0-60 acceleration

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Uccello said:
So the acceleration of the Leaf seems _a lot_ quicker than my 2001 BMW 325i. Does anyone know of any accurate specs for the car yet? Has anyone tried to get some 1/8th of a mile stats or 0 to 60 numbers?

These were the only ones I could find and they seem off to me. http://www.edmunds.com/nissan/leaf/2011/road-test-specs2.html

Thanks-

u


Likely because of the perception of the high torque early on but then the car dies out. Yes up to 40 it should be faster then that's about it. Have you tested the results/difference with the traction control off?
 
At our Leaf Test Drive event, one of the hosts commented that the Leaf had 0-30MPH acceleration times just as fast or faster than any other car in the Nissan lineup :D Sounded impressive, and I'll bet some people there forgot that he said 0-30MPH and not 0-60MPH!
 
phxsmiley said:
At our Leaf Test Drive event, one of the hosts commented that the Leaf had 0-30MPH acceleration times just as fast or faster than any other car in the Nissan lineup :D Sounded impressive, and I'll bet some people there forgot that he said 0-30MPH and not 0-60MPH!


The 0-60 is nothing worth noting. I can't believe no one has turned off the traction control yet.
 
Funny you should ask, I was thinking of starting a performance thread for the LEAF.

I bought the Feb Road and Track and they have tests of the LEAF and the Volt. Not a comparison test, but individual short reports of both cars.

Here are your numbers:

............LEAF Volt
0-10mph:..0.7 sec 0.8 sec
0-20:.....1.8 ..1.9
0-30:.....3.0 ..3.1
0-40:.....4.6 ..4.6
0-50:.....6.7.. 6.4
0-60:.....9.4 ..8.8
0-70:.....13.1 ..11.7
0-80:.....17.8 ..15.6
0-90:.....24.7 ..20.6
0-100:.....NA ..28.1

1/4 mile: 17.2 ..16.8

Soooo... pretty decent up to about 50 mph. Not sure what your 325i does, but I think you'll find that it is the 0-40 mph that you're feeling.

Another thing that was surprising was the handling numbers.
The lateral acceleration on a skidpad was 0.81g for the LEAF, 0.79 for the Volt (higher numbers are better). Nothing to write home about, but not bad. Most cars R&T tests do quite a bit better.

BUT the slalom speed was quite good at 65.5 mph, 62.6 for the Volt (higher speeds are better, obviously). Not a world beating slalom speed, but very respectable and surprising to the R&T staff. Most of this is the low center of gravity and the reasonably good front/rear weight distribution of 56%/44% versus the Volt's front-heavy 61%/39%.
 
Ev-driver,

I've turned it off once tonight, and I'm not sure that there was actually a difference in the acceleration. I think that the car is really limiting max power at low speeds. Maybe that it got updated ? I thought I had experienced a better acceleration a few weeks back with the traction control off.
Anyway, the limit really only applies in the very first mph...
I'll try and record speed vs power output, so that you get a sense of what's going on.
By the way, while doing a uturn in a really really steep driveway, I got the front wheels to spin, and had to step on the pedal quite a bit before the car would do anything.... It actually made me think that I would not want to live there with a LEAF. No idea how ICE cars are behaving there though....
 
gudy said:
Ev-driver,

I've turned it off once tonight, and I'm not sure that there was actually a difference in the acceleration. I think that the car is really limiting max power at low speeds. Maybe that it got updated ? I thought I had experienced a better acceleration a few weeks back with the traction control off.
Anyway, the limit really only applies in the very first mph...
I'll try and record speed vs power output, so that you get a sense of what's going on.
By the way, while doing a uturn in a really really steep driveway, I got the front wheels to spin, and had to step on the pedal quite a bit before the car would do anything.... It actually made me think that I would not want to live there with a LEAF. No idea how ICE cars are behaving there though....


This could also be a function of the gearing as well. Not sure there why they would limit low speed power. To test the difference you would need to go to the floor in D with traction off. With a taller gear they can achieve a higher top speed and the higher torque can do fine off the line, I could start my EV in 3rd or 4th gear form a dead stop! They may limit high-load power to protect the pack a bit as well but not so sure on that either. It's going to be tough going from an EV with a 150 kw output down to 80 with the same weight. It would have been nice if the LEAF had at least a 0-60 of 8 seconds but it is what it is.
 
So who is going to trick out their Leaf in order to win the first Leaf drag race event?

We need to find a real drag strip - not sure we'll bring out the masses to witness a Leaf street drag event.

I have an official (wrong sloganed) Leaf T-shirt that I'll put up as a prize :mrgreen:
 
phxsmiley said:
At our Leaf Test Drive event, one of the hosts commented that the Leaf had 0-30MPH acceleration times just as fast or faster than any other car in the Nissan lineup :D Sounded impressive, and I'll bet some people there forgot that he said 0-30MPH and not 0-60MPH!
They would also be lying.

0-30 and 0-40 times as reported by Road & Track
LEAF 3.0 4.6
Volt 3.1 4.6
Sentra SE-R 2.6 3.6
Altima 3.5 SE n/a 3.6
GTR 1.1 1.8
350Z 2.1 3.3

The GTR will be going over 70 mph (4.5 s) in the time it takes the LEAF to get to 30 - of course the cars are as close to apples and oranges as you are going to get!

A lot of those are manual transmission cars so they have the advantage of a clutch drop - unfortunately I can't read the times for the Maxima 3.5 SV which has a CVT, but MotorTrend has the 0-30 and 40 listed as 2.6 3.7.
 
Most of the reliable published numbers put 0 to 60 for the Leaf at around 10 seconds. A BMW 325 does it in under 7. Properly driven - power braking in the case of an automatic - I would expect the BMW to beat the Leaf in any acceleration test. Regardless of the power source, front wheel drive cars are at an acceleration disadvantage due to weight transfer.

Uccello said:
So the acceleration of the Leaf seems _a lot_ quicker than my 2001 BMW 325i. Does anyone know of any accurate specs for the car yet? Has anyone tried to get some 1/8th of a mile stats or 0 to 60 numbers?
 
drees said:
phxsmiley said:
At our Leaf Test Drive event, one of the hosts commented that the Leaf had 0-30MPH acceleration times just as fast or faster than any other car in the Nissan lineup :D Sounded impressive, and I'll bet some people there forgot that he said 0-30MPH and not 0-60MPH!
They would also be lying.

0-30 and 0-40 times as reported by Road & Track
LEAF 3.0 4.6
Volt 3.1 4.6
Sentra SE-R 2.6 3.6
Altima 3.5 SE n/a 3.6
GTR 1.1 1.8
350Z 2.1 3.3

The GTR will be going over 70 mph (4.5 s) in the time it takes the LEAF to get to 30 - of course the cars are as close to apples and oranges as you are going to get!

A lot of those are manual transmission cars so they have the advantage of a clutch drop - unfortunately I can't read the times for the Maxima 3.5 SV which has a CVT, but MotorTrend has the 0-30 and 40 listed as 2.6 3.7.


A clutch drop is not an advantage over an EV only needed to get the peak power out of an ICE. Check out the many EV race cars. The LEAF has low EV HP for it's weight. The design was built to be more efficient and to carry passenger weight. Plenty of EVs with smaller motors could out perform the above cars. It's a family car and it's not going to be more than that, those that want even decent acceleration need to buy another EV.
 
mogur said:
Regardless of the power source, front wheel drive cars are at an acceleration disadvantage due to weight transfer.
True - but without a manual transmission this isn't an issue at all at the power levels we are talking about on a good surface.
 
Boomer23 said:
Funny you should ask, I was thinking of starting a performance thread for the LEAF.

I bought the Feb Road and Track and they have tests of the LEAF and the Volt. Not a comparison test, but individual short reports of both cars.

BUT the slalom speed was quite good at 65.5 mph, 62.6 for the Volt (higher speeds are better, obviously). Not a world beating slalom speed, but very respectable and surprising to the R&T staff. Most of this is the low center of gravity and the reasonably good front/rear weight distribution of 56%/44% versus the Volt's front-heavy 61%/39%.

It's not just the low center of gravity and F/R weight distribution of the LEAF, but the centric weight-akin to a mid-engine ICE car. Vehicle weight and distribution matters for more than just M/kw, and this is where the LEAF clearly seems to be superior to planned and existing competitors.

While I (unfortunately) haven't been able to do a real test drive, just the San Francisco ballroom event, I'm counting on these specs to translate well into the LEAF driving experience.
The majority of my driving will be on windy mountain roads-at least until the I5 corridor gets DC charging.
 
Boomer23 said:
The lateral acceleration on a skidpad was 0.81g for the LEAF, 0.79 for the Volt (higher numbers are better). Nothing to write home about, but not bad. Most cars R&T tests do quite a bit better.
Thanks for the info about the Road & Track article.

Low rolling resistance tires won't give you very good performance. Put some nice sticky tires on these cars and you'd see much better numbers, at the cost of a reduced AER.

The more interesting comparison would be to a car, like the Prius, which is designed for efficiency. But this is fun nevertheless.
 
In a slalom, a low polar moment is also important as you want to yaw the car as fast as possible. Mid engine cars are very good at this because the weight is near the center of the car. The same is true of the Leaf because of the battery pack in the middle. The downside to this is that a car with a low polar moment can be more affected by external influences such as wind gusts.


Boomer23 said:
BUT the slalom speed was quite good at 65.5 mph, 62.6 for the Volt (higher speeds are better, obviously). Not a world beating slalom speed, but very respectable and surprising to the R&T staff. Most of this is the low center of gravity and the reasonably good front/rear weight distribution of 56%/44% versus the Volt's front-heavy 61%/39%.
 
SanDust said:
Boomer23 said:
The lateral acceleration on a skidpad was 0.81g for the LEAF, 0.79 for the Volt (higher numbers are better). Nothing to write home about, but not bad. Most cars R&T tests do quite a bit better.
Thanks for the info about the Road & Track article.

Low rolling resistance tires won't give you very good performance. Put some nice sticky tires on these cars and you'd see much better numbers, at the cost of a reduced AER.

The more interesting comparison would be to a car, like the Prius, which is designed for efficiency. But this is fun nevertheless.

R&T publishes an ongoing historical road test report summary with each issue. They don't have a recent report on handling for the 2010 Prius, but looking in my archives, I found the 2006 generation Prius.

Skidpad: ..Prius: 0.72g (tied with the Smart Car for lowest skidpad number)
..............LEAF: 0.81g

Slalom:....Prius:..61.6 mph
..............LEAF:..65.5 mph

Both of these numbers will translate to a significantly more satisfying handling experience with the LEAF.
 
EVDRIVER said:
It's a family car and it's not going to be more than that, those that want even decent acceleration need to buy another EV.

Depends on your definition of "even decent acceleration". My experiences with the LEAF have shown very decent acceleration, certainly enough to leave other cars at a traffic light when I want to get ahead of them to change lanes. Yes, it's a family car and nobody should mistake it for a sports car. But it does have that exhilarating push in the back from rest that we all expect of a well done EV, and I found that satisfying.

Since a good many readers of this forum haven't had the opportunity to drive the LEAF yet, I'd prefer not to mislead people into thinking that the performance of the car isn't respectable as compared to comparable family cars.
 
I go to the track once a month to race..When I get the Leaf I plan to enter it in the grocery getter division..As much as I modded out my other newer cars for acceleration I will not touch the Leaf in any way becase of that 8 year battery warranty that would be voided if changed..
 
A friend is trying to decide between a Fiat 500 and a Nissan 370Z. I'm trying to convince him to get the Fiat so I'll have someone to drag race in my Leaf. More fun to drive a slow car fast, than a fast car slow.

Of course, driving a fast car fast is pretty good too. :lol:
 
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