Leaf Comes Home

Nah. Was some technophobe who thought it was a hydrogen car that needed water to recharge

 

my Blog on Range Anxiety;

Range Anxiety seems to only affect people who dont have a Leaf and its curious to me as to why. now, before i get into this, a disclaimer; DO NOT buy a Leaf it you plan to use it as your only car. I think that might be a good idea in 4-5 years when the charging network is more mature, but not right now. Let me point out that my recommendation is not based on the range. i think 100 miles is fine for now. its based on the lack of places to charge away from home. Until we can get 140,000 charging stations away from home, dont plan to use a Leaf as your only car.

Back to angst of driving an electric car. i have one. in fact today is my one month anniversary of owning a highway capable electric car. now my NEV, i had range anxiety. every day, i had to plan my day around where i could go and plug in to get a boost. there are several free 120 Volt plug in spots. so, it was drive to Lacey City Hall, plug in. take Ry for walk to store 4 blocks away which was fine during the summer which nearly always is perfect here. Temps in the 70's (average high temps for July here is 77º) made it a great day for a walk anyway. sometimes we take the stroller if we planned to do a lot of shopping. but this allowed us to get some exercise (running him around to burn up some of his abundantly excess energy makes him MUCH easier to manage) get chores done and suck up some free juice. free is always good...but unfortunately, the weather is not.

in fact. its usually not. we have rainy weather 210 days a year which would imply 7 months rain, 5 months sunshine...but its actually more like 10 months of potentially rainy weather with 2 months where you can plan 3 days ahead and count on the weather being good.

plus, it was a two seater. not conducive to family outings. So, Leaf it was. now before i got the Leaf, i had to determine what would be my range i could accept and i determined it to be 70 miles. After reviewing Nissan's range scenarios, i decided i could make the Leaf work, so here we are.

I have tested the Leaf at 70 Mph with limited climate controls and then at 63 mph with extensive climate controls and got a result of an estimated 79 miles on test 1 and about 72 miles on test 2. ok, test passed. and the test was performed for the daily commute from Lacey to Centralia WA. (obtw, also the location of a proposed QC station)

then i realized that 85 % of people have a daily driving need of only 45 miles. so that would imply that some would have range anxiety but they would be few and far between since 45 miles of a 70-75 mile range means commuting plus a errand or dinner out. so whats the problem here??

then i begin to realize something; its a whole lot different from pulling into my garage with only one mile of range left in an EV or pulling into my garage with my gas car being on empty.

i have done that. then i spend most of the night wondering if i should have stopped for gas on the way home? wondering if i can make it to my regular gas station or should i bite the bullet and pay the extra 23 cents a gallon and get gas on the corner?.

ya see; gas buyers seem to fall into two primary categories. ones who dont plan their gas purchases and usually pay cash. these are the ones that usually dont fill up (because they dont have the money) so they get what they have in their wallet. sure the well off will get $20 at a time (or $50 as will be the case soon) or whatever.

then you have the planners; they have gas cards where they save a ton of money on gas, but they can only go certain places. the "hassle factor" is 89% higher than the "cash" crowd because gas trips are usually planned a few days in advance so they have more time to stew over the cost, inconvenience, etc. they ALWAYS fill up and frequently can be near a ¼ tank (cash people look at ¼ as meaning "4 more days")

so, in my 500 mile range Prius, i have anxiety because i fuel up at Costco. they are cheap, i get 3% cash back and unfortunately, Costco does a great job of advertising that fact so i have to go and wait in line despite Costco having a huge number of pumps available. iow, my secret cheap gas source is not a very well kept secret. this is something i must do every 6-10 days. although its only a few blocks out of my way, its on a VERY congested intersection and takes a good 20 minutes to get gas. mind you, after i pull in, i am usually out in 5-8 minutes. (yes i have timed my gas trips!! was by request by a plug in Prius owner). but those few blocks detour during rush hour are...well u know.

problems with getting gas is i am not the primary driver of the Prius, so it has to be planned ahead to swap cars making sure the Leaf is charged up ( i dont charge it every day...lazy i am!) to 100 % since SO is a gas car driver with its associated range anxiety so she must have a 100% charged Leaf.

now, we cant be fair and balanced if all we do is bash gas cars (although they deserve it!!) so we have to examine the hassles of refueling the EV. yep, gotta do it 6 to TEN TIME MORE OFTEN, so it should be more anxiety if nothing else due to sheer volume right??...

well, not sure that i can agree as i have yet to detect very much angst involving the hassles of plugging in. maybe i have just not had enough experience yet refueling the Leaf to understand so maybe a follow up to this blog eating my words here is forth coming. we shall see

in conclusion; when considering the hassle of getting gas, range anxiety makes sense. its simply a gas thing. it has nothing to do with how far an electric car can go at all. the anxiety is solely the result of the hassles of filling up so therefore the level of anxiety is directly related to the hassles of restoring usefulness to said mode of transportation or, in layman's terms; refueling.

obtw; the 140,000 charging stations i mentioned earlier. that is the number of gas stations in the US which can be disputed since i had a difficult time finding any current info.

 

traction test or why did i buy a Leaf; because unlike the Prius, the traction control can be turned off....or proof that the Leaf will do 90 miles an hour

 

ya and that was in eco mode. car has really good acceleration up to 40 mph

 

no, not quite. i was in eco mode. in Drive mode it would only be around 90 miles or so.

 

I was just pumping the "gas". I think to 90 mph thing is jus alluding to the 100% torque response at all rpms.
The real thing that stopped me was being in a neighborhood that is 25 mph speed zone on what was essentially solid ice

 

have to agree, the Prius when spinning up has a lot more pieces in the mix. each touch is a failure point, a weakness.

to be honest with ya, i have zero knowledge of the drive train of the Leaf, but have to assume there is much less to work with, therefore less failure points. not having to incorporate multiple drive systems has to simplify the operation. Once again, Toyota has essentially done something that even after 10 years, other car companies are failing to equal or exceed.

 

oh i am sure they have plenty of the standard legal disclaimers thru-out the manual

 

http://www.electricauto.org/resource/resmgr/media/nissan_leaf_sae_2_11.pdf

great write up on the motor, design, specs, etc