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

[Slow1]

I've been debating this for the last few years actually, but finally pulled the trigger last Saturday as the dealer had a 2013 model that they wanted gone (good deal) plus MA just passed a new $2500 rebate for electric cars - Thank you other MA residents!

Anyway - it is a lot more fun to drive than some would think. Good zip - more than the Hyundai Accent (2006 model with 110K miles) it replaced. Lots of good safety features missing in the Accent too - side airbags etc. Kids like it as they have a bit more space in the back seat (a bit wider it seems, but I didn't measure).

Only a few days into it, but the range (someone will ask I'm sure) is somewhere above 74 miles as my wife drove that far on Sunday (round trip). While she received low battery warnings, she made it home without going into "turtle mode". Not exactly the 80 miles they suggest in literature, but driving styles are a bit part of that just like gas MPG ratings. I've been told that if we pay attention to the

I am enjoying driving it knowing that it is powered by my solar panels - have a bit of a credit from overproduction the last few years so I estimate I'll be getting my first 2500 or so miles out of that credit... then have to evaluate if this is enough justification to add more panels (and how many would be needed)...

Anyway, just sharing - if any other Leaf owners are out there, would be happy to discuss Anyone considering one I'll share what I learn....

 

[mass_burner]

I've been debating this for the last few years actually, but finally pulled the trigger last Saturday as the dealer had a 2013 model that they wanted gone (good deal) plus MA just passed a new $2500 rebate for electric cars - Thank you other MA residents!

Anyway - it is a lot more fun to drive than some would think. Good zip - more than the Hyundai Accent (2006 model with 110K miles) it replaced. Lots of good safety features missing in the Accent too - side airbags etc. Kids like it as they have a bit more space in the back seat (a bit wider it seems, but I didn't measure).

Only a few days into it, but the range (someone will ask I'm sure) is somewhere above 74 miles as my wife drove that far on Sunday (round trip). While she received low battery warnings, she made it home without going into "turtle mode". Not exactly the 80 miles they suggest in literature, but driving styles are a bit part of that just like gas MPG ratings. I've been told that if we pay attention to the

I am enjoying driving it knowing that it is powered by my solar panels - have a bit of a credit from overproduction the last few years so I estimate I'll be getting my first 2500 or so miles out of that credit... then have to evaluate if this is enough justification to add more panels (and how many would be needed)...

Anyway, just sharing - if any other Leaf owners are out there, would be happy to discuss Anyone considering one I'll share what I learn....

thanks for sharing. i have an '04 prius and was looking into all electric or electric/gas model. did you need to install a special plug? if so, how much did it cost? does the leaf has gas mode? how much electricity does it take to top off the battery?

 

[Slow1]

thanks for sharing. i have an '04 prius and was looking into all electric or electric/gas model. did you need to install a special plug? if so, how much did it cost? does the leaf has gas mode? how much electricity does it take to top off the battery?

Plug: Well, not yet but I expect to eventually - the trickle charger it came with pulls off a normal household plug (had a couple in the garage already) but for safety reasons it can only pull 10amp from that plug which translates into about 1.2Kw. I do plan to add a 240v40a plug (same plug as you would have for an electric dryer), I don't have a quote yet on that. IF/when I do that I can add a new "level 2 charger" (not really a charger, more of a current management device) and it will be able to push the full 6.6kw that the car can handle.

Leaf is pure electric, no gas mode. The battery is 24Kwh so if you are at 50% it would take a nominal 12Kwh to top it off (plus a bit for transfer/charging losses - aka heat generated in the process).

My wife wants to wait and see if our driving pattern will allow us to just use the trickle charger (she doesn't want to spend an additional $650+Install). Odd enough I am expecting that we may well be able to do this and not be overly inconvenienced. I anticipate that we'll normally drive about 40-45 miles on average which should be about 1/2 charge which although it may take 10-12 hrs on trickle, we have all night to let it charge. On occasions where we need more we can just drive over to one of the local charging stations (one at the Nissan dealership, another at a local restaurant) and give it a boost if we so desire - it will take a scenario where we need to do high mileage in consecutive days - nothing says it has to be fully charged every time you use it.

I will likely compromise and get the 240v plug installed anyway so that if/when we want to get the Level2 device we will only be limited by the amount of time it takes to ship to us. I'd like to have it just in case, but maybe it is just my own irrational desire to charge quickly at home.

 

[mass_burner]

it will take a scenario where we need to do high mileage in consecutive days

like a 2+ day trip.

 

[mass_burner]

my fear would be forgetting to plug it in, then driving to work and not being able to make it to or find a charging station.

 

[Slow1]

like a 2+ day trip.

I don't see this vehicle as a "2 day trip" option. If I travel, I want to go more than 80 miles at a time. I suppose if I was going overnight somewhere close that could come into play, but IF I chose to take this car then I'd have to plan ahead to find suitable charging.... again, not really what I bought it for.

 

[Slow1]

my fear would be forgetting to plug it in, then driving to work and not being able to make it to or find a charging station.

Yeah, I wonder if the habit will develop while I'm excited about it and then I'll manage to keep it up... Right now my problem is that I keep getting in and leaving the charging port hanging open.

 

[mass_burner]

i have many charging stations here at car dealers, do they charge to charge your car? (that was awkward)

 

[woodgeek]

The price of EVSE's is falling rapidly, so it makes sense to wait if you can. Portable ones with a 240VAC plug are available (my ideal), but are still quite spendy, and not available over 3.3 kW. The install was not hard, if you are comfortable making a new breaker branch.

I did mine b/c I wanted to be able to do fast top offs. The wife can finish her work commute, and then be fully recharged in the time it takes her to get dressed for us to go for the evening in the city (which is another 40 mi highway round trip). When the charging is so fast, no mental calculation required, plug it in and it is 100% ready to go again when you are.

 

[jebatty]

Probably won't be long before you just drive up to a docking station in your garage or elsewhere and automatically connect; also will automatically charge your credit card or bank account! The perfect marriage might be EV + PV.

 

[woodgeek]

i have many charging stations here at car dealers, do they charge to charge your car? (that was awkward)

AFAIK, Nissan offers free high-speed (L3) charging....20 minutes from 0 to 80% at many of their dealerships (still <500 nationwide)

They also have an incentive for 2 years of free charging at most public L2 chargers (>10,000 nationwide), for recent/new buyers/leasees like Slow and me.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news...e-card-to-let-leafs-recharge-on-four-networks

IIRC, one of the networks dropped out, but I think they are still free to leaf drivers.

 

[Slow1]

i have many charging stations here at car dealers, do they charge to charge your car? (that was awkward)

They appear to be free so far as I can tell - I know our local Nissan place doesn't even have a card to swipe, just plug and be happy. It seems (based on reading notes on plugshare.com) that there is quite a variance on this, even within same brand of dealer. My local seems to be the easiest, other end of the range is to have limited hours (only when open) and, if reports are correct, some require authorization and blocked charger issues may be met with indifference or worse. I've only used my local Nissan dealer (where I bought the car) and it has been a very positive experience.

The price of EVSE's is falling rapidly, so it makes sense to wait if you can. Portable ones with a 240VAC plug are available (my ideal), but are still quite spendy, and not available over 3.3 kW. The install was not hard, if you are comfortable making a new breaker branch.

I was looking at this one: http://www.clippercreek.com/store/product/hcs-40p-30a-240v-charging-25-cord-nema-14-50-plug/ which appears to be 6.6Kw and reasonably portable... it has a plug at least But at $650 plus cost of plug install my wife still wants to hold off...

This week was a good week to play with the car. My wife is taking the kids to a vacation bible school that is about 75 miles round trip. She has been taking the Leaf every other day - if we had the L2 available she could have done it every day in theory, but I had to get it inspected one day and she had other errands to run another so that is the way it is working for us.

They also have an incentive for 2 years of free charging at most public L2 chargers (>10,000 nationwide), for recent/new buyers/leasees like Slow and me.

I ran into this as well, but it appears to only be in 'limited' markets, my area not being one of them (rats). In our case this would have limited value I expect anyway since our usage pattern should rarely suggest a charge other than home. As much as I like it, even if there were L3/DC stations available, I don't want to sit for 30 minutes every 60 miles of driving if on a long trip. Also, it seems that there must be some sort of subsidy going on as I have found free chargers scattered around here - you have to sign up for the chargepoint network (no cost) and swipe your card (RFID?) but actual use appears to be free for the most part around here.

If I get my chargepoint card in time, I am considering using the Leaf to run to the airport this Saturday. It is 42 miles one way so minimum 84 R/t which after considering incidental driving in airport and range penalty for being on highway I expect I need to charge. They have a good number of stations at Logan Airport, just an extra 30-60 minutes at 6.6Kw should give me more than enough to get home... but my fear is that the chargepoint network may refuse to let me draw (better do a POC test on a local one first I guess).

 

[begreen]

Just catching up after a short camping trip and I saw this. Congratulations on the new wheels. Mileage range will vary with the terrain, temperature, and the driver.

 

[CaptSpiff]

Here's a 38 minute video about driving the LEAF. I know,.. that sounds awful! But it's actually a pretty good conversation.

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[mass_burner]

quick questions.

1. can the stored power in the leaf's batteries be used to power other items like a fridge, fan, radio etc?
2. can the leaf be recharged by a generator?

 

[Slow1]

quick questions.

1. can the stored power in the leaf's batteries be used to power other items like a fridge, fan, radio etc?
2. can the leaf be recharged by a generator?

1. Not by default in the US. I did read a bit about some sort of option in other countries. In theory it should be possible.
2. I wondered about this too - from my reading it is possible but one has to do some tricks to resolve grounding issues. I didn't dig deeper than that yet.

 

[woodgeek]

1. Not by default in the US. I did read a bit about some sort of option in other countries. In theory it should be possible.
2. I wondered about this too - from my reading it is possible but one has to do some tricks to resolve grounding issues. I didn't dig deeper than that yet.

1. Nope. I suppose you could run small things off the 12V system if the car was left 'on' (which would be ok inside a garage), since the traction battery recharges the 12V. Ultimately, you would be able to access up to the 24 kWh stored in the traction battery. I'd have to research, but this might be handy at the <100W sustained level. Maybe my wifi or a insert blower?? At 100W, that would be over a week of runtime.

2. I don't see why the 120V EVSE couldn't be run off a genny, provided it could handle 1.3 kW sustained (not my Harbor Fright dealio).

 

[mass_burner]

1. can the stored power in the leaf's batteries be used to power other items like a fridge, fan, radio etc?

right now I get ~1200W from my '04 Prius 12V through a 1500W inverter. why wouldn't this be the same?

 

[Slow1]

right now I get ~1200W from my '04 Prius 12V through a 1500W inverter. why wouldn't this be the same?

I bet it is very similar. The other method I talked about is an actual charging station that can run in two directions - using the car battery as a whole house backup system.

 

[mass_burner]

I bet it is very similar. The other method I talked about is an actual charging station that can run in two directions - using the car battery as a whole house backup system.

I already have a cord going from my garage entrance up through the floor to the rear of the fridge. I slide out the fridge, swap plugs and am back in business. We have NG range, so 1200W is fine for us. Also, the fridge doesn't run constantly. I guess pretty much the same setup would work with the EV.

 

[mass_burner]

if you don't mind me asking, what was your customer cash amount?

 

[begreen]

There are some technical issues that depend on how the car and battery systems are designed and where one taps into this power. Electric auto mfgs would prefer you not tap into the main battery due to the risk, but it is done by some using a 240V UPS in the case of the Prius. Some cars like the Volt charge the 12v system off of the main battery. That allows one to put a modest 1.5 KW inverter on the 12v system and let the car run the genset when it needs to bring up the main battery charge. I'm told one can run several days like that with a full tank. Looks like the Leaf may be used similarly according to this post:
(broken link removed)

If you have the bucks, Nissan may have a more elegant solution. I don't know if this is on the US market yet but Leaf owners might want to inquire. I like it:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/18/nissan-leaf-power-station/

FWIW, I use a propane/gas generator instead.

 

[Slow1]

If you have the bucks, Nissan may have a more elegant solution. I don't know if this is on the US market yet but Leaf owners might want to inquire. I like it:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/18/nissan-leaf-power-station/

That's it! I read that too, but it is only in Japan, I do wonder why they don't make it available in the US as well. Then again, such things could shut down the "free to charge" stations in the USA. I could just see folks going to work/whatever and charging the car just to use the power at night and then charge again the next day. If you had a short range to where you were driving it just might work (we use like 16kwh/day so that is well within possibilities for us).

if you don't mind me asking, what was your customer cash amount?

The finances worked out like this for me: Sticker was about 31K, then I received $3500 for using their financing (is that the "customer cash?"), then I received a $1K discount through their EPP arrangement with the company I work for. Add in another bit of discount just because we all know they don't sell at MSRP anyway and my final price worked out to be about 26K, Stick my trade in (3K) and add in all the taxes/fees etc, and the walk out price was $23,980. Now I still will get the federal $7.5K and a state $2.5 rebate in the next year which brings my final cost to just a bit under $14K for the new car. That is about what I would pay for a similar sized ICE car new I believe so really my only "electric premium" ends up being the range limitation which I really am getting less concerned about with each day we own it.

 

[mass_burner]

The finances worked out like this for me: Sticker was about 31K, then I received $3500 for using their financing (is that the "customer cash?"), then I received a $1K discount through their EPP arrangement with the company I work for. Add in another bit of discount just because we all know they don't sell at MSRP anyway and my final price worked out to be about 26K, Stick my trade in (3K) and add in all the taxes/fees etc, and the walk out price was $23,980. Now I still will get the federal $7.5K and a state $2.5 rebate in the next year which brings my final cost to just a bit under $14K for the new car. That is about what I would pay for a similar sized ICE car new I believe so really my only "electric premium" ends up being the range limitation which I really am getting less concerned about with each day we own it.

oh, I'm looking at the lease option.

 

[Slow1]

oh, I'm looking at the lease option.

I considered the lease, generally have a negative bias against them I have to admit, but due to anxiety over battery tech etc I did give it a serious thought. In the end the finances made it for me - incentives were better for the purchase option for me. Based on the offers I saw, it seems that at the end of 3 years I would have paid out only about 3-4k less than I am this way. Whatever happens to battery tech in that time I have to imagine the car will be worth at least that in 3 years...

With 8 year/100K battery warranty I also figure the battery being 'worthless' in the car won't happen until after the gas savings have practically paid for it. I figure that at 100K miles I will have saved over $10K compared to the 30mpg car I traded in. Of course I doubt I'll reach 100K as fast... then again we'll have put over 500 miles on it this first week (unusual week I'm sure).