- It's nice and quick in traffic.
- It's quiet, comfortable with lots of headroom.
- With a predictable drive like a commute, it's not hard to overcome Range Anxiety.
- They're hard on tires. Apparently running with higher pressure (44psi) helps. We put on Michelin X-Ice for the winter, but ended up throwing out the Ecopias because they had no more than 3k to be had on the rear pair and the fronts were badly worn on the edges. This is common with Leafs.
- No spare tire or jack, but a 12v inflator and a bottle of goo. I've bought a jack and will order a "doughnut" soon.
- Getting a 220v/30amp charger for 4-hour charges is not cheap. The outlet will run $500 and a box that I'm tempted to call a charger, but reminded it is not, but yet is required is another $500. We do well with the 110v/15amp charger that came with the car.
- Bluetooth smart-phone integration is awesome.
- Good community and plenty of room for gadget hacking.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Leaf: 1 month in
Impressions of a Leaf after nearly a month of driving and 800 miles:
Leaf!
RTD's been making it hard to count on them for a long-term commuting plan. The bigger picture is that the bus-route my neighbors and I ride is being eliminated in three months. The shorter term irritation comes from changes implemented this month (January) that weren't obvious enough for me in proposed route changes. I got poor response from RTD's customer service, public relations and our board representative (another story), so I considered breaking down and buying a car.
We test drove a Mazda CX-3, Subaru WRX, VW GTI and a Mini hardtop. The normally aspirated, fuel efficient cars were too weak, the Turbos too bursty or kiddie-oriented, and the mini was no fun to drive. (Minis are another story: I've test driven them about every 4 years in the last 15 and never bought one.) The issue is a little more complicated as it was important to me that this be another car in our stable and not one that one person liked and the other person didn't. If it were a care solely for me, the WRX would have had a better chance (yet another story about how the GTI is a nicer car, but the the WRX has AWD).
We'd talked a lot about more fuel-efficient cars, hybrids and electrics, and at one time we even dreamt of converting a Miata with lead-acid batteries, but they struck us as expensive and too nerdy. At one point I clearly stated I did not want a Nissan Leaf.
With frustration over new cars increasing and frustration over RTD mounting, I lowered expectation and considered buying used. In some respects used was more palatable because of the lower commitment. It would be easier to buy a car I wasn't in love with if I spent $15000 instead of $30+k. The problem with buying used at $15k is that it often meant a five year old car with 80,000 miles on it. I would start looking at used, hit those facts and bounce back to buying new, only to discover what I really wanted was a budget-busting $33k.
Somehow, I started looking at used Leaf's. They MSRP for $35k new, and have something about a $7500 government subsidy. The used ones were about $13k and only three years old, so we went to a dealer to have a look. I can't remember who drove first. I'd like to remember that Mandy drove it first and then I had a turn. We both liked it much more than we expected. My expectations were that it have all the eco-pep of a 1.4 liter Fiat. The reality is that it has 190 ft-lb of torque at 0 rpm for 3200 lb car. The Subaru weighs 100 lb more and is good for 150 or so ft-lbs at 3000+ rpm. The Leaf has punch right off the line! Making the purchase more easy was that this particular one was a 2013 and had the 6.6 kw charger, not the older 3.3. As an SV model, not just S, it had a heat-pump that could heat the car more efficiently in winter.
So the Leaf is somewhat fun to drive. It's economics are also pretty cool. With 24 Kw-hours on board, we will have spent about $2.40 charging it and can go about 80 miles. That's enough for either of us to commute 25 miles to work and back and have quite a bit of buffer left over. We can even run the car with a battery-saving 80% charge and still have 10 miles left when running a bit of heater. The same trip, at today's ridiculously cheap $2/gallon gasoline would cost $4. The commute is made cheaper in the Leaf, since Mandy has free charging at work. The car is also more quiet and less petro-smelly than the ICE (internal combustion engine).
We test drove a Mazda CX-3, Subaru WRX, VW GTI and a Mini hardtop. The normally aspirated, fuel efficient cars were too weak, the Turbos too bursty or kiddie-oriented, and the mini was no fun to drive. (Minis are another story: I've test driven them about every 4 years in the last 15 and never bought one.) The issue is a little more complicated as it was important to me that this be another car in our stable and not one that one person liked and the other person didn't. If it were a care solely for me, the WRX would have had a better chance (yet another story about how the GTI is a nicer car, but the the WRX has AWD).
We'd talked a lot about more fuel-efficient cars, hybrids and electrics, and at one time we even dreamt of converting a Miata with lead-acid batteries, but they struck us as expensive and too nerdy. At one point I clearly stated I did not want a Nissan Leaf.
With frustration over new cars increasing and frustration over RTD mounting, I lowered expectation and considered buying used. In some respects used was more palatable because of the lower commitment. It would be easier to buy a car I wasn't in love with if I spent $15000 instead of $30+k. The problem with buying used at $15k is that it often meant a five year old car with 80,000 miles on it. I would start looking at used, hit those facts and bounce back to buying new, only to discover what I really wanted was a budget-busting $33k.
Somehow, I started looking at used Leaf's. They MSRP for $35k new, and have something about a $7500 government subsidy. The used ones were about $13k and only three years old, so we went to a dealer to have a look. I can't remember who drove first. I'd like to remember that Mandy drove it first and then I had a turn. We both liked it much more than we expected. My expectations were that it have all the eco-pep of a 1.4 liter Fiat. The reality is that it has 190 ft-lb of torque at 0 rpm for 3200 lb car. The Subaru weighs 100 lb more and is good for 150 or so ft-lbs at 3000+ rpm. The Leaf has punch right off the line! Making the purchase more easy was that this particular one was a 2013 and had the 6.6 kw charger, not the older 3.3. As an SV model, not just S, it had a heat-pump that could heat the car more efficiently in winter.
So the Leaf is somewhat fun to drive. It's economics are also pretty cool. With 24 Kw-hours on board, we will have spent about $2.40 charging it and can go about 80 miles. That's enough for either of us to commute 25 miles to work and back and have quite a bit of buffer left over. We can even run the car with a battery-saving 80% charge and still have 10 miles left when running a bit of heater. The same trip, at today's ridiculously cheap $2/gallon gasoline would cost $4. The commute is made cheaper in the Leaf, since Mandy has free charging at work. The car is also more quiet and less petro-smelly than the ICE (internal combustion engine).
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