Nissan Leaf - checking it out tonight

i have seen it up close and i think its pretty much exactly what you were looking for. granted, all the planned EV's are shaky at best for stated range and performance coupled with floating availability makes purchase decision a tough call.

but i have the undeniable benefit of hindsight, so i will not comment further. after all, its not here yet and your Porche is. only time will tell

 

Actually, the Porsche is in a shed outside of Coeur d'Alene, in parts, being taken apart for extensive repairs. Whether the Nissan Leaf is on dealer lots, or Evan is driving his Tesla S, before I get my Porsche back in working order is anybody's guess.

But at least I'm still driving my reliable little klunky old garden-pest green three-legged clown car pretty much every day. (I don't go out every single day.) It's done better than expected. So I'm still driving electric.

 

ya, me too. the Zenn was not ready for prime time. it does do what i want it to do, but it takes a lot of work. i am just lucky that my needs only really take up 25% of its stated capabilities cause if i needed more than that, i would be in trouble.

i could have done the battery thing to, but that is a bit more than i want to spend. i am gonna do some flooded lead here soon as i am losing the battle to keep these AGM's working. sucks really. one battery out of six is all that is required to make the car almost unusable. never should have agreed to getting these again (they were replaced free, so hard to beat the price. i should have lobbied for the cheaper options though)

 

Have you compared notes with Allan regarding battery monitoring and maintenance? He uses a PakTrakr with the Woodward Display and is scrupulous about battery care, and I think he never lets them go below 50%, and seems to have made his batteries last longer than other folks.

I rejected lead because it seems like too much work, and the weight imposes a range limit I could not live with.

 

ya. the problem is the charger over charges. sealed AGM batteries leak due to pressure relief valve, cannot be refilled, so they die.

balancers, monitors, etc. help, but being able to refill the batteries is what seems to work best, so i will be getting flooded lead acid. its nothing in my mind to check the water level a few times a week especially compared to what i had been doing to manually balance the battery pack now. besides, they are cheap. i can get a set for around $800-900. have talked to people who have gone 3 + years on them

 

Yeah, my opinion is that string charging is disastrous for sealed batteries, be they gel or AGM. Floodies are the way to go, except that they give off H2 during charging, so if they are inside the cab it's a problem. Or a separate charger for every battery, which some guys are doing.

Back to the Leaf:

I went to their web site and submitted a question to them. Basically I said I live in Spokane; when can I buy a Leaf? I'll post their reply. Unless their reply is "You can have one this year as long as you promise not to tell anyone."

Gordy thinks he'll have my Porsche finished (a complete re-build) before I could buy a Leaf... but he doesn't think the Leaf will be here before 2012, while Nissan's web site says the first ones will be in "selected markets" including Seattle late this year.

Everyone's a chrono-optimist.

 

daniel; you have heard of the "Electric Highway" that (unfortunately will not go thru your neighborhood) will be built between Salem Or and Everett WA? that is the big and probably only reason why the Leaf will start in this area. a successful launch is key to its longevity.

so you might have to take a trip west to get one and truck it over

as far as floodies, i am getting a set to use in the Zenn. the thing is fairly air tight, does not leak a drop, etc. but if i have to, i will drive with the windows open even in winter. extra maintenance, especially something as easy as "watering the batts" a few times a week would be a cakewalk compared to what i am doing now.

other than that, as transportation, it works fine. i am dry, comfortable, etc. it gets me to work when i need to be there and only another car will do it. carpooling is out due to my specialized schedule. bus is out due to my starting time, so it works for me.

 

I would go to Seattle in a heartbeat to get a Leaf (if it becomes available and my Porsche seems more than a few months away).

As for floodies in the Zenn, I don't know where the batteries are in relation to the cab. It's a question of whether outgassing from the batts would get into the cab. Ad I may be wrong, but I think it's only an issue during charging.

I hope the floodies work for you. You probably already know that you can get automatic watering systems. I have no idea how they work. I think some Xebra PK owners are going that route, because in the PK the batteries are under the truck bed, well away from the cab.

 

daniel; let me know if you are coming, maybe we can do lunch. i have a weird work schedule and might have to bring my son, but he doesnt eat much

 

If the Leaf becomes available and I have to go to Seattle to get one, I will definitely get in touch with you first.

... That said, Gordy thinks it's going to be two years for the Leaf... And if he does finish fixing my Porsche before the Leaf comes out I won't need a Leaf. (He's taking the motor to Oregon next week to be rebuilt.)

 

Anyone who doubts this is coming to market please explain why. If there are actual cars that people drove, what makes you think they won't bring it to market? I really hope this vehicle comes to fruition because it makes a heck of a lot of sense for a majority of the US public. The price OTOH is a bit too high for what you're getting though. For that money, I think I'd rather have the Prius.

 

the price SEEMS too high, but what is the true cost of the alternative?

we have focused so much on the here and now without much thought our actions may affect the quality of life for our children. end oil, GCC, coastal flooding, etc., all used to be wrries for our grandchildren.

now, i am not so that i will not be affected by what is going on today. our fragile economy will topple over like a house of cards with the smallest interruption in our oil supplies or another large increase in gas prices because of our "one basket" energy situation.

we need other options and can we really afford to continue to put them off? EV's are years off from being mainstream and if we dont adopt them, they will continue to struggle. acceptance is our only chance for EV's to get the money and the infrastructure funding it desperately needs.

the Leaf will come to market, but a quick shift in the political climate along with the associated realignment of funds could delay the project several months and slow the volume to market as well.

 

I believe the Leaf will come to market (though a friend who is very much into EVs thinks it will not be this year as Nissan says) because Nissan (unlike GM) has nothing to lose by moving people away from gasoline, and everything to gain by being early in the market.

Some folks are so tired of "jam yesterday and jam tomorrow but never jam today" that they don't believe any car maker promising an EV.

But you cannot compare a Prius with a Leaf. Saying you'd rather have a Prius than a Leaf is like the folks who say they'd rather have a Mustang than a Prius. The Prius is a 100% gasoline car that uses a generator and electric motor and a very small battery to inprove fuel efficiency. The Leaf is a pure plug-in electric car. Different cars for different needs. And yes, the Leaf will be expensive because at this time 100 miles worth of battery costs a LOT. At present if you go to an EV parts supplier you'll pay around $36,000 for enough batteries to keep a small car moving for 100 miles at freeway speed. That's partly because no car can carry enough lead, so you have to go lithium.

 

This derives from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, 1871, in which the White Queen offers Alice 'jam to-morrow': 'The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day.'
'It MUST come sometimes to "jam to-day,"' Alice objected.
'No, it can't,' said the Queen. 'It's jam every OTHER day: to-day isn't any OTHER day, you know.'
'I don't understand you,' said Alice. 'It's dreadfully confusing!'

 

Yeah, It is not the best looking car but I would like one ASAP.

 

You are correct. My mother's favorite book. (Two books actually, Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, but nowadays published invariably in a single volume. And a great book, called The Annotated Alice explains a mountain of references and allusions that modern-day readers are utterly unaware of.)

"Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today" is how many of us view electric cars. They were on the roads in the 90's, and everyone and his brother is promising an electric car "real soon now" (tomorrow) but it seems as though there's never an electric car you can buy today... other than the outrageously expensive Tesla Roadster and slow cars like the Xebra and the Zenn.

Of course, I love my Xebra. It's more fun than ever the Prius was, even when it was new and novel. But a lot of folks are so sick of "Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today" that they don't believe anyone promising an electric car "real soon now."

 

I just got off the phone with Nissan Leaf Customer Support. Their reply to my email was to send me the phone number for support, and the first time I called I was on hold so long I gave up. This morning I called again and got right through. Here's a summary of what I was told:

They will start taking pre-orders in April with a $99 deposit. (I didn't ask if it was refundable because it's not that important to me.) They are committed to delivering around 900 to 1,000 cars in each of their trial markets in December of this year. Washington State is one market. They expect demand to be high and the pre-order list to fill fast. Price has not been set but they want it to be comparable to other cars of the same size class. In other words, a LOT cheaper than the Tesla Model S (though I'd expect the Tesla to be fancier).

They will NOT be leasing the battery. There will be two options: Buy the whole car including the battery, or lease the whole car including the battery. At some future time there will be an option to upgrade the battery to one that has a greater range. The first release will have a 100-mile battery at 55 to 60 mph, or combined city-highway. The car will have electronics to prevent discharging the batteries beyond a safe level, so the 100 miles is actual usable range, though of course aggressive driving will reduce range. These are proprietary batteries developed by Nissan and partners, and should have a lifetime of ten years, regardless of miles or charge cycles. That is, calendar life is more important than charge cycles.

He sounded very emphatic that Nissan is committed to the December roll-out date. But after the first release of 900 to 1,000 cars in each market, there will be an evaluation period of nine months or so, followed by a few months to gear up, and full production will begin rolling off the lines around the end of 2011.

I've signed up for news, and I'll pass along anything that seems new or noteworthy.

I really believe the Leaf will be the next freeway-capable EV to become available in the U.S. :cheer2:

 

I've signed up for news, but no deposit. Probably mid-2012 before I can find them on a dealer lot in Kansas. Not cost effective for me versus keeping the CRV running (2000 model), but I would like to have a Leaf and make the Prius our gas hog, ala Darrell.

And I may be ready for a new car by then anyway, making cost less of a deterrent.

 

He listed the markets quickly, but I was only interested in whether I could get one, so I don't remember if Chicago was mentioned.