Mattcinnc said:
Hi Jim,
This is Matt .... near Brevard. I drove a Leaf around 2 months ago .... the dealer is in Hendersonville. I loved the car but then discovered this site. I was bothered by the fact that cold weather really appears to degrade the DTE and that the Carwings software was rather buggy. Also the defrosting issue and the whole topic of the "quirky" nature of the climate control ... which seems to NOT be intuitive. I forwarded these concerns to the salesman weeks ago, and even included a link to this forum .......and he has yet to address them. Also I started thinking about having to upgrade to a smart phone and the learning curve about using it etc.
So .... I've lost some interest since I drove the car. I'm beginning to think it isn't worth the trouble.
Matt
Matt - It may not be the right car for you at this time.
Just to clarify a few things for you that a salesman may not be able to.
Carwings is fun, and while not wholly accurate it is a pretty good indicator of your driving habits. You don't have to use it at all.
Cold weather is a concern if you are driving 50 or more miles in a day, and want to keep the battery between 20 and 80% charged. While the DTE will make you nervous, it is often a worst case scenario based on current energy use - so many reports here are based on that - which is not a very good indicator of reality. An example is if you kick the heat up to 90 it draws 4.5 KW, and the DTE uses that to indicate how many miles you are "losing" due to heater use. When the cabin heats up or you reduce the temp setting to 80, the power use drops to 3KW, and the DTE trys to adjust the number to the new energy draw, but not until after you have seen the other higher number which can add stress that is not really needed. Hence why a SOC meter is desired so people can make calculations without using the DTE.
The same thing is true for driving habits, so if you lead foot it for a several minutes it sends the DTE into OMG mode, and you will see a very low number although you may have a lot of charge left to drive with. To get off oil and have a quiet ride, some habits may need to change, although if your commute is average (Under 40 miles RT) none of this will matter at all, just drive it.
The bells and whistles like the smart phone stuff are again, optional to use. I don't own a cell phone, and the Leaf meets my needs well. If you don't use the pre-heat/pre cool options, the defroster issue isn't an issue at all. The heater works well, and the defrosters also work well.