GeekEV
Well-known member
:!: My dealer just asked me for some details on the range I get and told me that all the reports of low range on "the forums" was scaring away some prospective buyers. Here's the advice I urged him to give to would be LEAF drivers. These are the hard lessons I learned over 7 months of ownership that you might not think about before you actually have one.
There are a number of factors that play into range, of course. The biggest range killers are:
There's obviously a certain learning curve associated with the LEAF. There's something of a mental block that most newbies have that they need to come to grips with quickly to achieve EV zen:
If you're really concerned, I urge you to practice by running your current car almost empty and then only filling up 3 gallons at a time. Then when you get the LEAF, you'll realize that you had the same challenges as they did in your old car.
I hope this helps other people here on the forums too!
There are a number of factors that play into range, of course. The biggest range killers are:
- Speed: I tend to stick around 65 in the LEAF. Wind resistance increases exponentially the faster you go. Doing 70 on the freeway will reduce your range a good amount, doing 80 or more will absolutely slaughter it. For more on why, here's a quote from wikipedia:
- Note that the power needed to push an object through a fluid increases as the cube of the velocity. A car cruising on a highway at 50 mph (80 km/h) may require only 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) to overcome air drag, but that same car at 100 mph (160 km/h) requires 80 hp (60 kW). With a doubling of speed the drag (force) quadruples per the formula. Exerting four times the force over a fixed distance produces four times as much work. At twice the speed the work (resulting in displacement over a fixed distance) is done twice as fast. Since power is the rate of doing work, four times the work done in half the time requires eight times the power.
- Terrain: Going uphill will cause the range to drop like a rock. This generally isn't a problem if you're going round-trip as you'll make it up on the way back down by coasting and with regen, but it's easy to panic if you're not aware of the terrain. For example, I took a trip from Roseville to Auburn with only 50 miles left on the range estimate - and it's a 50 mile round trip. Uphill. When I got there, the range estimate said I had only 13 miles left. Some people would panic at that. But, by the time I got back home, it said I had 16 miles left. I actually gained range on the way down.
- Heater: In a gas car, the heater pulls waste heat off the engine. Since the LEAF has no engine to pull heat from, it has an electric heater (basically like a blow-dryer). Running an electric heater take a lot of power. Your best bet in the winter if you're tight on range is to just bundle up and turn the heater off.
There's obviously a certain learning curve associated with the LEAF. There's something of a mental block that most newbies have that they need to come to grips with quickly to achieve EV zen:
- Speed and terrain have a similar impact on a gas vehicle's mpg as they do on the LEAF's range, however, in a gas car you typically have a 12 gallon tank, whereas the LEAF (essentially) has a 3 gallon tank. Think of it that way and you'll realize that things that impact range are magnified by 400% in the LEAF - but they're really not any different.
- If you push the boundaries and get low on gas you can tank up just about anywhere - there's many dozens of gas stations around town. EVSE infrastructure is pretty sparse right now. Not only do you only have a 3 gallon tank, you've only got about half a dozen places to "tank up". Once burned, twice shy. Don't cut it so close.
- If you do stop somewhere to "tank up", in a gas car it takes you maybe 10 minutes to refill those 12 gallons Charging the LEAF (on a typical L2 EVSE) takes about 6 hours to refill it's 3 "gallon" tank. This is not something you want to do if you can avoid it. Plan on charging only at home overnight.
- Although many gas cars have a "distance to empty" readout, it's usually small and unobtrusive - you typically use the fuel gauge to see how much further you can go. In the LEAF, for some reason, people seem to focus only on the "range estimate" - don't. Use the battery gauge (aka "state of charge") just as you would the fuel gauge. If you tried to drive your gas car only by the "distance to empty" readout, you'd soon notice it fluctuates a lot too. But again, it's magnified by 400% because of the 3 "gallon" tank.
If you're really concerned, I urge you to practice by running your current car almost empty and then only filling up 3 gallons at a time. Then when you get the LEAF, you'll realize that you had the same challenges as they did in your old car.
I hope this helps other people here on the forums too!