TomT said:
Nissan is surveying Tesla owners...
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1090478_nissan-surveys-tesla-owners-for-intelligence-on-electric-cars" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
For Nissan to really understand use patterns, they need to do a lot more than just look at a "typical week". they'd be best to look at an "atypical week", or even better, several years of use patterns. inconvenience is what stands out, even if it's infrequent. Tracking Leaf use is self fulfilling, it's too tempting to look at the total miles driven and so forth as proof of adequacy, but to really get the real picture they need to look at what was omitted, the places the Leaf was not taken by the owner because of limitations. To understand where the gaps are, they'd need to track when the Leaf was left at home and another car was taken and they'd need to track user stress and fast charging reliability.
For our family, we've "only" had the car towed once and "only" been stuck at a charging station once over these years of ownership. it doesn't really sound that bad and yet those two experiences left a lasting impression. sitting for 3 hours with two kids in diapers in a fogged up car in a cold, dark parking garage till the middle of the night forever changed our impression of the car and what we considered reasonable. our use patterns changed after that, my wife simply was not willing to get in that kind of a position again. The Leaf introduced us to many of the benefits of EV ownership but also to the biggest limitation. As more reports came in of fast chargers malfunctioning and people even having to spend the night in their car while it charged on the adjacent L2 charging station, we drove began only driving the Leaf within it's single charge range. When we got our Tesla S, it was sweet release to never have to contend with messed up public chargers or lines again. We went from driving 12K Leaf miles a year to driving 3-4K. a 150-200 mile range Leaf would dramatically improve user experience, not day to day user experience, but overall, long term experience. daily commute is the lowest common denominator, people buy cars more for their greatest common denominator, the infrequent long distance travel needs. The Leaf can certainly work as a decent second car, but sometimes both cars in a household need to go long distances on the same day. For the mass market to accept the Leaf, it need to be able to be used more than "most of the time".
The Tesla S, so far, has met all of our needs with respect to range all the time and that is the metric by which people tend to choose their next vehicle.