2018 LEAF Test Drive Events

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All of the 2018 LEAF's being shown at the ride and drive events are all very early pilot cars, and may not have been built with the final production content, especially for little things like sun visors.
 
I am referring to the program where they bring the car to you... It is not yet available in my area of L.A. It returned an error that says it is coming later... Not surprising, really, this early on...

This is similar to the VW, Volt and Bolt (and other) programs, all three of which I took advantage of... They brought the car to my house and I had a nice, relaxed drive of over an hour in each.

Valdemar said:
TomT said:
Yeah, so?
Valdemar said:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1962824120665926/?active_tab=about
It was available.
 
cwerdna said:
cwerdna said:
Yes, I heard about these two parts (first the first time) at EVent at Nissan's Sunnyvale research office earlier tonight. I signed up on tablets there for the test drive and yeah, a slide mentioned Oct timeframe for events like what Joe6pack mentioned. The marketing guy mentioned there'd be a celebrity chef there.

I did receive a "Your all-new LEAF driving experience is confirmed" email after signing up but nothing about the celebrity chef event.
Today at the Cupertino EVent (https://driveelectricweek.org/event.php?eventid=899), at the Leaf booth, they did have signups for the celebrity chef EVent.

There were two choices: SF (I believe Oct 14 or 15) and San Jose (Oct 21). The latter was more convenient but it seemed I was signing up to be on the wait list for that. I believe both were in the evening. San Jose one was 6 to 10 pm, IIRC.

The web page they had us go to also let us put ourselves on the wait list for the above EVent + schedule a test drive where the car's brought to you.
I'd been in email communication w/the EVent folks and basically, I was waitlisted for the Oct 21st event San Jose (much closer for me) but actually conflicts with an event for a coworker anyway.

They said I could attend the Oct 14th SF event, so I'm going to that. Not really clear if there will be any test drives there. Unfortunately, due to the distance (~60 miles, one way, almost all highway) and cost of charging at the EVent, I'll probably be driving my Toyota ICEV to it. :lol: (It'll cost me more $ to charge there than to use gasoline for the roundtrip.)

I'm currently scheduled for them to bring me an '18 Leaf to the location of my choosing for a test drive on Dec 2nd. Since that's a weekend, they're bringing it to my house.
 
TomT said:
I am referring to the program where they bring the car to you... It is not yet available in my area of L.A. It returned an error that says it is coming later... Not surprising, really, this early on...

This is similar to the VW, Volt and Bolt (and other) programs, all three of which I took advantage of... They brought the car to my house and I had a nice, relaxed drive of over an hour in each.

Valdemar said:
TomT said:
Yeah, so?
It was available.

It would be nice if Nissan allowed Leaf and other EV owners to test drive the new Leaf for a full day to allow them to see how well it works in their situation. I bet that would alleviate a lot of concerns and result in more sales.
 
kovalb said:
cwerdna said:
For anyone who next gets to see an '18 Leaf in person, please check to see if the sun visor extenders are gone as I posted at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=505532#p505532. Turbo3 noticed it and I confirmed it.

The extenders should be gone for 18MY. Replaced by slide on rod type sunvisors. Please don't just look. Please operate them.
I was at the celebrity chef San Francisco EVent today and can confirm the sun visors were slide-on-rod type. The food was very good.

From a rough guess, it seems the visors, when extended go back not quite as far as the pull out extenders on my '13.
 
powersurge said:
Who cares about some freakin visors!!! What's next... Door handles?? We are talking about the test drives...................
It was just to clarify an earlier point as Turbo3 and I both made incorrect observations on the '18 Leaf at an EVent we were both at last month. We thought the '18 took a step backwards and did away with extenders... they did, sorta.

The '11 and '12 Leafs lacked extenders, so some folks attached a piece of cardboard to extend them:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=335542#p335542
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=335549#p335549

Was quite a big deal that the '13 rectified this: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=269524#p269524.

There were unfortunately no test drives at the SF EVent I just returned from. I'll get to test drove on/around December 2nd.
 
powersurge said:
Who cares about some freakin visors!!! What's next... Door handles?? We are talking about the test drives...................

It probably depends upon how/where you drive. My commute is southbound on the freeway in the morning and northbound in the evening. I had to fabricate an extender for the 2011 and I use the built-in extender at least 5 days a week on the 2015 so I am glad to learn that the new model will still offer shade to the side.
 
I had my test drive this past Monday.

The setup was very well done - a confirmation phone call the day before and the demo person called 30 minutes before his arrival. He arrived exactly on time in what he said was a SV with white paint and the black 'floating roof'. I liked the look and would consider paying the $650 for it. It had a light fabric cloth seat that I don't see as an option on the 'build your Leaf' web site so it is no doubt a pre-production car. The fit-and-finish of the car seemed fine and it was immaculate despite having driven down from Vancouver.

My driver Andrew said I was the first demo drive in Oregon. Heck, and I wasn't even trying. He was fairly knowledgeable about the car - nothing like the Craigslist guy I had for the 2011 initial roll out demo. Of course, he wasn't up to MyNissanLeaf standards but who is? :)

I was told that I had the run of the car for an hour. If I wanted to sit in the driveway with it for all that time Andrew was fine with that. As it was, I checked out the engine compartment, new body features and had my wife sit in the car. I liked the new styling and the car presented itself well.

Once I started driving my initial impression was that the car was quicker in acceleration. Road noise was also less (Andrew pointed out fender well insulation that was new). I quickly adapted to the analog speedometer despite having to navigate through several speed zones. I didn't miss the 'eco-tree' display but did miss the more prominent regen display.

Andrew attempted to demo ProPIlot but it would not 'lock-in' on the 2-lane roadway of highway 99W near my home. The speed limit varied between 45 and 55mph and it was sunny with clearly visible lane markers. He also demoed E-Pedal but it was not something that I think I would use. Just my preference. The driving portion of the hour lasted about 30 minutes, mostly because I had seen enough of the new features of the car.

We spent the remainder of the hour comparing my 2016 SV to the 2018. I showed him Leaf Spy and he was amazed by the info it provided. He took several pictures of the various displays. I resisted the temptation to plug into the 2018's CAN BUS port to see what Leaf Spy would display.

Final thoughts? Nissan did a terrific job with this program as compared to 2011. The demo driver was knowledgeable, professional and did a good job demoing the car. The car itself is a nice upgrade from my 2016 model. Nothing revolutionary but all the changes are (mostly) positive. My biggest concern is whether the battery will display the same high capacity loss that my 2016 is showing - a SOH of 86% after 18 months and 6500 miles. In Oregon. With no quick charges. This, for me, is the 800lb gorilla in the room.
 
HIOJim said:
... It had a light fabric cloth seat that I don't see as an option on the 'build your Leaf' web site so it is no doubt a pre-production car. ...

My understanding from other commenters is that a few more interior/exterior colors and configurations will become available once production ramps up, but are not yet shown on the online US configurator.
 
cwerdna said:
Yes, I heard about these two parts (first the first time) at EVent at Nissan's Sunnyvale research office earlier tonight. I signed up on tablets there for the test drive and yeah, a slide mentioned Oct timeframe for events like what Joe6pack mentioned. The marketing guy mentioned there'd be a celebrity chef there.

I did receive a "Your all-new LEAF driving experience is confirmed" email after signing up but nothing about the celebrity chef event.

I received my confirmation of the dinner 4 days AFTER the dinner... ( I went any way)
 
HIOJim said:
I had my test drive this past Monday.

The setup was very well done - a confirmation phone call the day before and the demo person called 30 minutes before his arrival. He arrived exactly on time in what he said was a SV with white paint and the black 'floating roof'. I liked the look and would consider paying the $650 for it. It had a light fabric cloth seat that I don't see as an option on the 'build your Leaf' web site so it is no doubt a pre-production car. The fit-and-finish of the car seemed fine and it was immaculate despite having driven down from Vancouver.

My driver Andrew said I was the first demo drive in Oregon. Heck, and I wasn't even trying. He was fairly knowledgeable about the car - nothing like the Craigslist guy I had for the 2011 initial roll out demo. Of course, he wasn't up to MyNissanLeaf standards but who is? :)

I was told that I had the run of the car for an hour. If I wanted to sit in the driveway with it for all that time Andrew was fine with that. As it was, I checked out the engine compartment, new body features and had my wife sit in the car. I liked the new styling and the car presented itself well.

Once I started driving my initial impression was that the car was quicker in acceleration. Road noise was also less (Andrew pointed out fender well insulation that was new). I quickly adapted to the analog speedometer despite having to navigate through several speed zones. I didn't miss the 'eco-tree' display but did miss the more prominent regen display.

Andrew attempted to demo ProPIlot but it would not 'lock-in' on the 2-lane roadway of highway 99W near my home. The speed limit varied between 45 and 55mph and it was sunny with clearly visible lane markers. He also demoed E-Pedal but it was not something that I think I would use. Just my preference. The driving portion of the hour lasted about 30 minutes, mostly because I had seen enough of the new features of the car.

We spent the remainder of the hour comparing my 2016 SV to the 2018. I showed him Leaf Spy and he was amazed by the info it provided. He took several pictures of the various displays. I resisted the temptation to plug into the 2018's CAN BUS port to see what Leaf Spy would display.

Final thoughts? Nissan did a terrific job with this program as compared to 2011. The demo driver was knowledgeable, professional and did a good job demoing the car. The car itself is a nice upgrade from my 2016 model. Nothing revolutionary but all the changes are (mostly) positive. My biggest concern is whether the battery will display the same high capacity loss that my 2016 is showing - a SOH of 86% after 18 months and 6500 miles. In Oregon. With no quick charges. This, for me, is the 800lb gorilla in the room.

Not trying one pedal is an error. Besides you really don't know what you would like if its something you have never seen before, right? I know I can't do a better job than the computer and in this case, the feature worked VERY well (not like many early features that needed to be fine tuned before the production release. Now I will say that I won't use one pedal until I am down to at least 95% SOC because One Pedal will use a higher ratio of friction braking when SOC won't allow the higher level of regen that One Pedal would be using. During my test drive, I hit the brake pedal ONE time to shift into gear and that was it during my entire test drive which did including parking the car to switch drivers.


As far as the battery issue, I think you simply had bad timing. It would appear Nissan simply mixed a bad batch. Now a lot of people will say this and that especially 3-4 months ago when I first brought it up (and YOU were the reason I started suspecting something amiss) but you are the anomaly. You don't live in Phoenix, The Mojave or wherever else the "excuse de jour" is. Now, I tried to collect data to determine if there is a "line" between the "have's" and the "have nots" but the response was poor to say the least.

But as time passes, the line will become clearer. Its looking like builds after 3/2016 are ok so far but could be too early to tell but the packs from 10/15 to 2/16 showed degradation rapidly and early much like yours did so guessing either the later builds are fine or people simply don't have the tools like LEAF Spy to see that 12th bar fading...

So you mentioned the car was quieter. Did you hear "any" whine at all from the motor?
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
So you mentioned the car was quieter. Did you hear "any" whine at all from the motor?
I admit I was concentrating on road noise but I don't recall hearing any motor whine.

Overall noise reduction was better than any of my previous Leafs but not as good as the 2017 Chevy Bolt I test drove two months ago.
 
HIOJim said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
So you mentioned the car was quieter. Did you hear "any" whine at all from the motor?
I admit I was concentrating on road noise but I don't recall hearing any motor whine.

Overall noise reduction was better than any of my previous Leafs but not as good as the 2017 Chevy Bolt I test drove two months ago.


I ask because the "Jetson takeoff" noise is quite noticeable inside the car but on my test drive, we had 4 people in the car (we were talkative) windows rolled down, etc. but I didn't hear anything even when accelerating so the motor noise seems to be all but gone. Pretty much confirms this is an all new motor
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
As far as the battery issue, I think you simply had bad timing....

But as time passes, the line will become clearer. Its looking like builds after 3/2016 are ok so far but could be too early to tell but the packs from 10/15 to 2/16 showed degradation rapidly and early much like yours did so guessing either the later builds are fine or people simply don't have the tools like LEAF Spy to see that 12th bar fading...
My car is a 12/15 build so it would fall into the 'bad batch' you mention.

I hope your hypothesis is correct as I like what Nissan has done with the 2018. I'll be happy to turn it in my 2016 when its 24-month lease expires next April. If its battery wasn't fading so fast I'd consider keeping it as I got a good deal on it and it will have a low residual.
 
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