I bought a 50,000mi 2017 Leaf S trim a couple of days ago. The vehicle feels nice and solid. It looks nice. It's quite a stripped-down trim, but I just needed a daily commuter. Either I will drive it 46 miles RT to work, or my spouse will use it as a kid delivery wagon. Spouse doesn't care, but the kids love our monstrous PacHy (Pacifica Hybrid) Limited, and I'd feel a bit guilty driving the luxury van to work (lie) plus I'd rather do my longer drive on all electric because I'm cheap (truth), and the PacHy will only go 30ish on the battery before the ICE kicks on.
I'm having a bit of range anxiety with the Leaf as a work commuter because I've got the 30kWh battery pack with only 8 bars left. Leafspy says the SOH is 59% with about 16.5kWh after a full (level 1) charge. I calculate that I should be able to do the work commute with 14 to 16 kWh assuming that I get 2.5 mi/kWh on the freeway (65-70mph), 3.0 mi/kWh on the highway (45-55mph), and 3.5 mi/kWh on surface streets (<40mph). I could slow TF down, but I'm always late, so it's tough for me to do the speed limit (or below). I suppose it's tougher to walk home, though.
I hope my estimates are conservative. I did 50 miles on a nearly-full charge driving home. That was a one-shot that was 95% freeway at very high speeds >70mph almost the whole way. The dashboard Guess-O-Meter (GOM) started out at 68 but I only had 9 miles left on the GOM at the end of 50. Didn't have leafspy plugged in. I also drafted the heck out of my spouse, who was driving the PacHy (like a maniac at nearly 80mph sometimes), so I have no idea what my real-world range is going to be, when I can't find a minivan or Amazon delivery guy to annoy by tailgating. After a full level-1 charge, the GOM tells me I've got 70 miles, and leafspy says I can go a zillion miles (at 4.0mi/kWh). When I turn it down to 3.0mi/kWh, Leafspy says I'm going to get the LBW chime every day, which will probably give me some sort of Pavlovian complex around my Leaf.
Spouse does 40 total miles daily; 20 miles surface streets twice a day with a nice long charging interval midday when electrons are cheap. So, it makes sense for her to drive the Leaf, but--again, I'd rather all our miles be electric, since that gets the vehicles "paid for" sooner.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Anybody drive a 2017 on a similar commute? My least efficient commute totals: 36 freeway (~65mph) and 10 highway (~50mph), with just 3-ish miles of surface streets. Wanna chime in with what sort of mi/kWh you're getting?