Nissan Leaf. Got a loaner for 2 weeks and friend asked me to post my experince here

air

loinnsigh wrote: »

No rental on a Leaf battery - you're thinking of the Renault business model (Zoe or Fluence ZE). I agree - I wouldn't pay rental on a battery either.

Have a look at this. The amount of electricity used to power an electric car is significantly less than the amount used to refine an equivalent amount petrol. So not only are you not burning petrol while driving, you're actually using less power than it takes to produce said petrol. Double green win

In addition it moves the resultant pollution from burning the fossil fuels is moved away from urban centres and diluted over a wider area lessening its potential impact.
If ICE vehicles could be eliminated from urban areas it would no doubt have a massive impact on public health (prevalence of respiratory conditions etc).

Oafley Jones

air wrote: »

Leaf's can be picked up from the UK for about 10K at this stage. I would imagine that if the 2nd generation has vastly improved range then it will have a strong negative impact on residuals of the 1st generation models. They will still be useful for local commuting of course.

EV's are at an early stage of development so advances are likely to be quite fast and residuals poor in the early years.
A bit like personal computers, they improved in leaps and bounds every year for the first few years after they became popular, but nowadays there isn't a huge gulf in relative performance between a new machine and a 3 year old one.

The pc analogy never makes sense for electric cars. Sure, laptops have come on in leaps and bounds in terms of processing power, but the battery technology has advanced at a snails pace. The difference between my macbook air and my original iBook's battery capacity is maybe 10 per cent. Processesors have become far more efficient at moving 1s and 0s around the place. Unfortunately, for cars they're moving mass and the energy requirements to do so are fairly defined.

air

Oafley Jones wrote: »

The pc analogy never makes sense for electric cars. Sure, laptops have come on in leaps and bounds in terms of processing power, but the battery technology has advanced at a snails pace. The difference between my macbook air and my original You're battery capacity is maybe 10 per cent. Processesors have become far more efficient at moving 1s and 0s around the place. Unfortunately, for cars they're moving mass and the energy requirements to do so are fairly defined.

You're spot on & it was a poor analogy.
There is nowhere near the same scope for improvement, however the Leaf for example could have almost double its current range simply by installing a 48kWh battery.
Basically there are still good performance gains to be made by better use of the existing technology.

Jude13

A bit off topic however, are the non ICE cars as environmentally friendly when you take into account the construction of the fuel cell, life cycle and disposal of the car when its useful life has ceased?

Joe 90

Oafley Jones wrote: »

The pc analogy never makes sense for electric cars. Sure, laptops have come on in leaps and bounds in terms of processing power, but the battery technology has advanced at a snails pace. The difference between my macbook air and my original iBook's battery capacity is maybe 10 per cent. Processesors have become far more efficient at moving 1s and 0s around the place. Unfortunately, for cars they're moving mass and the energy requirements to do so are fairly defined.

Probably the biggest easily available improvement available for carse, ICE or EV, is the reduction in weight (mass). You don't need to drive around inside a ton and a half or two tons of metal and plastic.

GekkePrutser

Jude13 wrote: »

A bit off topic however, are the non ICE cars as environmentally friendly when you take into account the construction of the fuel cell, life cycle and disposal of the car when its useful life has ceased?

Current electric cars don't use fuel cells, except the Hydrogen powered ones but there are no production models of those.

But the batteries of electric cars do cause a lot of pollution, the Chinese are causing huge pollution mining the lithium. It's all localised pollution and most of it is avoidable at a higher cost but we all know how much the government cares about the environment over there.

Also the neodymium mining (used for the magnets in the motors and the generators for wind turbines) causes massive radioactive lakes in China. Once again this is also mostly avoidable but practically speaking it is happening.

I think when comparing the environmental impact of ICE cars to that of electric cars you should not account for the construction of the car's chassis etc because this is needed for both cars. I think the amount of energy and pollution caused would be similar for both, except for the lithium and neodymium needed for the electric cars.

Edit: By the way, I don't want to give the impression that I'm against electric cars. I think they are the way forward, especially considering the energy wasted on fuel refineries as well (thanks loinnsigh, I didn't know that yet). I just think it's a shame the Chinese are causing all this pollution because most of it can be avoided by disposing of the waste materials properly. I do think it should be addressed before electric cars become mainstream, there should be a treaty similar to the Kyoto ones.

GekkePrutser

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

Just on the fast chargers though, you are slightly wrong. The fast chargers that can charge to 80% in 30 minutes are 50 kilowatt chargers. As I recall from a meeting with the ESB a few years ago, a typical ESB substation can supply an area with 250 kilowatts of power. Based on this bottleneck in our current power grid the ESB will not install more than two fast chargers in a single location. A standard home charger is currently 3.3 kilowatt, so no problem with lots of people installing these. A normal electric oven will use more than that.

Thanks, I thought the fast chargers were only 6-10 kW..

It does mean though that if this really takes off, there will be a masive upgrade required to the power grid. It sounds like the power usage of an average city would increase astronomically if there was a substantial percentage of electric cars.

Edit: Sorry for the doublepost, I should have just edited my last one to add this comment.

Oafley Jones

Joe 90 wrote: »

Probably the biggest easily available improvement available for carse, ICE or EV, is the reduction in weight (mass). You don't need to drive around inside a ton and a half or two tons of metal and plastic.

It's not that easy. Every manufacturer is looking to cut the weight of their vehicles constantly. Couple this with the weight of cells and you need to radically change the way you build cars to get efficiency. If someone manages to build a cell that will act as structural elements you'd be onto a winner.

GekkePrutser

GekkePrutser wrote: »

Current electric cars don't use fuel cells, except the Hydrogen powered ones but there are no production models of those.

But the batteries of electric cars do cause a lot of pollution, the Chinese are causing huge pollution mining the lithium. It's all localised pollution and most of it is avoidable at a higher cost but we all know how much the government cares about the environment over there.

Also the neodymium mining (used for the magnets in the motors and the generators for wind turbines) causes massive radioactive lakes in China. Once again this is also mostly avoidable but practically speaking it is happening.

I think when comparing the environmental impact of ICE cars to that of electric cars you should not account for the construction of the car's chassis etc because this is needed for both cars. I think the amount of energy and pollution caused would be similar for both, except for the lithium and neodymium needed for the electric cars.

Edit: By the way, I don't want to give the impression that I'm against electric cars. I think they are the way forward, especially considering the energy wasted on fuel refineries as well (thanks loinnsigh, I didn't know that yet). I just think it's a shame the Chinese are causing all this pollution because most of it can be avoided by disposing of the waste materials properly. I do think it should be addressed before electric cars become mainstream, there should be a treaty similar to the Kyoto ones.

It's not the lithium mining you're referring to but the Graphite. Electric cars use relatively little lithium.

The problem is not electric car batteries but batteries in general and for now electronic gadgets account for much more demand than electric car production.

The Chinese are clamping down on dirty mines.

And Tesla use a small amount of graphite from well regulated mines in Japan !

And also Tesla don't use magnets in their induction motors, But Nissan does in it's permanent magnet induction motor. Perhaps Leaf II will go the induction route. Nissan's decision to use magnets is to create a more compact and more efficient motor.

Regarding the Leaf, I don't know where NEC get the graphite for their battery but most likely also in Japan where the battery is made.

You shouldn't automatically assume electric cars are bad for the environment, and that all electric car manufacturing is bad or that the minerals come from China, And you shouldn't automatically assume electric motors in cars use magnets at all !

galwaytt

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

I wasn't replying to the OP, I was pointing out how illogical another posters post was. The point you are making on ICE cars refueling ability (not sure who you are making that point to?) is a little bit silly. For starters you can buy your electricity from a number of different suppliers. That electricity can also be generated from a number of different sources e.g. coal, wind, nuclear, peat etc. The infrastructure for generating that electricity already exists, since civilisation as we know it couldn't exist without it. When you talk about infrastructure for EV's, you're just talking about plugs.

Where can you get the dominant fuel types (petrol/diesel) used in ICE cars from? Oil as far as I know, which is a finite resource on human time scales.

My first post in this thread was indirectly acknowledging the point the OP was making. Tesla themselves install their superchargers across Europe in pods of 8 at a time. Irish EV Owners have been asking the ESB to start installing multiple Fast Chargers at stations for years. A single fast charger is an obvious bottleneck. We (wife, 3 kids and myself) did Celbridge to Rossaveal recently and found the journey to be perfectly fine. The new fast chargers in Apple Green on the Dublin to Galway route were particularly nice. However, if I had to queue at any of those (I didn't this time at least) it would be a big pain. It's an obvious bottleneck and was obvious from the very start.

your letting your EV cloud your objectivity. ..

Spending time queuing to "refuel" and then waiting again whilst refueling is a non runner to the majority.

You do not have choice of electricity provider. You need juice and there's one recharging station within 60 kms? Then that's the one you'll be using. ...End of.

We don't have "Green" electricity and won't have, so guess where your electricity comes from. .... ?? And you've just detailed the grid limited capacity yourself. ..

Scottie99

The reason I bought the EV was nothing to do with Green issues. It was more to to do with the high mileage and savings...
He's a couple of interesting vids

http://youtu.be/BQpX-9OyEr4

http://youtu.be/ybt5z3_CGJM

That's a good video Scottie.

We also shouldn't forget that we have a mix of wind power which needn't be shut down at times of low demand in the night when they could be kept going to charge electric cars.

Sesshoumaru

galwaytt wrote: »

your letting your EV cloud your objectivity. ..

Spending time queuing to "refuel" and then waiting again whilst refueling is a non runner to the majority.

You do not have choice of electricity provider. You need juice and there's one recharging station within 60 kms? Then that's the one you'll be using. ...End of.

We don't have "Green" electricity and won't have, so guess where your electricity comes from. .... ?? And you've just detailed the grid limited capacity yourself. ..

If you keep moving the subject of conversation on to points I haven't spoken about, there's really no point in me locking horns with you There's not much point in me spending time responding in detail as you're not focused on anything I've actually said. But I will make a lazy quick response.

I charge at home 99% of the time. I don't have to queue then as my driveway is reserved for me. Whom I use at home as an electricity supplier is up to me. When I charge in a Maxol or Topaz it is currently free. In order to sell electricity you have to be a registered electricity supplier, not as simple as signing up somewhere. I'm not sure Topaz or Maxol are ever going to go to the bother of such a step. On street charging will be linked to your smart card and will go on your home electricity suppliers bill. So says the ESB anyway.

The well to wheel efficiency of ICE versus EV is well documented.

Investment in the grid will be pay dividends in the future as we are able to balance off peak demand versus peak energy demands.

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

This is a very good video on the UK National Grid. I would recommend people watch it before commenting.

Here is a good video on Nissan's new home PCS system.

Just some basics, I've met and chatted online with over 40 Irish owners of EV's (mostly the Leaf). Everyone has night rate and the car does not start charging immediately after you plug it in. As standard every Nissan Leaf has a charging timer/scheduler. Current night rate starts at 23:00 and ends the next day at 08:00. My cars charging timer/scheduler is set to start charging only during those hours. Currently the vast majority of electricity used to charge EV's is consumed at night time during the night rate period. This is excess electricity that is normally wasted. The SEAI estimated Ireland could support at least 200,000 EV's without any new power generation required based on the fact that most EV's owners charge at nighttime on night rate electricity.

If you had 1million EV's, most of them (like most cars currently) would spend most the day parked somewhere, either at home or at a public parking space. The reason I linked to the new Nissan PCS home charger is to show an EV can release power as well consume it. It's quite clear having lots of EV's can be part of the solution to implementing wind generation. If you watched the first video you would know power grids are already smart. As we make them smarter, EV's and smart metering could be integrated into the mix.