First 160 mile roundtrip experience with my new leaf!

[tazaroo]

I Just completed a 160 mile trip. I have owned my leaf for less than two weeks. I had the day off and an apt to be in Raleigh, NC about 70 miles from my house. Luckily the Raleigh NC area probably has the most charging stations in NC. The Nissan dealer in Cary NC also has a quick charge station. Also, I knew I have a new leaf with a fresh battery and the weather would be sunny and mostly in the upper 60's. I charge 100% and took off early so I could take my time just in case. I arrived near my destination with almost 30% of the battery left. Not bad for 70 miles of mostly highway. I was plenty early and there was a charging station a few blocks away at a hospital with two level two chargers. I knew I could make it to the Nissan quick charge about 10 miles away but I wanted to go ahead and try it out. Wouldn't you know another leaf took one spot, which was fine, but the other was iced. The spots were clearly marked green and have signs. I started to pull away but saw some employees and asked about it. They acted like they new who was doing it. Luckily they let me park next to it in a no parking spot. Upon arriving back an hour later I was charged to 62%. I went and ran a few errands and proceeded to the Nissan dealer to charge up and head home. Boy the quick charge was great. I wish we could always charge like that. The only thing was only a minute after I started charging another leaf showed up. They were very nice and told me to take my time. I charged to it started to slow at about 84% or so. I took off as I knew it was enough to get home about 58 miles or so on the warm weather. I had enough charge but thought I would check out another level 2 charger about half way home and the only one between the dealer and my house. Worked great. It was at a library so I browsed inside and charged 30 minutes or so just for fun. Made it home with 30% or so. I drove much faster on the way home. It was a very enjoyable trip. The only problem I see is that as more evs are sold we need to keep adding charging infrastructure or we are going to be fighting each other for them. Especially the quick chargers. My wife and I love the car so far. Its great to go places without worrying about the fuel cost and its just pleasant to drive without a motor even though my car hobby has been fast turbo cars. I still enjoy them but the leaf is refreshing.

 

[Dmchose]

Nice read. Thank you for posting. I got a note back from the plugincarolina.org The groupis no longer active. I will be back in touch to see what can be done to get this back going. They did a lot of work and succeded in getting over 116 chargers in place in the carolinas. My take, a good start. Now we need to massage businesses and the like plus have fast chargers on the highways. I'll post more as information becomes available.
Don

 

[UBUYGAS]

Thanks for posting.

Congrats on your LEAF.

Mine just turned 1 year old 5 days ago!

 

[apvbguy]

what speeds where you driving at that you were able to travel 70 miles and have a 30% charge remaining?

 

[UBUYGAS]

I have a client that is 61 miles away and I take the highway and drive 60mph and when I arrive at their office I have twenty something left usually. Their office is 3/4 of mile away from a Nissan dealer.

 

[dm33]

what speeds where you driving at that you were able to travel 70 miles and have a 30% charge remaining?

Last year we drove 86 miles one way and had 20% charge left. We were traveling backroads, mostly 45 mph, no AC or heat. That was straight from our house to a Nissan dealership. Charged back up to 100% and drove back same day. Makes it roughly a 172 mile day.

We did that trip again last week. Now there are two quick chargers along the way. We had rain, strong winds some times. Took expressway. Drove 70 mph, did quick charge to 80% along the way. 92 miles down (longer on expressway). Charged back to 100% at destination Nissan L2. Drove back 70 mph, rain, night, stopped for two quick charges, both about 10 minutes each, same day. Roughly 184 miles.

Haven't quite decided if it was shorter elapsed time to drive 45mph vs. using the quick chargers and 70mph. We didn't measure the end to end times accurately enough.

 

[philipscoggins]

Congrats on the new LEAF and not being afraid to hit the road!

I live about 75 miles out of Nashville and make regular trips to the city. I've noticed I use about 10% more charge coming home and researched a bit to discover that there a steady elevation change that makes the heading out easier than the return trip. Checking things like that will help on trips and I'd suggest some kind of GID meter if you plan to stretch it on a regular basis. There's nothing like hitting Low Battery Warning and knowing you still have plenty of charge to get home.

 

[sdmike1]

you would think someone like starbucks would start investing in charging stations. I would pull up, plug in, and then purchase some food and coffee while I use their wifi and charge my car. Heck. i'd even pay a small fee for that (NRG maybe?)

My issue is boredom while waiting for a charge. A CVS here has an L2, but what the heck am I going to do at CVS for an hour?

 

[philipscoggins]

Yeah, the quick chargers are a lot more convenient for charging. Its easier to entertain yourself for 15-30 minutes than for hours, but the quick chargers cost is prohibitive to commercial business placements (so far). I wish the grocery stores, malls, parks & movie theaters all got onboard, that would be nice. Many have done this, but only in EV saturated areas.

 

[sdmike1]

Yeah, the quick chargers are a lot more convenient for charging. Its easier to entertain yourself for 15-30 minutes than for hours, but the quick chargers cost is prohibitive to commercial business placements (so far). I wish the grocery stores, malls, parks & movie theaters all got onboard, that would be nice. Many have done this, but only in EV saturated areas.

Part of our decision process for the Leaf we purchased (SV with no QC) had to do with the availability of chargers and the fact that we have a couple of gas powered cars as well. For us the QC didn't make sense. It added cost, and there are few places here to use them. We also don't travel beyond single charge range because we have other cars for when we need to do that.

I think that would be different if there was a more expansive QC network and it wasn't an inconvenient charger hunting expedition to go beyond single charge range.

I also hope that by the time our 3 year lease is up we will have a better charging infrastructure and will be able to get a $35k car with double our current range. That would make it more likely to be my "only" car, not just my "local" car.

 

[philipscoggins]

Aaah, didn't realize you didn't have the quick charger. We're lucky in TN, since Nissan has a large presence in our state, there was quite a roll out of quick chargers along interstate routes and in bigger cities. I kept my 2000 Honda Accord when I bought my LEAF, but it went down about a month later and I haven't found it necessary to get it fixed. Now, when I drive out of state I rent a car, but we're just one quick charger away from being able to travel from Nashville to Atlanta

 

[tazaroo]

what speeds where you driving at that you were able to travel 70 miles and have a 30% charge remaining?

I was driving around 55 in eco mode using only vents and slower going through a few more congested areas. The temp was mostly 60's and my leaf is new with no degradation. It may have been 28% as I looked a minute or to before I cut it off but forgot to right when I stopped.

 

[tazaroo]

Thanks for the good comments. My wife almost had an incident the other day at work. She had only driven the new leaf a few times and she accidentally left the car turned on at work. Luckily she went out for lunch or else she would have been sol. The leaf drained a good bit sitting there from the morning. Anybody else do that? It seems that it would time out after 30 minutes or so just sitting. She learned from her mistake though and still had enough to get back home right at low battery warning. She loves the car though.

 

[apvbguy]

what speeds where you driving at that you were able to travel 70 miles and have a 30% charge remaining?

I was driving around 55 in eco mode using only vents and slower going through a few more congested areas. The temp was mostly 60's and my leaf is new with no degradation. It may have been 28% as I looked a minute or to before I cut it off but forgot to right when I stopped.

28%-30% no big difference. you've done well, my longest trip has been 76 miles at speeds around 65MPH +-, and I am a few miles away from turtle mode. I use my a/c and b mode but not the eco mode.

 

[apvbguy]

Thanks for the good comments. My wife almost had an incident the other day at work. She had only driven the new leaf a few times and she accidentally left the car turned on at work. Luckily she went out for lunch or else she would have been sol. The leaf drained a good bit sitting there from the morning. Anybody else do that? It seems that it would time out after 30 minutes or so just sitting. She learned from her mistake though and still had enough to get back home right at low battery warning. She loves the car though.

a time out option is a great idea, I wonder if the people at nissan are lurking