Volt or Leaf?

Then something has changed. About 6 months ago I looked at the Leaf site and it specifically said the battery would last only 5 years. 10 is MUCH better

I would seriously consider a Leaf. We currently have a 2004 and a 2006 Prius and I can only think of 1 time in the last 4 years that they have both been out on 100+ mile trips at the same time. It is VERY rare my wife drives more than 20 miles in a day.


I'm not sure I could go for a 'made in China' Coda. They would need a lot of years of 'full red circle' from Consumer Reports before I would trust the build quality.

 

Or live in an area where you just can't get 'decent' mileage. My 5.5 year, 101K miles, average is 49 MPG (calculated from the pump) in the 2004. My sister lives in So. Cal, has a 2005, and can't get over about 44 MPG long term. I couldn't either.

Why? Because even though I live where the winter cold rips my MPG, she has to deal with 'all traffic, all the time' and EVERYONE drives like Boston drivers. If the space between 2 cars is 1" longer than your car, dive right in. It is impossible to leave any kind of buffer for timing signals or gliding.

I swear I saw more vehicles on the 90 mile round trip (95% freeway) when I borrowed the car to visit my Aunt and Uncle than I see in an entire year in Vermont. 6 lanes, all full. A good reminder of why I left 30 years ago and the freeways only had 4 lanes then. At the same temps, I would have been running about 55 MPG at home.

 

What I am trying to make a point of is YMMV. Some people will get more, some people will get less than the manufacturer stated expectancy and does not make them a liar. In 2004 my Gen II was rated at 60mpg, which I have never achieved except coming down from a mountain. Does that make toyota a liar? To me no since it is based on a gov't standard (at the time) that everyone else uses. The EPA revised the test cycle and it matches what I've been getting all along (about 50mpg). So the 230mpg I never liked, but it's based on current epa test cycles. I can't knock GM anymore than toyota for using a gov't standard cycle. I do prefer Tesla's more realistic carbon output and range.


At this point I am giving all companies the benefit of the doubt on the EV aspirations (or er-ev).

 

Too bad they didn't make it a hybrid. I was expecting it to be, given Toyota said they were going to make all their cars hybrids by some date I don't recall. Then they put out a brand new model and it is ICE only. Very disappointing. I see no need for 'cross overs' and the Venza gets crappy MPG. I have seen some around here but I'll never buy a car that gets worse mileage than my Prius, I move FORWARD, not backward.

 

Neither the Volt or the Leaf exists yet, so both are perfect. Once they start doing production runs, we will find the flaws. I travel 55 miles on a typical one way commute so I would have to charge both cars durring the day to make the round trip commmute work on the maximum amount of electricity. To be honest, the Prius may still make a better choice with a 110 mile round trip, the Leaf will NEED to recharge some en-route, the Volt will be carrying it's batteries along for the ride for 70 miles if it can't get a recharge.

I would be tempted by a variation of this idea for the Leaf, where I leave the trailer at my work site, and not drag it behind me on a typical commute, but it is available for long trips..
http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

 

That's your response to this: "Then why doesn't GM come right out and give an mpg figure for CS mode?"

How come they promoted "230 MPG" so much then?

You can't have it both ways.
.

 

Leaf.

Why? I'm not buying a Chevy - evaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar.

-Brad

 

One of each:

The majority of our driving would fall under the range of either in EV mode - fairly frequently we would exceed the range of the Volt, so we'd want to use the Leaf for those trips.

Far less frequently we'd exceed the range of the Leaf, in which case we'd want to use the Volt and charge up at every stop if possible.

Purely speculative, anyway. A car with 200 miles range at 75mph and could recharge to 75% in 30 minutes (along with enough fast charge stations to do so) would be even better.

 

considering i have seen the Leaf in action and the Volt is not beyond the "read about it" stage,

is this a question of "fact or fantasy?"

since they are not the same type of car, same technology, same company or same price range (despite what you claim, the Leaf is supposed to be MUCH cheaper...also what is a Volt selling for anyway. i have not seen price list for them??) your question might as well be

chevy or Toyota or Nissan??


now the range issue is a valid question and if

1) you are in the very small percentage of single car households

OR

2) both drivers have a commute greater than say... 25 miles one way

then and ONLY then would the Toyota Corolla be a better choice than the Volt... oh wait!! thats right we are comparing the Leaf and the Volt. so what was the question?

**parting shot**

obviously, battery chemistry is a factor in longevity, but as an EV owner, i can say without reservation that the #1 factor in longevity is not battery chemistry, its battery management.

Toyota is the current king of battery management and that probably ranks as the #1 or #2 underlying reason for the success of the Prius.

 

How can the Leaf say it is priced competitive if $38600 to $43000 are real numbers (although these numbers come from a GMVolt site)? You can buy a base model Prius for $21,900 plus tax and tag. Without the need of an ICE, even though the batteries cost more, it should not be much more than a Prius, if any.

 

$38,600 to $43,000 ARE NOT REAL NUMBERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those are made-up numbers by shills for GM. They are made up out of whole cloth. There is no basis whatsoever for them. They are spouted by LIARS!!!

No price has been published by Nissan for the Leaf, except to say that it will be competitive with the family sedan market. Those fake, false, made-up numbers on the GM-Volt site would not be in the family sedan price range and therefore they are NOT truthful numbers.

Shall I say it again? Your numbers are LIES!!!!!!!!!

 

Googling LEAF pricing looks more like $30000 minus the federal tax credit. The price range on the Volt fan site looks more like the price of a Volt without the tax credit.

Availability: Nissan is planning (market willing!) to build 500,000 LEAFs in 2012. GM plans 10,000 in 2011 and 60,000 a year thereafter. I'm expecting to see a LEAF in private hands long before I see a Volt in private hands.

 

Since Nissan has not announced a price for the Leaf, googling Leaf pricing will produce cites that do not know what they are talking about. It's all speculation.

Nissan will produce a limited number of Leafs for sale this December. They expect very high demand for these few cars. Full production will come about a year later.

 

Nissan Estimates Leaf Price Around $25,000; Reservations Coming | BNET Auto Blog | BNET

 

First just stop it with the price stuff.

The price quoted is speculative and in Japan. While prices in Japan for other vehicles are quite consistent with the US market it's not an official price.

Similarly there is no Volt price yet. I'm sick of hearing about the $40,000.

Next:

I'd get a Leaf. Given the HEV mileage reported for the Volt* it wouldn't save much in gas over a Prius.

With a Prius doing 50 mpg, gas $2.799/gal and electricity $0.1475/kWh:

Volt with 32 mile AER and HEV 38mpg would save us $28 in gas per year over a Prius. We'd do 9,800 miles in the Volt.

Leaf with 80 mile AER would save us over $332 per year in gas over a Prius. We'd do 14,300 electric miles. It would also save us a couple of oil and filter changes each year.

* Reported form test drives.

 

I think I'll be happy with my Prius for at least the next five years untill the dust settles! I figure both the Leaf and Volt mileage estimates are optimistic... shave a third to a half off in real day to day driving. That would mean the Volt would travel 20 to 30 miles before going "black" (using gas), and the Leaf would go 50 to 75 miles before needing a charge. If the Volt really only gets 25 mpg when using the gasoline generator (something I kinda doubt... even GM must be able to do better than that!), then the Leaf would be the better choice for most commuters.

 

When you get right down to it, the money "saved" on gas will never justify a new car, whether it's a new Prius over a 5-year-old Civic; or a Leaf or Volt over a presently-owned and paid-for Prius. For me, the reasons I want an EV (and own and drive one now even though it is slow) have to do with a lot of intangibles, and it is these intangibles that leave me unimpressed with any PHEV or RE-EV:

1. Pumping gas. It smells horrid, and if it gets on my hands is nearly impossible to remove.

2. Terrorism. The principal non-governmental terrorists in the world today are financed largely by petroleum revenues.

3. Noise. I do not like the noise of gasoline engines.

4. Exhaust stink. Gas engines stink, and many diesels are much worse.

5. Vibration. ICEs make the car vibrate even when standing still (except the Prius and others that shut off when the car stops; and this is one of the things I love best about the Prius).

6. Complexity. Electric motors are simpler and more reliable than ICEs and do not need the same sorts of routine maintenance, such as oil changes. Getting the oil changed is always a nuisance.

7. Environment: Burning gasoline is signing a death warrant for the future. I know there are still people who deny this, but it's another reason for me.

I'm probably leaving stuff out. But EVs are clean, quiet, stock-still when not moving, and use domestic rather than imported energy. Where I live, our electricity is sustainable hydroelectric; and both nationally and globally electricity can be produced cleanly and sustainably by wind and solar, and in certain regions by other niche technologies such as geothermal, tidal, or wave action. Moving to EVs now encourages alternative energy.

We do not pay the true cost of gasoline at the pump. The sickness caused by pollution, the cleanup of spills, and wars to assure the continued supply of foreign oil, are all paid out of general revenue. If these costs were placed at the pump in the form of taxes, sustainable wind and solar would probably be cheaper, and therefore we'd have free-market incentive to build them. Instead we subsidize oil by allowing it to pollute and get us into wars, thereby undermining the free market. And on top of it all is the general loss of quality of life in all our major cities due to air pollution. In addition to the monetary costs of illnesses caused by dirty air, it's just nasty to have to breathe in our cities.

For all these reasons, the Volt, which burns gasoline, is still a stinker as far as I'm concerned. If we used the manufacturers' claimed numbers, and the Volt goes 40 miles on a charge and the Leaf goes 100; or if we use reduced numbers, say 30 and 75 respectively, either way the Leaf is the clear and obvious choice for me. In fact, if the Volt goes 30, before the ICE kicks in, then it would be a step DOWN for me, because my Xebra will go 32 miles without stressing the batteries, or 40 miles to dead empty. Even though the Volt will go faster, the Xebra goes farther, and for me that's the bottom line.

 

Why would I trade in or leave my Prius parked for a GM Volt? It makes zero sense.

I would, and will buy a Nissan Leaf, when available in Boston. My 2 way commute is 34 miles, and the parking garage I park in will certainly have 120V outlets available, if I needed it [I am certain they would make parking spaces with access to power available for monthly pass parkers] (which I wouldn't).

I am considering solar PV panels for my house, and will be able to charge the Leaf with mostly clean energy, something that is certainly desirable, and we should all try to do.

With all of the rebates on a solar system (%30 federal tax credit, %15 MA State tax credit up to $1,000, $5,000 Mass Solar Rebate ($1 Watt up to 5KW), and the $ .285 per KW SRECs that can be sold [triples the value of the electricty produced]), Solar PV systems have a 10 year payback now, at least in Massachusetts.

You can produce a lot of your own power, charge your own EV/PHEV and not be bothered with oil changes, stopping at gas stations, and all of the other useless crap that goes along with any ICE vehicle.

It just makes sense to get a %100 pure EV, and the Volt will never be that.

 

I agree with all that you say, and I too will probably go for the Leaf. However, the volt plays a very important role. Keep in mind that most opponents of electric vehicles still stand by the age old claim that EV's just don't have enough range. Now, you and I know that is more or less hogwash for 90% of the population. But it is a fact that this illusion has been one of the biggest barriers for adoption. In fact, my own wife says she wouldn't want a Leaf due to the limited range. (even though I can't remember the last time she ever drove more than 100 miles in a single day)

So. For us smart people, we can buy the Leaf. For those with range anxiety, they can buy a Volt. Maybe down the line, they'll realize that they hardly ever put gas in the car, despite its 40 mile EV range. So when the time comes for their next car they'll go for a pure EV instead.

GM made a good choice by producing this type of car, and I've heard rumors that they may also produce a pure EV version without the range extender. That would allow them to compete better with the Leaf.