So, owners what range are you getting ?

[Reddy]

I'm positive all this has been addressed ad nauseam here...

Yup, read some of the previous 60 pages and then get back to us. It's called the Guess-o-meter (GOM) for a reason. In your case, it thinks you'll continue driving uphill forever, just like your last couple of miles. I once got to the top of a 4500 ft pass with GOM=9 and then continued for another 40 mi (back down mostly) and still had 20 or so left. I remember reading someone who went about 50 mi from sea level to 8000+ft all the way down to "turtle", literally feet from dead, then turned around and traveled another 50 miles to their starting point! :lol:
Reddy

 

[MrIanB]

Are you using the heater or A/c? A/c is pretty efficient but, the heater is not and that may be causing reduction in range left. If she can preheat the cabin while still plugged in at home before leaving, she may be able to ride most of the route with it off and increase her range.

Congrats and keep on driving,

Ian B

 

[RonDawg]

Hi all. I named our new 2012 Leaf SL "Leafy." Original and creative, yeah? We can't figure out our mileage, but we're still in the noobie phase - got it Jan. 31, 2013. The miles the dash shows remaining is often (we're not always keeping track yet) far less than it should be after a trip. For example, my wife has an 18-mile roundtrip to work through LA city traffic. The flatlands are rolling terrain, and we live on a small hill. She always drives in Eco mode. Yesterday when she left the gauge showed 78 miles (when she got to the bottom of the hill, it showed 80. OK, I get that - regenerative braking). But when she got home, the gauge showed only 38. IOW, she traveled 18 miles but the gauge subtracted 40 miles.

From what I've read here, that gauge is undependable, and there are so many variables - she has to go up the small hill she went down in the morning, and she came home at night with the lights and radio on - but still...subtracting twice as many miles as you traveled? And the lights and radio are supposed to be powered by the 12-volt (though it's charged by the main battery. We don't charge above 80%, following Nissan's recommendations, and so far we've never let it fall below 28 miles remaining.

If the gauge is accurate, then isn't the car using twice as much energy as it should for the trip? And if it's inaccurate, does that mean that we actually have 60 miles left rather than the 38 showing (78 startup - 18 trip = 60)? But if that's so, why is it taking hours of trickle charging to get back to 80?

I'm positive all this has been addressed ad nauseam here, but after some searching I gave up for lack of time and patience and just decided to ask again, since there are always noobies coming on here anyway looking for answers. We love this car, so quiet and rides LA's Lagos-level streets like a Lexus, and we feel so virtuous. Our other car is a 2010 Prius, and I especially like passing by Priuses and feeling superior. (Yes, I'm immature...)

As mentioned already (including by yourself) you cannot go by the Guess-o-Meter AT ALL. You almost want to put black tape over that part of the dash.

It's better to simply look at the rate your charge bars are dropping and determine your range that way. It will take some driving before you get accustomed to doing that.

By the way since you are in LA, you may want to check out my post about my experiences driving from Pasadena to Santa Clarita and then down to Burbank on a single 100% charge. I did it as someone from the SCV is thinking of getting one and wanted to know if it was possible to do so, as charging at his work is currently not possible.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11378&start=100#p265770" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[LEAFfan]

Thanks for the tips! So far, driving the LEAF is great fun, but I am reminded of the movie "Apollo 13," where Mattingly is trying all different techniques to conserve power. If I turn on the heated seats but turn down the climate control, can I save a fraction of a kWh? I am sure that with a few weeks under my belt, I will lose the range anxiety as I better understand what the car can do.

I endorse most of Stoaty's suggestions, especially looking ahead to see if you will have to stop and taking your foot off the accelerator early. It is amazing to me how many people will race past you only to hit the brakes in another 200 feet to stop at a light or slow for a curve.

I have also found, to my surprise, that there are more people driving 55-58 mph than you think. I have been going 56-57 mph in the right lane and have found some people going the same speed, even on the Atlanta interstates where the average speed is much faster. And if you are going 10 miles on the highway, you lose about a minute slowing from 64 to 57.

Thanks to all for this forum, with all of its helpful information for new owners!

Actually, if it looks like you will have to stop, your efficiency will be better if you throw the car in R (will go to N) and coast, rather than take your foot off the accelerator and use regen. Using this strategy throughout your trip can really increase your m/kW h and miles a lot.

 

[thankyouOB]

Actually, if it looks like you will have to stop, your efficiency will be better if you throw the car in R (will go to N) and coast, rather than take your foot off the accelerator and use regen. Using this strategy throughout your trip can really increase your m/kW h and miles a lot.

I agree that there are more people conserving, but I am frequently just laughing out loud at people who go around me (on a multiple lane city street) to rush up to a traffic light. Happened again this AM on Sepulveda south of LAX, where the wait at the Lincoln Blvd light is a long one (i usually have time to pull out the iPhoen and check emails while waiting. I was going about 30 in a 40 zone leading up to the clearly red light.
Then, the moron, who had pulled in front of me slowed to about 10 mph just to show me he could drive slowly, too.

 

[wlegro]

Hi all. I named our new 2012 Leaf SL "Leafy." Original and creative, yeah? We can't figure out our mileage, but we're still in the noobie phase - got it Jan. 31, 2013. The miles the dash shows remaining is often (we're not always keeping track yet) far less than it should be after a trip. For example, my wife has an 18-mile roundtrip to work through LA city traffic. The flatlands are rolling terrain, and we live on a small hill. She always drives in Eco mode. Yesterday when she left the gauge showed 78 miles (when she got to the bottom of the hill, it showed 80. OK, I get that - regenerative braking). But when she got home, the gauge showed only 38. IOW, she traveled 18 miles but the gauge subtracted 40 miles.

From what I've read here, that gauge is undependable, and there are so many variables - she has to go up the small hill she went down in the morning, and she came home at night with the lights and radio on - but still...subtracting twice as many miles as you traveled? And the lights and radio are supposed to be powered by the 12-volt (though it's charged by the main battery. We don't charge above 80%, following Nissan's recommendations, and so far we've never let it fall below 28 miles remaining.

If the gauge is accurate, then isn't the car using twice as much energy as it should for the trip? And if it's inaccurate, does that mean that we actually have 60 miles left rather than the 38 showing (78 startup - 18 trip = 60)? But if that's so, why is it taking hours of trickle charging to get back to 80?

I'm positive all this has been addressed ad nauseam here, but after some searching I gave up for lack of time and patience and just decided to ask again, since there are always noobies coming on here anyway looking for answers. We love this car, so quiet and rides LA's Lagos-level streets like a Lexus, and we feel so virtuous. Our other car is a 2010 Prius, and I especially like passing by Priuses and feeling superior. (Yes, I'm immature...)

As mentioned already (including by yourself) you cannot go by the Guess-o-Meter AT ALL. You almost want to put black tape over that part of the dash.

It's better to simply look at the rate your charge bars are dropping and determine your range that way. It will take some driving before you get accustomed to doing that.

By the way since you are in LA, you may want to check out my post about my experiences driving from Pasadena to Santa Clarita and then down to Burbank on a single 100% charge. I did it as someone from the SCV is thinking of getting one and wanted to know if it was possible to do so, as charging at his work is currently not possible.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11378&start=100#p265770" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks RonDawg - valuable information and leads in your Santa Clarita post (we live in Silver Lake and have friends in Santa Clarita, and it would be nice to take the Leaf there - and we could charge while visiting). But I'm still unclear on the GOM. If the reading drops from 78 to 38 during an 18-mile trip, but that reading is inaccurate, why can the battery take a charge of 40 to get back to 78? I mean, if it's inaccurate, and I have more charge left on the battery than the GOM says, why then can I add the 40 kW? It seems I wouldn't be able to add that much if I hadn't actually used that much. (It would help if my brain had some mathematical logic neuron clusters. Much of the technical discussion here goes soaring right over my head.) On an 18-mile RT to BH yesterday, we started out with 78 on the GOM. By the time we hit Wilshire & Western, about halfway to the destination, it had risen to 86 and my degree of happiness with that was all out of proportion to the existential scheme of things. Then my wife pushed the fan speed for more air circulation (not AC or heat), and immediately the charge started plummeting (I went bipolar immediately, but restrained myself from blaming her). It was 68 when we arrived, and 41 when we got back home. And the 120 charger dumped 46 kW into it in 6 hours, which tells me the battery used 46 kW. So I'm stumped.

(It would help if I understood climate control - don't understand it in the Prius either, even after 2 years. I think the simple act of increasing the fan speed turned on the AC. The temp was set at 70, haven't figured out how to turn off CC yet if that's even possible or desirable. The manuals take very close parsing, and the indexes are not very detailed, I gotta say, and there's too much other stuff going on in my life to struggle much with the manuals.)

I know I'm belaboring things already addressed somewhere in this forum, and I know I have NCMS (new car mystification syndrome - it's in the new DSM-V, the psychiatrists' bible), so I understand if people can't be bothered to respond. I know I'll either figure it out sooner or later or decide it doesn't matter as long as I don't run out of juice. My posts are driven largely by curiosity rather than necessity and I don't want to waste anybody's time.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Your desire to demystify the GOM earns you the coveted "dog chasing his tail award".

 

[DaveCox]

Your desire to demystify the GOM earns you the coveted "dog chasing his tail award".

Very funny. :lol:

 

[DesertDenizen]

Well I guess I am offering a minority opinion here, but I find GOM fairly reliable. My 5.1 m/kwh is very consistent. It is flat here in the Tucson valley and I never drive on the freeway, in ECO exclusively. So I guess it makes sense that since I have less variation in driving style than many other Leafers, my GOM display is more on target.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Well I guess I am offering a minority opinion here, but I find GOM fairly reliable. My 5.1 m/kwh is very consistent. It is flat here in the Tucson valley and I never drive on the freeway, in ECO exclusively. So I guess it makes sense that since I have less variation in driving style than many other Leafers, my GOM display is more on target.

if that is the case, your GOM must register about 115 give or take on a full charge. can you go that far?

 

[DesertDenizen]

Hi Dave,

I rarely charge to 100%, my recollection is that GOM displayed close to 110 miles. But I have never driven below two SOC bars, so I don't know what actual mileage I could have managed.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Hi Dave,

I rarely charge to 100%, my recollection is that GOM displayed close to 110 miles. But I have never driven below two SOC bars, so I don't know what actual mileage I could have managed.

awesome! do you have a gasser and how often do you drive it when you have a trip near the limits of the LEAF?

the reason I ask is that I constantly challenge myself to make these trips. It has rarely backfired on me and I am lucky in that public charging is plentiful enough so I am not in any real risk (other than my time!)

now, have I risked the health of my pack by running on the edge? I was below VLB twice last week (have only hit turtle twice and only for range testing) and I am charging to about 265 GID more or less after 27,500 miles so I think I am doing well enough. I do know that there are people with over 30,000 miles claiming no loss...

 

[DesertDenizen]

do you have a gasser and how often do you drive it when you have a trip near the limits of the LEAF?


My Leaf is my only car, and in one and a half year of ownership the most I have driven in a day is about 50 miles, so I belong in a Leaf.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

do you have a gasser and how often do you drive it when you have a trip near the limits of the LEAF?


My Leaf is my only car, and in one and a half year of ownership the most I have driven in a day is about 50 miles, so I belong in a Leaf.

and you have solar. I am ENVIOUS!

 

[DesertDenizen]

and you have solar. I am ENVIOUS!


Thanks Dave, in sunny Tucson I power my all electric home and my Leaf with my solar, it really is ideal. (But I really love Olympia and the gf would move there in a minute.)

Dennis

 

[dgpcolorado]

Yup, read some of the previous 60 pages and then get back to us. It's called the Guess-o-meter (GOM) for a reason. In your case, it thinks you'll continue driving uphill forever, just like your last couple of miles. I once got to the top of a 4500 ft pass with GOM=9 and then continued for another 40 mi (back down mostly) and still had 20 or so left....
Reddy

I did much the same thing: hit the top of a pass at Low Battery Warning and GoM = 3 and then drove 42 miles to my home. For some reason the Nav system didn't think I would make it...

As for Guess-o-Meter accuracy, this picture was taken at mile 14.5 of a routine 65 mile grocery shopping trip:

Where I live the GoM is amusing but useless.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Well I guess I am offering a minority opinion here, but I find GOM fairly reliable. My 5.1 m/kwh is very consistent. It is flat here in the Tucson valley and I never drive on the freeway, in ECO exclusively. So I guess it makes sense that since I have less variation in driving style than many other Leafers, my GOM display is more on target.

Hi Dave,

I rarely charge to 100%, my recollection is that GOM displayed close to 110 miles. But I have never driven below two SOC bars, so I don't know what actual mileage I could have managed.

This comes up a lot... your GOM is "accurate", but you've never once driven it to the range displayed.

So, there is absolutely no way to know if it is accurate, or not. Granted, flat, level, temperature areas are the absolute BEST that the GOM can do, but that doesn't make it "accurate".

 

[RonDawg]

But I'm still unclear on the GOM. If the reading drops from 78 to 38 during an 18-mile trip, but that reading is inaccurate, why can the battery take a charge of 40 to get back to 78? I mean, if it's inaccurate, and I have more charge left on the battery than the GOM says, why then can I add the 40 kW?

The problem is the GoM is not expressed as kW, or percentage of battery charge, but a guess of how far you can go at the current charge using recent parameters. Those parameters are constantly changing. If you're going uphill, that number will naturally drop faster than if you're going downhill.

It's all about adjusting the way you are thinking. Before fossil fuel cars got Distance to Empty meters, on a long road trip you'd keep an eye on that gauge and made sure you had enough in reserve to get you to the next gas station. After you've had the car for a while, you'd know how long it would go between refuelings under a variety of conditions.

Driving a pure EV isn't all that different. I've only had my car for a month, yet already I know I can make 3 complete round trips to/from work without plugging in (I still charge every day though as I only have a 120 v EVSE). I know I can make it to Santa Clarita and back on a single 100% charge. I know that my trip home uses over twice the energy of getting to work due to the elevation change.

You can always add charge enroute at any charging station, or even at any 120v outlet if you remembered to bring the trickle charger. But if you only need, say, 20 miles more range to get to your destination, the GoM doesn't tell you how long to charge for that, any more than a fossil fuel car's Distance to Empty meter will tell you how much gas you'll need to get to the next town or city. Only experience will tell you. The car does tell you how long it will take to get to 80% or 100% charge, but thst's it.

On an 18-mile RT to BH yesterday, we started out with 78 on the GOM. By the time we hit Wilshire & Western, about halfway to the destination, it had risen to 86 and my degree of happiness with that was all out of proportion to the existential scheme of things. Then my wife pushed the fan speed for more air circulation (not AC or heat), and immediately the charge started plummeting (I went bipolar immediately, but restrained myself from blaming her). It was 68 when we arrived, and 41 when we got back home. And the 120 charger dumped 46 kW into it in 6 hours, which tells me the battery used 46 kW. So I'm stumped.

(It would help if I understood climate control - don't understand it in the Prius either, even after 2 years. I think the simple act of increasing the fan speed turned on the AC. The temp was set at 70, haven't figured out how to turn off CC yet if that's even possible or desirable. The manuals take very close parsing, and the indexes are not very detailed, I gotta say, and there's too much other stuff going on in my life to struggle much with the manuals.)

If you set the temp to 70, with the high temps being in the 50's the last couple of days due to that latest storm, you almost certainly used the heater. That's why your range dropped significantly, as the heater on the 2011/2012 models is not very efficient. The Leaf is one of the few cars where the A/C actually is less of a power drain than the heater.

As it comes from the factory, there is no direct way to turn the heater off in the Leaf short of turning off the climate control completely. The temp setting only goes as low as 60, so if the temp is considerably lower than that outside it will turn on the heater. There is a DIY mod elsewhere in the forum that does allow you to run the system in true "vent" mode with neither A/C nor heat.

 

[RCEV13]

I recently purchased a 2013 Nissan LEAF SL on Feb 23rd 2013. I drive 80 miles per day - San Jose to Livermore.

Morning commute to work:
Distance traveled: 40.9 miles
Status at start: 95mi range, 12 bars
Status at end: 37mi, 5 bars
Used 58mi range (average temp 38F, total elevation gain 1900ft)

Afternoon commute to home:
Distance traveled: 40.6 miles
Status at start: 67mi, 10 bars (trickle charging from 9am-3pm)
Status at end: 41mi, 5 bars
Used 26mi range (average temp 68F)

 

[Phatcat73]

Nice! I'm looking to trickle charge at work as well. It seems you're getting 5 miles per hour during your charge.