Never seen one yet they seem to be pretty rare in Cheshire / Manchester area. I might have to go to Stoke as I think they have some there.

Nissan have put them in a lot of their dealers.

Various companies are also installing Nissan donated units across the country.

Ecotricity I know are working on the Welcome Break motorway services, for example.

All free.

For example I will shortly be using the LEAF for a family holiday to see if it's possible going from Essex to the Forest of Dean, into South Wales and back over a weekend.

Estimated fuel costs for the trip = £0. Just need to allow a few 20 minutes stops to give the battery a zap.

There are some slower charges you do have to pay for in city centres, as they are trying to recoup some money back, well the percentage not funded anyway. But for longer distance trips Nissan has done a fair job of making things possible, although there are of course some gaps in coverage.

But when people moan about the LEAF and say you can't do long distance runs I have to think that's not what it's really designed for. Occasional yes, but not regular.

It's kind of like buying a Mazda MX5 and then complaining you can't take a family of four on holiday in it or go offroading.

There are various cars for various jobs. Not just electric or petrol/diesel.

You choose the one that suits your uses.

I would just like to thank Brimma for bringing this to my attention...

This is, after all, the car I am trying not to spend extra money on. :wonder:

Coming soon from Mr BossFox...

The Leaf GTR .

Coming soon from Mr BossFox...

The Leaf GTR .

Leaf GTR with KERS

Leaf GTR with KERS

Rip the internals out Leaf, strap it to the GTR (somehow... clearly not grounded in reality here ).

Et voilà, Run it in Lead mode on commutes, and when having a play, acts as KERS .

We should maybe stop before we give him more ideas.

I quite fancy a Tesla S (apart from the price) it does have decent range and looks good.

I quite fancy a Tesla S (apart from the price) it does have decent range and looks good.

Yes, it does look good, figure the price to be between £60k and £100k depending on which one you want.

It has a few odd flaws though. No thigh support on front seats, no fold down rear armrest, no parking sensors (at all) etc...

I wish they'd hurry up and build some right hand drive ones so we can have a test drive.

It's a bit on the wide side too. Which can cause parking issues.

I should imagine a regular Leaf could go pretty quick if certain things were disabled an a couple of tweaks made here and there -don't most electric motors have maximum torque at 0rpm and lots of it.

When's it getting wrapped?

I'd imagine that the Leaf could be made to go a lot faster than it currently does but the range would suffer drastically.

I should imagine a regular Leaf could go pretty quick if certain things were disabled an a couple of tweaks made here and there -don't most electric motors have maximum torque at 0rpm and lots of it.

When's it getting wrapped?

Remapped leaf on a track day nothing more stealth than that!

Biggest problem would be the batteries -capacity and temperature management. I should probably shut up now...

I should imagine a regular Leaf could go pretty quick if certain things were disabled an a couple of tweaks made here and there -don't most electric motors have maximum torque at 0rpm and lots of it.

When's it getting wrapped?

I actually read that as warped, which kinda fitted!

One long weekend of over 400 miles, one EV with a realistic range of 80 miles. How did it go?

First of all, I have to say the most important thing runing an EV with the obvious range limitations is PLANNING.

Before I set off I had a grid showing all the charging points I could use, the start/end locations and how many miles google maps said it was between every single one.

So if anything went wrong I knew which alternative chargers I could (or couldn't) make.

The benefit of this approach was found when planning days out during the short break, you missed the security a bit.

Friday morning I set off in the LEAF as usual from Essex, but with extra luggage aboard.

Family arrived at work in the afternoon and then we set off for Gloucestershire from East London with a full battery.

Driving sensibly it became clear that we could miss the rapid charger at South Mimms services on the M25 and pop into Nissan HQ on account of the full charge rather than the 80% capacity of a rapid charge.

Nissan HQ have a rapid charger outside that is conveniently not only available 24 hours, but is also less than one mile from the M25 at Maple Cross and very easy to access. So our first charge was completed without incident.

Standard 80% zap, 23 minutes. Less than 40 miles to Oxford.

Back on the road and enjoying the novelty we cruised up the M40 towards Oxford at a steady 60mph towards our planned snack stop.

Pulling into the Welcome Break services at Oxford we realised we didn't have a clue where the charger was, so the plan was to start at the entrance to the complex and work outwards. Sure enough, right by the yellow disabled spaces was a green box with a large rapid charger looming over it. Difficult to miss and well placed for a quick dash inside once the car was hooked up.

I opted for a 90% charge here, knowing we had 47 miles to go to the hotel in Cheltenham and it was +1c, so keeping the heater on would be handy with the wife and son aboard.

Buy the time we'd sampled the cream of motorway service food, chased my son round the shop and visited the relief area the car was sitting waiting, ready to go.

Switching on, I started to wonder why they let you charge in 5% blocks. The 90% charge left the car display in the same place as the previous 80%, with the percentage of battery charge shown on the rapid charger baring only a vague similarity to the car 12 bar guessometer.

Anyway, we pressed on for what we knew would be the trickiest part of the trip.

The ambient temp dropped to 0, the heater stayed on low (+17c) and we headed off along the A40 to our holiday destination.

Then the sat-nav decided we should take a huge diversion, added 15 miles to the trip. This was promptly ignored as we knew the guessometer in the car was generous. A range of 66 miles shown was likely in reality to be around 55 if driven carefully.

Further along the A40 we came to a section that had been closed. This was followed by a local diversion and the car telling us that we may not have enough range to reach the destination, when both stood at 44 miles.

Baring in mind the range optimism, coats went on and the heater went off. We ignored the sat-nav and opted for the shortest route diversion as the LEAF usses next to no electric when stationary. After 30 minutes of doing under 5mph with plenty of time not moving at all we were back on the A40 the other side of the closure and headed for our destination with 18 miles to go and a range of 22 predicted. The LEAF was holding it's heat well with the interior still comfortable.

As we got closer range anxiety set in. At one point we had 10 miles to go and a predicted range of 12, the latter was falling more quickly than the former as we were doing a fair amount of hill climbing.

Then we approached the long hills going down in to Cheltenham, which enabled a lot of regenerative braking.

We arrived at the hotel with 7 miles showing on the predicted range, having covered around 150 total during the day from home.

There was much excitement in the LEAF knowing we didn't get stranded after all.

The hotel had saved us a parking spot in it's underground car park (space was limited) right next to a plug socket.

So we were able to fully charge the car each night to 100%, ready for touring around the next day.

On Saturday we did several local attractions and on Sunday we did the Forest of Dean, with a predicted milage for the day of 55 to cover.

We covered most of this and was on the way back to the hotel with 32 miles showing and only 8 to go. So I opened it up a bit and arrived back at the hotel with 18 showing before empty.

Monday was largely a reversal of Friday, but without the anxiety and more stopss due to work complications.

The first stint to Oxford was completed with ease, due to starting on a full battery. Heater stayed on with the outside temps around -2c in several places and we pulled back into the Oxford services with a predicted range of 30 miles, having covered 47.

A quick zap to 80% and we were headed for Nissan HQ. We did consider missing that and going straight for South Mimms, but the desire to keep the heater on left us needing a quick charge at Nissan HQ rather than take the chance as it was another 18 miles to the rapid charger at South Mimms.

We plugged in and headed off again when it got to 50% as the snack stop this time was to be the services on the M25.

No issues there, we easily located the rapid charger at South Mimms near the entrance to the service building.

Having since found out that I needed to pop back into work for an hour or two, the decision was made for a 90% charge as the day milage went up by around 20.

By the time we had eaten and got ready for the road the LEAF was waiting. So off we set for East London.

The important issue dealt with, along with a one our slow 10A charge (around 7 miles) we headed for home.

But realising the need to go food shopping too meant we did a pitstop at Nissan in Romford where the car had been purchased from, to give excess range.

We headed into the car park for the charger only to find a Fiat parked in the charging space.

A quick word with service and they went looking for the owner... believed to be the Fiat garage up the road owned by the same franchise.

Rather than wait around, a bit of close parking followed by some careful routing of the charging cable so it didn't touch any paintwork on the Quashqui next door (only the badge) meant we were just able to get plugged in.

20 minutes later we were on the way. We finished the trip by driving several miles past home to Maldon, using the same supermarket we always use and then heading back home to pull up under the carport with 18 miles still showing of range.

Overall I learned that I like the LEAF and the whole idea of EV motoring. With a usable range of 100 to 120 miles it would be fantastic.

Even with the shorter range it's good, but you have to be able to adopt a more relaxed pace. Waft along in silence and accept that you'll have to make a few short pitstops to do longer trips.

The comfort and driving experience was good. Certainly no complaints there. For the price I believe the LEAF should have reach adjustable steering, but the location of the wheel is fine for me and so it's not easy to criticise it for that. The general spec is good and you can drive it for hours (even if you sit in it while charging) without incident.

Total miles covered: 420.

Fuel cost: £1.50 for first charge to 100%.

All rapid chargers: Free!

Total miles covered: 420.

Fuel cost: £1.50 for first charge to 100%.

All rapid chargers: Free!

This is such an impressive figure. I'm not too sure about the idea of EVs but I hope to try one and make up my own mind some day, thanks for the write up.

Richard looks like its working out great , great update

Nice! Guess it's nice to take your time and have a fairly stress free holiday just because you can take your time. I went to Cheltenham Saturday and drove back past the Forest of Dean. Trees looked really nice with all the snow.

Thanks for this, Richard, I'm finding this really interesting. Can only one car use a charging Station at a time?

Thanks for this, Richard, I'm finding this really interesting. Can only one car use a charging Station at a time?

In terms of the rapid charger, yes.

Many sites have one rapid charger and a couple of "fast" chargers that take about 7 hours to charge the LEAF.

(4 hours from Summer 2013 model)

So there is an alternative if the rapid charger is broken, to get you onto another site.

Fast charge at 10 miles of range per hour until you have enough to find somewhere else.

But if there is a LEAF charging already, the parking space has been ICED (An EV term where an Internal Combustion Engine car has blocked the machine) or it's broken you have a longer wait, unless you have other Rapid chargers local.

For example, South Mimms and Nissan HQ are 18 miles apart.

Oxford Services and Ocford Nissan are 13 miles apart.

And so on...

Currently there are very few LEAFs being used for distance trips, so the chance of finding a queue is unlikely.

Sounds a total faff about IMO. Not for me. I know it was an experiment in some respects but a holiday is supposed to be relaxing. Considering the cost of the holiday in total i wouldnt grudge paying for 420 miles of diesel on top of it. Hardly worth the saving.

Where the savings make sense is in the daily grind of a commute.

With a dog and a 10 month old in the car i need to get where im going quick and in one go or at least have the ability and freedom to make the descisions when to stop rather than being governed by fast charge statione etc.

Im sure it was a fun experiment but as an alternative to a normal car for holiday or weekend travel it just cant even come close to competing.

Especially considering you had to turn heater off and put jackets on. Stuff that nonsense. Likewise in summer you would have to turn AC off. If money was that tight that i needed to have no heating or cooling then i probably shouldnt be going on holiday or at leats just buy a cheaper car.

Good report though but i think it just highlights EV shortcomings.

It does sound more like an interesting experiment rather than something you'd want to be doing.

As the scottish one says, an electric vehicle could work well for a regular medium distance commute that you can do on a single charge. Much longer and it becomes too time consuming and much shorter and you won't make enough savings to justify the costs.

It does sound more like an interesting experiment rather than something you'd want to be doing.

As the scottish one says, an electric vehicle could work well for a regular medium distance commute that you can do on a single charge. Much longer and it becomes too time consuming and much shorter and you won't make enough savings to justify the costs.

Exactly.

There's a woman by me with one of the two seat tandem renaults that commutes in it. I'd not fancy that in winter with no doors but she's there with her big fur hat and coat on!

That's not for me.

The LEAF works for me because it's a real 5 door hatchback with mod cons.

That's not for me.

The LEAF works for me because it's a real 5 door hatchback with mod cons.

Me neither. It looks like a lot of fun in decent weather but not practical transport.

It's also not all that great economically. The battery lease is a nice idea but at around £50 a month on a 3 year 6000 mile deal you could almost buy enough fuel to run a Twingo for that distance.

Me neither. It looks like a lot of fun in decent weather but not practical transport.

It's also not all that great economically. The battery lease is a nice idea but at around £50 a month on a 3 year 6000 mile deal you could almost buy enough fuel to run a Twingo for that distance.

It seems to be the Renault way, to lower the purchase cost.

The soon to arrive Renault ZOE is the same. After the govenment grant it starts at around £15k with a battery lease starting at £70 per month if you do something like 5k miles per year, with the price rising for more milage.

In some ways it's good, but when you come to sell the car you need someone happy to buy the car and then pay £xx per month on top for the whole time they have the car for it's battery.

I can't help thinking that will kill it's future value, which will be bad enough anyway with it being a Renault.