davewill said:
The best plan is to know where all the 240v EVSEs are in your area (or at least along your route) and plan ahead.
This is my favorite response so far.
In my case:
50% of the time my trips are WELL within the range of the car, even accounting for unexpected detours (which would be kind of hard to imagine since I'm not really more than 15-20 miles from my house)
30% of the time I may be outside that absolutely comfortable zone, but it's still within the range of the car, and I'm very familiar with exactly how much juice I'll use. Even if I'm close to the "edge" of the limits of the car, I'll drive conservatively if I need to, and if I was to fall short it would probably be within a few miles of my house. And I am intimately familiar with all the charging stations within a 10-15 mile radius of my house (thanks to plugshare and other on-line map sites) if I needed to top off.
15% of the time (so far, but this category is shrinking) I may go to a new area I haven't been and am not really sure about how much buffer I'll have. I plan these trips out using online maps, checking mileage very carefully and comparing to similar distance trips I have taken. If it's going to be at all close I'll research remote charging options and have a backup or two in mind. If I haven't verified a particular charging station and actually gotten a charge, I don't go past 6 bars (half the battery). I probably wouldn't attempt such a trip if I couldn't be flexible and go charge somewhere for an hour or two if I needed it. If my schedule was tight, I would not take the LEAF. Having said that, I'd try really hard to build extra time into the trip for a charge as I do like to learn what the limits of the LEAF are and add that to my list of "known" doable trips.
5% of the time it's just too far, or I can't afford to stop for an emergency charge, so I'll take the ICE car. This has only happened 5 times since I got the LEAF.
In over 5400 miles this strategy has worked well for me. Only once have I been down to 0 bars (barely), and even then I was just driving around my neighborhood and not too concerned. I understand that I probably had at least another 10 miles of range at that point.
I do make use of the NAV system when doing longer trips, even when I know the route, because I can put in all my waypoints for the trip to get a total distance remaining and I can gauge that against the number of bars remaining and the guess-o-meter (I don't take the miles it reports literally, but once you know kind of how it's working you can adjust in your head how many miles you have remaining approximately).
I would say that in almost all cases if you are running low on battery you will be VERY near your home (if not, you really didn't plan things out properly).
And like I said, you'll quickly get used to knowing how much battery it takes to get to various places and in a few more months you won't be worried about this what-if because you'll be very confident that you'll either have the range you need, or, if you ARE pushing it, have several different backup plans should you need them.