Test drove A Nissan Leaf Today !

Sesshoumaru

hsilgnede wrote: »

Yes. No issues thee other than the contractor being a few hours late.

My Nissan dealer is not charging for fast charging although he's only ten mins from my house so can't see that I'd be using him much.

Well congratulations on the new motor, I hope you enjoy it! It's a standard check before a car goes out, but might be no harm in asking the dealer to make sure all the latest firmware is loaded on the car. Nothing major there, but there were one or two little improvements made with some of the firmware updates.

I think all 2012+ model Leafs have a battery heater now too to lessen the effects of cold.

positron

Apologies for posting this here, but is Renault Zoe out yet?

jackofalltrades

Deleted User wrote: »

Don't believe the Leaf in 2015 will have 300 mile range because it isn't necessary and Nissan know it isn't necessary to carry around a big heavy expensive battery. More important is a faster charging infrastructure.

A 300 mile range or anything close to that is really only necessary if you want to sell cars . Car makers know this.

You can talk glowingly about fast charge infrastructure all you want, but judging by the levels of stupidity I see in petrol stations, I wouldn't want to make refuelling a daily experience, rather than a weekly one.

jackofalltrades

jackofalltrades wrote: »

A 300 mile range or anything close to that is really only necessary if you want to sell cars . Car makers know this.

You can talk glowingly about fast charge infrastructure all you want, but judging by the levels of stupidity I see in petrol stations, I wouldn't want to make refuelling a daily experience, rather than a weekly one.

There is one advantage of having a larger battery and that is you won't be using as much of it so you will get far more charge discharge cycles,

I think once people start using them and word spreads that the whole experience isn't as bad as they thought a lot more will buy them.

Sesshoumaru

positron wrote: »

Apologies for posting this here, but is Renault Zoe out yet?

Delayed until the Clio is launched. April I heard.

Arciphel

Does anyone have any info on the battery thermal management system that Nissan are using in the new model Leaf?

Arciphel

Arciphel wrote: »

Does anyone have any info on the battery thermal management system that Nissan are using in the new model Leaf?

Air cooled and now heated when the temp drops too low.

Active cooling is not needed in Ireland so don't worry about that.

Just don't fast charge if the battery temp is high. I think it throttles back if it's too hot anyway.

Here is the Leaf battery, notice the modules, there are 48 and they can be replaced rather than the whole pack if needed. Usually one cell is all it takes to hold back a good pack.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T121230002174.htm

QUOTE

Nissan to offer 5-yr warranty for Leaf battery drain
NEW YORK (Jiji Press)--Nissan Motor Co. plans to offer a warranty for capacity loss in lithium-ion batteries for its Leaf electric vehicle, company officials said.

The warranty system will be the first of its kind in the auto industry, the officials said Friday.

Under the new warranty, Nissan will repair or replace Leaf batteries free of charge if capacity falls below 70 percent of the original level within five years of purchase or 96,540 kilometers.

Customers will be given the option to buy replacement batteries once the warranty period is over.

The system will be introduced in the United States in spring, followed by Japan and Europe. The move may affect other automakers' sales strategies for electric vehicles.

Complaints of quick battery drain have been received from U.S. owners living in the south, where temperatures are high.

Nissan's Leaf is designed to travel about 117 kilometers on one battery charge based on U.S. standards.

(Dec. 31, 2012)
End Quote

monkeysnapper

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

They've also told us dealers should not be charging for a fast charge. Are you living near Tralee? I know that dealer was trying to charge for fast charging in the past.

Yes exactly, I live in the Tralee area, they're my closest Nissan dealer,

Sucks ass really

More 2013 Updated model Pics.

awec

They need to make it look nice too. IMO the arse end of the current model is pretty awful looking.

Arciphel

Deleted User wrote: »

Active cooling is not needed in Ireland so don't worry about that.

Active cooling is what I was fishing for all right... We might work in the same industry Mad_Lad

hsilgnede

Deleted User wrote: »

Congrats, hope you post a full report !

Thanks. Will do my best. I'm crap for remembering things like this.

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

Well congratulations on the new motor, I hope you enjoy it! It's a standard check before a car goes out, but might be no harm in asking the dealer to make sure all the latest firmware is loaded on the car. Nothing major there, but there were one or two little improvements made with some of the firmware updates.

Thanks for the tip.

I read back through this whole thread. Some of the objections are fair enough and some are just nonsense.

Range - it is going to be an issue for some people. For a lot of people, majority I would say, it is not. Those who buy these vehicles will have put the research in and be satisfied it does what they need. For the emergency "I have to drive to Belfast now and can't wait for a charge" occasions (which has never happened in my life) we have a second ICE car in the family so it's not an issue. My commute is 50k round trip. My longest regular journey is to family in Cork who are 80k and I can charge at their house while we have lunch/whatever. The half dozen trips a year to Dublin or wherever I can either plan to stop and charge/fast charge or just take the other car.

Cost - Electricity is cheaper and regulated in price so it might go up but not as fast as petrol and would have to go up a lot before the price would be even similar. This is the single biggest selling point for all EV's. The car is comparable in price to a lot of family cars when you take in the 5k grant. Maintence will be lower. Dunno by how much but lower, no spark plugs, oil, filters etc. And it'll never fail the NCT on emissions.

Risk - early adaptation is a risk. But it's a risk I'm willing to take for the cost savings. If I have to replace the battery in ten years, well so what. I'd be replacing most any car I got new in ten years time anyway.

Infrastructure - most reasonable size towns now have charge points. The EU in November gave us 28 million for installation of fast charging points along the motorway network to make intercity travel more practical. It's already doable but if there's enough fast chargers it becomes totally practical.

Looks & noise - this is just personal preference stuff. I like how it looks. I like the quite. Other folks like the look of a Volvo or an Audi or a corolla or the sound of a deisel engine. Each to their own.

So yea, there's pros and cons. There upside and downside with all new cars. The upside in fuel savings is much greater here if its a practical option for your driving needs, countered with a small risk of a big downside like not holding value or the battery being dead in five years.

FWIW the payback for me with the amount of driving I do and so on is seven years and or less if petrol goes up.

Arciphel

Arciphel wrote: »

Active cooling is what I was fishing for all right... We might work in the same industry Mad_Lad

HMM now you got me thinking ?

The building you work doesn't perhaps require lots and lots of air cooling that doesn't involve A/C ?

DubTony

Deleted User wrote: »

Well considering the electricity bill is around 2 million a year soon to be around 4 million, I don't think they give a s**t, the other building mainly normal office type consumes nothing compared to the building i'm in and the charging is free.

BIK ? no idea what happens there. I've never heard of an employee being charged BIK for charging.

There's no BIK for car charging ... YET. But as employers throw car charging into the salary package, there's no doubt our taxing masters will catch on.

DubTony

DubTony wrote: »

There's no BIK for car charging ... YET. But as employers throw car charging into the salary package, there's no doubt our taxing masters will catch on.

Just like they increase motor taxes every year on normal cars, No matter what, taxes won't increase until there are several thousand e.v's on the road. Even if they do they will not be as high as petrol or diesel.

galwaytt

Well, I'm an out-and-out petrolhead, but even I'd love to try an EV. For my 5km commute, I can see the attraction.......

I used to discount all manner of stuff, once: petrol over diesel, ABS over none, N/a over turbo's, manual over auto's, coupés over cabrio's.......the list goes on........

....that's a lot of Humble Pie right there.......

One question though: why are they fugly as well ?

TrailerBob

When they build an electric Landcruiser that can pull 3 ton, and do 600km on a charge... I'm in!! Seriously though, if I had a small commute, I'd consider one second hand in a few years, but distances are too big at the mo

Idbatterim

was reading earlier how the bmw i3 would be 300kg lighter than the leaf, does the leaf use any CFRP to reduce weight?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/frankfurt-motor-show-2011/frankfurt-show-new-bmw-i3

monkeysnapper

The trouble and strife was on car zone tonight and couldn't believe there was a few 2 nd hand leafs on there ,

granted most were prob ex demo, but one had a good few miles on clock and was going for 20k , I'm not in a position to buy at this stage but what would be the story with esb , because its 2nd hand would you have to pay esb for installing power points ?

Pkiernan

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Don't worry, the noise goes away after 30 minutes at motorway speeds.

That is a good one!

I still want one though!

ottostreet

Only electric vehicle I'd drive over the next ten years is Geoff.

If and when petrol gets too expensive, then I'll be into something like a 530d. When fossil fuels are no longer financially viable, hopefully there's some decent electric cars that are actually desireable available.

September1

monkeysnapper wrote: »

The trouble and strife was on car zone tonight and couldn't believe there was a few 2 nd hand leafs on there ,

granted most were prob ex demo, but one had a good few miles on clock and was going for 20k , I'm not in a position to buy at this stage but what would be the story with esb , because its 2nd hand would you have to pay esb for installing power points ?

Call dealer and ask, in general charging points can be moved between locations and all is needed is 32A connection - who knows, maybe ESB ecars would do it for you? In case that dealer does not want to part with charger, you have two options - expensive is to buy charger and cheap is to buy charging cable and use regular sockets. Such cable is really useful when you visit family, hotels without ecar points, restaurants and so on - there are electrical outlets in most of location in Ireland those days.

Idbatterim

Idbatterim wrote: »

was reading earlier how the bmw i3 would be 300kg lighter than the leaf, does the leaf use any CFRP to reduce weight?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/frankfurt-motor-show-2011/frankfurt-show-new-bmw-i3

No no carbon fiber in the Leaf.

The leaf would cost a lot more. I bet the I3 will cost 35k or more.

If the Leaf has good acceleration, I can only imagine the I3 with 170 hp and being 300 kg lighter.

Maybe they use a different battery chemistry, perhaps NMC it would be lighter.

monkeysnapper

monkeysnapper wrote: »

The trouble and strife was on car zone tonight and couldn't believe there was a few 2 nd hand leafs on there ,

granted most were prob ex demo, but one had a good few miles on clock and was going for 20k , I'm not in a position to buy at this stage but what would be the story with esb , because its 2nd hand would you have to pay esb for installing power points ?

There is one going on autotrader u.k for the same but with around 6,000 miles I think ? but it was a lot less than 20k odd miles.

monkeysnapper

monkeysnapper wrote: »

The trouble and strife was on car zone tonight and couldn't believe there was a few 2 nd hand leafs on there ,

granted most were prob ex demo, but one had a good few miles on clock and was going for 20k , I'm not in a position to buy at this stage but what would be the story with esb , because its 2nd hand would you have to pay esb for installing power points ?

Nothing to do with ESB, get a local spark to install it, should be much cheaper. Usually the charger comes with a new purchase.

Needs 16 amps for Gen I Leaf, updated Leaf in the spring will need 32 amps or 6.5kw.

If you are handy with electrics you could install it yourself, at least buy the cable and run it and get the spark to connect it up, get him to get you the cable first.

positron

Nissan has announced a price cut for Leaf in the US. I wonder if we would get a similar thing here.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/15/2013-nissan-leaf-price/

As a family of two adults + 1 child + 1 expected, we currently run a 2 ltr petrol Accord (herself, family, shopping etc) and a motorbike (my commuting tool). I would love to change up from Accord to a Leaf/Zoe etc. It would save me a decent bundle on tax and fuel (not so much on maintenance as Honda is bulletproof reliable, just the usual service once a year or so). Leaf/Zoe etc would be perfect for shopping and other usual run arounds and visiting family etc, and we can always borrow a family car (or rent a car) for occasional trips to North or West etc. Easy.

Lutecia

The price drop is impressive. However is probably mostly due to the fact that this new Leaf is made in the US and no longer imported from Japan, suffering from very expensive Yen.
As long as the European ones are imported from Japan I can't see similar price reduction.

As for the Zoe there is currently an issue with the additional cable (that you carry with you to plug on 220V) : they have decided NOT to sell it for now : that means you can only recharge at home on your box, not at your friends/family.
More than the cable in itself (after all, Renault sells one with the Fluence or Kangoo), it looks like it doesn't behave well with the Chameleon onboard charger. Renault doesn't communicate much (yet?) on the matter.