Got a leaf (the car, not from a tree)

JP11 said:

Realistically, I'm a year or two out from buying. I think this market segment is going to have many more choices by then.

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I certainly hope that there are. My hope is that we'll have a good electric/hybrid solution available to replace our minivan. We have 6 in our family so we need something with more seatbelts than the standard sedan/car. I read somewhere that there may be some sort of minivan type vehicle in the next couple years (I think it was the Town and Country).

woodgeek said:

t you will do a LOT better with battery life than CA folks with the 2011 battery.

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Hoping for the best. Reading on the 'issues' it does seem mostly to be a southern US problem. I don't know if that is just because fewer were sold up in this area or really due to the heat etc. I also don't see a lot of info for 2012 or any for 2013 model years (I'd think there would be something if there were).

I also suspect that Nissan may have modified their battery indicators between those years too. I've been told by my local dealer's "Expert" that at full charge the car is not at full chemical charge i.e. risk of overcharge/damage from sitting at 100% is reduced/eliminated. Perhaps this will help too... In any case I'm not going to worry about it now - I'll just enjoy the car and see what happens when it does. For now the only thing bugging me is seeing my power usage double at the house.

Oh an another thing - I did find out that charging at 240 is in fact more 'efficient' than 120. Apparently whenever the leaf charges there is about a 300watt overhead so 120v falls into the 75-80% efficiency (I.e. over 20% of the energy from the wall is 'lost') but this 'loss' falls to about 10% when charging at full 6Kw rate.

I hear you. There are a lot of promising 'maybe' vehicles out there. I'm sure the marketing folks at various companies look at the reactions to their prototype vehicles to help decide if there is enough demand to justify the development. Those of us who are basically early adopters are likely to get more excited than the rest of the general population, but the real profits are not made selling to early adopters.

I do take heart in seeing more movement in these early prototypes towards stronger hybrid designs as well as more plug in options. If nothing else, perhaps it will encourage businesses to install more ESVEs. Then businesses need to see the return on them too - few will actually do it just to be nice. On that front, I know we've frequented businesses near the one public ESVE in our town more since buying the car. Discovered a nice frozen yogurt place there as well as the restaurants we already knew about but hadn't visited in a while. Not exactly saving myself any money, heh. Wish there were some near places we go more regularly - i.e. grocery store or home depot or heck, even McDonalds. But I suppose it takes a LOT of extra burgers to pay for the install alone....

woodgeek said:

It helps that the price of EVSEs is dropping. When EVs get popular, many will prob have 40kWh+ packs, and will want >10 kW EVSEs. MAybe we should not build out a ton of smaller ones.

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That is an interesting question to ponder. While I agree that larger batteries etc will come and the desire to charge faster will grow I think it really depends on the intent of the installed EVSE.

For example, on major roadways (highways etc) where the use case of the EVSE is to "charge and go long way to next charger" having the fastest EVSE available is a good idea to minimize the stopover (i.e. stick your DC fast chargers there). Then the use case of a long road trip is better handled.

However, if the use case is more local then I could see the argument for many smaller EVSE installs that basically provide a charge at a rate to encourage folks to utilize a business and get a bit of a charge. Example - if I am driving locally and make 3 stops a few miles from each other and could plug in at each then a slow charger is fine - i.e. assume each stop is 5 miles from the next and it makes for a loop (20 miles total), then if I get 5 miles at each stop I should be fine/happy. Assume those stops are 30 minutes on average than a 6Kw L2 charger at each would well make up for my usage. The power draw then from each business (presumably the ones providing power) would be minimized and it is more likely to be used by customers. My assumption here is that car owners primarily charge at home and only add while out to keep moving to other local destinations.

Personally, I like the idea of charging where I plan to be anyway (i.e. at the grocery store) rather than go somewhere specific and 'fill up' as I wait (the gas station model).

Perhaps this is another change of mindset for drivers - long rang is critical between fill-ups if you have limited locations to fill, but if you can 'top off wherever you are' then longer range becomes less important until you have to go far between stops...

All excellent points. I agree that getting to 150+ mile range (with QC network to support) will be necessary for wide adoption of EVs for long distance driving.
I suppose I'm being simple minded thinking about local use, but I have to imagine that local use is the main way that most folks use their vehicles with only the occasional long distance drive. Given this, I think the current range is likely good enough for most folks - even if they don't realize it. It is interesting how many folks when I talk about the car and they learn the range immediately think of a need to drive farther and ask about it... while I can't say we never drive more than 80 miles in a day, I can say it is relatively rare. Kind of like an interview I saw with an EV driver in LA - he reported a lot of folks ask "what if you want to drive to Vegas" as if it is a daily event... his response was "I've never done that in any car, how often do you go there?"

And another note - one has to change their thinking to allow for using the whole range; in our gas cars we rarely let the tank get below 1/4 full. We're adjusting quite well to the idea of arriving home with less than 10% remaining - and won't panic even if at 5%.

I have to admit that if the Volt had 5 seatbelts I likely would have bought one given a decent deal. With 4 kids, we rather have to be able to have that extra seat much of the time - like anytime I"m at work and the wife is carting kids about

I do like the all electric too though - a bit less complex on the maintenance schedule although time will tell just what does break in these cars.

BrotherBart said:

I can hear the designers now. "First it was not enough cup holders. Now not enough seat belts. What next..."

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I do have to laugh on this one. One of my wife's first complaints was the cup holders are too small for her water bottle. Go figure.

Too bad it isn't like the old days when we could just pile people into the car without regard to seatbelts eh?

Having to have a larger vehicle is definitely one of the costs of a large family. Our "family" car is a Toyota minivan that seats 8 which allows us to pick up grandparents and truck everyone around. It has just over 150K miles on it - I do wonder if it will last long enough to get a plug-in to replace it

Interesting looking at the specs for that e-NV200 van of Nissan's. Battery etc look to be basically the same as the Leaf (hmm... economy of scale anyone?). Stick a 3rd row in there and I'd consider it for my family vehicle as we'd be able to fit all 6 in it. I wonder if such a vehicle could sell.

I'm surprised, however, that they don't put a larger battery pack in it - but that must be a cost issue. I wonder what the "normal" driving distance is for local delivery companies? I can't imagine that UPS drivers drive less than 80 miles a day - this doesn't seem to meet that need too well. Maybe the local flower shop?

begreen said:

For a lot of folks the genset is needed daily when their round trip commute exceeds 40 miles. I like the concept of the Volt. Often we will head into Seattle and have a change of plans that exceeds our electric range. No big deal at all with a portable genset. Also, the Volt is an excellent highway car. It is a smoother rider than the shorter wheelbase EVs I test drove and significantly better than our Prius was. Overall I think they got it right with a lot of the core features on this car in spite of some ergonomic failures.

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Sure would be nice if they would add a 240v AC out plug so that in emergencies you could plug it into the house. I know, that would result in folks leaving the car running in the garage and killing themselves - too much liability. However, it would be a nice additional value in my opinion. I just installed a generator that I hope never to need, would rather drive it around and keep it running that way ha!

I understand all that - the thought though would be that one could pull a lot more power from the generator part of the car and possibly power most of a home with the right connection. Just pulling from the 12v battery and having the car recharge it is all fine and well, but there could be a better path.