What I've found about the car so far

[gudy]

Gudy, great review. Thank you for taking time to pass along the real-world info. How are you finding the interior? Seat comfort on your commute, the head room for taller people, etc.?

I love the interior. Seats are really comfortable, head room is great I'm 6'2, and there's plenty of space above my head.
There might just be too many buttons for most people, and I still have to figure out what they all do ;p

Everyone who has driven with me agrees that it's a great car, and a lot of them would like to have one... and they even haven't been behind the wheel, which is really when you fall in love with it

Nissan is going to be successful with this car, I have no doubt about it, simply because the car is great.

 

[IBELEAF]

Gudy, great review. Thank you for taking time to pass along the real-world info. How are you finding the interior? Seat comfort on your commute, the head room for taller people, etc.?

I love the interior. Seats are really comfortable, head room is great I'm 6'2, and there's plenty of space above my head.
There might just be too many buttons for most people, and I still have to figure out what they all do ;p

Everyone who has driven with me agrees that it's a great car, and a lot of them would like to have one... and they even haven't been behind the wheel, which is really when you fall in love with it

Nissan is going to be successful with this car, I have no doubt about it, simply because the car is great.

You are just making our wait a bit harder! Thank you!

 

[Nubo]

...
I haven't been able to hear the pedestrian noise when going forward. I'll try and roll down my window tonight in the parking garage, but it might be a fairly directional sound ...
The reverse one is so cool actually, like the sound a truck makes, except not as loud, more modern (hard to describe, but instead of simply being a bip, bip, bip, there's some kind of sine wave modulation on I think both frequency and amplitude). Let's say it makes you feel that your car is scanning the surroundings like a radar (or a dolphin?)...

"Admiral... I am receiving whalesong!"

 

[Nubo]

...
Back to highway driving - I don't know why people seem to think you have to drive 75+ on the highway here in CA. Having driven many miles on highways all over the state, there is no problem with doing 60-65 as long as you follow the "Slower traffic stay right" rule. Very rarely do I find traffic doing more than 70 in the right lanes - and then it's because someone is driving slowly in the left lanes causing those people to pass on the right. Finding a truck doing a similar speed to trail behind is also helpful - make sure you maintain a safe distance as they tend to kick up debris. Anyone worried about highway driving at the speed limit (or lower) should try it in their current car. It's not as bad as people are making it out to be.

Agreed. I live in the SF Bay area, and I've been driving my "pretend LEAF" lately. That is, my regular car but seeing what it would be like to drive a bit more conservatively. Travel at a steady 60 mph is usually not a problem on any freeway that has 2 lanes or more. The right lane typically has traffic at those speeds already. The only problem is CA freeway design which loves to play the "disappearing right lane" trick in lieu of an actual exit lane. So you have to stay on your toes so as to not get shunted off the freeway, and you spend a lot of time merging left.

All in all -- quite doable and safe; probably safer than the typical jockeying, battling and aggression that takes place in the "speeding lanes". The trick is getting to that mental place where you realize that the difference between 75 and 60mph only amounts to a few minutes for the average trip. Once you realize how serene it is to drive in an uncontested lane, it can be a nice tradeoff.

 

[Nubo]

I've always wondered if the engineers ever gave thought to adding a wind driven generator to recharge while driving?

Probably not
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWxZm8WjlI8[/youtube]

 

[LEAFfan]

Sorry if this was answered elsewhere (I am still catching up on posts), but Gudy, what do you think of the pedestrian warning sounds? They were disabled on the test drive event cars, so I wonder what a real owner thinks of them on a production vehicle.
Also, did you get the high speed charge port on your car?

Amir, at the Phoenix celebration, turned it on for me and as he moved forward, I was standing right next to his open window and could BARELY hear it, but he couldn't hear it at all. Then he backed up, and that one is VERY quiet too, not like the loud back up beeps of vans and trucks. So after hearing how soft the sounds actually are, I'm going to leave it on.

 

[gudy]

Here's the backup sound ... the audio quality doesn't make justice to the real beauty of the sound (ok, I'm exagerating a little bit, but the sound sounds better for real than in the video).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B91OjNFeArM[/youtube]

 

[taztaz]

I guess the temp in Portugal is perfect this time of season.. I guess you have around 14-18 degrees now? Here in Sweden i have -15 C (5 F) right now

In fact the temperature here today is 3 C (38 F) at night...as you can realize not so warm as you may expect. During the day didn't went above 10 C (50 F). Of course I think the LEAF will accept much better this temperatures in terms of performance compared with your weather. Anyway hope you are able to enjoy your LEAF there in Sweden when you get with the heat Pack of course

Is the car available for testdrives in Portugal?

Ok! I saw the weather report 2 days ago and it said +18 in south of Spain so i figured you must have something like that.. Today we have +2 ... Weather is changing quickly.. I could probably ice skate to work today.. The small roads are covered with 3-4cm of plain ice (since it has been raining here now) .. Hard to keep the car on the road in that condition I also drive without spikes in the tires, in this conditions spikes would be perfect

Yes, i would go for the heat pack for the Leaf... But i also live in the southern parts of Sweden so we don't get very cold winters, if we dont count this and the last one.. Last winter i had -20 C (-4F) for a long time.. Yesterday there was -29C (-20F) in northen parts of Sweden... The last 10 years we did not even have snow for christmas... If we dont count last winter, then we had -20C and 1,2 meter of snow outside...

 

[taztaz]

Sorry if this was answered elsewhere (I am still catching up on posts), but Gudy, what do you think of the pedestrian warning sounds? They were disabled on the test drive event cars, so I wonder what a real owner thinks of them on a production vehicle.

Also, did you get the high speed charge port on your car?

I have the QC port.
I haven't been able to hear the pedestrian noise when going forward. I'll try and roll down my window tonight in the parking garage, but it might be a fairly directional sound ...
The reverse one is so cool actually, like the sound a truck makes, except not as loud, more modern (hard to describe, but instead of simply being a bip, bip, bip, there's some kind of sine wave modulation on I think both frequency and amplitude). Let's say it makes you feel that your car is scanning the surroundings like a radar (or a dolphin?). Heck, I'll record it, and upload it to youtube.

The idea of changing the frequency is that some people cant hear some tones.. Actually they do that on some voicemail systems too.. After the tone record your message.. BEEEP..

 

[taztaz]

Gudy,

Just saw your interview in Fox Business and I'm outraged by the way that Fox Business stupid reporter treated you with all those tendency and silly questions he made to you. He even didn't let you answer his questions...that guy really make me want him punch in the nose.

I admire your patience gudy. Once again congratulations for be able to deal with such low level kind of persons...

He probably is beeing payed by the oil lobby for sure.

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4458863/first-nissan-leafs-goes-on-sale/

What a total dick that news guy was.. How can they let people like that work at a news channel???!? The was not neutral at all!!! He did not let people talk that had different opinions than he had and he also interupted a lot of persons, thats plain rude! But most of all, a news guy should be neutral he should not have an opionion about what he talks about. People should make their own opionion!

As others of you say, he must be paid by some oil company...

Also, bringing up that tax money goes to other countries?.. So WHAT? If other countries are better at producing clean tech why not buy it from them? That guy is probably a racist/nazi/nationalist... I got really angry watching that.. Isn't Fox News a big news channel in the US??? Fire that news reporter!!! He would for sure not present any news in Sweden!!!

EDIT:
Olivier.. I must say you handled that interview great! Real good answers. Even on the hard ones he put on you... *grr*

 

[taztaz]

thx gudy for all your feedback! i have spent a couple of hours today reading your threads... I will spend 1 more hour in "your" thread -> Leaf Owners ... hehe

Fun reading about your experiences..

Here in Sweden they presented a 1,5 year electric car evaluation from up north.. They expected some problems with going to EV from ICE but all test families were extreamly happy with the EV and had no problems! Just as you describe, you love the EV compared with ICE

taztaz, what EV was being evaluated?

The car was a Think. 500 families applied for this test, that was much more than they anticipated. 20 cars were running this test for 1,5 years. The city was "Gävle". That city is located 170km (105mi) north of Stockholm. The 20 familys leased the Think cars for 360$ /month.

Gävle is 700km from the southen border of sweden (430 miles).
Gävle (city) consists of 68700 people. Swedens 13th biggest city.. haha..

 

[taztaz]

I guess the temp in Portugal is perfect this time of season.. I guess you have around 14-18 degrees now? Here in Sweden i have -15 C (5 F) right now

You're gonna love the LEAF's 'cold weather package'...heated seats, mirrors, steering wheel, and battery pack!

I must say one thing.. Heated steering wheel for the win!!!! I have never had that in a car but i have always wanted that!!! In -15C it takes a long time until the car gets warm and the steeringwheel gets warm after something like 30km (18 mi).

 

[ruimegas]

I guess the temp in Portugal is perfect this time of season.. I guess you have around 14-18 degrees now? Here in Sweden i have -15 C (5 F) right now

In fact the temperature here today is 3 C (38 F) at night...as you can realize not so warm as you may expect. During the day didn't went above 10 C (50 F). Of course I think the LEAF will accept much better this temperatures in terms of performance compared with your weather. Anyway hope you are able to enjoy your LEAF there in Sweden when you get with the heat Pack of course

Is the car available for testdrives in Portugal?

Ok! I saw the weather report 2 days ago and it said +18 in south of Spain so i figured you must have something like that.. Today we have +2 ... Weather is changing quickly.. I could probably ice skate to work today.. The small roads are covered with 3-4cm of plain ice (since it has been raining here now) .. Hard to keep the car on the road in that condition I also drive without spikes in the tires, in this conditions spikes would be perfect

Yes, i would go for the heat pack for the Leaf... But i also live in the southern parts of Sweden so we don't get very cold winters, if we dont count this and the last one.. Last winter i had -20 C (-4F) for a long time.. Yesterday there was -29C (-20F) in northen parts of Sweden... The last 10 years we did not even have snow for christmas... If we dont count last winter, then we had -20C and 1,2 meter of snow outside...

Nissan Portugal just finished a 14 days test drive with 8 Nissan LEAF and 1200 people tested it. I was lucky enough to test it 4 times (the first one was the mule version) so now I'm just suffering until the day I can get my hands on mine. In the meantime I keep my free time looking for any news there are in the world about the car and this forum is just the best I know in the world for wanna be leafers. Hopefully in February 2011 I got my LEAF.
http://www.facebook.com/NissanLEAF.Portugal?v=wall

 

[taztaz]

Nissan Portugal just finished a 14 days test drive with 8 Nissan LEAF and 1200 people tested it. I was lucky enough to test it 4 times (the first one was the mule version) so now I'm just suffering until the day I can get my hands on mine. In the meantime I keep my free time looking for any news there are in the world about the car and this forum is just the best I know in the world for wanna be leafers. Hopefully in February 2011 I got my LEAF.
http://www.facebook.com/NissanLEAF.Portugal?v=wall

Seems to me that the Leaf will not come to Sweden until October 2011 If it gets very popular in Portugal, UK, Irland and Netherlands it will probably take even longer until it is sold in Sweden .. Well well.. I have to see it on the positive side.. You will be the Beta testers All the kinks will be gone until i get to buy it

 

[MaryC]

Gudy,

Have you charged the car at any place other then home? I am wondering if you have found any compatible charging stations on the peninsula yet.

 

[stevel]

Hi Gudy,

When you are getting 55-65 miles of range when driving 75 mph on the freeway, is that from an 80% charge or a 100% charge?

 

[sdbonez]

Here's the backup sound ... the audio quality doesn't make justice to the real beauty of the sound (ok, I'm exagerating a little bit, but the sound sounds better for real than in the video).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B91OjNFeArM[/youtube]

saw the on-ramp video, too - very cool despite eventually having to slow down because of that slow-poke in front of you

 

[aqn]

Gudy,
Just saw your interview in Fox Business [...]
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4458863/first-nissan-leafs-goes-on-sale/

What a total dick that news guy was.. [...]
Also, bringing up that tax money goes to other countries?..

I couldn't bear to finish watching that asshole demonstrating how his IQ is less than his shirt size.

Typical thoughtless knee-jerk reactions and opinions from a meathead! It completely boggles the
mind to watch someone who would normally espouse "let the tax payer keep more of his money" and
"keep jobs in the U.S." advocating against a tax credit and against a car that will be manufactured
largely in the U.S. (including its battery).

 

[LEAFfan]

Gudy,
Just saw your interview in Fox Business [...]
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4458863/first-nissan-leafs-goes-on-sale/

What a total dick that news guy was.. [...]
Also, bringing up that tax money goes to other countries?..

I couldn't bear to finish watching that asshole demonstrating how his IQ is less than his shirt size.

Typical thoughtless knee-jerk reactions and opinions from a meathead! It completely boggles the
mind to watch someone who would normally espouse "let the tax payer keep more of his money" and
"keep jobs in the U.S." advocating against a tax credit and against a car that will be manufactured
largely in the U.S. (including its battery).

+1!

 

[GinkoLeaf]

Just wanted to chime in and say "Thanks Gudy!" for all the great information from your driving experiences. I'm just bummed I have to wait until February to order mine and then wait another 4-7 months to get it. But otherwise I'm so excited.

As for "Faux News", anyone who pays Sarah Palin to be a talking head for them can't be taken seriously. But sadly (and frighteningly) some people do.

Kevin (in Portland)