Don't Run Out of Charge in Your Leaf!

i think the issue is not miles to empty, electric vs gas, it's the fact that you can get gas just about anywhere. if you leave for the airport with the low fuel light blnking, you can stop for gas. you cannot yet do this with a leaf. these things will sort themselves out as the industry matures. and yet, i ran out of gas on the way home one night.

 

Re: Oh wow, the flatbeds are coming out

That day is here. £1.39 a litre today, that is $8.56 a gallon. It is due to go up again in a few weeks time, which will make it $8.75 a gallon.

$40,000 for a leaf is starting to look cheap.

 

Re: Oh wow, the flatbeds are coming out

What do you pay per kilowatt for electricity, though? I bet it's higher than the $.10 or so/kwh that is in the US so the math is not quite as comparable.

I'm surprised anybody in the UK has performance vehicles. I know your supply of SUVs is super low but you still have lots of cars that get pretty crap mileage. People must spend huge amounts on fuel.

 

Re: Oh wow, the flatbeds are coming out

It's a way of showing your rich - if you can afford to run a Range Rover then you're loaded. But lets face it, if you can afford a £100,000 Merc S600 it doesn't matter if fuel is $8 a us gallow or $20!

 

Re: Oh wow, the flatbeds are coming out

That's why hybrid cars costing $70-100k+ are so stupid to me.

 

even some of the rich have guilt.

 

Word. Nothing amuses me quite like watching HGTV and seeing some people talking about how green they are as they shop for a 4000 square foot house along with the heating, cooling, construction costs, etc. that go into something so monstrous.

 

Re: Oh wow, the flatbeds are coming out

I pay about £0.12 ($0.19) for my green energy, other cheaper tarrifs are available. Petrol is expensive because of all the taxes, electricity not so much. Most homes also tend to use gas or oil for heating, so i think electricity has always been kept lower to compete (or something like that).

Any way you look at it a Leaf would be about $0.07 a mile, a prius is $0.17 and a 30mpg car is $0.29.

 

Re: Oh wow, the flatbeds are coming out

Petrol in the UK costs about the same as in the US, the difference in what we end up paying at the pump is taxes.

If there are eventually enough electric vehicles to make a significant cut in the gumnts income from gasoline taxes, then gumnts will devise a way to apply a "road tax" to mains electricity used in cars.

 

We already pay road tax. The Fiesta is about £120 a year, a Camaro would be over £400 a year, the prius is £0 a year.

I don't see how anyone could tax me for an EV recharged from solar on my roof....?

 

Re: Oh wow, the flatbeds are coming out

Pay ATTENTION, OP in first post clearly stated...

Any further questions.............

 

Oh I could figure out a way. One would be the yearly registration you do, get a safety inspection and miles are recorded. You pay a yearly tax there and then based on miles. Never think you can get away from a politician and his money. er, yours. Just kidding, it's his.

 

Interesting, so this is the third time I've read of the low battery indicator suddenly going a little panicky and the estimated range being revised aggressively downward. In this or another thread somebody made the smart comment that the Leaf's range starts where most car's are saying they're almost out of fuel. I run all my vehicles down to "empty", but even then based on what I put back in the tank I have 2-3 gallons left, which is 50+ miles, depending on which vehicle. I've done this my entire life and only once ran out of gas, on a rental that I was not used to (plus its fuel gauge sucked).

 

Of course you do, and i'm sure people will get used to that.

I feel sorry for that guy, but i think it will take a while for people to really get that an estimate is an estimate, and if you change from pootling round town to doing 60+ then your estimate will drop significantly. an actual SOC % number would be helpful, as the inclination is to look at the range number which won't tell you all you need to know.

 

Those following this car closer, what is the REAL distance a person can expect from a full charge in winter when using heat. Is it as little as 60, anything further a very real chance of calling for a tow?

 

I think 60 would be a real bad case. Heater on or off made a 6-8 mile change in range estimate in 2 degree weather on saturday.

 

60 is rediculous. You can burn that up getting lost in a heartbeat. The worst I dealt with was a 250cc Kawasai KLR250 that had 125 mpg in the tank. That was painful.