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Well, after years of owning various TDI Jetta's, I began watching the Leaf developments and I didn't order a Leaf in time to get on the list. I was waiting and seeing what happened to the BYD and Tesla Sedan, which just keep getting pushed out into the future. Because nothing else was materializing, I looked deeper into the Leaf and was impressed with the R&D. I had never really given a Nissan a thought.

My enthusiasm mounted as deliveries began, so my wife and I went to the local dealer, Campbell Neslon to check one out. We were impressed that two 6'3" people could fit comfortably and see out the windshield well. we were impressed with the pick up, roomyness and overall build of the care so we got on the Orphan list, knowing we'd have to pay a premium for getting the car we want sooner than later... the sales tax exemption and high resale value of our Jetta helped ease the pain of the Orphan fee. A few weeks ago one came available. Dino was great to deal with, put up surprisingly well with my jitters and constant calling. The only bummer is that it came 3 days before we left for vacation... but we did get to drive it around enough to feel that we made a good choice. After 9/11 I made a pledge, to get off oil and now we have the opportunity to at least substantially reduce our contribution to big oil and the fighting that come with it. We plan on adding a PV array to our house to help reduce the pressure for more nuclear/coal in our area.

I have applied for the level 2 Charger and used the trickle charger that came with the car each night. It took a couple of tries to find a circuit that the charger would function properly on but otherwise it seems like a very well thought out and functional system. I'm tempted to use the trickle charger exclusively, since all my experience with recharging batteries suggest slower is better and the night time seems adequate to top off the battery after each day of use. I'll be reading and asking lots of questions as we get to use our Leaf more. So far our expectations are far surpassed!

George
 
GaslessInSeattle said:
Well, after years of owning various TDI Jetta's, I began watching the Leaf developments and I didn't order a Leaf in time to get on the list. I was waiting and seeing what happened to the BYD and Tesla Sedan, which just keep getting pushed out into the future. Because nothing else was materializing, I looked deeper into the Leaf and was impressed with the R&D. I had never really given a Nissan a thought.

My enthusiasm mounted as deliveries began, so my wife and I went to the local dealer, Campbell Neslon to check one out. We were impressed that two 6'3" people could fit comfortably and see out the windshield well. we were impressed with the pick up, roomyness and overall build of the care so we got on the Orphan list, knowing we'd have to pay a premium for getting the car we want sooner than later... the sales tax exemption and high resale value of our Jetta helped ease the pain of the Orphan fee. A few weeks ago one came available. Dino was great to deal with, put up surprisingly well with my jitters and constant calling. The only bummer is that it came 3 days before we left for vacation... but we did get to drive it around enough to feel that we made a good choice. After 9/11 I made a pledge, to get off oil and now we have the opportunity to at least substantially reduce our contribution to big oil and the fighting that come with it. We plan on adding a PV array to our house to help reduce the pressure for more nuclear/coal in our area.

I have applied for the level 2 Charger and used the trickle charger that came with the car each night. It took a couple of tries to find a circuit that the charger would function properly on but otherwise it seems like a very well thought out and functional system. I'm tempted to use the trickle charger exclusively, since all my experience with recharging batteries suggest slower is better and the night time seems adequate to top off the battery after each day of use. I'll be reading and asking lots of questions as we get to use our Leaf more. So far our expectations are far surpassed!

George
Click to expand...

Welcome, we look forward to seeing you at the next Seattle Leaf gathering.
 
planet4ever said:
Well, I finally got it :!: Eight months to the day from when my order was finalized.
Ray
Click to expand...
Hey Ray, I think I might have seen you driving it today--were you at 880/101 intersection shortly before 5PM? I saw a blue LEAF and, when I saw the driver, thought it might be you. I was on my way to our PD to pre-pay for mine, which was invoiced to them yesterday.
 
Yep, that was my wife and me, on our way back from our first longish trip together - 60 miles round trip to Fry's. I planned to do it all freeway, and from an 80% start at that, but with a little extra wandering around which we did I was down to two bars at the south edge of San Jose, so I took the last fifteen miles on Monterey (old 101) at 50 mph. We heard the polite lady tell us our battery was low just before we got to Morgan hill, and the final bar disappeared while we were going through downtown.

I figured my wife might be panicked, despite my assurances that we were doing fine but, to my surprise, when we got to our neighborhood she said, "let's drive around a bit to see how low we can take it." We did drive about three more miles, but I pulled in at home before we got the turtle.

Back to the freeway driving, I used cruise control at 60 when I could, but as you can imagine at 5 PM on a Friday night there were stretches where even the carpool lane was going much slower than that.

Ray
 
planet4ever said:
Back to the freeway driving, I used cruise control at 60 when I could, but as you can imagine at 5 PM on a Friday night there were stretches where even the carpool lane was going much slower than that.
Ray
Click to expand...
Indeed! I experienced it first hand as I was late for my appointment to pre-pay.
 
planet4ever said:
ep, that was my wife and me, on our way back from our first longish trip together - 60 miles round trip to Fry's. I planned to do it all freeway, and from an 80% start at that, but with a little extra wandering around which we did I was down to two bars at the south edge of San Jose, so I took the last fifteen miles on Monterey (old 101) at 50 mph. We heard the polite lady tell us our battery was low just before we got to Morgan hill, and the final bar disappeared while we were going through downtown.
Click to expand...

Ray, good experiment in testing your "range anxiety" with the LEAF trip to Frys. I haven't been to one of the Fry's recently, but the one in Sunnyvale (Arques Ave) has charging docks but not J1772 (I think). Did the Fry's you visited have a charger? BTW what was the total distance you drove when the turtle appeared?
 
Picked up my Blue Ocean Leaf this evening! Add another Leaf to the Seattle eastside (Woodinville)!
 
We got our silver LEAF on Thursday. It was an all-afternoon affair. I must say I was surprised at the level of knowledge and enthusiasm at the dealership. They hadn't seemed to be very interested during the last 7...8 months of agonized waiting.

So, now I'm going to have to pay more attention to the threads about how everything works, both the car and the charging station.

Oh, yeah, we got to meet jim66, who was also picking up his blue model. We had tipped him off that his car had come in!
 
gbarry42 said:
We got our silver LEAF on Thursday. It was an all-afternoon affair. I must say I was surprised at the level of knowledge and enthusiasm at the dealership. They hadn't seemed to be very interested during the last 7...8 months of agonized waiting.

So, now I'm going to have to pay more attention to the threads about how everything works, both the car and the charging station.

Oh, yeah, we got to meet jim66, who was also picking up his blue model. We had tipped him off that his car had come in!
Click to expand...

Congratulations, gbarry42! Another Encinitas Leaf!

Did you see any other silver ones up there at Oceanside? Ours is due in soon!
 
Late Saturday afternoon, I visited Mossy Nissan Oceanside and they said they had 4 LEAFs getting ready for (probably) Monday delivery. A silver one was charging out back.

If only they would install a QC station, it would make driving to San Diego a ...
how do you say ... "a section of a bread-type dessert". :lol:
 
mikek said:
Yea! Picked up ours tonight. Happy cinco de mayo everyone. :) Seemed like quite a long wait, but we were emotionally adding in a few years of aptera wait as well...
Click to expand...
I'm quoting mikek's post since I was also on the Aptera list for quite some time, so it was great to finally drive my new Leaf home Friday (Seis de Mayo). I had previous commitments that kept me from driving it yesterday, but today I have a goal of finding out how well an 80% charge works with the 2000' descent I have at the start of almost any trip.
 
This is the 12th day I have had the LEAF, but only the second day since getting it back from service on the battery module, which took most of 5 days (Monday morning thru Friday afternoon). So this is my second "post delivery". First one on the 27th was short lived. Overheating fluids during first night's charging led to a morning truck ride to service. Bringing "StanLEAF Steamer" home after a day's repair was a mistake. Another charging and experiencing the overheating again during temp measurements took most of last weekend stuck in the driveway.
The dealership experience went better than the credit union loan application. Since I got notice from the dealer on seventh morning after the "7 day email" and was told to come get it that afternoon, I had to hurry to find a good loan interest rate. I had researched four sources, but the best rate was found (1.99%) just at 10AM. Unfortunately, what the lady on the phone told me about the paperwork that would be sent was wrong. Instead of a "check" and re-registration sent to me for reimbursing my savings account, they mailed a "voucher" for the dealer to fill out and for me to certify to pay the loan amount to the dealer. This was not very desirable, since the dealer was paid in full on the 27th. I still do not have credit union committee approval for my loan, compared to the dealer voucher that took only 30 minutes. I find this strange, considering how I would be repaying either one, and my credit score is high.
Gregg
 
I got mine!

I just returned from Northbay Nissan in my new white Leaf. Ron Coury wasn't there, so I wasn't able to meet him "in the flesh", but his co-worker Bruce took good care of me. Everything went smoothly and we were out of there in a little under two hours. I can't say enough about the whole Northbay experiance. (They are in Petaluma, CA.)

The drive home was fairly nerve-racking. Almost 80 miles of freeway driving in heavy (but fast moving) traffic. I took surface streets and lesser highways in a couple places where it didn't take me too far off course, but mostly I just tried to keep it between 55 and 60. I couldn't figure out how to make the #$&%! cruise-control work, so it was a pretty white-knuckled hour-and-a-half. Not how I wanted to "get to know" my Leaf, but what can ya do?

She's happily trickle-charging in the garage now, and I've cracked open the manuals. I'm really looking forward to driving the car on a trip that is actually within its range! :D
 
DaveNagy said:
I got mine!

I just returned from Northbay Nissan in my new white Leaf. Ron Coury wasn't there, so I wasn't able to meet him "in the flesh", but his co-worker Bruce took good care of me. Everything went smoothly and we were out of there in a little under two hours. I can't say enough about the whole Northbay experiance. (They are in Petaluma, CA.)

The drive home was fairly nerve-racking. Almost 80 miles of freeway driving in heavy (but fast moving) traffic. I took surface streets and lesser highways in a couple places where it didn't take me too far off course, but mostly I just tried to keep it between 55 and 60. I couldn't figure out how to make the #$&%! cruise-control work, so it was a pretty white-knuckled hour-and-a-half. Not how I wanted to "get to know" my Leaf, but what can ya do?

She's happily trickle-charging in the garage now, and I've cracked open the manuals. I'm really looking forward to driving the car on a trip that is actually within its range! :D
Click to expand...

LOL. Same exact experience.
 
I picked mine up on Sunday from Premier Nissan in San Jose. It took about an hour and 45 minutes, which was great. I told them I needed to be out of there by 2:00 pm, and they easily made that deadline. It was a pretty painless experience. I wish I would have gotten a bit more for my trade in and the really pushed the extended warranty very hard, to no avail.

Took the car straight downtown for the dinner and the Shark's game and then home after the game. I had many miles to spare.

Drove into work today and the 32 mile commute ate almost half the battery. I will trickle charge today and have plenty of juice to get home. I miss my carpool lane stickers all ready, and look forward to getting the new white stickers in 6-8 weeks. I will hopefully have some flexible hours until then!

I am also seeing more Leafs on the road. It looks like their deliveries are finally ramping up.
 
Picked mine up today at Boardwalk. Still waiting for Blink to schedule an assessment for my evp L2 EVSE...

Suggestion: Don't forget to take a copy of your pre-negotiated price so you can make sure it matches what they're writing you up for on the invoice. I had to remind them of the negotiated discount since they "forgot" to include that. :?

Also odd is the fact that I ordered the car with only floor mats, but it showed up with splash guards too. I don't think I should have to pay for options I didn't order, but didn't feel like pushing the issue (though I'm sure some might). On the plus side, there was little pressure to take any of the "extras" like warranty or other "protection" plans.

It sounds like someone actually walked away from a car (without buying) that came in with a quick charge port that they didn't order. Seems very strange since whoever that was could've applied to evp and presumably would've been reimbursed for the cost of the quick charge.

In my case, they really pitched the lease, even if for just a few months. Sounds like some people do that to get the $7500 credit both in full and right away, rather than having to wait until they file their 2011 taxes. In my case, I was already pre-approved for 2.49% at Valley Credit Union and didn't want to jeopardize the pre-approval or the rate by taking the lease today. But for some folks being able to drive away with nothing down, and then re-fi the car in a few months through a bank or CU could be a nice option. I was mainly surprised that I hadn't read more about this option and felt unprepared to change my plan. And I guess I just wanted to keep things simple.

Now if I could just get the Blink folks to do my assessment and get that L2 EVSE installed!
 
Yup. Delivered Friday 5/6. You don't want to know when I reserved, though it was almost within the estimated delivery window everyone got, 4-7 mos. But yes, very lucky duck or whatever we're being called now. Hope everyone else gets theirs soon.

I was relieved that the one car for me had no sample flaws I could detect. Paint, fit, finish, etc. are awesome.
 
Got my Leaf today May 10th. What a great car!

leafdelivery.jpg
 
lemketron said:
Also odd is the fact that I ordered the car with only floor mats, but it showed up with splash guards too... It sounds like someone actually walked away from a car (without buying) that came in with a quick charge port that they didn't order. ...
Click to expand...
Is it not strange that so many people report manufacturing mistakes like an extra QC charger put on in Japan? I expected the main Japanese manufacturers' asembly lines would have gotten the order, production, and dealer (port) installed system down by 2011. I mean installing a $700 optional piece of complex electrical quipment is not a small mistake. Imagine the uproar if GM kept delivering cars with extra sunroofs. We would be making fun of them. :oops:
 

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