scottfamily said:
We just recently received our '13 Leaf and had no experience with electric vehicles prior to this. The first week was very unnerving as we tried to understand why the range remaining seemed to be going down so much quicker than the distance we were going. We have now read many posts and have a better sense of how to get higher range but still question how we could ever get even 70 miles on a charge (driving in B and with Eco). I honestly would never want to go anywhere close to the range max in the first few weeks until you adjust to driving the vehicle.
You certainly should be able to go 70 miles on a charge, and we'd like to help you learn how, but you haven't given us much to go on. You said NC, but where? The problems you might have in, say, Raleigh are different from the ones you'd have back in the Great Smokeys. Do you have the SV or SL with the new heat pump, or is it the S with its very inefficient heater? How much freeway driving do you do, and how fast?
Depending on your driving environment B and ECO may not be the best choice. You don't want to be speeding up or slowing down more than necessary. I almost always drive in D on the freeway. And even on city streets B can give you the false impression you are recovering more energy than you really are. Ideally you want to start slowing down early and ease up to traffic signals so they turn green before you get there.
Also, things may not be nearly as bad as you think they are. Try looking at the "state of charge" (a display you can choose inside an outline of a battery in the middle of the dash) rather than the big "Driving Range" number on the right side of the dash. There have been reports they may have improved the "driving range" display for 2013, but for earlier models that was derided as a "GuessOMeter". Have you gotten down to the point where the car tells you the battery is low? If not, you haven't come close to using the real range available to you. Don't worry, you should still be able to drive more than 10 miles easily after you get that warning. By slowing down you could drive 15 miles or more after the first warning. If you get the second warning, it means, "Really slow down, now." It doesn't mean, "Give up, all is lost."
Ray