Higher Ground Clearance

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Tokyotony

Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2009
Messages
21
Dear Nissan, so many people have had a bad experience with their honda insights and priuses at speed bumps when a car is fully loaded with four or five adults.
Hopefully Nissan Leaf will have between 6 and 7 inches (about 16cm) of ground clearance so that we could drive comfortably in deeper snow and not fear the speed bumps. Is it a "mission impossible" to have the Leaf made with just a tiny bit higher ground clearance or am i just a dreamer here?
 
You could always get a lift kit for the Leaf lol :lol:

I agree, it is a good idea to be able to clear speed bumps at full load, otherwise they might as well call it a 2 seater if that's all it can handle properly.

I wonder how much better fuel-economy (I know the Leaf can't really have fuel-economy, but what else would you call it.. and if you're on this Forum you know what I'm talking about) it gets for every inch of ground clearance Nissan chops
 
Yeah wxxyz,
know what you mean about the range (fuel economy) being longer with chopped ground clearance, but i still hope they could do something about it and give us an extra inch or so of ground clearance not only to safely clear the speed bumps but also take your family on a short trips where sometimes you may wanna drive on a dirt road. I'm not talking any hard core off roading here, just enough clearance so that you can drive your car slowly over smaller holes and natural bumps on the dirt road. Some people have an underground garage and most priuses or insights can't clear the angle where underground garage meets the road, they scrape the hell of their underbody leaving serious belly damage. Just half more inch would be enough in most cases to clear it. Hope nissan will try to attract those customers too because they will be most likely best potential candidates for buying the Leaf since having their own garage makes it easy to recharge the battery pack every night. Give these people an extra inch of ground clearance and you will see far more happy buyers (who would have bought priuses if they could clear the way outta garage).
 
I would imagine Nissan took speed bumps into consideraion when designing the electric vehicle, although maybe they would mainly just care about the vehicle regulations and what they say about minimum ride height.

Somewhere else on this Forum someone said something about the Nissan Leaf being too low for underground parking garages? But isn't it usually a problem that vehicles are too tall for underground parking? Maybe Nissan had to make the Leaf ride lower so that they can still get an upright seating position and still be short enough overall to fit into every car garage in the world?
 
Ground clearance was major concern for me in our Prius during
the record setting snow falls in Baltimore this past winter.
Have only bottomed out on a speed bump once. Admittedly it was
viciously high and steep sided, and I was going just a little too fast. :oops:

Interestingly, there is a remote possibility that increaed ground
clerance might increase aero efficiency.

I suspect that Nissan has done lots of wind tunnel testing
including ride height considerations to maximize under-body aero.
 
Somewhere I thought I saw a spec that the ground clearance was 5 inches......let me see if I can find it or whether that was just a chart I was reading on my third beer, :)
 
Rokeby said:
Interestingly, there is a remote possibility that increaed ground
clerance might increase aero efficiency.

Yep -- like a poster mentioned over there, as a rough rule of thumb, the more aerodynamic your underbody, the higher the optimal ground clearance.
 
I asked the Leaf Customer Support people this morning about the ground clearance. They said the final specs are not yet available and will likely be published sometime this summer.
 
It looks like exact 6 inches of ground clearance would work perfect for most people out there. But, it is unlikely that Nissan would listen to people's opinions or needs here. With 6 inches you could freely roam anywhere you like, even decent quality dirt roads without extremely large pot holes. 5 inches reduces many functional abilities but saves "mpg" and it looks like Nissan will rather take increased "mpg" over ground clearance which is totally understandable and acceptable, but anything bellow 5 inches and I'm out of it altogether...
 
Unfortunately I have a inclined concrete lip pad that joins the sidewalk to my street. If I try to take it too quickly in most of my cars I will end up hitting the sidewalk edge with various parts of my undercarriage. (Can you use 'undercarriage' for a unibody car?). So, I do have some interest in just how slowly I would have to drive over that baby.
 
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