LEAFfan
Well-known member
plugzin said:Took delievery 3/29/2011, and now have 29,500 on the odometer. Did a trip yesterday, starting at 100% SOC. After 50 miles, 95% freeway no faster than 60 mph, no A/C, windows up, was depleted into the red zone. Nissan markets this car as a "100 mile EV", but if this is going to be the norm, especially for people who did a purchase vs. lease, Nissan is going to need to fix it. My 2002 RAV 4 EV did much better than this at 30,000 miles. I recall no noticeable range loss on that one until well after 100,000 miles. My hunch is that in a rush to get the Leaf into production and out the door, temperature management for the battery pack was not dealt with appropriately. Perhaps there are a few modules that are in a position not to be cooled effectively by the passive scheme, and some kind of active cooling is really necessary. The old RAV had some huge blowers that would run, but look at the longevity! BTW - this is in coastal San Diego, not Phoenix.
Is Nissan still as quiet as a church mouse on this issue? They can fix it if they want to, but my guess is that they would rather sell entire cars. Good thing mine is on a lease that comes to an end in ten months. Maybe the new RAV4 EV is a better deal, unless the 2014 has some real changes included. I'm a promoter of EV's, believe me, but this is taxing my patience. I started out charging most days to 80%, but with this range loss, can no longer tolerate that.
There is no red zone for the fuel bars as those two red bars are the last two Capacity Bars. I once drove 50 miles on the last two fuel bars and was still about 3% (4% left) from Turtle.