Picked up a LEAF on a 7 day trial last night.  It was reporting 80miles range, with heaters all on full tilt.

 

so this morning, I gamely set off in eerie silence, and ventured on the M55/M61/A580 for my morning dose of sadomasochism (what else would you call sitting in a car for 2-3 hours to travel 49 miles?)

Motorway travelling, set cruise to 62-65mph.  

 

I started to get a little nervous when, with 30 miles to go, the range dropped to 49miles.  Heater off.  Only on fo five mins at a time to keep the window clear - it's minus 2 outside!

 

As the traffic ground to a halt 9 miles from my destination, range check  - 22 miles.

 

2 miles from the office, I get the low battery warning - 14 miles left to go.  

Slightly irked, as I'd turned off the heater some time ago, but at this point, I thought I'd throw caution to the wind and put everything back on.

 

Finally got into the car park a shade before 9am, with 11 miles range left.

A slightly frustrating experience, assessing my range anxiety.

 

That was nothing compared to the PITA that was getting the damned thing to charge.

The GMEV charging point was easy enough, and a few minutes battling with the accompanying charging point app over a weak wifi signal....saw me received a "Car not taking charge" error message.  Lights on the LEAF were just blinking at me in sequence.  Stupidly, I couldn't locate any straightforward sort of user guide.

 

repeated the plugging in routine several times and finally resorted to calling the garage after 20 mins of freezing.

 

"Turn it on and off again"

 

I really shouldn't be surprised - I work in IT and this is the first thing to try invariably.  No idea why I didn't think of it myself.

 

So, charging issues aside, first trip went well, aside from the infernal manchester morning traffic, courtesy of a raft of roadworks designed to make it easier for near empty buses to get to and from the depots.

I might have a better, more representative idea of range on my return trip, but the sub zero temps sure do affect range, perhaps torpedoing my business case........ :(

 

Hopefully, 6 hours on a 7kw charger will give it enough juice to get me home at a reasonable rate of progress tonight (onboard estimate 7hrs to 100%)....

Edited 20 January, 201511 yr by Gwilo

Will be interesting to see how you feel about it after you've lived with it for a week.  For all the technological advancement, turning the heater off so you've more chance of reaching your destination sounds a bit scary!

 

Gaz

 turning the heater off so you've more chance of reaching your destination sounds a bit scary!

 

Gaz

I currently don't trust the range indicator, as it really is just a "finger in the air" sort of estimate based on what the car is doing - going up hill etc do blunt it more.

 

Turning the heater off yielded a jump/reduction in the range figure of about 4-6miles, so not sure if that's overall or whether that would be cumulative as well.

certainly a little unnerving in the current temps!  Woolly hat is de rigeur!

The LEAF trial/electric car dream, is dead.

I tried the journey home last night, an exact reversal of the trip in route wise.

The car had only charged to 80%, despite being plugged in all day. So started a cautious and frankly freezing, trip home.

I eased into town with just 9 miles left on the indicator and feeling decidedly unhappy with the cold.

 

I tried to plug in to the DC charger for a 30 minute charge, and found I needed the salesman to activate the point. No major inconvenience there i suppose.

However, in discussing my observation on only reaching 80%, the salesman said it would never charge beyond 80% unless plugged into a home charging point.

At first, I thought, oh well, ok.  But the more I mulled this over, and the realities of my commute, the compromise on personal comfort just isn't worth it.

As I was thinking it through, the salesman suggested going for the Tekna model, as the heated seats and heated steering wheel run off the standard 12v battery and the Solar spoiler would trickle charge that.

 

I had thought the spoiler and heated steering wheel something of a gimmick - but if you're going to sit freezing in a car, I can see they have a purpose now.

It also doesn't make sense to spend thousands more on a car that was supposed to save thousands in fuel costs.  

At least it doesn't make sense to me or my finances just now.

 

So I handed the keys back, thanked them and walked away.

It's a real shame, because I really, really wanted to make this work.

 

The LEAF it was was comfortable (when the heating was on!) and very smooth to drive.  The charging process, pretty faultless.

But that range....it's pretty insurmountable really with the current state of the tech, unless :

a) I get a job closer to home

I move House

c) I win the lottery for a a Tesla Model S

d) Battery tech makes some bigger advances.

So what would you say about them as a Town or City car where someone maybe only does 40-50 miles a day in town and where there 

is lots of free Charge Points. ?

ie Glasgow.

Fill yer boots.

 

My interest in them was because the cost of maintaining and running my decade-old, diesel mile muncher was, on paper, 30%-40% more expensive than the repayments and running costs on a brand new LEAF.

The financials don't cover the whole story though.  

Id recommend contacting your local Nissan dealer and seeing about an extended test, because you'll never know if it would work for you in the real world until you try it.

I currently don't trust the range indicator, as it really is just a "finger in the air" sort of estimate based on what the car is doing - going up hill etc do blunt it more.

 

Turning the heater off yielded a jump/reduction in the range figure of about 4-6miles, so not sure if that's overall or whether that would be cumulative as well.

certainly a little unnerving in the current temps!  Woolly hat is de rigeur!

 

What model year of LEAF was it?

 

The range "guessometer" isn't that good, why didn't you switch the display to the remaining battery (show as a percentage) and use that like a fuel gauge?

I find that much more accurate and much easier to judge.

 

Also did you use B mode to enhance the regenerative braking and so give you about 10% more range on a typical drive?

 

The LEAF trial/electric car dream, is dead.

I tried the journey home last night, an exact reversal of the trip in route wise.

The car had only charged to 80%, despite being plugged in all day. So started a cautious and frankly freezing, trip home.

I eased into town with just 9 miles left on the indicator and feeling decidedly unhappy with the cold.

 

The cars are often accidentally left on a setting that limits charge to 80%.

This is because some people believe doing this (if you can live with it, I don't see the point) will make the battery last longer in terms of service life.

Nissan have occasionally supplied cars with this setting enabled.  Which makes no sense to me.

 

You can go into the settings menu and in about 2 minutes change that so it'll charge to 100% all the time...

What the salesman told you is wrong about the car being limited to 80% unless home charging.

It's only some of the Rapid 30 minute chargers that limit the charging to 80% to save queues, as over 80% the charge rate drops and the charge time inceases (60 minutes to 100%).

All public charging points that are slow or fast (all other than 30 minute Rapids) will charge to 100%.

 

 

My Gen2 LEAF served me well, commuting 40 miles each way to work and racking up 10,000 miles in 6 months.

In the the worse of winter I might only get 65 miles, but once the outside temp was over +5c or so I could do both trips and just charge at work.

I never had to turn the heating off.

From empty on a 7kW supply the car charges in 4 hours.  Unless you have one with the rather slow standard 3.3kW onboard charger, when it takes 8.

 

I suspect that with B mode engaged, the battery indicator on to give more confidence and 100% charging enabled there would be no reason to worry about having the heater on.

Once you got used to the car.

 

Also the solar spoiler is a gimmick.

It's designed to trickly charge (and I do mean a really slow trickle) the auxilary 12v battery that runs the lights and wipers.

The traction battery that moves the car and powers the heating is not going to see any benefit from this whilst driving the car.

At best, on a clear sunny day when you spend ages in traffic you might save 0.05% of range as the 12v battery requires a tiny bit less charging.  But it's probably less than that.

Hi Bossfox,

 

It was a 64 reg;d LEAF, so would assume the latest model - only had 1200 miles on the clock.  It had the 6.6KW charger on board - and the chargepoint at work is 7kw.  But it didn't charge above 80%. 

I drove it in B mode (ECO) all the time, only switching to normal when I was only a mile or two from my end destination.  

The heater was good when it was on, but the impact on range was quite discombobulating, not being familar with these things.  I did switch to  the battery indicator on screen too - the lowest I consciously recall seeing was 17%, but can' recall now at what point I was in the commute.

 

I think my commute, at 50 miles, with stretches of long uphill gradients, is always going to be pushing it to the limit, more so if I set the cruise to 70, rather than 60, as going uphill, I watched the range drop 3 - 4 miles over the course of about a mile uphill, and while i got a proportion of that back on the heavier descents, most of the time, I didn't, as it wasn't steep enough to have the regenerative cycle kick in.

 

Do you think it's a safety issue that the regen, especially in B mode, can be quite aggressive and there's no brake light activation to warn those behind you - they just get presented with a suddenly decelerating vehicle..........bad enough around town, potentially very serious at 70mph..........?  Can't Nissan code it to behave like the Kia Soul EV?  

 

It is daft though to have the car delivered and set to only allow an 80% charge - nobody showed me or even mentioned it till after the event.  Not sure if knowing how to over-ride this however is enough to tempt me back.  I suppose the roads I travel at the moment just don't allow it to be (in my mind at least) the go-to option.

 

Some more battery advances  and I'd be considering it again though, quite seriously.  Tesla is way out of my league (and doubt it would fit on the drive anyway).

Hi Bossfox,

 

It is daft though to have the car delivered and set to only allow an 80% charge - nobody showed me or even mentioned it till after the event.  Not sure if knowing how to over-ride this however is enough to tempt me back.  I suppose the roads I travel at the moment just don't allow it to be (in my mind at least) the go-to option.

 

My VRS was delivered after PDI with 19 wheel bolts and the servicing regime wrongly set.

Cocking up the charging settings and making up a BS excuse seems not just possible but likely.

The LEAF trial/electric car dream, is dead.

 

So I handed the keys back, thanked them and walked away.

 

 

Gosh that was quick 

 

The '80%' faux pas was a bit of a shame.

 

Gaz

If Bossfox can tell me what settings I should dig around in, and if I can persuade the garage to let me access the car using carWings, I might have to re-try it with more realistic driving (at least in the mornings when I really need to get to work on time.)

Edited 22 January, 201511 yr by Gwilo

Gosh that was quick 

 

The '80%' faux pas was a bit of a shame.

 

Gaz

 

I think if you sat in a car on the M61, stationary,  freezing to the point you can't feel your toes and fingers any more for a good hour, you'd think it wasn't that quick........feels like an eternity! 

If Bossfox can tell me what settings I should dig around in, and if I can persuade the garage to let me access the car using carWings, I might have to re-try it with more realistic driving (at least in the mornings when I really need to get to work on time.)

I'll sit in one of the work LEAFs tomorrow and double check the sequence before posting it up.

Regarding the brake lights... I agree.

I often found people shooting right up behind me, so got in the habit of very lightly tapping the brake pedal when using full B mode regen.

Zero Emmission button, bottom right by touchscreen.

Settings button on touchscreen.

Long Life Battery setting toggle on touchscreen.

The Wife's Fabia has covered 22,000 miles in 5 1/2 years, so at 4000 miles a year with most journeys up to 30 miles an electric car could be a future replacement for the Fabia. However on Sunday it was the run to Brighton to take our youngest back to Uni at just under 100 miles there and back, the electric car would need a charge somewhere, so not really that practical.

The main thing that would put me off is the price!!!! I looked on what car and compared a 1.2 SE Fabia 90ps at £13,390 to a Nissan Leaf 80kw Tekna at £30,590. How much road fund tax and unleaded can I buy with £17200?

Edited 24 January, 201511 yr by moley

I think if you sat in a car on the M61, stationary,  freezing to the point you can't feel your toes and fingers any more for a good hour 

Been there done that....wasn't funny.

The Wife's Fabia has covered 22,000 miles in 5 1/2 years, so at 4000 miles a year with most journeys up to 30 miles an electric car could be a future replacement for the Fabia. However on Sunday it was the run to Brighton to take our youngest back to Uni at just under 100 miles there and back, the electric car would need a charge somewhere, so not really that practical.

The main thing that would put me off is the price!!!! I looked on what car and compared a 1.2 SE Fabia 90ps at £13,390 to a Nissan Leaf 80kw Tekna at £30,590. How much road fund tax and unleaded can I buy with £17200?

Oh dear. :(

To be fair, as soon as I started reading this I knew an EV wasn't viable for you.

You don't make enough fuel savings on 4,000 miles per year to make it worthwhile.

You have also screwed the figures completely against the EV to make it sound worse.

1. Not viable because you need to charge on a 100 mile trip?

20-30 minutes in order to cover the distance for free? OK then.

2. You are quoting a completely incorrect price of over £30,000.

The government grant is £5,000 off that right away. You can haggle another £3,000-£4,000 off too (against maybe £1,000 or so off the Fabia) so the LEAF is around £22,000.

3. You are conparing a mid range SE spec Fabia to a LEAF top spec Tekna which comes with far more kit. Like surround cameras, four heated leather seats, heated steering wheel, keyless entry and start, LED headlights etc...

Drop down to the LEAF Acenta which is the mid spec version like the Fabia SE and it's still better equipped, but the best new deal price difference is around £7,000.

Rather different from the over the top £17,000 price difference you incorrectly claimed.

I have no problem with EV's not suiting some people. If one car did we'd all drive the same thing.

But to make up a completely biased reason based on incorrect figures seems a bit pointless in my opinion...

By the way, you can get a year old LEAF for £12,995. About the same as a one year newer Fabia.

With the same low EV running costs.

At that point they start to make a lot more sense...

By the way, you can get a year old LEAF for £12,995. About the same as a one year newer Fabia.

If a one year old leaf is on the forecourt for £13k, then a dealer is going to give me around £11k for a trade in on a car I've paid £22k for after a year, that's a lot of depreciation. 

 

As for the re charging on a 100 mile trip, I was reading the op where on a 49 mile journey with 80 mile range indicated there was only 11 mile left to spare,  then a seven hour charge to drive back!

 

I'm not against electric cars, if you read my post I said that I was considering one as a replacement for the Fabia, but the range and the cost makes no sense.

 

When you say 20 -30 minutes charging to cover the distance for free, does that mean the charging is free?

Yes, the charging is free.

Buying a new EV makes no sense.

The first year sees terrible depreciation, then they level off.

Your costs were well off when saying why you wouldn't own one, even if you are not against them.

The OP also said he takes 2-3 hours to cover that 49 miles.

Hardly typical to compare to average journeys.

That 2-3 hours in when traffic grinds to a halt. It's usually, 90mins tops in a morning, the killer being the last 9 miles that fake longer than the initial 40.

Thanks for guidance on battery settings....... Now if only I could override the Nissan dealers 80% on the rapid charger too.....

Update:  Will be trying the LEAF again from 1st Feb........lets see what happens.

I do a 20 mile round trip to work daily, plus running about shops etc. the longest trip I make regularly is 100 mile round trip to my uncles in London and even that is monthly at the most. Need to work some figures and see if it's worth me considering a EV in the future.

Now why doesn't anyone make an EV that has a compartment where you can run a Honda Generator for longer trips, similar idea as a range-extender - but without the built in generator. So on a longer trip you have the option of shoving a 2KVA portable generator in the compartment to extend your range. I guess safety could be the issue though and that of having it pinched 

I do a 20 mile round trip to work daily, plus running about shops etc. the longest trip I make regularly is 100 mile round trip to my uncles in London and even that is monthly at the most. Need to work some figures and see if it's worth me considering a EV in the future.

Not sure about the 20 mile round trip - that's only 100 miles a week commuting?

 

If you did go with the EV, and chose the LEAF, Nissan will loan you a 'normal' car for any 14 days of the year, subject to a two week advance booking period.

 

Are there charging points (public, service stations or Nissan EV dealers) near your uncles/on the route so you could plan a short comfort break?

Just thinking as a Nissan Dealer stop off would let you strech your legs, have a coffee and get a free top-up (well, to 80% at least) rapid charge.

zap-map.com useful for planning.  

Only reason I'm considering this is because the chargers are free at my works (for the next 9 months or so according the the scheme owners), 11-13 pence per Kw after that and there are two Nissan dealers accessible to me (1 near home, 1 small detour on commute). Plus, I can currently get a free charger installed at home too.

Edited 26 January, 201511 yr by Gwilo

Now why doesn't anyone make an EV that has a compartment where you can run a Honda Generator for longer trips, similar idea as a range-extender - but without the built in generator. So on a longer trip you have the option of shoving a 2KVA portable generator in the compartment to extend your range. I guess safety could be the issue though and that of having it pinched 

 

On a household socket a LEAF draws 3.3kW and takes 8 hours to charge for a range of around 80 miles.

If it could take a charge from a portable 2kW generator you'd get about 6 miles of charge per hour.