It strikes me that in a way electric cars are the anti-traditional sports car: Quiet, feel faster than they are because of the bottom-end torque, tall...
It strikes me that in a way electric cars are the anti-traditional sports car: Quiet, feel faster than they are because of the bottom-end torque, tall...
GameboyRMH wrote:Klayfish wrote:+1 that's definitely not normal. That level of wear should take at least a decade under those conditions.Jaynen wrote: Coworker had one and they had about a 30mile commute each way. By the end of 2 years the car would no longer make the trip without charging during the day. They loved the car but the batteries are crap. This coworker it was his wife's car mainly and she is an engineer at Qualcomm and was also part of some obsessive data downloading thing that Nissan was doing where they graded how people drove and she always got the "high scores". This was also in San Diego which is arguably some of the mildest weather in terms of temperature changes in the country. They replaced it with a Volt and have been much much happier and have nothing but good things to say about the VoltIf she was truly using it ideally in an ideal climate and still had that issue, I suspect she got a rare lemon. That's not at all the norm for Leafs. The battery degrades as all do, but not at that kind of a rate. They just got unlucky and had a defective one.
Thats 15k a year, just from commuting, using ~80% of the car's range everyday (likely more in hot weather). That seems like pretty heavy use. How many 'bars' would the battery need to drop before that commute is no longer achievable?
I feel like I've seen similar reports of reduced range on the Leaf.
So what is a good deal on a used leaf, and where are you all finding them? I'm still seeing like 6-7k for 2011 models on my local craigs.
doesn't seem like a good deal at all to me for an 8 y.o. economy car...
ProDarwin wrote: Whats the charge rate of the slowest leaf charging available on a 2011? I drive 20-30 miles/day, tops.
I think it depends on the amp rating of where you plug it in (I'm not an electrician, so I may have the terminology wrong). When we had ours plugged in on 110, I sometimes came home from work with about 35-40% battery life. If I plugged it in immediately (around 5:00pm), it would be just at 100% when I was ready to leave the next morning around 5am. 220 was definitely the way to go. It could recharge in 4 hours, even from a pretty low point. That rate of charge was very helpful. Often, I'd come home from work, plug the car in and start the charger. I'd eat dinner, get changed, etc...and 30 minutes later head back out the door to take the kids to sports practice. That 30 minutes of charge gave me more than enough to make it to practice and back easily.
The car can be set to automatically start charging at the optimal time. I would set the timer for a 5am departure and plugged the car in. It would figure out what time to start charging so that it would be at full charge exactly when I was ready to go. That keeps the battery from sitting with a full charge too long, which isn't good for it. Worked like a charm. You can also have the car start charging from the app on your phone...IIRC you can also turn on the a/c from your phone.
My commute was 25 miles each way on rural country roads. Typically cruising around 45-50mph. On a summer day, I could get to work and back and barely use 50% the battery, even less. On the coldest winter day...being conservative with the heater...I used about 75% of the battery. If you commute on the highway, your range will drop dramatically. As already noted, anything above 60mph is a battery killer. Drafting tractor trailers is a good strategy.
Robbie wrote: So what is a good deal on a used leaf, and where are you all finding them? I'm still seeing like 6-7k for 2011 models on my local craigs. doesn't seem like a good deal at all to me for an 8 y.o. economy car...
It's not the 2011s that are the killer deals, it's the just-off-lease cars that are only 24 months old, have low miles and only cost $8,500.
ProDarwin wrote: Whats the charge rate of the slowest leaf charging available on a 2011? I drive 20-30 miles/day, tops.
Level 1 charging at 110v AC adds aprox 4 miles of range per hour
Level 2 charging at 220/240v AC adds aprox 20 miles of range per hour
CHAdeMO quick charging at 480v DC adds about 3 miles of range per minute
bastomatic wrote: I have driven a 2013 Leaf SV since new. It's a great car, exactly the right tool for the job it's capable of. Unfortunately I will be selling mine in a couple months. I'm moving about 40 miles from work, and the Leaf won't handle that in Winter. I don't have the DC quick charge option and haven't missed it at all. No DC charge stations in metro Detroit until recently, and the ones there now aren't cheap. It's been reliable except I had my heater replaced twice under warranty. I think the 2013 is a little susceptible to this from reports online but it's been 2 years now with the current heater and I think they updated the part. Anyway I have loved driving mine. I don't have even 5% battery degradation. It has 33k miles on it and I don't expect to get more than $8,000.
You should watch KiWiEV on youtube with his little i-Miev Renault. He's done some pretty interesting things to get his EV to and from work as well as go on day trips and overnight trips. He's driving further than 40 miles one way last I knew even in winter conditions. Check him out.
Speaking of, I'm surprised nobody has interest in the little Kei Car i-Miev. They're DIRT cheap and have a TINY bit less range. You just have to put up with a tiny inexpensively-made Mitsubishi.
They're not that ugly.......maybe
http://minkara.carview.co.jp/userid/532766/car/825924/profile.aspx
I consider driving a form of therapy that soothes my soul, whether it be rush hour ,Saturday errands, or a trip in the surrounding area. To harsh this experience with 'bar' awareness defeats the original intent, just sayin' y'all. 
So who can explain car wings or whatever the Leaf's app is called? Is it a subscription like o star? Do they all have it? Does it do anything? I just keep seeing vague references to it on the Leaf forum.
Tom Suddard wrote: So who can explain car wings or whatever the Leaf's app is called? Is it a subscription like o star? Do they all have it? Does it do anything? I just keep seeing vague references to it on the Leaf forum.
It's been a few years since I've had my car, so my memory may not be all that great. However, I used it. It's a free app...at least it was back then. Any Leaf can have it, just need to enter your VIN. It's a sort of gimmicky thing where you can track your efficiency. The car sends usage data to the app, so you can see how your efficiency stacks up against other Leaf drivers, see your personal historical usage data (i.e. were you more efficient in March than in April) and other techno geek stuff. IIRC, that's the app that you would use if you wanted to start/stop charging your car remotely, turn on the a/c (I think heater too), etc...
I thought it was pretty neat, but it wasn't something I looked at daily.
There were a bunch of stats thing in the car itself and on the app I didn't really play with. But it was awesome when it was hot or cold to turn on the A/C or heat before heading out to the car. Ideal when it was on the charger at home, but we'd also gotten in the habit of doing that when the check came at a restaurant. If you're going to do the latter, of course you need to remember to actually leave and not subsequently stay for coffee and dessert without shutting the HVAC off if you've got far to go...
Checking charge status was the other handy use; you could see where you were w/regard to charge state, which is handy because even on a quick charger, you'd usually go get lunch or run some other errand. (EDIT: Yes, it pays to plan your travel around when you'd like to take a 45-min to hour break, because you will be doing so)
The connectivity was slow and a bit spotty. App->Internet->Webserver->network->satellite system->car->retrace-those-steps... It may well be better by now, but it was a frequent annoyance for us still a year and a half ago when the Leaf went back to Nissan.
You'll also need apps for charging services. In our area it was mostly Blink (app) and some Aerovironment (read on). There were some reliability issues there, and Aerovironment was just rolling out. Initially during their debug it was free with a little fob so they could track things, with the understanding that they were going to start billing later. Unfortunately, when they did start billing, the fob didn't work for by-the-charge billing, only subscriptions. That was way more than it was worth in order to use the system once or twice a month, so every time we wanted to charge, we had to call the phone number on the charging station, talk to an operator, read off our CC number, start the charge...
Blink was more automated, but had fairly common issues with the kiosks crashing and having to call, or the kiosks being vandalized.
In reply to Tom Suddard:
Carwings is now "NissanConnectEV" - its a connectivity portal and app that lets you access climate control, charge status, and some less useful things. Not all have it. I think the S models didn't up through 2013.
Unfortunately Nissan built in 2g modems in the Leaf until model year 2015 when they switched to 3G. They did offer an upgrade to a 3G device for older models last year at $200 when 2G was switched off. I have to believe 3G won't be around long either.
I don't think the upgrade program is still available.
PlugShare is the best app for finding charge spots.
bastomatic wrote: In reply to Tom Suddard: Carwings is now "NissanConnectEV" - its a connectivity portal and app that lets you access climate control, charge status, and some less useful things. Not all have it. I think the S models didn't up through 2013. Unfortunately Nissan built in 2g modems in the Leaf until model year 2015 when they switched to 3G. They did offer an upgrade to a 3G device for older models last year at $200 when 2G was switched off. I have to believe 3G won't be around long either. I don't think the upgrade program is still available. PlugShare is the best app for finding charge spots.
Do they also connect to wifi? If not, is there a service charge for the data they push over their 3g connection?
nderwater wrote:Robbie wrote: So what is a good deal on a used leaf, and where are you all finding them? I'm still seeing like 6-7k for 2011 models on my local craigs. doesn't seem like a good deal at all to me for an 8 y.o. economy car...It's not the 2011s that are the killer deals, it's the just-off-lease cars that are only 24 months old, have low miles and only cost $8,500.
Well that sure agrees with my feeling that a 2011 model for 6k isn't a deal at all.
In reply to ProDarwin:
They don't connect to wifi. But there is no charge for the data that I'm aware of.
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