhill stretch where a bit of coasting can be done. There's no charging station at work.
When I looked at the car (the first time I had ever been anywhere near a Leaf, except on the road) I saw it has 10 bars, and when turned on it had 99% battery and 66 miles on it (the “guess-o-meter”, right?). We sat there a few minutes talking before driving, with the A/C blasting away (it was hot) and at the start of the drive the miles had gone down to 58 (so I'm sure we used a few miles cooling down the inside of the car). We went on an 8 mile test drive (I had wanted to drive to my work but they wouldn't allow a drive that far), A/C on, with, I'd say about 5 miles start and stop driving and 3 miles on the freeway. At the end the car had 44 miles left after going 8 miles (8 miles caused the car to go down 14 miles). If this were my real commute, using that example, I would have 44 miles on the meter to complete 32 miles worth of driving (with both the uphill and downhill legs still in front of me).
Now, about me and my commute. I've been practising the last couple months driving to work at around 4o mph in anticipation of this new event, and, since there is basically no one else on the road, it's really not that bad. It takes a little more time but it suites me fine. Thats in the middle of the night, when its cool, so I need no A/C. I've also done a lot of night driving wrapped in blankets, so the heating isn't that big of an issue either. Then the drive home is fairly easy too, early enough so its not done in the big heat of the day, but with considerably more traffic.
So do you think this can work for me? I know 10 bars is not really good, I know it could go to 9 at any time and I'm sure 8 bars would probably really put me in the danger zone rangewise, if I could even go 40 miles far at that point. I've read about the new battery option and it sounds like a pretty good deal to me for when the time came, I'd just like to put that off for as long as I could.
I've committed to getting this car, but with the knowledge that I can take it back with no obligation up to 5 days after buying. I explained to the guy they didn't let me test drive the car to where I needed to go to see what its really like, so there could be a very real possibility I could bring the car back. He seemed ok with that.
What do you think? Yay or nay?