BeyondBeLeaf wrote: ↑Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:57 am
The battery degradation is the part that worries me long term. In the short term, it's how long it takes to charge the battery. I'm also a little disappointed with the cost per mile. I think I've logged about 900 miles thus far and the charging station I've been using has already charged me about $120 since I started charging. My full-sized Titan would give me about 450 miles in range for about $80, so I'm not seeing the kind of savings that I had hoped I would.
Your costing observation is not unique. DCFC has never worked out for me from a cost perspective (unless free). In my case, it's rare that I even attempt driving my LEAF beyond it's single-charge range. On the rare occasions I have, both the reliability and costs of DCFC have been a huge disappointment.
Example... This past December I used my LEAF for simple 120 mile trip one-way, and then 120 mile return trip the same day. That required 2 DCFC sessions. Left home pre-heated @ 100% SOC from home L2 charging, 1 DCFC on the outbound (arrived on fumes), 2nd on the homebound at same station, and arrived home @ 15% SOC. I used EA for the DCFC for the basic reason it was my
only choice, but fortunately was charged by the KWh (not by connection time as that would have been another costing disaster). Up front, the costing didn't look too bad at roughly $10-12 for each session. When my January credit card statement arrived, the account was auto-dinged 4 times @ $10/each to load & reload as needed to fulfill EA's account requirements. Then factor in the ~65KWh estimated from the 2 home L2's the LEAF took to prep & recover at another $8-9 overall combined. So in retrospect, it would have been cheaper to park the LEAF and use my Ridgeline at $35 in fuel, 5-minute top-off time, and actually included the road taxes in the cost.
Just wait until all those KW-hogging EV pickup trucks hit the market with batteries 3-4 times the capacity of a LEAF and lucky to deliver double the range (on a good day, downhill, with a strong tail wind). And those mostly new to having an EV owners then discover the daily power consumption & battery capacity is beyond what their common residential electric supply can support on L2 charging over reasonable time so they go looking for a 150KW DCFC to get through their day. That's going to be a major reality check.
2014 SV - Brilliant Silver - returned 1/2017 at end of lease.
2019 SL - White - w/Tech Package