Taxpayers' Leaf: Four Recharging Stops Needed to Go 180 Miles

National Legal & Policy Center ^ | January 3, 2012 | Paul Chesser

[jazusamo]

Consumer Reports has painted an ugly picture of the Nissan Leaf, as did an early enthusiast based in Los Angeles, who described his frustrations with the heavily subsidized, all-electric car in a recent column.

Now comes what must be the definitive example of the Leaf’s impracticality – this time from a (still) hard-core advocate, whose 180-mile Tennessee trek to visit family over the holidays required four lengthy stops to keep the vehicle moving.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, set out from Knoxville on Monday with his wife and son, headed for the Nashville area. His plan (appropriately) was to follow Interstate 40 West, where a series of Cracker Barrel restaurants – equipped with so-called “fast” vehicle chargers (if you want to call 30 minutes or more “fast”) along the route – would provide an electricity security blanket as the Leaf’s charge diminished.

Only problem was, the Leaf’s charge dropped more rapidly than promised. In what has to be a public relations disaster for Nissan, Smith’s EV was unable to travel no farther than 55 miles on any leg of the trip – and for the most part, much less. The company, and its government backers, proclaimed the Leaf was “built to go 100 miles on a charge” (large print), with a footnoted disclaimer (small print) that it travels shorter distances (like, 70 miles) if the air conditioning or the heater is used. Turns out even that was an exaggeration.

It was about 35 degrees in the Volunteer State when Smith departed Knoxville on Monday, and Mrs. Smith and his five-year-old son apparently were not willing to forgo heat in order to make the EV cause look good. A trip that should take – according to map Web sites – less than three hours, ended up lasting six hours for the Smiths because of all the stops they had to make. The approximate intervals where they paused for recharging were as follows:

• Knoxville to Harriman: 45 miles
• Harriman to Crossville: 31 miles
• Crossville to Cookeville: 31 miles
• Cookeville to Lebanon: 50 miles
• Lebanon to destination in Antioch, just south of Nashville: 22 miles

Hence the Smiths required four recharges in order to travel approximately 180 miles. According to the account in The Tennessean, they experienced their first “hair-raiser” range anxiety before they even reached Harriman.

“The display on the dashboard of their Nissan LEAF showed a drop in available range from 100 miles to about 50, when they had only traveled about 40 miles,” reported the Gannett-owned newspaper, which also owns USA Today, a cheerleader of all “clean” energy projects regardless of viability.

If the specs promised by Nissan and Leaf advocates were to be believed, the Smiths should have been able to travel about 25-30 miles past Harriman (where it took 20 minutes to boost the battery to 80 percent) before they’d need a recharge, even when using the car heater. But because of the limited availability of so-called “fast chargers” (440 volts, 30 minutes), the intermediate stop was necessary in order to climb the upcoming Cumberland Plateau and reach the next Cracker Barrel “fast charger” in Crossville. The chargers (which, by the way, don’t work for the Chevy Volt and won’t for many future EVs planned for release) are sparse because they cost $40,000 each, and companies like Ecotality apparently can only do so much with the $115 million Department of Energy grant it received to deploy the equipment.

At Crossville, according to The Tennessean , the Smiths’ battery gauge failed them again. The reading at Harriman said they could go another 70 miles, but after 31 miles, the gauge indicated they only had 20 miles of range remaining. Obviously that wasn’t to be trusted.

“It was a little nerve wracking,” Stephen Smith told the Nashville-based newspaper. “I’m finding the range is not 100 percent accurate.”

But heading west from Crossville, according to Smith, would not be as taxing on the Leaf: “Cookeville will be about the same distance but it will be flat or downhill.” It turned out his battery gauge maintained accuracy on that leg of the trip, but when he reached Lebanon (50 miles), he found that the Ecotality “Blink” fast-charger at the Cracker Barrel was, uh, on the blink (he should have known that was possible, if not likely). So instead he had to plug in to another slower charger at the restaurant, which took an hour to boost the battery enough (they hoped) to travel the remaining 22 miles to their destination.

The Smiths arrived at their destination in Antioch with what the Leaf told them was six miles of range remaining. All that after an anxiety-filled six-hour trip that was more than twice as long as it would take in a gasoline vehicle, which could probably have been accomplished with a single stop for a bathroom break.

The Smiths’ experience echoed that of a Consumer Reportsreviewer and Los Angeles columnist Rob Eshman, who called his Leaf his “2011 Nissan Solyndra.” Eshman, editor-in-chief of The Jewish Journal, experienced the same gauge inaccuracies and range anxiety that came from traversing hills and mountains and the use of his air conditioning in hot, smoggy L.A.

“My life now revolves around a near-constant calculation of how far I can drive before I’ll have to walk,” Eshman wrote. “The Nissan Leaf, I can report, is perfect if you don’t have enough anxiety in your life.”

Of course, you won’t hear words like that from the lips of passionate “Green” energy advocate Smith, who chalked up the experience to being an “early adopter” and a pioneer.

“It’s good knowing we didn’t use a drop of oil getting down here,” he said. He must have had a similar fuzzy feeling on his return trip , which "only" took five hours, since the Lebanon charger was working later in the week.

As for the heavily coal-generated electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority that powered his trip, well, let’s not go there. Let’s just pretend that windmills and solar panels could have just as easily done the trick, if the EPA and Department of Energy would just do their jobs and eliminate all coal power plants and “invest” billions more taxpayer dollars in “renewables” deployment.

As for “why Tennessee” as part of this EV system rollout, you might ask? Thanks be to taxpayers there, also, as Nissan has in its back pocket a $1.4 billion federal loan to retrofit a plant in Smyrna – just outside Nashville – to mass-produce the Leaf. As company CEO Carlos Ghosn has said publicly, Nissan will produce EVs wherever government will produce the financial incentives.

And that’s what it takes in order for the “Green” energy industry swindle to survive.

Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center.

[thackney]

Another comparison:

The average global efficiency of coal-fired plants is currently 28% compared to 45% for the most efficient plants (see graph).

[Jack of all Trades]

That too, but I touched on that with durability.

The guy who sits next to me bought a used 2001 Prius. Got a few years out of it then had to replace the battery or a substantial portion of it - 3 grand. That didn’t entirely fix the problem, it needed a new tranny - another 3 grand. Wound up dumping the car for $1000 plus a refund on the battery. The scrapper probably made a killing.

[Joe 6-pack]

I drove from Louisiana to my parents’ house in Pennsylvania for the Holidays. I too needed to stop and “recharge” my vehicle four times....

[MinuteGal]

"The plug-in parking spots at the Cracker Barrel here are often occupied by large gas-guzzling trucks....what do you do when they're blocking access to these charge points?"

Why, shop in the Cracker Barrel gift shop, of course. Doesn't everyone love to while the happy hours away in The Country Bumpkin Boutique?

The more the plug-ins are down, the better for business in the gift shop. Brilliant merchandising strategy!

Leni

[Leo Carpathian]

...aaaand, when there are bunch of other recharger greenies lined up at the charging station?
Aned yeah, no resale, just “writeitoff investment”

Jus’ another dumbest idea from RAT gummit!

[mamelukesabre]

You need to re read what you responded to.

[thackney]

A coal power plant is about 85% efficient.

It is not.

[jazusamo]

Yeah, and the great thing about recharging your car is it takes about 10 minutes, all told. :-)

[thackney]

Figure about 50% line losses in the power lines.

About 6~8% line losses.

Sorry, I hit return to quickly on the previous post.

Total system looks more like this.

A coal plant is still a heat engine and has the limitations of a Carnot Cycle. Just as a nuclear plant or a natural gas plant does. It simply cannot reach those types of efficiencies.

[bytesmith]

I think at the current technology, folks are trying to apply electric vehicles in ways they are not designed.

---

They are designed to be in museums along with the 8-track tape player and Lava Lamp.

[Lurker]

If one were to look for a way to limit the mobility of a population, the pathetic performance of these eco-fartmobiles makes perfect sense.

Every time I see one of these rolling coffins a scene from the Woody Allen movie "Sleeper" comes to mind and I laugh may ass off.

[cableguymn]

So.. did this guy buy something at the cracker barrel while he was there sucking down their electricity for free?

Mooched off us, and the customers of cracker barrel no doubt.

There are 2 charging spots that I know of in Minnesota.. The spots are right up front. I park in them all the time. I don’t give a rip, and this time of year, the Leaf is out on the highway because it ran out before it got there anyways. there is not fine for parking there, just a sign that says “electric vehicles only”

My car has spark plugs. It requires electricity. It just happens that it makes it on it’s own.

[gogogodzilla]

If anyone is surprised at this... then they are a complete idiot.

Batteries cannot be charged quickly like an empty gas tank can be refilled at a gas station. That, and there are very few charging stations to charge your car... at a considerable time cost.

Whenever electric vehicles have a greater range than gasoline cars... a faster ‘refuel’ time than gasoline cars... a cheaper refuel cost... and an overall cheaper price than gasoline cars; then, and only then, will they become competitive.

[steve86]

Cold temps shouldn't affect lithium batteries.

They are affected -- bigtime.

For example, LiFePO4 starting batteries are frequently installed into motorcycles as starting batteries when the original SLA gives out. They are great when warm -- often more cranking amps and are much lighter, of course. But when below freezing the diminished response of the battery plus the extra drag due to viscosity increase results in their not even being able to crank the engine at first. But with a few seconds of cranking load applied the battery heats up internally and then will turn over the motor. So it does generally succeed in the end. Some people actually turn on the headlight for a minute or two to pre-warm the battery.

[steve86]

Cold temps shouldn't affect lithium batteries.

They are affected -- bigtime.

For example, LiFePO4 starting batteries are frequently installed into motorcycles as starting batteries when the original SLA gives out. They are great when warm -- often more cranking amps and are much lighter, of course. But when below freezing the diminished response of the battery plus the extra drag due to viscosity increase results in their not even being able to crank the engine at first. But with a few seconds of cranking load applied the battery heats up internally and then will turn over the motor. So it does generally succeed in the end. Some people actually turn on the headlight for a minute or two to pre-warm the battery.

[BfloGuy]

Cracker Barrel’s HQ must be infested with coastal MBA types. I can’t imagine that their customers are a very big part of the market for electric cars (and I say that approvingly.)

[mamelukesabre]

I was simplifying the calcs. 85% efficient is the boiler efficiency. I went with 50% line losses to account for all other losses. .5 times .85 is .425. I think you will find that my final answer is around the correct number even though I didn’t do it the right way. I didn’t expect there would be anyone on this thread that would be bothered by my shortcuts. Next time I will show every little loss in every device between the coal fire and the extension cord. sheesh.

[thackney]

A boiler isn’t a power plant.

Looks a lot more like just making stuff up to me.

[mamelukesabre]

Since I’m in the boiler industry, a boiler is a power plant to me.

[MediaMole]

They’re still better than the “electric vehicle charging stations” at our local gas stations. These are identical to the electric outlets on my back deck. 110v/60hz three prong jacks.