Recent experience with new Leaf - wow! :)

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TMS meaning active cooling, correct? Cell phones don't have active cooling. I can't see how active cooling could be implemented without making the cell phone larger and heavier than a brick, and cost much more than a non-actively cooled phone. And for what? Perhaps twice the battery life? At the cost of needed four times the battery capacity, or perhaps even more? A fan on a cell phone??? Perhaps if you often leave your phone in your car in Death Valley. With the windows rolled up.

Are you trying to take Orient Express's job away?
 
LeftieBiker said:
TMS meaning active cooling, correct? Cell phones don't have active cooling. I can't see how active cooling could be implemented without making the cell phone larger and heavier than a brick, and cost much more than a non-actively cooled phone. And for what? Perhaps twice the battery life? At the cost of needed four times the battery capacity, or perhaps even more? A fan on a cell phone??? Perhaps if you often leave your phone in your car in Death Valley. With the windows rolled up.

Are you trying to take Orient Express's job away?

This is true actually, I don't QC my cell phone nor do my friends. Let's be realistic and honest, the larger LEAF pack is crippled if you want to QC at all, Even the G1 packs we slow and limited because of their taper and now it's worse. You can QC a Tesla over and over and charge at 120kw on a low SOC and ever 50kw at higher OSC levers. If you don't need to go out of town the LEAF is fine but it won't matter once consumers find out they have a large pack that is not the "same" as everything else out there. Nissan is still trying to save their NRE costs.
 
@EVDRIVER For the love of God buy a Te$la and leave the rest of us alone. No one cares about this but you and you harp on it constantly. I have quick charged my 24kWh LEAF 28 times in five and a half years and only once did I quick charge twice in the same day.

Do you have any idea how obnoxious this constant negativity is? Admit it - you're just here to troll. Let anyone say anything the least bit positive about the LEAF and you and the rest of your ilk show up to turn the conversation negative. Your no better than the same assclowns who troll the Tesla boards. This is a LEAF board where people come to share LEAF knowledge and experience. Te$la has their own board - go there.

The cheapest Te$la anyone can buy is $60K. These are two different classes of vehicle. Don't like the LEAF, don't buy it. But stop touting your opinions as facts. As WetEV said. If you have to quick charge the 40 kWh LEAF twice in one trip, you bought the wrong car for you. The LEAF is an environmentally friendly, economical commuter appliance - nothing more. It has an 8 year, 100,000 mile battery degradation warranty. Not good enough, don't buy it.

There are just too many trolls on MNL these days.
 
WetEV said:
If you need more than one QC per trip, you are taking the wrong car.

I don't think so personally. Actually I'm getting to where I hate driving for miles on end without pulling over to rest. If I can make my dream come true and only own an EV then I won't have much of an excuse for driving thousands of miles on end without rest.

The last time I started out on the trip across country to see the inlaws I was ecstatic when the car started to shake within the first 200 miles. I called the tow truck and got bus tickets quicker than you can say "Bob's your uncle."

The EV is perfect for long distance trips in my opinion. If only my car had a just a bit more range and if there actually existed a charging infrastructure then I could drive for an hour, then pull over for half an hour to charge and keep doing that the whole way. No more driving into Puerto Vallarta or Long Island with my neck stiffer than a bar of wrought iron.

Of course that's just me. I know, I'm weird.
 
I will be watching how well drivers like their 2018s and how well the batteries do because the Leaf is likely still the best choice for my usage pattern (of the EVs I can actually buy in AZ). I hope I am not forced to replace my 2015 any time soon, but keep an eye on the market just in case. I do know I won't buy a car that discharges its battery more than 1 or 2 percent while parked for 2 to 3 weeks at a time without being plugged in. I am also reluctant to buy a car with features I don't want like pro pilot and active cruise control (autonomous driving features) so I will be looking to see what options and trim packages are offered on cars I can buy here.
 
I will also be watching the reporting from people about how the 40kwh batteries hold up. I am the type of person who generally buys cars that are a few years old to avoid the highest depreciation and then keeps them for a very long time. Battery degredation is important to me. It's frustrating that my daughter's 2004 Prius, which is otherwise in good running condition, is now effectively "totalled" because the battery needs to be replaced.
 
jake14mw said:
I will also be watching the reporting from people about how the 40kwh batteries hold up. I am the type of person who generally buys cars that are a few years old to avoid the highest depreciation and then keeps them for a very long time. Battery degredation is important to me. It's frustrating that my daughter's 2004 Prius, which is otherwise in good running condition, is now effectively "totalled" because the battery needs to be replaced.

I think that you can get refurbished Prius Gen II packs for $2k, although I haven't looked for one.
 
@jake14mw
http://www.priusrebuilders.com/
http://www.falconhybrid.com/category-s/1477.htm

Two options for remanufactured Prius battery packs
 
Joe6pack said:
There are just too many trolls on MNL these days.

This is why I seldom visit or comment on here these days, while I am thoroughly enjoying my 2018 SV. IMHO, the more some people pay for a car is the less they will bitch and moan about its shortcomings. Tela has many expensive out of warranty problems, including but not limited to, drive units and suspension bushings and mounts. The DU costs as much as $15k, but when you bought the car for $70k, you better not be a cheap a$$ and complain. But guess what, it has battery cooling. For that money they BETTER have minions in there fanning each cell.

Well how about the i3? Well, just go and check out the facebook page and see what you get for over $10k more.

The Hyundai is just not for me....period. But I will never tell someone not to buy it.
 
Sorry, but people come here to talk about their cars. That covers the good, the bad, the ugly. There needs to be a healthy skepticism of those who are only Fanboys of any Make or Model and refuse to see the totality.

Quite often advances are made because the need for improvements are voiced by the consumers. While needs can vary wildly, we are usually on forums to voice our opinions and facts as we see them and possibly help others.

Both positive and negative may be mentioned over and over, but that just might keep the current issues at the forefront so new people visiting the forum will see those things reflected in the newest threads, and not buried somewhere they might not run across.

Our differences of opinion or usage of said vehicles may find others who can relate to our position, or some may be diametrically opposed. In the end, the benefit of all of those views should be apparent. The hard part is to stay civil to each other when we have varying viewpoints or may strongly disagree.

Some of us are lucky to own more than one brand and are able to render an informed opinion of comparison between those products. Those people should also be free to openly reflect what they feel are those differences even if it can make one product seem better than the other.

I would hope if the manufacturer ever peruses this forum, they will see our current positive and negative without being taxed much for time needing to dig far in the past to derive decent information as to our current feelings of their product.
 
I'm with Jedi. I seldom post and there are many topics I just skip as I know what I will find. It's not just MNL, it's InsideEVs, GreenCarReports, Elektrek, etc. You say you just want to keep "current issues at the forefront", but a lot of the issues being brought up are from the past and it looks a hell of a lot more like intentional subterfuge. You speak to being even-handed, yet from reading your posts, Nissan can do no right and Tesla can do no wrong. Don't worry though, you have plenty of company all over the Internet. Most EV forums are overrun by Tesla fanbois these days and it distorts reality and drowns out honest opinion.

The 2018 LEAF is a fantastic EV for less than half the cost of a Tesla and it is far too early to say if there will be any issues going forward. But I'm sure you won't let that stop you.
 
Evoforce said:
Sorry, but people come here to talk about their cars. That covers the good, the bad, the ugly. There needs to be a healthy skepticism of those who are only Fanboys of any Make or Model and refuse to see the totality.

There also needs to be some skepticism of those that only see the bad in any Make or Model.

My personal experience with the Leaf (2014 SL) has been very positive. Somewhat because of the expectations I started with, somewhat because of where I live, and somewhat because the Leaf was a good fit.

My expectation was that the Leaf would only be a commuter car. I'd mostly drive it to work and back, and sometimes to the hardware store on weekends. The Leaf, as a commuter, is stellar. No stops for gasoline, low maintenance and never failed to go when I needed to go. Comfy, quiet, plenty of pep for city streets. Electric power is fairly reasonable for me, if gasoline averages $3 the Leaf might even been the cheapest choice over 10 years of ownership. And far nicer that the cheapest choice.

I didn't expect to make any road trips in the Leaf. The Leaf turns out to be a good choice out to the "not more than one QC range". One QC works out OK, usually a biobreak and/or food and drink is welcome while the car is charging. The second QC isn't as welcome to me, and the other people in the car often complain. As the battery starts out cool even after a top up charge before departure, the peak temperature stays reasonable.

I was worried about battery life before buying the Leaf. I've designed Li-ion battery powered electronics, and while I'm not a battery expert, I've listened to battery experts. Shared an office with one for a while. I'm in one of the better climates in the USA for battery life. North of Seattle, south of Bellingham. I waited for a year after the Leaf was operating in the worst climates, such as Phoenix. I was expecting about 4 times better battery life based on climate, and more based on treating the Leaf better than more aggressive drivers. So far, at least, battery life hasn't been a problem. I'm past 40k miles on the second Leaf and capacity is down about 10% +/- 3% based on recharge times. LeafSpy is reporting about the same. At this rate, I might make 60k miles 6 years before losing the first bar. And might make it past 120k miles 12 years before losing the 4th bar.

The biggest problem I've had is with the TCU. I need to pull the fuse about once every 3 months to preheat the car in winter to keep the spouse happy, be able to check charge level remotely, and start a charge without going to the garage occasionally.
 
Here is my 2¢ on using a LEAF. Some consider my comments as a FanBoys or Shill for Nissan because I'm positive on the car, but i'm just reporting on my experiences.

I'm on my 3rd LEAF now, I have leased them all.

My first one was a very early 2011 SL, one of the first brought to the US. It was so early that it didn't even have heated seats.
It was also Nissan's first offering of the LEAF, sort of a version .08.
The car was reliable, by the time it had reached 35,000 miles the only warranty work done on it was three SW updates. The only other maintenance was rotating the tires, and cabin filter replacement. Toward the end of the lease, the tires were replaced with a set of used Bridgestones, but that was it for repairs, warranty, and maintenance. It did lose two bars of battery capacity by 35K miles. We drove that car for 45,000 miles. All in all it was a reliable car for what we were using it as which was a 350 mile/week commuter car. We knew that this first car was sort of a test, and that there would certainly be issues as it is with any sort of first generation new product. But all in all, the battery did not hinder our ability to use it as we had intended it to be used.

The 2nd LEAF was a 2014,SV which we just returned to Nissan last week.
It too was very reliable, it never had a warranty claim, and never lost a bar of capacity. The only thing we did with it was regular routine maintenance of rotating tires, and cabin filter. We did replace the tires with Michelins last September. We drove that car for almost 53,000 miles.

The newest LEAF is a 2018 SL with ProPilot Assist. We have only had it for a week and a half, but this one is the best so far. We expect it to have the same level of reliability as the 2014. It is interesting the that the 2011 and 2018 car have almost the same MSRP, and the monthly lease payments are essentially the same. But what a difference in value. We have driven the new car down to 2% or remaining battery capacity and got a total of 167 miles which is pretty respectable. We have DCQC'd it several times, and the charge rate and time is no different from the 2014.

All in all I'm very pleased with the performance and value that we have received from the LEAF.

I look forward to experiencing the LEAF 2.5 in September, to see how that model has evolved.
 
Here here for those who maintain that this is a LEAF forum and not a Tesla, Bolt or other Forum. You want to talk about those EV's there are lots of dedicated sites for them.

I agree it's ok to provide both positive and negative comments about experiences with the Leaf. However, I bet many who post negatively about the Leaf have never owned one.

Even if you have and your experience was not great, it does not mean that it won't be great for others.

Like it or not, the Leaf is the first truly mass-marketed BEV to hit the road with Nissan delivering over 310,000 of them worldwide. They purposely did not engineer Active Thermal Management because they targeted the Leaf at a specific price point, market and use case. For 2018, no difference. They still see a huge window of opportunity in the 100mile - 200mile range club and that is where they want to position the 2018 Leaf. The 2019-2020MY will go after another target market and the price point will be reflective of ATM an other features.

I also agree there are too many trolls on the site just wanting to slam Nissan for any reason.

I say if you are not into the Leaf, don't bother waisting your time on this site.

I've put my money where my mouth is and ordered a 2018 Leaf and can't be more thrilled about this decision. I'm happily giving up my very early Model 3 reservation in favour of the 2018 Leaf for many reasons.

So I agree with spirited conversations but let's keep them on topic as this is a LEAF forum!
 
Hmm, so completely unlike those nasty trolls who post negative things about the Leaf while not owning one, you are posting positive things about it...while never having owned one? ;-) I'm about to lease a 2018 SL, and I'm sure I'll still have plenty of negative things to say about it, once I get it.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Hmm, so completely unlike those nasty trolls who post negative things about the Leaf while not owning one, you are posting positive things about it...while never having owned one? ;-) I'm about to lease a 2018 SL, and I'm sure I'll still have plenty of negative things to say about it, once I get it.


I'm positing positive comments because I have done some extensive driving in the new Leaf, so I have some initial experiences to draw upon. Nothing is perfect and I understand the 2018 Leaf will have some down sides. Whether it has more plastic in the interior than it should, or if the looks are less polarizing then other EV's, etc. People can argue these and many more points always.

I'm just sticking up for the new Leaf since I am seeing more negative news than positive coming mostly from people who have no idea about EVs and the Leaf. Every car will have some problems, be it minor or major. However, so far from what my limited experience has provided me regarding the new Leaf, I've very surprised by it in a good way.

I'll be posting sometime next week an overview of the new Leaf with my thoughts along with more Nissan insights on my YouTube Show Channel "The EV Revolution Show". Also will be available on our other channel "Model 3 Owners Club". I'm no EV expert, but I do have some knowledge beyond the average consumer about this subject as I've been involved with the show for almost 2 years. We hope to cover many more models and items in this growing EV marketplace and we hope you will enjoy the show, hopefully learn something new and provide feedback.
 
You might want to keep in mind that most reviews of the Leaf are quite positive. A few of the auto websites are lukewarm, but I have yet to see a genuinely negative review of the Leaf. YouTube reviews tend to gush over the car. The negative stuff is mostly here, on this site, and it isn't driving people away from the car. So rather than giving Nissan some more free marketing, perhaps you might consider waiting until you've driven your Leaf for a month or so before reviewing it? The car already has plenty of boosters. Think about how you might feel if you encouraged friends to buy (especially buy as opposed to lease) a 2018 Leaf, and then their batteries started going south...
 
kennethbokor said:
I'm just sticking up for the new Leaf since I am seeing more negative news than positive coming mostly from people who have no idea about EVs and the Leaf.

I find your condescension unbecoming especially when it's in service of promoting your video channel.

Plenty of people here with lots of EV and LEAF experience. And anything that suggests further weakness in the battery is a reasonable concern to those who have LEAF experience. If a 2018 with significantly more capacity can be beat by several hours in a days' drive by an older LEAF, it raises questions for someone even if they never plan on multiple QCs in a day or never QC at all. It raises the possibility that the new battery might be even more heat-susceptible than previous ones. There may be other explanations but given the car's history the worry should not be discounted.

I'm perfectly willing to wait and see, and there is plenty about the LEAF that I do like. I've leased two and purchased the 2nd. But that doesn't make me want to bury my head in the sand; the car has had some drawbacks. So what "you're seeing" may make more sense if you open your eyes and look through some of the most active threads on the forum over the last 7 years to understand the opinions of people who do have an idea about EVs and LEAF, instead of barging in with a shiny video channel and a dismissive attitude.
 
I had a lady buy a Leaf just because I said I liked mine. Now I don't think she hated her Leaf, but I don't think she was informed as much as she should have been. When she asked if I could drive to the next town or not I said yes because I could by going 40mph or slower with the heater and AC off although I didn't tell her that part. I didn't think she was asking because she was interested in buying one. Then suddenly a few days later there she was with a Leaf and planning on that same long distance trip without any knowledge of her car or the distance that it really could (or couldn't) go. Now she's returning her Leaf to the dealer without paying off the car and ruining her credit. (Part of a family emergency actually, not just the car's fault.)

So yes, it is important to get the facts right before buying a car. I bought my Leaf knowing very well what I was getting into. So far the car has only exceeded my expectations, although I do wish it could do more. Only once did it not make it, although I was very doubtful it would that day, especially when I saw the temperature was way below zero.
 
LeftieBiker said:
You might want to keep in mind that most reviews of the Leaf are quite positive. A few of the auto websites are lukewarm, but I have yet to see a genuinely negative review of the Leaf. YouTube reviews tend to gush over the car. The negative stuff is mostly here, on this site, and it isn't driving people away from the car. So rather than giving Nissan some more free marketing, perhaps you might consider waiting until you've driven your Leaf for a month or so before reviewing it? The car already has plenty of boosters. Think about how you might feel if you encouraged friends to buy (especially buy as opposed to lease) a 2018 Leaf, and then their batteries started going south...


Well definitely all good points from many responses and threads and certainly prior Leaf owners have plenty of experience and thoughts to share, which is the main reason I join an automobile forum. This kind of experience and information sharing is generally very valuable and appreciated by the members.

I'm not shamelessly trying to promote our video channel as the other comment suggests just that we are yet another resource to draw upon to help prospective buyers be better informed.

I guess I just got somewhat over passionate about the many YouTube comments associated with the #rapidgate that slam what I think is a very good general-purpose BEV. I'm also trying to relate the reasons why I am told that Nissan took this approach with the 2018 Leaf in not installing ATM, when there certainly was an opportunity for them to do so.

I understand your good comment regarding encouragement of the new Leaf and if the future holds dismal battery life for it, how that would make one feel. It's an interesting line of trying to be positive and encourage EV adoption for the bigger picture while dealing with existing technologies and limitations. I've made it clear in my conversations with folks that in my opinion the new Leaf is a solid BEV and should be considered if one is looking into EV ownership. However, I do also make it clear that there are limitations and that any choice needs to fit one's driving needs and use case. No auto is a one-fit-all car.

If I've come across as over-passionate and "head in sand" character, I do apologize. It's sometimes tough to type out ones viewpoints without any emotions creeping in.

I do hope the new Leaf will hold up to the test in time, as I buy a car and drive it to the ground - own it for at least 8-10 years. I plan on doing the same with this new Leaf so I will be wearing the red shirt and on the front lines with many others.
 
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