Volt or Leaf?

I like them both.

The Volt's huge downfall is EXTREMELY LIMITED PRODUCTION. 10,000 cars a year? GOOD LUCK ever even seeing one. Just like the EV1. Pretty much half-hearted vaporware production while they hope to get another oil-loving Republican back in office and another 'Free Hummer' type tax break.
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The Leaf will at least be MASS PRODUCED, with a HUGE U.S. plant to go online in 2012, along with the battery plant for the Leaf. (About the same time the U.S. Prius plant should go online.)

So in short, they will be building millions of Leafs and Priuses, and thousands of Volts that are mostly already sold to fleets: You don't really have a choice.

To be honest, I leased the Prius because I am taking a 'wait and see' attitude about the BEVs and serial hybrids. My little Ford was depreciating faster than money on fire, NEVER got good mileage, and was accumulating new rattles daily. You ever notice that as your car depreciates, the insurance rates don't go down?

I know some BEVs are going to be very good... but some will certainly have some 'issues'. Besides, even this year and well into next, the Leaf will only be available in 'select' markets far enough away that I'd have to trailer haul it home. Inauspicious beginnings.

So I'll drive a Prius until they iron out the bugs, get the availability and range up, and the price down. I'd rather not burn ANY gas, but at 60+MPG, I can manage even at $10/gallon for gas. Maybe I'll even get the 'plug in' Prius when my current lease runs out... about the right time for it....

I really do like this car, but go ahead and delete the 'spare' tire (and give me a 'roadside assistance' phone number), take the 'hidden' trunk and add batteries beneath the seats like the leaf design does. You know, do a little 'body mod' work to pump it up to a respectable EV range.

It's not for 'environmental' reasons. I just hate the oil companies. A LOT. If I hate my phone service, I should be able to buy a cellular phone or VOIP over cable, right? So if I hate OPEC and BIG OIL, I should be able to buy electric. Maybe even use my own solar panels to power it. Not to be 'green'. Because I'd like to be more INDEPENDENT.

 

Do you mean this venza that was taken in 2008?

That Versa body was at a track (a press event at that), never seen out in the streets doing everyday driving. Google it.... go ahead I will wait... that's right not one auto site will pop up with a picture of a Leaf mule or the leaf Pre production body in the streets (besides at press ops)

 

I wonder what the performance of the Volt will be after the intial 40 miles charge is depleted. What will the MPG's be when the range extender (gas engine) has 'kicked in'?

Also, what will the performance be with the gas engine running? The 0 - 60 mph times, 30 - 60 acceleration, etc...?

It's difficult to imagine much motive power will be available when a small gas engine is charging a battery which is giving charge to a traction motor. This is the Volt premise.

Maybe it will be powerful in RE mode.

 

So the Leaf may cost about $40k? And it's about the size of a Toyota Matrix? ~ 100 miles per charge?

Wow. Some people will hit it, but it'll be far from mainstream for the next several years. Likely a good start though. Time will tell.

 

I have calc'd actual MPG's on a Prius V at 58 mpg's and a Prius III at ~ 60 MPG's. Not surprising since the EPA is 48 average.

My 2009 is currently reading ~ 50 MPG's on the MFD. And I'm far from a hypermiler. The car is just insanely thrifty on gas, but I go fairly easy on the pedal.

Those not getting over 40 MPG's on their Gen3 are either BSing, leadfooted, have deflated tires or something else wrong with their particular car.

 

@ljbad4life
Now what I really want is a Tesla model s (with the 300 mile pack). I've been wanting a luxury car

Have a glance at this : Imperia Automobiles

 

If they were to only choices I'd walk until Toyota went back into production.

 

Wow - Surprising quantity and diversity of answers for this question. For me, I plan to buy whichever one is cheaper. However, I'd be happy with either one.

I think for myself, the Leaf would be preferable because my daily commute is 12 miles and it is very rare that I drive more than 60 miles in a day, even on a weekend.

But my wife is like so many americans with range anxiety - She fears 100 miles is just not enough, despite the fact that we rarely ever drive further than that, and it wouldn't be our only vehicle anyway. But for her, the Volt would be better. Besides the Volt is bigger more like a sedan which is the type of car she likes anyway. I like small cars.

 

UK papers are saying that the Leaf battery pack will cost £20,000 and that Nissan will hire them.

Nissan Leaf to be built in UK - Telegraph

 

That's not going to happen. Dealers will only get 1 or 2, making the odds of ever testing one with the pack depleted pretty much impossible.

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Since the press release said 23.4 km (14.5 miles), it's hard to take that comment seriously... especially when being well aware that PRICE is given a very high priority.

You buy the PHEV model, you get a significant BOOST in efficiency.

Why would you call someone a name for wanting higher MPG from an affordable option?
.

 

The Leaf would be ideal for me to swap my Aygo as the missus only uses it to go 25 mile per day...

 

LEAF over Volt. I have a Prius (which got 55 mpg going up to 75 mph round trip home to Fall River Pass in Rocky Mtn Natl Park) for road trips.
The Volt is going to be unavailable as noted before. According to Mr. Lutz, it will be years before they have the capacity to make the Converj... We know who killed the electric car. It wasn't the drivers.

 

A bit off topic:

I thought the Venza was going to be a "world-beater" I really liked the first (an only) model that I had seen. At least here in N. Utah, the Venza is still "slipping under the radar." I was at the Toyota dealer yesterday, and not a single one in stock. At least from my perspective, Toyota seems to have mis-judged the market there ... maybe it was the US economy; The V6 was not fuel efficient enough and the I4 was underpowered. Too bad .... I really liked what I saw. To my knowledge, I have not seen one on the road.

 

Then why doesn't GM come right out and give an mpg figure for CS mode? Probably because it's so lousy nobody would buy one. And as mentioned by another poster, the performance in CS mode, with that tiny ICE, is probably lousy as well. Another figure they will not reveal.

Lots of folks get that. A few get much better. Our own DaveinOlyWA makes Toyota seem like a liar for stating its mpg LOWER than what he gets.

Manganese is not magical, but every battery chemistry is different. Just as the LiFePO4 battery in my Xebra is entirely different in its characteristics from the Li-Ion in the Tesla, (and is expected to have a ten-year life) so, too, the LiMn battery in the Leaf cannot be compared to Li-Ion.

Maybe because they have not invited reporters to watch the testing.

My bad. I stand corrected. However, it's a site intended to promote the Volt, and seems to have little concern for facts. In this case, it states a price for the Leaf, even though Nissan has given no price; but Nissan says it will be in the family sedan range, so GM-Volt.com's price is nothing but FUD.

This is a concept. It's about as likely to actually come to fruition as the Zap X. But if it were available at a dealer lot anywhere in WA or ID I'd buy one today. Beautiful car!

Nope. They considered that briefly, but abandoned the idea as the result of a flood of comments from potential buyers, saying that would be a deal-breaker. Nissan now says, as official policy, that if you buy the car you will buy the entire car, with the battery. There will also be an option to lease the entire car. Buying the car but leasing the battery will not even be an option.

 

I don't believe the cost on the battery pack. A regular consumer can now buy a 24 Kwh Li-Ion battery pack for about $12,000. And if you compare the exchange rate, £20,000 is about like $40,000. And since Nissan should be buying in bulk (or making their own) I would suspect the battery pack will cost under $10,000.

 

One UK newspaper quoted £20,000 but I believe that is the cost of the car with the battery and then in the UK you can claim the new government EV rebate of £5,000 = new leaf at £15,000.

Nissan arn't stupid and know it will have to be priced right to sell. My thoughts would be on how much the PlugIn Prius will cost when that's officially released. If it's way over the cost of the Leaf then Toyota will lose some customers who want an EV and don't do too many miles a day.

 

I don't believe the Leaf will be near the cost of the Volt (didn't they say the volt would be around $40000?). You don't have to buy an ICE with the Leaf and it doesn't need as much electronics to control it. It should be the same price as a Prius or less. I personally would keep my 2006 Prius and get the Leaf for my wife for local commute to work and around town. We'll take the Prius for the road trips.

 

Because it's still being adjusted. The same reason if as you say nissan is testing the leaf in the "real world", why hasn't Nissan released the range for cold weather climates or REAL highway speeds (55-60 is not what most people drive)? Another figure they will not reveal.

And many people get worse, so?

Tesla is the first company to publicly say that the battery pack has an average life span of 10 years. Manganese is not going to make a anything last for a definite time when it's based on LI. As long as LI is in the formula it's going to have the general draw back of variable life expectancy.

In a world filled with digital cameras, cell phone cameras and flip video cameras, not one person has seen one? It doesn't have to be a press event to see a car that is supposedly under "real world" testing to be spotted (again every car gets spotted before months if not a year before it's on a dealership) since real world testing involves real streets and highways. Not a track which nissan does not have in alaska (arizona and hikkado japan).

Like the ford fiesta, Mitsubishi crossover, and so many more cars get spotted, Where's the Leaf?

 

So Toyota is not lying!

There's nothing magical about lithium, to use your own words. All lithium batteries do not have to be the same just because they have lithium in them. Just as all trees are not the same just because they have wood in them. We are talking about a long-life battery chemistry that is more affected by calendar age than by the number of charge cycles.

Not every person who sees a car takes a picture of it. And not every picture that gets taken winds up on the internet. And not every picture on the internet gets a high enough profile to come to wide attention.

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I'm just saying that GM has given us uncounted reasons to distrust them over their entire corporate history. Nissan does not have GM's overwhelming history of deception and deceit. I'm willing to give Nissan the benefit of the doubt. I don't trust GM as far as I could throw one of their cars.