EV owner gathering - Sandyford

RoverJames wrote: »

I'm sure there's a thread or a link to the build of that BMW on here somewhere

Yes there is, the owner has a few hundred posts on Boards. Nice guy and he did a great job on the conversion of that BMW. Slightly envious that I wouldn't have the knowledge and skills to do what he has done.

keithclancy wrote: »

I'm not talking about the comfort, more like you see a road closed sign and you can't drive around it becuase it adds KM's to your journey

52000km / year in a Leaf, wonder how long it takes to go from 100% range down to 80% and you lose your ability to get to work on one charge.

My current car is far cheaper to run than a leaf.

The Leaf was available in Japan a good bit earlier than the rest of the world. I have heard one owner in Japan has already reached 250,000 kilometers on their Leaf by averaging 6 X fast charges per day. The car and battery were still going fine of course, the degradation I wasn't told except that it was what they expected. But to be honest that does seem reassuring to me as fast charging with 50kW is the hardest on the battery, doing it six times per day and still reaching 250,000 kilometers seems alright to me.

Some of the owners I know have started getting their Leaf's serviced now as well. Some of them have asked to be shown the reading on the battery capacity the diagnostic comes back with. So far there has been zero degradation with the highest mileage I know about personally being 25,000 kilometers in the first year.

The person in question has about 3 fast chargers along his route that he could use if he had to divert. The AA also carry 4kWh packs to charge you at the side of the road. I guess it would also depend on where the road was closed and how much of diversion a person had to take. No one I know is running into these issues though and the charging network becomes more extensive month after month.

Matt Simis wrote: »

How did you say hello in person if you all wore white bags on your heads?

We only put them on when we were taking pictures

keithclancy wrote: »

250,000km on a car in Japan, who is this person, the Average mileage in Japan is incredibly low compared to Europe, around 10000km/year.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to say that the first people who buy electric cars may not conform to the average. I also can't offer you incontrovertible proof of what I say. Nissan are very interested in the feedback from Irish owners and in turn as a group of owners you could say we have demanded feedback from Nissan. If you choose not to believe me, I accept that.

galvo_clare wrote: »

My problem with electric cars is that the charging point seems to be at the front in most cases. Is the charging lead long enough to allow you to reverse into a space?
Shouldn't there be at least the option of a charging point at the rear of the car?

The BMW EV had a charging port on the front and the back. But yeah the cable that comes with the Leaf is very long, I think it would let you reverse in and stretch the cable around comfortably. I think the Renault Fluence ZE has two charging ports, one on each side as opposed to front or back. So it should also charge comfortably parked either way. If that's your only major gripe, I think you should go out and test drive one today

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

I'd say you'd get an interestign reaction from the first Gard that spots that in the back if you drove around without the parcel shelf. :-)

I hadn't thought about that, but I think it's possible they might act first and ask questions later