$4.00/gallon gas coming? Bring it on...

bastomatic wrote:

Klayfish wrote: Sweet!! End of month is a great time to get a deal. How far was your drive home if you just made it? Mine was 62 miles, all highway (in hindsight, I should have used back roads). I got the low battery warning my last 7 miles. Talk about an exciting first ride!

Just made it as in "got it home a few minutes ago." Drive home was about 45 miles, at 80mph I had about 20 miles of range left. The range estimator is awfully inaccurate so far. My 35 mile commute today drained about 15 miles of estimated range.

Mine is pretty steadily conservative to the tune of about 1.5 miles per mile.

Just so you guys know, most refer to the Leaf range indicator as a "Guessometer"...it's not nearly as useful as the state of charge bars and a tiny bit of experience.

Bryce

Another adventure report from my Leaf travels. Yesterday my wife and I drove 400 miles in our Leaf, which is our current record for a day in the Leaf. We stopped at DC fast chargers 5 times, one level 2 while we watched the Seahawks game, and one Level 1 while having dinner with some family. We only had to wait on a charger to free up (in use by another Leaf) one time for about 5 minutes. The most distance we drove between charges was 70 miles. My highest average between charges was 5.1 miles/kWh. My lowest average between charges was 3.3 miles/kWh. We figure that this would normally have been about 7 hours of commuting in our gas car (Saturn Sky) and we probably added about 4 hours of extra time between time spent getting to and using chargers (~3 hours) and reduced average speed (~1 hour).

We spent $7 on charging stations for 400 miles of driving, as most of the chargers we used were currently free.

I doubt we'd drive this much in a day again just because, as we did yesterday, but we wanted to try it out and we had miles to use on the lease anyway. It's much more fun spreading that kind of distance out over a few days when you have less waiting, such as our trips to the beach or camping over the weekend. Charging that many times in one day got a little tedious. If the car had just a little bit more range (~100 miles instead of 75 miles in these conditions) and a 6.6 kW charger instead of our 3.3 kW level 2 charger, we would have spent about half as much time charging, cutting our commute time down to about 2 extra hours instead of 4 extra hours. If it was warm weather, we probably could have eliminated another 15 minutes or so due to improved efficiency of the battery and reduced heater drain on the battery while driving and chargers while stationary.

We learned several lessons. We will have a couple of new habits to get into for long days driving, like remembering to pre-heat the car, top off the tire pressure (forgot to for this trip, I'm sure it hurt us a bit), and keeping a small blanket in the car. This time Jessica used a blanket when it was very cold outside; with the blanket combined with the seat heater, we needed almost zero cabin heater (just enough to keep the windshield clear) which added about 5-10 miles of range and was still comfortable. It's a very cheap and easy way to add range to the car without sacrificing comfort. She had brought the blanket for the football game, which we didn't need at the game, but it really came in handy in the car when I was trying to stretch distance between charges.

Bryce

I am a little more than 900 miles and one month into Leaf ownership. So far the experience has been all positive. No real range anxiety at all, but I have noticed range has been a little affected by the colder morning temperatures, though not a whole lot, maybe 5% less range below 34 degrees. The heated seats and wheel mean I don't really need climate control yet, and preheating while plugged in saves juice and miles. The integration of all the EV systems are pretty slick.

I also accomplished my first public station charge this weekend. There aren't many useful charging stations in Metro Detroit along my commute so far- and I have found the addresses and visibility of charging stations leaves much to be desired. There is supposed to be one across the street from my work parking deck, but damned if I can find it.

But this weekend, I took a trip outside my capacity, about 42 miles one way. A good friend lives in Ann Arbor, and luckily there is a free charging station about a 5 minute walk from their house.

The one issue I have is that the seat heaters are useless for the kids carseats, and the heat takes roughly 10% off of the range, but it hasn't actually affected anything yet. I still love it.

tuna55 wrote: The one issue I have is that the seat heaters are useless for the kids carseats.

really? ...

True Tuna, but as I see it, that's why God invented blankets. Maybe I will pick up a small heated blanket to plug into the DC socket.

I checked my electricity rates. The cost of charging the Leaf for those 900 miles was about $24.

bastomatic wrote: True Tuna, but as I see it, that's why God invented blankets. Maybe I will pick up a small heated blanket to plug into the DC socket. I checked my electricity rates. The cost of charging the Leaf for those 900 miles was about $24.

Yours is high. Mine is closer to $20 for 1200 miles or so

Flight Service wrote:

tuna55 wrote: The one issue I have is that the seat heaters are useless for the kids carseats.

really? ...

Yes. As high as they go for as long as I want, the carseats don't get warm.

bastomatic wrote: ...and preheating while plugged in saves juice and miles. The integration of all the EV systems are pretty slick.

I love this part, but have one grouse: I tried to update twice today and the app continued to think that the climate control was already on, which it wasn't, so I couldn't turn it on from my phone. My girlfriend's had the same thing happen a couple of times. It would also be nice if after requesting an update, that Nissan HQ would hold the updated info, so when you log into the app, it reflects whatever's known at Nissan. So if I update, and we both get a text that the status has been updated, it would be nice if she didn't also have to update just to see the same status... (Working under the assumption that there's a Nissan data center tied into both the Internet and to the satellite network allowing data transfer with the vehicle, so when you ask for an update, it's phone->Nissan Web->Nissan Satellite->car->Nissan Satellite->Nissan Web->text-to-phone, and seemingly, no update on the phone 'til it polls again; just guessing because it "finds out" a minute or so after receiving the text).

Not a big deal, but it is luxurious to dash out to the car in a 40-degree rain and hop in and have it already warm. Since it doesn't excite me to drive like something wackier, I tend to revel in the cool features it does provide...

Now that I've thought of that, I'm bummed I'm about to head to Ikea in the van

Ikea on a rainy Sunday?! Brave man.

tuna55 wrote: Yours is high. Mine is closer to $20 for 1200 miles or so

Wow, that's cheap. Mine is based on a 13 cent per kWh rate. I'm supposed to be getting a charger from the local utility, and in exchange for monitoring my rates, they are going to cut the rate to 8 cents/ kWh.

I set my heater at 68 just to keep the car decently warm inside. This morning, it was 26 degrees outside on my commute in. I used 5% more battery than when I don't have any climate control on (arrived with 69% battery and I usually have 74%). I also left the heater on the entire trip. The heated steering wheel is one of my big complaints about the car. It gets nice and toasty warm, then shuts off and won't cycle back on. Only way to get it to turn on again is to shut the switch off for a while, then turn it back on. I've already had Nissan look at it and was told it was fine. I've read many other owners complain about the same thing, so I know it's not me. Other than that, still loving it. I've had it 3 months and put on 3400 miles.

Klayfish wrote: I set my heater at 68 just to keep the car decently warm inside. This morning, it was 26 degrees outside on my commute in. I used 5% more battery than when I don't have any climate control on (arrived with 69% battery and I usually have 74%). I also left the heater on the entire trip. The heated steering wheel is one of my big complaints about the car. It gets nice and toasty warm, then shuts off and won't cycle back on. Only way to get it to turn on again is to shut the switch off for a while, then turn it back on. I've already had Nissan look at it and was told it was fine. I've read many other owners complain about the same thing, so I know it's not me. Other than that, still loving it. I've had it 3 months and put on 3400 miles.

Yeah, it's "normal", I leave mine on and it cycles on and off on a duty cycle of some sort. I've never had a heated steering wheel, so I am not sure if that is typical or not.

Our steering wheel's the same way. Seems incredibly sloppy to me; given the degree of control on this car, the idea that it can't monitor wheel temp and cycle at a rate to keep that consistently toasty is ludicrous. Hoping there'll be a software update to improve it.

Just had another bout of checking update status, rechecking, killing the app and restarting, and still it thinks climate control is already on...

These are gingerbread; the car's working great. But it is annoying that these glitches exist.

Mr_Estrotica wrote: Ikea on a rainy Sunday?! Brave man.

Yeah, it was kind of annoying, though I knew the aisle and bin of what I was after.

The real bummer is that while I double-checked the number of the boxes I grabbed from right under a birch example, I didn't double-check the color stickers, and brought home two white Expedits. Now I have to go back...

In reply to ransom:

what app are you using? I had heard Nissan's app is not so great. I've been using the free "LEAF link" 3rd party app, and it works quite well for Climate Control, charging, etc.

In reply to bastomatic:

Interesting... I am using Nissan's own "Nissan LEAF" app. I didn't realize there was a third party app at all... I'll have to have a peek!

EDIT: I don't see a Leaf Link... Are you on an iPhone? I'm using Android... Looks like Leaf Manager from Gyathaar and LEAF Control from Law Systems Limited both have higher ratings than Nissan's app...

Yeah, that's an iOS app.

In light of local $3.00 a gallon gas, I caught myself wistfully eyeing a beautiful Caprice Classic on the way to work.

Got home to find my utility had installed a Bosch level 2 charger at my house for free, which made me feel better. Oh, and they cut my electric rate by 20%

I wasn't sure where to post this, so I decided to piggyback on this thread. I work for Daimler and we occassionally get some friends and family deals; this latest offer on the smart electric drive is too good to ignore! The smart ED doesn't have a DC fast charger, as much range as other cars like the Leaf, and of course is a 2 seater, but otherwise it's a pretty decent car. It's quick, the integration is well done, and it drives pretty nicely.

The local dealer in Portland will lease the smart electric drive for the following price:

$99.99 per month (including battery) for a 36 month lease, $1,999 due at signing

That's about $155/month for a lease vehicle with no maintenance costs and nearly free fuel! For somebody who can accept the two seater and range limitation, that's a REALLY good price. Most people spend that much on fuel just commuting back and forth to work!!! I must be present when the car is purchased to get the employee friends and family deal, which I'm happy to do for my GRM friends, and this offer is ONLY valid at the local Portland dealer. If anybody is interested, contact me directly and I can share more specific details.

Bryce

I saw this ad online yesterday. Seems like a good deal.

ProDarwin wrote: I saw this ad online yesterday. Seems like a good deal.

Where did you see this online? If it's available to others outside the Portland area that would be much better, so please share! I haven't seen anything close to this price advertised so far.

Bryce

I want to say I got a remarkable-looking offer via Car2Go (in Portland), but I can't find it now.

If we knew what we know now and didn't have the Leaf for almost another two years, I'd be very tempted. The Leaf's working out pretty darn well, but if we can find a similar deal when the Leaf's lease is done and the Ranchero has moved to my dad's carport, I'd be all over doing this and finding a fun second DD...

On a related note of enjoying EV life, a couple weekends ago my wife and I needed a lazy Sunday, so we took the scenic route to the beach in our Leaf. 225 miles round trip, 3 different fast charger locations used along the way, zero cost to charge up along the way, and lots of great scenery at the beach and along the backroads through the forest. For this time of year and in this area, we also could not have asked for better weather!

We really enjoy having great EV infrastructure here and the few stops along the way gave us a good excuse to stop and eat, smell the roses, etc. at some local places along the way. Nice lazy Sunday trip.

Bryce