Nissan Leaf EV

You do need the Quick Charge (QC) option to use it, though, and it looks like using them a lot, especially in hot weather, isn't good for the battery pack. I'd be happy with a 240 volt charge, but I'd have to run cable for about 150', and my days of doing stuff like that are gone. Still, we are finally getting EV charging stations in my area, so I will be trying out 240 volt 'top-offs' while shopping or eating out. In the meantime, having a Leaf and a Prius means little gas is being used here these days.
 
Yes its a nice car for sure and thanks for the comments on the video, the car is now made in the US and here in the UK, both sites also make the battery packs for the cars as well, yes this charger is 50KW, its fine for occasional use or on long journeys, charging to 80% and not letting it drop low is the ideal, just apply the same method as your ebike tech and you cant go far wrong, Nissan guarantee the battery for 8 years.

I am having the home charger installed on Thursday, we get a grant for that here in the UK, they give you up to £1000 to install a home charger (so its free basically), you can have one installed even if you dont have a car? thats the weird thing, I am having a 230V 32Amp charger installed, this would let you charge the new UK Leaf in just 4 hours from total flat at home! thats nice, I have a DC fast charger on my doorstep should I need to get charged up quickly, charging at home is fine for me and it will be off my solar panels, which means I get paid to charge and run the car and it is totally carbon free emission wise, I am big on that these days, I want my kids to grow up knowing their old man didnt just bow down and pollute the planet, their old man tried to help make a change, legacy you see! I am an old hippy really just born late, I dont have the hair these days either :lol:

I am still an ebiker at heart though folks, ride mine everyday and that wont stop, I am as mad keen on my ebikes as ever and having had a run of ill health for the last 18 months I have relied on them more than ever to help me along and to also give me some exercise, I am on the mend again now though so can focus back on the hobby a bit more.

Most people do no more than 30 miles a day in their cars and your car for the most parts sits there doing nothing, this is why electric cars just work, the idea you need 300 miles range is for most people just not true, you need very little range in reality, OK so running the leaf for me is costing more than my last car but my last car was a junker and was at the end of its life and was just months away from going wrong, I switched just at the right time.

Oh crikey its late...bed time :)
 
Ive really been enjoying my Leaf SV. It turns out that, from 0-30 or 40MPH, the car is quite the little drag racer. With a single speed electric motor and traction control, it will beat much faster vehicles off the line, and often all the way to 30MPH. I haven't been racing mine, but it's still a Rush to floor it at low speeds and have my head snapped back. It's also quite comfortable, and has more luxury features than any other car I've owned. (Or, in this case, leased.) I have yet to experience any real range anxiety with it, but that's in large part due to my two wheeled EV experience. I commute with it, run errands... I've only driven an ICE car once since the end of May!
 
LeftieBiker said:
Ive really been enjoying my Leaf SV. It turns out that, from 0-30 or 40MPH, the car is quite the little drag racer. With a single speed electric motor and traction control, it will beat much faster vehicles off the line, and often all the way to 30MPH. I haven't been racing mine, but it's still a Rush to floor it at low speeds and have my head snapped back. It's also quite comfortable, and has more luxury features than any other car I've owned. (Or, in this case, leased.) I have yet to experience any real range anxiety with it, but that's in large part due to my two wheeled EV experience. I commute with it, run errands... I've only driven an ICE car once since the end of May!
Click to expand...

It's definitely the quickest non-performance car I've been in. I had the demo guy in the passenger seat and floored it to 35mph, think I scared him.
 
veloman said:
LeftieBiker said:
Ive really been enjoying my Leaf SV. It turns out that, from 0-30 or 40MPH, the car is quite the little drag racer. With a single speed electric motor and traction control, it will beat much faster vehicles off the line, and often all the way to 30MPH. I haven't been racing mine, but it's still a Rush to floor it at low speeds and have my head snapped back. It's also quite comfortable, and has more luxury features than any other car I've owned. (Or, in this case, leased.) I have yet to experience any real range anxiety with it, but that's in large part due to my two wheeled EV experience. I commute with it, run errands... I've only driven an ICE car once since the end of May!
Click to expand...

It's definitely the quickest non-performance car I've been in. I had the demo guy in the passenger seat and floored it to 35mph, think I scared him.
Click to expand...
I don't think ours was that fast. But the morons at the dealership had it at 28 km left on the charge when we started the test drive and I'm not sure if Nissan programed the current to cut down as the battery gets low.
 
They probably had the car in Eco mode. You still have full power available in that mode, but only if you literally floor the accelerator pedal, which resists being floored in Eco. At anything other than full throttle, Eco feels a lot slower.
 
LeftieBiker said:
They probably had the car in Eco mode. You still have full power available in that mode, but only if you literally floor the accelerator pedal, which resists being floored in Eco. At anything other than full throttle, Eco feels a lot slower.
Click to expand...
No it was in regular mode. It even felt slower after about 10km but that was ~15km left on the meter for range.!
Like who has a ICE car ready for a test drive with the fuel light on...? It was parked beside the charging station and everything it could have been plugged in over night.
 
Arlo1 said:
LeftieBiker said:
They probably had the car in Eco mode. You still have full power available in that mode, but only if you literally floor the accelerator pedal, which resists being floored in Eco. At anything other than full throttle, Eco feels a lot slower.
Click to expand...
No it was in regular mode. It even felt slower after about 10km but that was ~15km left on the meter for range.!
Like who has a ICE car ready for a test drive with the fuel light on...? It was parked beside the charging station and everything it could have been plugged in over night.
Click to expand...

It's not surprising, how dumb sales people can be with with products. At the demo I was at, I knew more about the ev tech than the people I talked to.

I was at a motorcycle shop looking at the Zero bikes and knew more details about them than they did.
 
veloman said:
It's not surprising, how dumb sales people can be with with products. At the demo I was at, I knew more about the ev tech than the people I talked to.

I was at a motorcycle shop looking at the Zero bikes and knew more details about them than they did.
Click to expand...
Yeah this happens to me all the time lol. I knew the US lease price when the sales man had no idea and told him I was waiting to see Canada's lease pricing and how they were dropping the stating price. He had no idea. I also test drive an Imev and the sales man told me its best to run the battery right dead and leave it un plugged if we go away on a trip LMFAO.
 
Before I got my leaf, we made arrangements to drive a Prius PHEV. We told them when we'd be there, and asked them to charge the battery, as we already had a Prius and wanted to see how EV mode felt. When we got there, we were shunted aside, made to wait 45 minutes (in the meantime we gave a junior salesman an education on the Prius) and then, when we drove the PHEV, the battery was too low to use. I'm going to drive the Leaf over there and show them exactly how they lost a sale.
 
LEAF.jpg


Brought ours home today. 2013 SL + Premium, leased for 2 years at the VPP price (invoice - $1,000 - $7,500).
 
i have seen a lot of leafs on the freeway, but saw my first volt today, in the right lane. i have also seen a think car on the freeway and it was pulling 55+ mph on a long grade and i saw it coming up behind me so i slowed to wait for it to overtake but he took an exit. i have seen a dozen think cars here, and one ZENN, my favorite. no iMEV yet.
 
Alright TOSHI, you go!
 
I haven't seen a single Leaf in my small city - until the other day. I got in the drive-through lane at the local CVS, and was astonished to see a Leaf that was identical to mine, except for the optional larger "Zero Emission" stickers, in front of me...
 
I'm here in Germany ATM and saw a Renault Zoe for the first time. It's also the first e.v I've seen here as nobody will buy them as they get 0 rebates.

The Zoe is a very nice car to look at but it is small.

The thing that annoys me about Nissan is they will currently not allow a new battery to be installed in the leaf and only guarantee 70% capacity.

A 60-70 mile car in winter with a new battery with 30 % less range is simply unacceptable and not practical.

The Chevy volt at least can be fast charged multiple times a day and is supposed to be very efficient at 60 mph and has good range and its battery is heated and cooled so at least you have much better winter range than a leaf in winter.

Reports so far suggest the leaf will travel 75,000 before the first capacity loss bar, which is around a 15% loss, don't quote me on that.

Maybe there were a lot of fast charges or maybe it was in a warm climate ? I'm sure we'll know more in a few years.

The Zoe isn't available in Ireland yet as the whole battery rental thing isn't going down well with Irish people, so if they want to sell the Zoe there they got to sell the Car with the battery.

The leaf has an option of battery rental but not in Ireland.

I think if you add up the cost of the rental over 5 years you'll find that you would have the price of a new battery anyway, however Renault also will not allow a new battery to be installed in the Zoe and will only guarantee 70% capacity which is completely unacceptable.
 
Capacity loss has happened as early as 12k miles in the Leaf, IIRC. That is an issue, all right. I live in a relatively mild climate, have a shorter commute (45 miles) and don't charge to 100%. Most of us lease, and won't be buying the car.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Capacity loss has happened as early as 12k miles in the Leaf, IIRC. That is an issue, all right. I live in a relatively mild climate, have a shorter commute (45 miles) and don't charge to 100%. Most of us lease, and won't be buying the car.
Click to expand...
At the same time there is a guy who I watch on FB who had 76,000 miles with no noticeable degradation on his pack! He charged full 2x a day. Ill see if I can find it.
 
Wanted to wake up this thread since I'm now about a month into my ownership of a '13 SV. Since the last time this thread was active, a lot of used Leafs have cycled through their 2- and 3-year leases, and the low price of gas is putting downward pressure on the prices of alternative-drivetrain vehicles in general, so it's kind of a buyer's market right now.

Recently the main obstacle for me has been that when good used deals pop up, they typically aren't within single-charge driving range, and I haven't been motivated to hassle with hiring transport. But on the random day that I checked cars.com, the local dealer had an offering with very low miles at a great price so I jumped on it.

Loving it so far. Unfortunately it spends a lot of days in the driveway since I'm still mainly commuting on the e-bike and the wife is totally in love with and loyal to her Jetta Sportwagen. But when I do use it it's wonderful.

Anyone else have Leaf experiences to share from the past couple years?

 
I'm about to start the third year of my two year lease, having extended it a year and gotten two free payment credits in the process. I've had next to no trouble with my 2013 SV, and don't regret leasing it at all.
 
Our '13 SL is being turned in after its 2 year lease is up in August. It's caused exactly 0 extra hassle besides the monthly lease payment and the sole 12 month battery checkup visit. No maintenance, no problems, just quiet, reliable transportation.

There are some things I don't like about it:

- weak defroster
- A pillar and rear view mirror right in my line of site for cars to the right at 4 way stops
- head rest too far forward
- rear seat is a dark place to be with the high beltline and resultant small window

Overall it's been a good car, though.
 
We sure enjoy ours, although we purchased a 2011 SL, Feb 28th 2015, and another 2011, April 28th 2015. One has a new lizard battery (12 bars), and the other has 10 capacity bars. So we are the lucky second buyers with greatly discounted very nice autos. Those that can afford to should take advantage of the reasonable prices of these cars on the used car market.
 
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