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

househero

Sound like a charge station app would be handy to see where's available and where's there's a q

And why did you not charge it to 100% over night???

Rother

househero wrote: »

Sound like a charge station app would be handy to see where's available and where's there's a q

And why did you not charge it to 100% over night???

I did charge to 100%. But I was leaving from Ashbourne and planning to go to Roundwood, so had to stop off at a fast charger en route.
The fast chargers only allow you to charge to 80%. Some of them to 100% but that takes an hour. I tried it one day.

toadfly

Double post, can't delete from my phone.

toadfly

I have a Leaf and agree with the OP, the main problem for me is the infastructure. IMO ESB seem to have no interest in it and their staff haven't a clue.

I use mine mainly for commute to work but have gone to Dublin, Cork & Mayo from Galway without much hassle. For me the inconvenienceof charging on long journeys is worth it for the monthly saving of €160.

Sesshoumaru

Rother wrote: »

I take all your points on board.
I could only get the car to charge to 80% in Templeogue. When you do your trip what % do you have your car charged to when you do it?

My point about slow chargers is that if I am on my way somewhere a slow charger is no use whatsoever. OK I could call into Dundrum for a few hours and watch a movie or two, but I dont think people generally do that on a trip down the country from Dublin. Imagine having to add a movie to your trip each 100 odd km )
As much as I like the movies, I dont think thats for me.
To me what you have said is another example of the car running the owner and not the owner running a car.

One weekend we stayed down in Cork city. The hotel we stayed in had a slow charger as well. It was the exact same model we have on our wall at home, so that is 6 to 7 hours to charge the car. Still it was great to be away from home and still wake up to a fully charged car the next morning Celbridge to Gorey is a 100% charge. I had 1 bar left when I reached Gorey, that was with a fully packed car though.

A lot of the time we are bringing the kids somewhere and you just end up spending time there. In those instances it's nice the rare time you find a public charging spot not ICED and free to use. Anyways I think our driving habits have changed since switching to EV only. Mostly good changes I feel, some bad I admit. Obviously longer journeys need more planing. On the other hand we make more effort to enjoy the places we stop in. When I drove my old Audi it was a reasonably fast car and I have to say I always felt compelled to drive it faster. Driving an EV forced me to change my car driving style quite a bit. I also know from the online data the Leaf uploads that the total amount we drive now is much higher than when we had an ICE car. I put this down to not having to worry about fuel costs. I still remember the olden days when I had an ICE car. For sure there were times we actually decided against making a trip, simply because it was costing too much on fuel. The cost of fuel can be quite a limiting factor as well.

Sesshoumaru

GekkePrutser wrote: »

That's not always the case, if you live in an apartment like myself you don't have your private parking space at the house.

I'd love to get an electric car but it's not doable to roll out a 20 metre long cable hanging out of an open window to plug the car in (not to mention the tripping hazard caused on public property). For me it only would work if there'd be charging stations at work (and then it would work quite well I have to say). Charging stations in apartment blocks should really be commonplace.

PS: Thanks to the OP for this experience.. I always thought the long trips were the biggest drawback of electric cars. For me it wouldn't really matter, my girlfriend has a car too so we could always keep one ICE.

But the biggest drawback at the moment for me is limited secondhand availability. I don't care for driving new cars, I always drive 2000-3000 euro bangers until they're unviable to repair (my current one cost me 1300 and has been going almost 5 years with about 500 spent on repairs and maintenance ). Electric cars are always new, so there is a massive investment there, completely negating the fuel price advantage (I only pay 70 a month in fuel for my commute and run-around-town driving)

I'd love to drive electric for the environment but it does have to be economically viable too.. Not so at the moment... Too bad but I'll keep an eye on it of course.

By the way, someone mentioned that the ESB will only install one fast charger per station because of limited capacity at their power grid. That would make me worry what happens if EVs really take off. If their grid is so bad that adding a few 6kW chargers at a commercial premises isn't doable, I bet they will lag behind massively with installing their stations due to all the needed backbone upgrades.

The law needs to be changed to facilitate people living in apartments, that is for sure. I totally 100% agree. I take your point on buying secondhand. Before I became aware of the Nissan Leaf being in development, I also thought the same. I definitely could not afford a new car the price of the Nissan Leaf if it came with regular running costs. Both my wife and I work as IT professionals, so in our case there was also a large element of being early adopters of new technology. Over 3 years later we are both still 100% happy with the decision we made.

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.

However if you look across the US and continental Europe, Tesla are installing their superchargers (their name for fast chargers) in pods of 8.

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger



Their superchargers output at over 100 kilowatt and they can install 8 per pod. Their website doesn't indicate any planned superchargers for Ireland, so maybe our power grid is limited compared to the rest of Europe? I'm not an expert in this area, but I'd love to see a post from someone who is more familiar with this.

househero

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

The law needs to be changed to facilitate people living in apartments, that is for sure. I totally 100% agree. I take your point on buying secondhand. Before I became aware of the Nissan Leaf being in development, I also thought the same. I definitely could not afford a new car the price of the Nissan Leaf if it came with regular running costs. Both my wife and I work as IT professionals, so in our case there was also a large element of being early adopters of new technology. Over 3 years later we are both still 100% happy with the decision we made.

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.

However if you look across the US and continental Europe, Tesla are installing their superchargers (their name for fast chargers) in pods of 8.

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger



Their superchargers output at over 100 kilowatt and they can install 8 per pod. Their website doesn't indicate any planned superchargers for Ireland, so maybe our power grid is limited compared to the rest of Europe? I'm not an expert in this area, but I'd love to see a post from someone who is more familiar with this.

Isn't the restricted output charger based on the domestic 2 phase supply, large business s and factories have 3 phase supply's and can support much faster charge stations.

loinnsigh

Long Gone wrote: »

What is known as "range anxiety" ruins the Nissan Leaf experience - i.e. worrying all the time about running out of juice. Also there is no way I would pay the ridiculous monthly rental charge they want for the batteries.

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.

Long Gone wrote: »

The car is also not necessarily very green - It depends how the electricity used to charge the batteries is generated. If it is generated by clean, green nuclear power then fair enough.

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

Sesshoumaru

househero wrote: »

Isn't the restricted output charger based on the domestic 2 phase supply, large business s and factories have 3 phase supply's and can support much faster charge stations.

Yes you are right as well I think. Currently the ESB will give you a 16 amp 3.3 kw charger at home. In theory though you shouldn't have much trouble running a 32 amp 6.6 kw. Whoever you are though, home owner or business, you connect back to your local substation, which I was told has a typical capacity of 250 kw.

BigEejit

Jaysus, Tesla has 8 charging stations at each site x 17. If every point was in use at the same time thats 13.6MW :0

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.