I really don't want to push my luck charging at work. The chief plant engineer already announced he wanted to talk to me about this Leaf charging business. I've been waiting...hiding in plain sight. I cut it off at 58% charge not to push my luck. Well, last night it gave me another shocker. I'm used to losing all bars about 4 miles from the house. I usually get 6 freeway blinking lines miles to make it home. The little sob hit me with the turtle mode just as I was climbing the last 200 yards home. Got me sweatin'. I figured wet pavement, wipers did it in. Now what is starting to bug me is the range. Last year I've read articles where test guys were getting OVER 100 mile range in 40 mph settings. Yeah, right! Nowhere near that number, folks. That's one pipe dream. My average sits at 3.5 and won't budge.
I've got 2000 miles on it and I do want to destroy that battery before the warranty runs out so I truly don't care topping it off and do whatever I need to do to it to get me where I need to go, particularly coming home from work at 11 pm. Folks, I'm not pullling over. It has to make it home. So now I'm charging longer at work - to over 60% because those no-bars miles seem now shorter than they were just 2 weeks ago. I must say today is a dry day and the miles behaved much better coming in, I arrived with 42 smilley miles after a top-off.
Antother thing: I use cruise control. Some contend it's a mile eater. Since I was running out of juice last night, I did the pedal -- ease up, push a little, ease up - you know, a little charging up. I don't think it helped at all. Barely made it up the hill.
So, I wonder now if my battery is factory correct, meaning, are all segments (144 of them?) in working order? Where is that 100 mile range? I love the car, save for the crappy-sounding stereo, but I really thought I was going to make my 82-mile round trip and I'm nowhere near that - short at least 10 miles. So, freeway - we're talking 70 miles max at 66 mph. Am I correct? Is that all it can do?