Leaf vs Prius general features

Good comparison.

My additions:

The SL leaf has auto lights (and backup camera, quick charge etc...)
The leaf's backup beep is outside.

I think the trunk of the Prius (I have an '07) is more useful as it is 'flat'. Nissan does have an trunk organizer but it isn't, I think, as clean (nor standard) as the Prius.

 

congrats scoob, enjoy the ev driving and please keep us posted. all the best!

 

Well, wasn't Nissan originally saying it was a compact, but the EPA called it mid sized?

 

Hahha about being naughty. I plan to lease a Leaf as a 2nd car, but haven't yet. Long story.

From what I understand, the heater in the Leaf sucks and is slow to heat up. You might need to get a cigarette lighter powered resistive heater.

As for spares, people have been buying Altima spares from junkyards. That's surprising that the Gen 3 Prius has all 4 windows being auto up/down. I just learned that now. My Gen 2, IIRC is only auto up/down on the driver's side window.

If you haven't yet, do join mynissanleaf.com!

 

My '04 Prius with Nav was just totaled so I have to replace it. I have long said there was NO car on the market that I would drive in place my Gen II. Not a $10K car, not a $250K car and not even if if it were given to me free. Sadly, 8 years almost to the day that I drove it home, that is still true.

I have been watching the Leaf. If I have to give up anything I love in my Gen II, I need to get more in return. But the charger in the 2011-2012 Leaf is too small. I hear RUMORS that the charger in the 2013 will be bigger, such that you can charge in 8 hours without having to pay an electrician to hard wire a charging station that doesn't do anything that needs to be done but will add an additional $2K on an already expensive car. Nissan isn't talking about what will be in the 2013 nor when they will be released. So the timing is really bad. I hope your Leaf works out for you, most people that have them seem pretty happy AFAIK from the web. Hopefully the reported battery problems turn out to be limited to a relatively few cars.

 

No, a bigger charger in the car means that you pretty much will need an EVSE to be installed at home. The charger in the '11-'12 Leaf is 3.3 kw. The '13 should have a 6.6 kw (either optional or standard).

Currently, you can upgrade the included EVSE (brick) via EVSE Upgrade - Products (run by pEEf) to charge more quickly at home w/o an expensive permanently installed EVSE. The limiting factor is the output of the EVSE. If you hook this up to a car w/a bigger than 3.3 kW charger, it won't charge any faster.

 

Going back to the OP's topic (differences between Leaf and Prius), I understand the Leaf has much less maintenance to do -- no transaxle fluid, no motor oil (of course), etc.

The Prius is already very low maintenance, but from what I understand, the Leaf is even more so....

 

I've looked at that setup, IF you have two 110V outlets near each other on SEPARATE circuits, it comes as a 'Y' type plug. Plug one into one outlet, the other into the second. Pretty slick way to get 240V without a lot of electrician cost. But, most places are wired 1 circuit for a room or two or three. In my prior house, we ran 12/3 wire everywhere and every other outlet pair was on the black hot and the next was on the red. That way if you trip one breaker, you still have power (and light if lamps are plugged in) in the room. AND you can have a couple of larger draw loads close to each other without worrying about over loading the circuit. Cheap to do if you are rehabbing a house and do the work yourself.

 

RATS! IF I were to get a Leaf, I was already planning to ship pEEf my brick for that upgrade. Maybe they will come up with a cost effective product to pump 6.6A without the $2K "charging station". I have easy access to a service panel in the barn, I can put in any size Amp breaker needed to provide the 6.6A. I had to mess with it last weekend. The jackass I bought the place from didn't ground the outlets (which is illegal if you don't mark them as ungrounded). Not only did he not ground them, he cut the ground wire off of the wire going from the box right over the panel to the downstream outlets.

 

All your outlets in your garage should be GFCI to be up to code.

The Y-cable trick will only work if the two outlets are not only separate circuits, but they also happen to be opposite phase. This may or may not be the case depending on where the breakers are in your service panel.

 

Keep in mind that amperage and Kwh are very different. 6.6 Kwh is, at 230 volts, 29 amps, not 6.6. This will require a 40 amp circuit using at least 8ga wiring.

 

That is probably okay since it is on the ceiling. I have one like that, too, and I don't think it is GFCI, either. I'm not an electrician, though.

Only if you want to charge up in exactly 1 hour. kWh is a measure of energy = V x A x hrs. That is, you can charge a 6.6 kWh battery at 10A, 120V, it will just take 5.5 hours. Of course, you also have to match the battery voltage (that's the charger's job).

 

My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - HELP: OEM EVSE tripping outlet's GFCI (Ingineer is pEEf over here.)

 

Down line from an "in the wall" GFCI outlet? Those are notorious for tripping on anything. I have 2 in my house that will trip if I turn on, then immediately off (because I meant to hit the light switch), the upstream ceiling fans. Replace the breaker in the service panel with a GFCI breaker. I have 3 of those. One for the whirlpool tub, one for the garbage disposal and one for the outside outlet I use for my block heater. They are definitely more expensive but easy to put in and shouldn't trip on quick load. WAY cheaper than a $2000 "charging station".

Bruce