Posted on 02/14/2011 8:28:45 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
The all-electric Nissan Leaf is now officially on sale, advertised as the first mass-market battery-operated car on the market.
It uses no gasoline — and has no tailpipe emissions, because it has no tailpipe.
And even though it's battery powered, like a golf cart, it's a real car, fun to drive, with comfortable seating for up to five people and styling that's mainstream, not quirky like some of the hybrids and earlier electric cars.
For many, this even will be a practical car, one that can meet their everyday transportation needs — especially if they live, work and shop within a small area that doesn't require a lot of driving.
It's well-equipped, too, with standard features such as a navigation system, Bluetooth phone connection and automatic climate control — amenities once found only on luxury cars.
Some might argue, though, that its price qualifies it as a premium vehicle. It lists for $32,780 (plus $850 freight), before a $7,500 federal tax rebate and varying state tax incentives that can lower the price in some areas to the low $20,000s.
Nissan is making plans to build 150,000 of the Leaf annually at its assembly plant in Tennessee, beginning in late 2012, a number that certainly would qualify the car as a mass-market vehicle if all of those could be sold.
For now, the cars are built in Oppama, Japan, and the plant's capacity — 48,000 Leafs a year — is so limited that the cars so far are only trickling into the United States. Since it went on sale in December, only about 100 have been delivered to the more than 8,000 U.S. customers with firm orders.
But the key question remains: Will the Leaf ever be accepted by enough consumers to earn status as a mass-market vehicle?
Only time will tell, but after a week of attempting to use the Leaf as my daily driver, as a suburban commuter car, I have my doubts.
Range anxiety? It's no myth. This is the term used to describe the uneasy feeling one might get while driving a car that won't budge after its battery runs down, which in the case of the Leaf is supposed to be up to 100 miles after a full charge.
To help you gauge how much time you have left before the battery goes dead, there is a digital miles-to-empty readout on the Leaf's dashboard.
Only once during my test, though, did that meter ever read as much as “100 miles.” That was the morning after I received the vehicle from Nissan, and after I had kept it plugged in all night to a 110-volt power outlet in my garage. If you actually buy or lease a Leaf, you're expected to fork over about $2,000 for a 220-volt charger, which supposedly can recharge a completely depleted battery in about eight hours.
But in the absence of the higher-voltage charger, the Leaf's battery must be topped off using the 110-volt charger, with a cord about 18 feet long, which comes with every Leaf. There is also an indicator on the dash about how long it will take to recharge your Leaf at 110 or 220 volts, depending on the current state of the battery.
Also coming later on is a network of commercial 440-volt fast chargers, to be installed at places such as Cracker Barrel, Walmart, Costco and convenience stores, to top the battery off in about 30 minutes. None of those chargers are available yet, however.
When my tester was almost out of juice, the dash meter showed it would take 20 hours to reach full charge at 110 volts, or eight hours at 220 volts.
Leaving my driveway the first morning, with 100 miles until empty showing on the dash, I thought I was well prepared for my 26.4-mile commute to work and felt that I also would be able to get back home in the evening without having to do any charging while at work.
Wrong.
Here's the real scoop: By the time I got to the interstate highway that leads to my downtown office — the entrance ramp is about 2.5 miles from my house — the miles-to-empty readout had dropped from 100 to 81, indicating that I already had used 19 miles of the battery's power.
By the time I got to work, the meter read “51 miles” left, indicating I had used almost twice the actual miles I'd driven. Luckily, I'd had the foresight to bring the charging cord with me; I'd almost left it at home, believing at that time that I would have plenty of juice to get to work and back, and maybe even take the Leaf out somewhere nice for lunch.
At work, I found a 110-volt outlet attached to the building, in a company parking lot, and plugged in the Leaf. And when I came out nine hours later to drive home, the dash meter showed 77 miles left to go.
I went straight home, and when I got there, the meter was all the way down to 27 miles — 50 miles lopped off for the 26.4-mile commute.
OK, I thought the next morning, let's try this again. But wait — after charging all night in my garage, again at only 110 volts, the meter showed just 67 miles until empty. With more than a little trepidation, I set off for work again.
Surely, I reasoned, I'll have enough power to get home again if I keep the Leaf hooked up to power at work all day.
When I got to work, though, the meter had dipped all the way down to 16 miles, and bells, lights and a warning voice all told me I was low on battery power as I drove into the parking lot.
Like a dummy, though, I decided to take the car with me to lunch, driving it about 10 miles and interrupting the daylong charge.
So there I was, at 6 p.m., ready to drive home with an electric car that was showing 35 miles to empty, with a 26.4-mile trip ahead of me.
Add to that these conditions: It was dark; snow was falling; and the outside temperature was in the mid-20s.
When I turned on the Leaf's heater/defroster, just as I drove onto the interstate near work, the dash meter immediately dropped from 34 miles to just 29 — with 26 miles of driving ahead of me. Using electric heat, which is necessary because there is no gasoline engine in the Leaf to provide heat from the radiator, severely compromised the range of the car.
I turned the heater off. There was nothing I could do about the headlights or windshield wipers, but I figured I could live without heat for the next half-hour or so.
But with 20-plus miles still to go, the meter was already down to 26 miles to empty, and I began thinking about how to conserve energy so I could make it home. If I couldn't make it, the only alternative would have been a tow truck because AAA can't come out and recharge electric cars, at least for now.
Once the traffic cleared and the freeway began flowing freely, I moved to the far right lane and set the Leaf's cruise control on 55 mph instead of my usual 70.
With just two exits to go, about nine miles from home, the meter had dropped to 14 miles to empty, and the car once again was telling me that I needed to recharge. I dropped the speed to 50 and watched in the rearview mirror as more frustrated motorists came up close behind before pulling around.
With just six miles until home, the meter had dropped to eight miles to empty, and I began getting really nervous. Is this what they call “range anxiety”?
The car was getting even more worried about how much juice its battery had left.
Then, finally, I was coming off my exit, heading down the road toward my home, now just two miles away. The miles-to-empty display had flat lined by this time — no miles showing — and the navigation system asked me if I wanted to find “the nearest recharging station.”
I answered “yes” on the touch screen, and it showed me my own address as the closest charging point, “1.9 miles” away.
Now down to 30 mph, my feet, legs and hands starting to freeze. I began coaxing the Leaf along.
“Come on, you can do it, come on.”
I limped into the driveway, plugged the Leaf up in my garage and went into my house to warm up.
Conclusion: The Leaf isn't for everyone, as Nissan Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn already had told me during an interview a few months earlier. And it's certainly not the car for me, with a 53-mile daily roundtrip commute and the need to drive sometimes during the day while at work.
If work is 30 minutes away or less - an electric car would make sense. Any longer than that, forget it.
Its not ready for long range, real world driving.
ML/NJ
I have two F150s (300 6 cyl) which don’t get terrible gas mileage.
When I go to the upper peninsula I get out in the sticks miles from anywhere. A leaf isn’t going to get me there and if it did it wouldn’t get me home.
Article reminds me of something Jay Leno said on a recent episode of NOVA...”Electric cars are like sex. Everybody lies.” (this part I’ll paraphrase) “They all tell you, ‘100 miles!’ but 43 miles later, I’m stranded.”
What message do you think it gets across?
The new xB...yeah, I can’t figure why they grew it so much when it was so popular as a small car. Seems like you might as well get a Pilot or Element or CR-V or RAV4 now.
The Nissan CVT takes some getting used to. I’ve rented two cars with it (that Cube and a Sentra with the same 1.8L powertrain) and what I found is that if you just lightly give it throttle off the line, it hits a dead spot about 20 mph when the tranny seems to come out of “low” and into its normal variable range. If you don’t mind annoying the people behind you, you can featherfoot it and get amazing economy around town. If you need actual acceleration, just step down on it and it does surprisingly well.
The other thing I learned with that CVT is that you *never* take the overdrive off at highway speed. On most autos, if you pop off the O/D, it’s in third gear. On that CVT, if you do it, it might as well be in SECOND. I did it once for giggles on the freeway at about 60 mph and was rather surprised to suddenly be howling along at almost 5000 rpm.
The other weird thing about the Cube aside from the looks and CVT is the steering. It’s got electric power steering, not hydraulic. Around town, it’s fantastic...perfect feel, perfect weight, turns on a dime, never kicks back, no squealing power steering pumps or grinding when you get to a lock. On the highway, it gets a bit odd, like you’re turning a force-feedback game controller, because you don’t get as much feedback from the road. It only took a few miles to get used to, but it was definitely a different feel than normal hydraulic power steering.
}:-)4
And, not just a little bit, like say an FM clock radio. I bet the charging system draws some serious amperage.
“And how long is it going to be that your office lets you sponge free electricity off of them? When it is one employee they may look the other way. But if you had a bunch of greenies ripping off your electricity the plug is going to get pulled.”
Let’s see. How will that work out?
Hmmmm. Perhaps a federal law requiring all employers . . . . You know it’s coming.
So the steering is literally “drive by wire”?
That is kinda scary.
That includes you, ZerO.
I should have asked for clarification on the steering of the cube. Is it electric assist, or pure electric “drive by wire”?
We live 22 miles from town. No, thanks...
It’s not really “drive by wire,” it’s just electrically assisted instead of hydraulically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_steering#Electric_systems
A lot of cars are using it now, mostly small ones but I’ve seen where Chevy has a couple of full-size Silverado proof-of-concept test vehicles with electric power steering. I like the concept, it seems like there’s less stuff to go wrong and less parasitic losses on the engine with no hydraulic pump to drive.
}:-)4
http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/faq/list/charging#/leaf-electric-car/faq/list/charging
A FAQ on charging. $2.71 and it takes 20 hours to charge? ??
As a comparison, I have a diesel pickup and it costs $1.00 to plug the block heater in for 14 hours or so overnight. I’ve never done this math, I have just deduced it from actual bills.
My quotes in Post #44 are a little off. Here is that episode of NOVA.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1768954299/
The Leno segment starts at the 4:30 mark and goes for about 4 minutes.
Mike
Ah, the inquisitive, scientific mind of a journalist.
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