Sage advice for newbies and prospective buyers...

[GeekEV]

:!: My dealer just asked me for some details on the range I get and told me that all the reports of low range on "the forums" was scaring away some prospective buyers. Here's the advice I urged him to give to would be LEAF drivers. These are the hard lessons I learned over 7 months of ownership that you might not think about before you actually have one.

There are a number of factors that play into range, of course. The biggest range killers are:

• Speed: I tend to stick around 65 in the LEAF. Wind resistance increases exponentially the faster you go. Doing 70 on the freeway will reduce your range a good amount, doing 80 or more will absolutely slaughter it. For more on why, here's a quote from wikipedia:
  • Note that the power needed to push an object through a fluid increases as the cube of the velocity. A car cruising on a highway at 50 mph (80 km/h) may require only 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) to overcome air drag, but that same car at 100 mph (160 km/h) requires 80 hp (60 kW). With a doubling of speed the drag (force) quadruples per the formula. Exerting four times the force over a fixed distance produces four times as much work. At twice the speed the work (resulting in displacement over a fixed distance) is done twice as fast. Since power is the rate of doing work, four times the work done in half the time requires eight times the power.
• Terrain: Going uphill will cause the range to drop like a rock. This generally isn't a problem if you're going round-trip as you'll make it up on the way back down by coasting and with regen, but it's easy to panic if you're not aware of the terrain. For example, I took a trip from Roseville to Auburn with only 50 miles left on the range estimate - and it's a 50 mile round trip. Uphill. When I got there, the range estimate said I had only 13 miles left. Some people would panic at that. But, by the time I got back home, it said I had 16 miles left. I actually gained range on the way down.
• Heater: In a gas car, the heater pulls waste heat off the engine. Since the LEAF has no engine to pull heat from, it has an electric heater (basically like a blow-dryer). Running an electric heater take a lot of power. Your best bet in the winter if you're tight on range is to just bundle up and turn the heater off.

There's obviously a certain learning curve associated with the LEAF. There's something of a mental block that most newbies have that they need to come to grips with quickly to achieve EV zen:

• Speed and terrain have a similar impact on a gas vehicle's mpg as they do on the LEAF's range, however, in a gas car you typically have a 12 gallon tank, whereas the LEAF (essentially) has a 3 gallon tank. Think of it that way and you'll realize that things that impact range are magnified by 400% in the LEAF - but they're really not any different.
• If you push the boundaries and get low on gas you can tank up just about anywhere - there's many dozens of gas stations around town. EVSE infrastructure is pretty sparse right now. Not only do you only have a 3 gallon tank, you've only got about half a dozen places to "tank up". Once burned, twice shy. Don't cut it so close.
• If you do stop somewhere to "tank up", in a gas car it takes you maybe 10 minutes to refill those 12 gallons Charging the LEAF (on a typical L2 EVSE) takes about 6 hours to refill it's 3 "gallon" tank. This is not something you want to do if you can avoid it. Plan on charging only at home overnight.
• Although many gas cars have a "distance to empty" readout, it's usually small and unobtrusive - you typically use the fuel gauge to see how much further you can go. In the LEAF, for some reason, people seem to focus only on the "range estimate" - don't. Use the battery gauge (aka "state of charge") just as you would the fuel gauge. If you tried to drive your gas car only by the "distance to empty" readout, you'd soon notice it fluctuates a lot too. But again, it's magnified by 400% because of the 3 "gallon" tank.

If you're really concerned, I urge you to practice by running your current car almost empty and then only filling up 3 gallons at a time. Then when you get the LEAF, you'll realize that you had the same challenges as they did in your old car.

I hope this helps other people here on the forums too!

 

[Volusiano]

I think if this is something meant for prospective Leaf buyers as part of a sales pitch for the Leaf, so they know the reality, but not meant to scare them away, then you should have something in your post about why all this is worth the trouble to drive the Leaf. And also why many of these should be non-issue to most driving situation based on the majority's needs. Otherwise you'll truly scare them off if they don't see the obvious advantages to trade off for these limitations.

 

[ericsf]

Speed and terrain have a similar impact on a gas vehicle's mpg as they do on the LEAF's range, however, in a gas car you typically have a 12 gallon tank, whereas the LEAF (essentially) has a 3 gallon tank. Think of it that way and you'll realize that things that impact range are magnified by 400% in the LEAF - but they're really not any different

Actually there is another factor which makes this even *worse*: The high efficiency of the LEAF. Because a gas engine's efficiency is only 20%, the impact of the speed increase will only affect 1/5th of the tank (as you wrote the rest is wasted in heat). This means that if you doubled the power needed to move your car you only had to burn 1/10th more gasoline.
So I think because the LEAF's power train efficiency around 80%, the impact of speed on your range is not 400% but 1600% worse.

 

[GeekEV]

I'm not worried about extolling the virtues of the car, there's plenty of people doing that. Besides, I figure if they're bothering to do research they're pretty much already sold.

As for the efficiencies of a gas engine and how that factors in, I admit I'm not a math whiz, but that doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't the efficiency remain more or less constant? If you need twice as much power, you'd still need twice as much gas to go the same distance, no?

 

[davewill]

:!: My dealer just asked me for some details on the range I get and told me that all the reports of low range on "the forums" was scaring away some prospective buyers. ...

Better they get scared off than they buy the car depending on getting a 100 mile range that won't happen. The simplest thing to tell people considering a LEAF purchase is that the EPA estimate of 72 miles is realistic and fairly easily achievable if people are willing to obey speed limits.

 

[Devin]

:!: My dealer just asked me for some details on the range I get and told me that all the reports of low range on "the forums" was scaring away some prospective buyers. ...

Better they get scared off than they buy the car depending on getting a 100 mile range that won't happen. The simplest thing to tell people considering a LEAF purchase is that the EPA estimate of 72 miles is realistic and fairly easily achievable if people are willing to obey speed limits.

When I talk to people about the Leaf who may be interested in getting one I ask them about their driving patterns and if they have another car and then try to explain how a car like the Leaf would fit in to their life not only in the advantages but also the disadvantages and what you would do in an emergency. I've often been surprised at how effective it is to simply ask a person what they'd do if they woke up one morning and needed to go further than the charge will allow. That gets them thinking realistically and the answers are usually another car, public transport, or public charging. Seldom is the response that they would not be able to handle such a situation. Most people have dealt with this inconvenience with an ICE car at some point or another (flat tires, mechanical issues, no gas, needs servicing etc.).