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

Rother

A friend borrowed my car for his holiday and left me with his Nissan Leaf for a couple of weeks, so I decided to embrace it and have a bit of fun testing it out. Ive been asked to post it here so here is the good and the bad.

So I got the car and the "granny pack" charger, which is a cool little thing that allows you to plug the car in at home.

I live in Dublin so plenty of chargers around, or so I thought.

My commute to work is 20km each way so used the car for that. I also have to drive to various places around the country for work and tried to use it for that too. Then i had a couple of days off and had a bit of fun with it.

Here is a quick summary. I'll go into more detail below.

The Good.
Charging is simple at home. Just plug in and its ready in the morning.
It handled my commute to work and home easily.
Its a lovely car to drive and drives just like a petrol car. I like the automatic.
Its cheap to run.

The Bad.
Only the quick 30 min chargers are of any use really. All of the others are too slow and you must have nothing to do if you want to wait at one for a couple of hours minimum to charge. People seem to be using them as their personal car parking spaces too, ensuring if it isnt Iced (a term used to say a non electric car has blocked the space), there is usually another electric car on it for the day (sometimes 2).

And the fast chargers (they charge the car to 80% in about 30 mins) are fine during the day, but during peak commuting time, you pull into a garage, theres a nissan leaf, or more than one waiting or charging on it, so you go to another about 7 or 8 km away out of your way and theres another nissan leaf charging on it. Now you are stuck waiting for him to finish and then waiting for another half hour to charge up yourself. There need to be more fast chargers for this to work.

The range is really only good for a commute and maybe one trip a day, then you are stuck. So definitely need a backup ICE car if you own a Leaf. At first I thought you could have a Leaf only, but you cant to be fair.

===================================================


So what did I do for the week, you may ask.
Most days I commuted to work and tried to charge at fast chargers a few times on the way home, which was a disaster, with the wait time because they are oversubscribed at the time the are needed, as outlined above.

Proper Test Day 1: My brother decided that we should have a race (me in the Leaf, him in the Focus) from my house (Ashbourne) to our home town, Clonroche in Wexford and calling into our sister in Roundwood, Wicklow on the way. So it was on. Heres what happened.

I charged up to 100% that night. He called over to me in the morning at 11 am. I had figured that I needed 2 stops (Park point, windsor was closed and Gorey) on the way to fast charge, so I would lose, but he would wait for me in our sisters house anyway. So off we went. I drove to Park Point. Would you believe there was one car charging and 2 waiting before me. That meant I would be waiting 2 Hours before I could get on my way again. No way.

I left and headed back in the direction I had come from to Templeogue and oh no, someone already charging there too. I waited. As I arrived at Templeogue my bro called. He was sitting in my sisters in Roundwood, laughing at me. I would now have barely enough to make it to Gorey. I told him I had to skip Roundwood and head straight for Gorey. So he shouldnt bother waiting for me.

I was charged and leaving Templogue 50 mins or so after I arrived there.

So now i'm going all the way to Gorey and praying that I would have enough to make it. I was going to have to drive slowly too.

During that trip my brother had called to tell me he was at home having dinner with the parents. I had lost miserably, but I carried on. So I made it to Gorey with not much charge to spare and guess what. One person charging and another waiting to charge. I had to wait over an hour before I had enough charge and continued on.

So I arrived in Clonroche a full 3 hours after my brother did, and he went to Roundwood too. It had taken me about 5.5 hours.

We had planned to race back again that day but no way was I up to it and needed to charge overnight too. I suggested we go to the pub and try again in the morning. Maybe I just had bad luck with people at the chargers.

So we went to the pub.

Proper Test Day 2 : The race home.
Same thing but in reverse, And no detour to Roundwood. It was clear now that the Leafs range doesnt really allow you off the main routes.
So I had to wait for a person to finish charging in Gorey again. 45 mins in total wasted there. There was a 2 car queue at point oark, so i left, at least Templeogue was still on my way and I had barely enough to get there. That fast charger wasnt working though. Horror. I was now stuck. Fortunately the garage could reset it though. phew. I left there 40 mins after I arrived. And then home. Total about 4.5 hours. My brother was home in 2 hours.


So two things were becoming very clear. The Leafs range is very limiting. Fast charger network is the pits. Its bad enough waiting 30 mins each 100km, but when even one person is already charging it holds you up for up to an hours.

Rother

I had written a lot more but it got cut off. I'll sum up here.

Conclusion :

My brother filled up his car and it cost hom about €35 for that trip. I had spent about €4 on electricity and the rest was free. Would I spend the extra €30 difference to save 4 or 5 hours on my trip AND have been allowed to detour to my sisters house. you betcha.

The Leaf is a lovely car but its limited.

And just how much that limitation is can be seen when you try to do more than your daily commute.

We were toying with the idea of getting a Leaf as it would save us money on my daily commute.

The problem though is that to be use even a little beyond that daily commute the Leaf wont work.

The street chargers are pointless unless you leaving the car there for hours.

If you are on a trip, one broken fast charger or one person at one when you arrive can destroy your whole day and cost you a huge amount of time. you were already limited when you assumed you were going to stop at the fast charger for 30 mins in order to continue, without having to queue.

Fast chargers are only useful if you can use them when and as needed. They need to have more than one at each station. and stations need to be no more than 15km apart for this to work.

So if your daily commute is within the range of the leaf and you will not be doing anything else, yes get a Leaf. Otherwise either have a backup ICE or dont get a Leaf.

I now understand totally why my friend was eager to swap cars when he was going on a driving holiday

Toyotafanboi

is your friend a mad lad?

Gumbo

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

is your friend a mad lad?

Mad Lad hasn't got a leaf.

Rother

No. He is looking to buy a Leaf as well and was very interested when i got a loaner from another friend. It was actually another site he asked me to post it on but I didnt read his email properly and posted it here. oops.
He can copy and paste it to wherever he wants anyway.

I used to think that if the dealers lent them out for a week they would have people buying them easily.
But it now turns out that a few days you think they are brilliant. Its only when you need to do something else with the car than commute or go shopping or really short trips that you discover the limitations big time. So now I see why the dealers give them for a day or 2 but no more.

It is a great car, I really enjoyed having it, it was lovely as long as you dont expect it to do anymore than short trips.

The charging infrastructure is awful. It really is. I read esb are going to be putting fast chargers every 60km along the main routes. Well thats just not enough. There should be at least one if not 2 in every town to be honest.

Its not acceptable to arrive at a fast charger and then see its busy or broken and then be told that you have to drive another 20 or 30 or more km to another which might also be broken and you are up the creek with no electric paddle.

I read someone comparing it to 1 petrol station every 400km on the roads. And it takes half an hour to fill up the tank.
Whe you arrive the pump might be empty or there might be a few who are waiting at it before you, each taking 30 mins to fill up, because its a slow trickle and they need a full tank to get to their next petrol station.

Ded_Zebra

So in summary, have the Leaf for the commute and then something with a big thumping V8 for the weekend and long trips :D:cool:

seamus

Interesting that what I get from your post is that its only real failing is infrastructure, i.e. if there were a lot more charging points, the car would be a great commuter/shopper/runabout, far superior to a micra or a fiesta.

In a way it's good news for Nissan that their vehicle is so popular, but lack of infrastructure is exactly the issue that could kill it stone dead.

It sounds to me that with fast chargers still taking up to 30 minutes to charge the car, they need to create some form of booking system for the points. So when you're driving along looking for a charge point, for a start it shows you on the screen whether the point is free or in use, so you don't waste your time going there and finding it's taken.
Then you should be able to prebook a charging slot. So you can pick the point you want and book it for anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes. The point is then locked for your slot until you enter your code. You can do things to prevent abuse of the system like unlocking the point if you don't arrive within five minutes, not allowing you to book more than one point and using the range and average speed metrics on the car to stop you from booking charge points that you can't feasibly get to in time.

Although it doesn't necessarily solve the infrastructure issue, it would make the process of trying to find a charge point a lot less time consuming and frustrating.

Rother

seamus wrote: »

Interesting that what I get from your post is that its only real failing is infrastructure, i.e. if there were a lot more charging points, the car would be a great commuter/shopper/runabout, far superior to a micra or a fiesta.

In a way it's good news for Nissan that their vehicle is so popular, but lack of infrastructure is exactly the issue that could kill it stone dead.

Lack of infrastructure, in particular the fast chargers will definitely kill it stone dead. Especially as more Leafs are competing for the few chargers, there are queues.

If you can charge at home only, its a great little runabout. I really couldnt fault it and would love one for that. But the problems really become apparent when you need to do a trip that isnt caoable of being completed without charging.

But if for example you are driving 250km in a trip. You are charging fully at home. So you leave at the same time as you would in an ICE.

But you are range limited and IF AND ONLY IF there are no other cars in front of you at the fast chargers (then you can add half an hour for each car) on your way you will have to charge up at least twice on your journey and be able to charge up again when you get there.

So thats a minimum of an hour added to your trip, even if there was no other car at the charging station, and they are all working.

Thats oK when its new and fun.

But after a couple of those trips the novelty soon wears off, especially if you have passengers wondering why all this bloody stopping on the way. And god forbid you have an elderly person or baby in the car on the trip.

seamus

Sorry, I edited my last post with a suggestion on creating a booking system for charging stations. Would that make a big difference?

Rother

seamus wrote: »

Interesting that what I get from your post is that its only real failing is infrastructure, i.e. if there were a lot more charging points, the car would be a great commuter/shopper/runabout, far superior to a micra or a fiesta.

In a way it's good news for Nissan that their vehicle is so popular, but lack of infrastructure is exactly the issue that could kill it stone dead.

It sounds to me that with fast chargers still taking up to 30 minutes to charge the car, they need to create some form of booking system for the points. So when you're driving along looking for a charge point, for a start it shows you on the screen whether the point is free or in use, so you don't waste your time going there and finding it's taken.
Then you should be able to prebook a charging slot. So you can pick the point you want and book it for anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes. The point is then locked for your slot until you enter your code. You can do things to prevent abuse of the system like unlocking the point if you don't arrive within five minutes, not allowing you to book more than one point and using the range and average speed metrics on the car to stop you from booking charge points that you can't feasibly get to in time.

Although it doesn't necessarily solve the infrastructure issue, it would make the process of trying to find a charge point a lot less time consuming and frustrating.

I was thinking about that too but ..
Pre booking will never work travelling on the roads.
There are just too many variables.

My granny needs the toilet.
Baby needs changing suddenly.
Traffic accident.
Flat tyre.
Football match or concert in a town on the way.
Just some examples.

Say ive prebooked for a 30 minute charge at Gorey at 2pm.
I leave Dublin and expect to arrive there at 2pm. But the charger ive prebooked in Dublin isnt working or ive got delayed by traffic.

So eventually I arrive at Gorey outside my booked time. Back to square one.

Or what if I was only 10 minutes late. Next guy is booked in at 2:30. But 20 mins doesnt get me enough juice to keep going.

Or what if I never arrived at Gorey for about an hour. So there is a guy booked at 2:30 but he arrives at 2:00 then he is waiting til mu slot is over even though i wasnt going to be using it.

Or he is able to use it and I arrive at 2:15 expecting at least to get 15 mins out of my 30 mins and ive missed it altogether.

Or what if its booked out for the whole day?

You just cant time road trips to the degree necessary for booking something that there is only one of.

There are a million scenarios. It just wont work.

Multiply that out by the amount of individuals all having the same issues and its astronomical

IMO what it needs to be like is the same way petrol stations are now. You can just roll up and have a max of 5 mins to wait behind someone paying. Or just go to the petrol station across the road or in the next town.

Its bad enough having to wait 30 mins per 100km or so, without having your day ruined by failings in the infrastructure too.



Heres another example from yesterday (I have to give the car back tomorrow, i love the pre heat in the mornings).

Yesterday I had to go into work in the morning for an hour. When I got home my wife was to take the car to her mothers house. I ended up in work for 1.5 hours. On the way back I took a detour of 5 km to charge the car up on the way back so she would have a full charge when she was going out. There was a car charging so I had to go home so my wife could get going. Her mother called and she had to go half an hour earlier.

So now we have the car at home. 30 mins to charge it. We would miss the amount of km she needed to get to her mothers and back by 10km. So we thought what about charging on the way there for 10 mins. Problem - if there was a car there she is stuck and she is late to take her mother to her appointment.

What if she went all the way to her mothers and then found a charger after picking her up.
Problem. Her mother (92) would then be waiting either in the car for the charge or at her appointment for my wife to take the car and charge it. And if there was someone at that charger .....

What if she did all that and just tried her best to make it home or charge on the way home that night. Problem, Baby in the car too and dont want her driving around at night looking for a charger or worse running out of juice.

So there was only one solution. ICE car. God help us if we didnt have one.
Like I said, great for regular commute, but if something pops up, its a fail.

I really really want that car to meet my needs, but its the infrastructure thats is a huge problem.

seamus

Rother wrote: »

Say ive prebooked for a 30 minute charge at Gorey at 2pm.
I leave Dublin and expect to arrive there at 2pm. But the charger ive prebooked in Dublin isnt working or ive got delayed by traffic.
So eventually I arrive at Gorey outside my booked time. Back to square one.

Well obviously if the charger isn't working you can't book it. And doesn't the Leaf include real-time traffic? It could always account for that. No, it wouldn't be a perfect system, but there are ways and means. Like if you get stuck in traffic, the car instantly starts searching for free chargers closer to you and directs you five minutes off-route to that one rather than let you get to Gorey empty.

Or what if I was only 10 minutes late. Next guy is booked in at 2:30. But 20 mins doesnt get me enough juice to keep going.

Or what if I never arrived at Gorey for about an hour. So there is a guy booked at 2:30 but he arrives at 2:00 then he is waiting til mu slot is over even though i wasnt going to be using it.

Well your slot would expire after you're 5 minutes late, and the early guy can move his forward.

Or what if its booked out for the whole day?

And this is where all of the smart systems in the world can't beat the infrastructural problems. With a booking system you'll find at certain times of the day, some stations are always full because they're in strategic locations.

Perhaps they need to rethink it a bit. Rather than the forecourt model where space limits you to 4-8 cars at a time (assuming you have no petrol pumps!), you have a car park model where charging stations are some 100-space car park with nothing in it but charging points and a coffee shop with WiFi. Charging stations are infrastructurally much simpler than petrol stations and you could easily fit in 20 charging stations in the space occupied by a normal 8-pump petrol station.

On the way back I took a detour of 5 km to charge the car up on the way back so she would have a full charge when she was going out. There was a car charging so I had to go home
....
So we thought what about charging on the way there for 10 mins. Problem - if there was a car there she is stuck
....
What if she went all the way to her mothers and then found a charger after picking her up
....
Problem, Baby in the car too and dont want her driving around at night looking for a charger

So, these are all perfectly valid "what ifs" and clearly are issues with the system at present, but if you had the ability to find a free station and book it before you even started your journey, it seems to me that this issue would be mostly eliminated, unless you found no free stations within 5km of you.
The issue of things "popping up" seems to be that there is no flexibility in accessing stations in the same way that you have for petrol stations. If you find yourself in an ICE car leaving the house at 3am and low on petrol, before you even set off the first thing you will plan is where to find a 24-hour garage and fill up the car. So it seems like this kind of ability to reliably pre-plan is the major hurdle with EVs that you've found.

Rother

seamus wrote: »

Well obviously if the charger isn't working you can't book it. And doesn't the Leaf include real-time traffic? It could always account for that. No, it wouldn't be a perfect system, but there are ways and means. Like if you get stuck in traffic, the car instantly starts searching for free chargers closer to you and directs you five minutes off-route to that one rather than let you get to Gorey empty.
Well your slot would expire after you're 5 minutes late, and the early guy can move his forward.
And this is where all of the smart systems in the world can't beat the infrastructural problems. With a booking system you'll find at certain times of the day, some stations are always full because they're in strategic locations.

Perhaps they need to rethink it a bit. Rather than the forecourt model where space limits you to 4-8 cars at a time (assuming you have no petrol pumps!), you have a car park model where charging stations are some 100-space car park with nothing in it but charging points and a coffee shop with WiFi. Charging stations are infrastructurally much simpler than petrol stations and you could easily fit in 20 charging stations in the space occupied by a normal 8-pump petrol station.

But to make that car park idea pay you need lots more evs. And if the infrastructure cant cope now, more evs wont come. Chicken and egg.

I think a good model would be that every business on a road has a fast charger in their car park. Again the slow ones are no good unless you want to spend hours there in order to continue on your trip. The businesses would make money from the portion of people who are stopping for a while to drink coffee or go see the gardens or whatever.

And if you saw the gps in the Leaf, its a long, long way from smart. You would really laugh at it.

Seweryn

Ded_Zebra wrote: »

So in summary, have the Leaf for the commute and then something with a big thumping V8 for the weekend and long trips :D:cool:

Good idea.

The only minor inconvenience for your pocket is the €500 tax bill every 3 months for your V8 for those couple of trips you may be doing.

Rother

Seweryn wrote: »

Good idea.

The only minor inconvenience for your pocket is the €500 tax bill every 3 months for your V8 for those couple of trips you may be doing.

Any old runabout as a second car would do.

Having the Leaf is kind of like my bike.

Great for short trips, but for anything else i need a car that is nice and warm, comfortable and has an infrastructure that can be relied on.

So I have an ICE for when its needed, but my bike for the when the bike will do.

But i couldnt survive with only the bike. Likewise with only a Leaf.


Or - Have a mate who is dying to try out a Leaf and when you need an ICE for a long trip swap with him

I dont know if ill swap with him in future though. Maybe for a day or two at a time, but I need my ICE car.

Seweryn

Rother wrote: »

Any old runabout as a second car would do.

Sure, I know any would do. There was a suggestion of a large comfortable V8 engined one. The only problem is the standing charge for such a car. Yes, it is a lot cheaper to tax a smaller ICE car, but still you have to pay the same amout of the ownership tax either you use it once a month or as much as twice a month. Obviously, the Government will never consider including all taxes into the price of fuel.

Rother

Seweryn wrote: »

Sure, I know any would do. There was a suggestion of a large comfortable V8 engined one. The only problem is the standing charge for such a car. Yes, it is a lot cheaper to tax a smaller ICE car, but still you have to pay the same amout of the ownership tax either you use it once a month or as much as twice a month. Obviously, the Government will never consider including all taxes into the price of fuel.

Of course, you are correct.
I wouldnt be willing to keep two cars when only one is required.
And since having an ICE allows me to need only one car thats what I go for.

Having a Leaf, I would need two cars, so its not an option for me.

There are people who would get away with having only a Leaf. For those people its a great car.

NIMAN

I am soon changing my diesel car, and had seriously considered a Leaf as my next purchase, as it fits in with my daily commute and we have a 2nd car.

But I have decided against it for now, and will buy another ICE car.

Perhaps I might consider electric a few years down the line, when the range is doubled at least, and I don't have to worry about resale value.

galwaytt

Rother wrote: »

A friend borrowed my car for his holiday and left me with his Nissan Leaf for a couple of weeks, so I decided to embrace it and have a bit of fun testing it out. Ive been asked to post it here so here is the good and the bad.

Excellent report - and top marks for the Top Gear like 'race' too !

It does seen like the Leaf is a victim of its own success. ...

professore

Very good non fanboi review.

I think the Elon Musk idea about swappable batteries is a much better idea.

It takes about 5 minutes to fill an ICE car, and 30 minutes for a fast charge. Therefore you would need 6 times the amount of stations as there are currently petrol pumps if all cars were electric in the morning.

Sesshoumaru

If you do a Google image search for 'Tesla supercharger' and it's obvious other car companies have thought ahead.

I won't be waiting for the government or the ESB to improve the infrastructure. Tesla already make cars with much better range and their supercharger stations always have around 8 super chargers.

http://www.teslamotors.com/en_EU/models/design

Sesshoumaru

professore wrote: »

Very good non fanboi review.

I think the Elon Musk idea about swappable batteries is a much better idea.

It takes about 5 minutes to fill an ICE car, and 30 minutes for a fast charge. Therefore you would need 6 times the amount of stations as there are currently petrol pumps if all cars were electric in the morning.

I hardly ever use a fast charger. I can fill up at home any time I want. Which is what most EV owners do, most of the time. So your comparison is not valid unless people with ICE cars fill up at home most of the time.

http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ENVISSUENo12/page017.html

the average trip length by car is about 13-15 km for all European countries studied. Even though cars are increasingly built for higher speeds and longer trips, they are still used mainly for local transportation (about 80 % of all trips are less than 20 km and 60 % are less than 10 km). Since car trips are about the same length in the US as they are in the Netherlands, the higher US km-per-capita figures arise from more trips per person.

Just judging by the average distance traveled by most people across Europe, even current EV's like the Nissan Leaf, VW Golf, Kia Soul, VW e-up, Citroen C-Zero, Reanault Zoe, Nissan e-NV200, Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive, BMW i3, Chevrolet Spark, Ford Focus Electric and others; most people would be perfectly fine charging at home every night 99% of the time. So I can't really see us needing 6 times the number of fast charging stations as we have regular refilling stations. Everyone has electricity at home.

That's not to say that I don't see an issue with the current infrastructure. I admire Tesla's decision to roll out their fast chargers the way they have. Nissan executives have strongly hinted the next generation Leaf will have longer ranges and more battery options like Tesla. It should be interesting over the next 2 years to see what the competition between manufacturers produces.

galwaytt

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

I hardly ever use a fast charger. I can fill up at home any time I want. Which is what most EV owners do, most of the time. So your comparison is not valid unless people with ICE cars fill up at home most of the time.

http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ENVISSUENo12/page017.html


.

Incorrect: ICE car owners don't HAVE to fill up at home. They can fill up at 1000's of sites, in minutes, and don't need to buy or install any infrastructure to do so. They are also allowed and able to shop between multiple suppliers for fuel, which brings an element of competition.

The reason EV's are 'filled' at home is because there is no other infrastructure in place (of note, as OP points out), that allows them to function. As such you are tied to a single supplier as well, so you have no opportunity to shop for pricing.

EV's have a place, and certain advantages, but replacing an ICE isn't one of those - yet. OP was merely pointing that out.

Odyssey 2005

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

I hardly ever use a fast charger. I can fill up at home any time I want. Which is what most EV owners do, most of the time. So your comparison is not valid unless people with ICE cars fill up at home most of the time.

http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ENVISSUENo12/page017.html

You need to remove your rose tinted glasses. The op's report was totally impartial and a very honest account of his time and experience with a Nissan EV.

rolexeagle1

How much do you think it cost you over the 2 weeks in Electricity?

galwaytt

galwaytt wrote: »

The reason EV's are 'filled' at home is because there is no other infrastructure in place (of note, as OP points out), that allows them to function. As such you are tied to a single supplier as well, so you have no opportunity to shop for pricing.

Think you're missing the point here, the ice car can't fill up at home and the ev can while you sleep or are not driving so there is little need to go and find a place to charge.

Fast charging is limited solely by the fact that the battery in the smaller range cars such as the leaf can not take a faster charge rate, the tesla can naturally because the pack is 4 times bigger.

If leaf II has a 40 kWh battery in theory it could charge twice as fast or with a better chemistry 3 times faster, the limit will be the fast chargers.

What worries me is the ESB so far say they won't install multiple fast chargers in one location due to power supply issues. Yet though tesla can install many much more powerful chargers.

Will the current chargers be upgraded to say, 100 kw when the first cars come out than can charge fast ? I feel 110kw capable fast chargers should be installd in the beginning Though it would cost extra.

We need more companies and investment from the government into fast charging and not leave it all to the ESB.

We need work place charging , and a lot of ev owners on irishevowners seem to think free parking is the only thing that matters. These are the very people that tie up fast chargers and public slow chargers because some locations are free to park and for free power. And they get very ratty with me for suggesting that they concentrate their efforts on getting the government to provide work charging but it's of no interest to them because hey most likely don't do more than 40 miles a day and so free parking is all that interests them.

I'm sick of some of the attitude I get there on the group and get a lot of " when your an ev owner you can talk" or " what ev do you drive?"

It bewilders me that someone willing to pay 25-28 k on a car could care about 1-2 euros for parking over being able to charge at work, which I also would not expect for free, to me being able to charge while out and about would be a privilege and something Id be willing to pay a reasonable price for a decent infrastructure.

Free charging and parking only encourages people to charge for free leaving those that need the chargers waiting behind while they happily sit for 30 mins sucking every free watt they can.

Sesshoumaru

Odyssey 2005 wrote: »

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

I hardly ever use a fast charger. I can fill up at home any time I want. Which is what most EV owners do, most of the time. So your comparison is not valid unless people with ICE cars fill up at home most of the time.

http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ENVISSUENo12/page017.html

You need to remove your rose tinted glasses. The op's report was totally impartial and a very honest account of his time and experience with a Nissan EV.

I didn't reply to the op. Not sure what you are saying?

Yakuza

Thanks OP for recounting your real-world experience. To me, it really highlights that (in Ireland at least), beyond anything but the most basic of commuting / shopping trips , the Leaf isn't fit for purpose as a family car.
Do Nissan have plans for a hybrid in Europe? I still maintain that's the best trade off - ICE for long journeys or when the batteries are tapped out, and batteries for the short hops / stop-start driving. No need for charging infrastructure either.

Sesshoumaru

galwaytt wrote: »

Incorrect: ICE car owners don't HAVE to fill up at home. They can fill up at 1000's of sites, in minutes, and don't need to buy or install any infrastructure to do so. They are also allowed and able to shop between multiple suppliers for fuel, which brings an element of competition.

The reason EV's are 'filled' at home is because there is no other infrastructure in place (of note, as OP points out), that allows them to function. As such you are tied to a single supplier as well, so you have no opportunity to shop for pricing.

EV's have a place, and certain advantages, but replacing an ICE isn't one of those - yet. OP was merely pointing that out.

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.

Scottie99

Yakuza wrote: »

Thanks OP for recounting your real-world experience. To me, it really highlights that (in Ireland at least), beyond anything but the most basic of commuting / shopping trips , the Leaf isn't fit for purpose as a family car.
Do Nissan have plans for a hybrid in Europe? I still maintain that's the best trade off - ICE for long journeys or when the batteries are tapped out, and batteries for the short hops / stop-start driving. No need for charging infrastructure either.

I've been driving the car for 14 months and 30000km and to write it straight off as " isn't fit for purpose as a family car" isn't particularly fair. We do use the car all the time for family occasions without too much hassle. An example, we're just back from a weekend in Aughrim and the Leaf was outstanding..
Granted they're are sometimes issues but these can be worked around

ted1

Deleted User wrote: »

Fast charging is limited solely by the fact that the battery in the smaller range cars such as the leaf can not take a faster charge rate, the tesla can naturally because the pack is 4 times bigger.

That is just nonsense, the size of the battery is irrelevant*, whats important is that current that it can take.

* the amount of energy will then affect charge time.

ted1

ted1 wrote: »

That is just nonsense, the size of the battery is irrelevant*, whats important is that current that it can take.

* the amount of energy will then affect charge time.

No it's far from being nonsense !

The current it can take is important of course but a few other things come into play.

If for instance a 20 Ah battery is designed to take a 1C charge rate then this means it can charge at 20Amps , if it's designed to take 3C then it can charge at 60 amps. "C" is the capacity of the battery in Ah multiply by the charge rate or "C"rate.

So a 20ah battery rated to charge at 3 C means it can take 60 amps of charge.

So the leaf has a 24 kwh battery 21 usable, it's a 360 volt nominal battery 61 ah.

so 360 volts x 61 ah =21,600 Kwh.

If the leaf can charge at 50 kw that's a current of, 50000 divide 440 volts = 113 amps = a 1.8 C charge rate.

If the Leaf could charge at the Tesla rate of 110 kw that = 250 amps.

250 amps would be a 4.1C battery. So the leaf would need a 4.1C battery to take such a charge. However there is no cell data from NEC in regard to charging the Leaf cells, so a 1.8C daily fast charge could indeed shorten the life of the battery, even if it never gets hot.

Now here is where we get to the size of the battery.

If the Leaf battery had 246 ah capacity @360 volts = 88 kwh or roughly that of the tesla.

So if you now charge this battery at the Tesla rate of 110 Kw you're charging at 250 Amps = a fraction over 1C meaning no stress of the battery as most modern batteries are designed to take a 1C charge rate.

Of course there are batteries that can take a 65C charge rate which is it's capacity x 65, so in the hobby RC world using LiPo batteries they could charge their 5ah batteries at 65C or 325 amps, that's some serious juice. They can discharge at 100C or 500 amps, this is why you can now see car jumper batteries now than can jump a 3.0L engine that are no bigger than about 2 large boxes of matches !

Unfortunately LiPo can be dangerous but it's much better than a few years ago, and it has a shorter cycle life but in the RC E-bike world (high power e-bike ) faster charge/discharge are more important than cycle life.

So as you can see the size of the battery means it can naturally take a faster rate of charge without altering the chemistry to make it take a faster rate. So it's far from being irrelevant as you say !

The same applies to discharge rates too.