gudy
Well-known member
I apologize in advance for the very lengthy post.
Yesterday was truly an exceptional day for me, this post will likely be boring to a lot of people, but for the ones interested in what my experience was, here you go :
Yesterday started fairly early, with a retired fireman picking me up at 8h15 in the morning, to drive me to Petaluma (in a Nissan altima hybrid) ... the ride was fairly quiet, and clearly in contrast with the rest of the day. I was really impatient to get there, and at the same time, once we arrived at 9h45, I became a little bit anxious, when seeing the amount of people and cameras. From there it was an almost non-stop roller-coaster ride till 3:30pm when we left San Francisco. Everyone was congratulating me, and knew my name, which was a little bit disorienting and intimidating. I did a quick tour of the dealership, and I was then introduced to the car. Got wired up with a couple of wireless microphones for the various camera crews. We walked around the car with an employee from Nissan describing the various features, which I believe was more for the cameras than myself. We got into the car, where the explanations continued on the dashboard, nav system, and a lot of the various buttons / features of the car -and the car has a lot - . Then we did a short test drive for maybe 5-10 miles
That's when I first heard this "sound of the future" that you will all experience soon. The car doesn't make a lot of noise, but is not completely silent. As as you reach 40 mph, with full throttle on, you hear this so exciting noise (which is still barely audible, and you'll need to have the radio and climate control off to really appreciate it) that seems to be coming from a turbine / jet engine. At that point, it really feels like you're gliding on the road, piloting something closer to an aircraft than a car. That's when, for me, I realized that I was about to purchase a true car of the future, a real break-through in technology, rather than a simple evolution. We did a little bit of highway on the way back, and while the car definitely looses some of its "punch" one you reach 65 / 70 mph, it can still accelerate.
We then went through finance (tier 1 rate was 3.59% APR), that part actually was the most relaxing part of the day, and the quietest one.
I asked about the $99 refundable deposit, and as things apparently weren't that clear on that front, they promptly decided to knock off $99 off the price just to be sure. No surprise on pricing, and I wasn't offered anything extra, other than some Nissan extra warranty coverage (they have 2 levels in addition to the basic warranty, one called silver, and one called gold). They don't seem to cover anything extra regarding the battery coverage, but I'll try and scan the brochure tomorrow when I'm in the office, so that you guys can have a look at it. Pricing depends on number of miles / years, but the first few numbers I heard were in the $1000+ range, so I simply declined it.
You get to sign a paper which lists all the things Nissan is not covering, and has a few stupid mentions (which you can tell are there for legal purposes) like "when replacing the battery pack of the leaf, the expected cost will be greater than that of replacing a regular 12V battery" (no kidding).
Some news (I think) on the battery coverage, as everyone knows it's 8 years, 100,000 miles (or whatever the number announced was). There is no warranty on the gradual capacity loss ... unless the overall battery capacity falls bellow 60% of the original capacity during the warranty period. I believe that 60% after 100,000 miles / 8 years is actually quite fair. We know that battery capacity will get lower, and I'm fine if Nissan covers the battery under warranty as soon as it drops bellow 60% of its initial capacity. Now I may have mis-interpreted this number, so we should double check on that.
Once that got done, I did a few interviews with the press, met Nick Chambers (really nice guy -- and probably the only one from the press that I knew from his articles --), answered the same questions many times ("why are you the first ?", "why this car?", ...). Some journalists were taking notes, some recording the audio, some shooting with their cameras, and I realized that you get more tense as the support is stronger (ie, very calm with journalists taking notes by hand, a bit more tense with the ones recording the audio, and way more with the ones filming ...).
... but we had to move on, as the clock was ticking, and it was time for the small ceremony in Petaluma. I met with Carlos Tavares, really nice guy (who happens to speak french with no accent, and did some of his studies in a city where I also studied). Being among the top 6 executives of Nissan (150,000 employees if I understand correctly), I was really surprised at how "approachable" he his, he instantly made me feel comfortable with him, and he is clearly not the kind of person who looks at you "from above". He's got a really great contact with people. It's nice to see leaders who are not living in a different world
On that front, I must say that all the people I had the honor to meet from Nissan were really nice. Some special thoughts to Paul Hawson, from Product Planning (and the only one I met who was more on the engineering side of things, which could explain why I liked him so much, but really I see the LEAF as his baby, and once you have the car, you'll have to agree that you have to like his father ).
So, we got out, my car now being hidden under a drape, and a few people talked including the owner of the dealership, the mayor of Petaluma, (someone else), and finally Mr. Tavares. We then uncovered the car with Carlos (sorry Mr. Tavares, but I'm more used to name people after their first name), and he handed me the keys and shaked my hand in front of the media (and you can tell he's accustomed to it, and that he knows that the press needs a handshake that lasts many seconds, rather than a regular one ...). I think that I've been asked some questions at that point (well, I was being asked questions all day long, so it's hard to remember specific times when that happened), including one (which I think is on one of the videos I've seen online), which left me a little bit "blank" : "so, what did you feel when Mr. Tavares gave you the keys ?" (honestly, that was the 3rd time in the day I was given my keys, and I didn't know what to answer).
We then left, with Carlos, Paul (hooray), and a journalist from Bloomberg I believe. I was following a blue LEAF driven by Tim Gallagher (who handles PR for Nissan on the West Coast), with Katherine Zachary (from Corporate Communications) sitting next to him. Katherine is the one who kept me in the loop -along with Ron my contact at North Bay Nissan- over the last week or 2, in terms of what to expect for yesterday. I was followed by 3 more LEAFs, including one driven by Nick (Chambers). A crew was filming us as we were driving south towards the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco ( the same one who did the various Facebook videos for the drive electric tour I believe). We were driving at fairly low pace (55/60 mph), which could have been to save battery range, or to facilitate the work of the filming crew.
We talked about a few things during the drive, and I had the chance to ask Paul a few technical questions, like if Eco mode was really making a difference other than making the pedal harder to press (and yes it does). He was glad to see me use the bluetooth connection to stream some music over it (that part works really great, but over bluetooth, you can't skip songs, it's a simple play / pause interface). Overall, it was really nice to see how Paul is confident about his baby. "Should I drive in Eco mode, and turn off climate control", I asked. "Just drive like you usually would, and you'll be fine, don't worry" was his answer. He knows what the LEAF is capable off, and he knew that I was going to be fine yesterday.
Once we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, 3 cars kept going, while mine and the first one (the blue one, for the one not following, this otherwise very simple and short story), got out of the highway to try and get a shot of the cars with the GGB in the background. But it was way too foggy, and (in my mind) we simply wasted a few kW going a fairly steep uphill road ... That's likely what made us late for the 1:30PM press conference in San Francisco (well, that and the traffic in the City).
Driving on the highway in the LEAF and talking to 3 passengers is very relaxing, given the low sound level of the car. I felt at ease with the car and its handling instantly (as if I had been driving it for a few days before), which, as I think about it, has to be a first. I've always had to adapt to cars (for example when renting one during vacation), but the LEAF is a "natural". Instant torque, zero emission, and zero learning curve.
So, we arrived in San Francisco, where quite a few people were waiting, including my wife and kids, which Nissan had picked up at my home an hour earlier. Then there were the few talks from various people (the video is on youtube), and right after we went to plug in the car. (yeah, by the way, we arrived in San Francisco with 31 miles of range left in the car, which was actually making me a little bit anxious about getting home, and Nissan wanted to wait for after the press conference to plug the car in front of the cameras for the 1st time) - again, Paul was really not worried about it, even though Redwood City was now in the "light grey" zone on the map (light means you'll make it, light grey means you'll likely make it if you drive responsibly, and dark grey means you will not make it ... or at least that's how I look at the map).
So, after the conference I plugged/unplugged the car about 5 times, which anyway was not going to charge that easily, because someone had to scan a keycard in front of the charging station to turn it on.
Got a bunch of interviews from that point, and at 3:00pm I had to tell a reporter to wait for a sec, as I really needed to drink something (I hadn't had anything to drink since a cup of coffee I half drank when I arrived in Petaluma)... People were playing around with the plug, which means my car was not really charging (as you need to re-scan the card every time). By the way, Tim, if you're reading this - and I know that a few people from Nissan are ...-, I'd like to get the card back (when I understood the charging station needed a card, I asked the person who had it how I could get one, and he happily handed the card over and told me "it's yours", but as people were playing with the plug, Tim offered to make sure someone would re-scan the card every time, so I handed the card to him ...).
I was asked to do a few turns around the block, (and that's when I got asked if I was worried about range ... I said I would not be worried about it during my normal operation of the car, given I was driving only 20 miles a day, and I added that I was starting look at it (she wanted me to do a 2nd pass around the block, which I declined -- yes I have to admit, I got touched by range anxiety yesterday --).
A few more interviews, and then it was time to leave, my wife and kids were already ready in the car. I left with something like 34-35 miles of range left. Got a phone call from a reporter while I was driving on the highway (my iphone being linked to the car via bluetooth), it was a great experience. The car is so silent, you don't have to shout to be heard, and you hear the other person really well via the car speakers (that's a first for me, I've never had a car with that kind of equipement / convenience).
I drove at 65 mph this time (I'm not going to drive at 55mph because I drive an electric car), but I didn't drive very often at 75 mph (closer to what I'm used to with a gas engine).
We all made it home safely, and the car had 10 miles left in it. I instantly plugged it in. I drove it again that evening with a friend of mine, it actually charges pretty quickly (well, or rather you'd think that 8 hours is long, but it's not, and in a few hours you already have enough back in the pack to feel confident about doing a 10 miles trip to test out performance ;p).
I would like to thank, in no specific order :
Nathaniel Villarreal, who did my EVSE install. I can attest that the EVSE works great (I've been using it a lot in the last 24 hours ;p), and his pricing is the best I was able to find in the Bay Area ... highly recommended.
The owner of the Petaluma Dealership
Ron Coury, who I was in contact with from north bay nissan, and gave me 5% off MSRP.
Katherine Zachary, who kept me informed before the event, and organized a meeting with me, her, Paul, Tim, and 4th Nissan employee on friday to brief me in advance.
Tim Gallagher, for organizing the interviews with the press on Saturday. Tim, I just wished english had been my native language. But it was fun !
Paul Hawson, for making such a fantastic car. Paul was responsible for the GTR prior to working on the LEAF. He told me on Friday that they spent as much time and energy to think about all the details on the LEAF than they had for the GTR. I haven't driven a GTR, but I believe him.
Carlos Tavares for being so nice
Carlos Ghosn, for having the vision, and the guts to build electric cars.
All the Nissan employees for executing so well on this vision
Everyone here for your help, support, and all the information / knowledge I got in these last 5 months.
And my wife for her patience, and support.
Yesterday was truly an exceptional day for me, this post will likely be boring to a lot of people, but for the ones interested in what my experience was, here you go :
Yesterday started fairly early, with a retired fireman picking me up at 8h15 in the morning, to drive me to Petaluma (in a Nissan altima hybrid) ... the ride was fairly quiet, and clearly in contrast with the rest of the day. I was really impatient to get there, and at the same time, once we arrived at 9h45, I became a little bit anxious, when seeing the amount of people and cameras. From there it was an almost non-stop roller-coaster ride till 3:30pm when we left San Francisco. Everyone was congratulating me, and knew my name, which was a little bit disorienting and intimidating. I did a quick tour of the dealership, and I was then introduced to the car. Got wired up with a couple of wireless microphones for the various camera crews. We walked around the car with an employee from Nissan describing the various features, which I believe was more for the cameras than myself. We got into the car, where the explanations continued on the dashboard, nav system, and a lot of the various buttons / features of the car -and the car has a lot - . Then we did a short test drive for maybe 5-10 miles
That's when I first heard this "sound of the future" that you will all experience soon. The car doesn't make a lot of noise, but is not completely silent. As as you reach 40 mph, with full throttle on, you hear this so exciting noise (which is still barely audible, and you'll need to have the radio and climate control off to really appreciate it) that seems to be coming from a turbine / jet engine. At that point, it really feels like you're gliding on the road, piloting something closer to an aircraft than a car. That's when, for me, I realized that I was about to purchase a true car of the future, a real break-through in technology, rather than a simple evolution. We did a little bit of highway on the way back, and while the car definitely looses some of its "punch" one you reach 65 / 70 mph, it can still accelerate.
We then went through finance (tier 1 rate was 3.59% APR), that part actually was the most relaxing part of the day, and the quietest one.
I asked about the $99 refundable deposit, and as things apparently weren't that clear on that front, they promptly decided to knock off $99 off the price just to be sure. No surprise on pricing, and I wasn't offered anything extra, other than some Nissan extra warranty coverage (they have 2 levels in addition to the basic warranty, one called silver, and one called gold). They don't seem to cover anything extra regarding the battery coverage, but I'll try and scan the brochure tomorrow when I'm in the office, so that you guys can have a look at it. Pricing depends on number of miles / years, but the first few numbers I heard were in the $1000+ range, so I simply declined it.
You get to sign a paper which lists all the things Nissan is not covering, and has a few stupid mentions (which you can tell are there for legal purposes) like "when replacing the battery pack of the leaf, the expected cost will be greater than that of replacing a regular 12V battery" (no kidding).
Some news (I think) on the battery coverage, as everyone knows it's 8 years, 100,000 miles (or whatever the number announced was). There is no warranty on the gradual capacity loss ... unless the overall battery capacity falls bellow 60% of the original capacity during the warranty period. I believe that 60% after 100,000 miles / 8 years is actually quite fair. We know that battery capacity will get lower, and I'm fine if Nissan covers the battery under warranty as soon as it drops bellow 60% of its initial capacity. Now I may have mis-interpreted this number, so we should double check on that.
Once that got done, I did a few interviews with the press, met Nick Chambers (really nice guy -- and probably the only one from the press that I knew from his articles --), answered the same questions many times ("why are you the first ?", "why this car?", ...). Some journalists were taking notes, some recording the audio, some shooting with their cameras, and I realized that you get more tense as the support is stronger (ie, very calm with journalists taking notes by hand, a bit more tense with the ones recording the audio, and way more with the ones filming ...).
... but we had to move on, as the clock was ticking, and it was time for the small ceremony in Petaluma. I met with Carlos Tavares, really nice guy (who happens to speak french with no accent, and did some of his studies in a city where I also studied). Being among the top 6 executives of Nissan (150,000 employees if I understand correctly), I was really surprised at how "approachable" he his, he instantly made me feel comfortable with him, and he is clearly not the kind of person who looks at you "from above". He's got a really great contact with people. It's nice to see leaders who are not living in a different world
On that front, I must say that all the people I had the honor to meet from Nissan were really nice. Some special thoughts to Paul Hawson, from Product Planning (and the only one I met who was more on the engineering side of things, which could explain why I liked him so much, but really I see the LEAF as his baby, and once you have the car, you'll have to agree that you have to like his father ).So, we got out, my car now being hidden under a drape, and a few people talked including the owner of the dealership, the mayor of Petaluma, (someone else), and finally Mr. Tavares. We then uncovered the car with Carlos (sorry Mr. Tavares, but I'm more used to name people after their first name), and he handed me the keys and shaked my hand in front of the media (and you can tell he's accustomed to it, and that he knows that the press needs a handshake that lasts many seconds, rather than a regular one ...). I think that I've been asked some questions at that point (well, I was being asked questions all day long, so it's hard to remember specific times when that happened), including one (which I think is on one of the videos I've seen online), which left me a little bit "blank" : "so, what did you feel when Mr. Tavares gave you the keys ?" (honestly, that was the 3rd time in the day I was given my keys, and I didn't know what to answer).
We then left, with Carlos, Paul (hooray), and a journalist from Bloomberg I believe. I was following a blue LEAF driven by Tim Gallagher (who handles PR for Nissan on the West Coast), with Katherine Zachary (from Corporate Communications) sitting next to him. Katherine is the one who kept me in the loop -along with Ron my contact at North Bay Nissan- over the last week or 2, in terms of what to expect for yesterday. I was followed by 3 more LEAFs, including one driven by Nick (Chambers). A crew was filming us as we were driving south towards the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco ( the same one who did the various Facebook videos for the drive electric tour I believe). We were driving at fairly low pace (55/60 mph), which could have been to save battery range, or to facilitate the work of the filming crew.
We talked about a few things during the drive, and I had the chance to ask Paul a few technical questions, like if Eco mode was really making a difference other than making the pedal harder to press (and yes it does). He was glad to see me use the bluetooth connection to stream some music over it (that part works really great, but over bluetooth, you can't skip songs, it's a simple play / pause interface). Overall, it was really nice to see how Paul is confident about his baby. "Should I drive in Eco mode, and turn off climate control", I asked. "Just drive like you usually would, and you'll be fine, don't worry" was his answer. He knows what the LEAF is capable off, and he knew that I was going to be fine yesterday.
Once we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, 3 cars kept going, while mine and the first one (the blue one, for the one not following, this otherwise very simple and short story), got out of the highway to try and get a shot of the cars with the GGB in the background. But it was way too foggy, and (in my mind) we simply wasted a few kW going a fairly steep uphill road ... That's likely what made us late for the 1:30PM press conference in San Francisco (well, that and the traffic in the City).
Driving on the highway in the LEAF and talking to 3 passengers is very relaxing, given the low sound level of the car. I felt at ease with the car and its handling instantly (as if I had been driving it for a few days before), which, as I think about it, has to be a first. I've always had to adapt to cars (for example when renting one during vacation), but the LEAF is a "natural". Instant torque, zero emission, and zero learning curve.
So, we arrived in San Francisco, where quite a few people were waiting, including my wife and kids, which Nissan had picked up at my home an hour earlier. Then there were the few talks from various people (the video is on youtube), and right after we went to plug in the car. (yeah, by the way, we arrived in San Francisco with 31 miles of range left in the car, which was actually making me a little bit anxious about getting home, and Nissan wanted to wait for after the press conference to plug the car in front of the cameras for the 1st time) - again, Paul was really not worried about it, even though Redwood City was now in the "light grey" zone on the map (light means you'll make it, light grey means you'll likely make it if you drive responsibly, and dark grey means you will not make it ... or at least that's how I look at the map).
So, after the conference I plugged/unplugged the car about 5 times, which anyway was not going to charge that easily, because someone had to scan a keycard in front of the charging station to turn it on.
Got a bunch of interviews from that point, and at 3:00pm I had to tell a reporter to wait for a sec, as I really needed to drink something (I hadn't had anything to drink since a cup of coffee I half drank when I arrived in Petaluma)... People were playing around with the plug, which means my car was not really charging (as you need to re-scan the card every time). By the way, Tim, if you're reading this - and I know that a few people from Nissan are ...-, I'd like to get the card back (when I understood the charging station needed a card, I asked the person who had it how I could get one, and he happily handed the card over and told me "it's yours", but as people were playing with the plug, Tim offered to make sure someone would re-scan the card every time, so I handed the card to him ...).
I was asked to do a few turns around the block, (and that's when I got asked if I was worried about range ... I said I would not be worried about it during my normal operation of the car, given I was driving only 20 miles a day, and I added that I was starting look at it (she wanted me to do a 2nd pass around the block, which I declined -- yes I have to admit, I got touched by range anxiety yesterday --).
A few more interviews, and then it was time to leave, my wife and kids were already ready in the car. I left with something like 34-35 miles of range left. Got a phone call from a reporter while I was driving on the highway (my iphone being linked to the car via bluetooth), it was a great experience. The car is so silent, you don't have to shout to be heard, and you hear the other person really well via the car speakers (that's a first for me, I've never had a car with that kind of equipement / convenience).
I drove at 65 mph this time (I'm not going to drive at 55mph because I drive an electric car), but I didn't drive very often at 75 mph (closer to what I'm used to with a gas engine).
We all made it home safely, and the car had 10 miles left in it. I instantly plugged it in. I drove it again that evening with a friend of mine, it actually charges pretty quickly (well, or rather you'd think that 8 hours is long, but it's not, and in a few hours you already have enough back in the pack to feel confident about doing a 10 miles trip to test out performance ;p).
I would like to thank, in no specific order :
Nathaniel Villarreal, who did my EVSE install. I can attest that the EVSE works great (I've been using it a lot in the last 24 hours ;p), and his pricing is the best I was able to find in the Bay Area ... highly recommended.
The owner of the Petaluma Dealership
Ron Coury, who I was in contact with from north bay nissan, and gave me 5% off MSRP.
Katherine Zachary, who kept me informed before the event, and organized a meeting with me, her, Paul, Tim, and 4th Nissan employee on friday to brief me in advance.
Tim Gallagher, for organizing the interviews with the press on Saturday. Tim, I just wished english had been my native language. But it was fun !
Paul Hawson, for making such a fantastic car. Paul was responsible for the GTR prior to working on the LEAF. He told me on Friday that they spent as much time and energy to think about all the details on the LEAF than they had for the GTR. I haven't driven a GTR, but I believe him.
Carlos Tavares for being so nice
Carlos Ghosn, for having the vision, and the guts to build electric cars.
All the Nissan employees for executing so well on this vision
Everyone here for your help, support, and all the information / knowledge I got in these last 5 months.
And my wife for her patience, and support.
