Yeah, I thought so, too, when I was looking at them all online, but then I realized it was just because pearl paint always photographs a little differently between plastics and metal. The front bumper is original paint.
Yeah, I thought so, too, when I was looking at them all online, but then I realized it was just because pearl paint always photographs a little differently between plastics and metal. The front bumper is original paint.
Quickie update, now that I'm 300ish miles into Leaf ownership and drove it to the Challenge and back.
I found an appropriate sticker:
This is what the range estimate (called the Guess-O-Meter on the Leaf forums) said when I left for Gainesville for the 109-mile-long drive to the host hotel. I knew I wouldn't make it that far, as it was assuming I would drive my normal city commute to work, but it was cool seeing the optimism.
After about 50 miles, I stopped at the quick charger in Palatka for a top-up. It was pretty obvious that 115-mile range wasn't calculated at 65 mph with the A/C on.
After about 15 minutes of charging, I hit the road again. Success! The quick charger gave me one of those "oh, so this is what the future will be like" moments.
Apparently this won't be as fun once I've owned it for a few weeks, but I plugged in every single chance I had while I was in Gainesville. Here's some opportunistic charging during a lunch break.
I used the Leaf like, well, a normal car during the Challenge, plugging in at the track all day and driving back and forth to the hotel, where there weren't any outside electrical outlets. Then, on the way home from the event, I decided to stop at my parent's cabin. The distance? 62 miles. That would be easy, but I left the hotel Sunday morning already missing 25% of my range thanks to a lack of overnight charging, and Saturday night's errands. So, I went into energy conservation mode. With the A/C off and speed kept to below 60 mph on the country roads, I made it to their house with about 16 miles of range left.
Time for some destination charging! I ordered a 16A portable EVSE (electric vehicle service equipment) on Amazon and had it delivered to the Challenge hotel, which means any 220 outlet can fill up my car in a few hours. I hung out with the family on Sunday, then drove home like I was in a normal car.
There was a package on my doorstep when I got home: A Weathertech cargo liner. Besides being a GRM advertiser, they make awesome stuff, so I buy from them whenever possible. It should help the interior of my Leaf stay a little cleaner.
Sorry I don't have more photos, but overall it's just been like a normal, unremarkable car, which is what I wanted. Quiet, comfortable, packed with tech, and nearly free to refuel. Awesome!
I think it's ironic that this car actually WOULD have been competitive with quite a few vehicles in this year's drags. Heck, if i'd realized how many vehicles were within swinging distance of my mid-17s Rampage, i would have made more runs and tried to create more photo ops. If i'd known the Leaf was there, i might have challenged you!
Still my favorite Leaf feature: Turn on ac from your smartphone because it's hot outside. Oh yes.
Congrats on purchase!
BTW, you can change the music it makes when you turn it on. There are a few fun ones.
In reply to Vigo :
I think it's ironic that Tom installed a power inverter in his van, then buys an electric car. I'm waiting for him to post pics of it being charged in-tow.
I'm really interested in used Leafs like this. Still holding too much value.
5x114.3 bolt pattern eh? Should be some interesting wheel options when you get tired of stock looks.
Thankls for the update, never really paid much attention to them, but now my daily commute is less than 5 miles roundtrip, I may start looking..
Okay, update time.
First up, some *$%@$$^@^# walked up to my car while it was parked at the office, unscrewed my radio antenna, and walked away with it. Seriously. It took a full week for a used replacement from eBay to get here, so I Amazon Primed a carbon-fiber NISMO replacement so I wouldn't have to spend a week without my beloved NPR station. Does it make the car faster? No, but I like the way it looks, and I tell people I modded my LEAF with NISMO accessories. I still haven't put the new used antenna on the car.
Other than the antenna, things have been pretty normal with the LEAF. I've put 800 miles on it, and absolutely love my new daily. I couldn't think of a better tool for my commute.
I tried out the trailer hitch:
Nicole and I also took it on a 180? mile drive this past Sunday, heading into Orlando to visit a friend's restaurant and do some Christmas shopping at the mall (which offered free Level 2 charging). Hooray for fast chargers! Again, it's like the future.
For the drive, we stopped at two fast chargers and used the Level 2 at the mall.
It's dawned on me that I only have photos of it plugged into charging stations. I'll try and do better for the next update.
TL;DR: This car is awesome and I'd buy another in a heartbeat.
I'm curious as to what kind of impact this is going to have on your electric bill at home. Have you been able to calculate a rough estimate based on your usage up to this point?
I'm trying to envision myself owning something like this. I work for a municipality in a hundred year old firehouse (not as cool as it sounds; it's a E36 M3hole). I drive to work and then stay there for 24 hours. I'm sure that if I ran an extension cord out the window and plugged in my car, it would generate outrage from the locals. And then what would happen if another guy on my shift also bought one? All that juice is going to add up. How receptive will employers be to these things?
^ Isn't it like $3-5 of cost to fully charge a leaf? Seems pretty insignificant compared to the cost of employing you. If your superior is fine with it, I doubt it would be an issue.
Snrub said:^ Isn't it like $3-5 of cost to fully charge a leaf? Seems pretty insignificant compared to the cost of employing you. If your superior is fine with it, I doubt it would be an issue.
In this case, my superiors are about 50,000 taxpayers. I'm sure a couple of them would have something to say about it.
In reply to Woody :
One of these can calculate and display the cost of the energy used to charge the car.
So, electricity cost. It’s actually super easy to calculate. The national average electric rate is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour. I currently pay about that, but plan to switch to a time-of-use rate that will make my power cheaper at night, when I have the car set to do it’s charging. Why is electricity cheaper at 2am? Nobody else is using it, so the standard law of supply and demand applies.
A LEAF has a 24kwh pack (30kwh for 2016 or newer), and in that pack is about 21kwh of usable energy, because you can’t feasibly use every single bit of a battery. So, assuming I drive until my battery is dead every day with no public charging, and I pay the national average electric rate, I’m spending $2.52 to charge my leaf.
However, around town I average about 4 Miles per kwh (the electric equivalent of MPG). No, that’s not great, but I have a fairly heavy right foot and my car only costs $2 to fill so whatever.... my daily commute is 10 miles round trip, so that’s 2.5 kWh, or 30 cents. I’m spending 30 cents per day on my daily commute. I’ll round up to 50 cents for errands and stuff.
So, overall, I haven’t noticed the LEAF suckling on my electric bill, and that will get even cheaper once I switch to a time of use rate structure. The weather, and it’s effects on my air conditioning usage, fluctuates way more than my car’s charging, so the LEAF’s usage gets lost in the margin of error of my average power bill.
Woody, do you need to charge at work? My fine company offers it for free, but I never bother plugging in because we don’t have a commercial charging station, and I don’t want to deal with untangling a cord every day.
Tom Suddard said:Woody, do you need to charge at work? My fine company offers it for free, but I never bother plugging in because we don’t have a commercial charging station, and I don’t want to deal with untangling a cord every day.
In reply to Tom Suddard :
My commute is 23 miles each way, so it would be nice to recharge in case I need to make any stops on the way home. It's also a very hilly route, so I would expect that to take it's toll.
It would bother me to not be charging when the car is parked for a long stretch and I can't go anywhere.
My electric company set us up with a reduced rate for charging overnight - 8 cents a KWh. In exchange we agreed to have the L2 charge station on a separate meter for better monitoring.
This also meant we knew exactly how much the Leaf added to our electric bill each month. We drove it about 10,000 miles a year. I never saw a bill above $30, usually it was about $20.
I just sold mine. Bittersweet.
I have a strong desire for my next commuter to be electric. Although it will be two wheels instead of four. I likely would already have one if Zero motorcycles would have returned my request for a time slot at the demo days last year prior to my purchase of the Yamaha.
Did you try to drive this car on an uphill road?
Curiosity question: Does the Leaf have the ability to back feed if you ever needed to use as a generator in an emergency situation? That's seems pretty appealing if so.
My next commuter pod is going to be electric. We've finally reached the point where I'd be ok with the range.
Snrub said:^ Isn't it like $3-5 of cost to fully charge a leaf? Seems pretty insignificant compared to the cost of employing you. If your superior is fine with it, I doubt it would be an issue.
That's exactly the math I did when JG had his Volt. Letting him charge it at work made him so happy, I'm sure I was able to take advantage of him to the tune of far more than that. 
Margie
In reply to The0retical :
So... it depends.
Physics say yes. The LEAF has enough energy in it to power my house for a few days. Extracting it, though, is tricky. I could hook up a big inverter to the DC quick charge port, but I've got better things to do than figure that out. I don't know of anybody selling a plug-and-play adapter, but I'd buy it in a heartbeat if I found one. I park the LEAF right next to my generator transfer panel every night, so it would be sweet to be able to plug it right in.
In Japan, you just buy a house powering accessory and boom you're good to go. They get all the cool stuff. But, on the bright side, Nissan is supposedly working on bringing the tech to market in the U.S. We'll see, but if it ever does come here, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Tom Suddard said:So, electricity cost. It’s actually super easy to calculate. The national average electric rate is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour. I currently pay about that, but plan to switch to a time-of-use rate that will make my power cheaper at night, when I have the car set to do it’s charging...
A LEAF has a 24kwh pack (30kwh for 2016 or newer), and in that pack is about 21kwh of usable energy, because you can’t feasibly use every single bit of a battery. So, assuming I drive until my battery is dead every day with no public charging, and I pay the national average electric rate, I’m spending $2.52 to charge my leaf.
It's important to note that charging an EV isn't 100% efficient; charging efficiency varies some between cars and (importantly) between charging methods (110v trickle charging is least efficient). So you might be charged for 1.25 kWh worth of electricity usage to get 1 kWh of actual charge into your car.
Prices on these are going to plummet in 2018 when the next gen comes out. Around here, they were already dumping 10k off MSRP on the 2017s, which made them 20k vehicles, or ~13k after the tax incentive. So the used values are going to get forced down, too. I predict there will be a bunch of 1rst gen Leafs under $10k to choose from in certain markets next year.
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