Range better than I expected

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

adric22

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2010
Messages
2,488
Location
Fort Worth, TX
This car has really surprised me on the range. It is one thing to look at a map and do numbers, trying to determine how far you can go. But there are so many environmental factors it is hard to know for sure. We've only had the car a few days. But this weekend we drove all over Ft.Worth and the surrounding cities, mostly freeway driving. Far more driving than we would normally do on a weekend. When we got back home later that day, we still had 31 miles remaining.

I must admit, I was having some range anxiety. I tried to keep the speed under 65 mph when possible.

Then on Sunday morning I drove the car about 10 miles on city-streets mostly around 30 to 35 mph. I kept it in eco mode and took it really easy. Also didn't use the climate control. When I left the house, it was showing 103 miles. When I returned home it was showing 113 miles remaining. I guess it had determined, based on the way i was driving it, that it could get closer to that magic 132 miles I read about one person achieving.

I can easily say now that this car can satisfy all of our driving needs. In the future I will probably have much less range anxiety now that I know what the car is really capable of.
 
For me, it was like getting used to a new cell phone - after a week, you learn how the battery life fits into your routine and mostly stop thinking about it (or at least stop worrying about it).
 
My wife and I had a great drive yesterday! Drove through the winding hills of the Willamette Valley and even hitched a ride on a ferry (an electric ferry) twice! :D

We left the house with 100% SOC, drove about 65 miles and returned home with 40 "Nissan miles" remaining, not too bad!
 
DeaneG said:
For me, it was like getting used to a new cell phone - after a week, you learn how the battery life fits into your routine and mostly stop thinking about it (or at least stop worrying about it).

This is a great comparison. I've had my LEAF for two weeks now. I drive to work, 44 miles, and have taken some side trips to do errands on the way home. My drive to work is a climb of about 800 feet in elevation so the range appears to go down more than the 22 miles for that one way. However, coming home only takes about 12 mileages off the range since I'm regenerating some miles downhill.

The other day I did about 5 hours of errands and stopped at 8 different locations around the city. When I got home I still had 25 miles left. This was the lowest range I've had. So far, I'm pleased with the miles it is giving me.
 
Azrich said:
DeaneG said:
For me, it was like getting used to a new cell phone - after a week, you learn how the battery life fits into your routine and mostly stop thinking about it (or at least stop worrying about it).
This is a great comparison. I've had my LEAF for two weeks now. I drive to work, 44 miles, and have taken some side trips to do errands on the way home. My drive to work is a climb of about 800 feet in elevation so the range appears to go down more than the 22 miles for that one way. However, coming home only takes about 12 mileages off the range since I'm regenerating some miles downhill.

The other day I did about 5 hours of errands and stopped at 8 different locations around the city. When I got home I still had 25 miles left. This was the lowest range I've had. So far, I'm pleased with the miles it is giving me.
Your LEAF is going to make a great "errand boy", as some of your errand destinations install Level 2 charging. If there are some frequent destinations you spend more than 30 minutes at, you may want to approach the management about getting an EVSE installed. The EVSE and the parking space are precious resources and we don't want to waste either. So we don't want to put in EVSE where they will never be used or service only one person in a public setting. But if you have a location that mutltiple WILD LEAFs come to water at, particularly near major expressways, highways or other transit corridors, that could be a great place for an EVSE!! :)

(I rarely manage to get out of Home Depot, Best Buy, Costco, Fry's, a supermarket, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, the Mall etc. in less than thirty minutes unless I'm on a 1 item quick mission!)

A few charges along the way will extend your errand range and let you drive at whatever speed you want, though keeping it under 65 mph extends your range and lowers the environmental impact of driving, but there are times when you just gotta burn up some electrons - especially if thery are renewable electrons!
 
ElectricVehicle said:
If there are some frequent destinations you spend more than 30 minutes at, you may want to approach the management about getting an EVSE installed. The EVSE and the parking space are precious resources and we don't want to waste either. So we don't want to put in EVSE where they will never be used or service only one person in a public setting. But if you have a location that mutltiple WILD LEAFs come to water at, particularly near major expressways, highways or other transit corridors, that could be a great place for an EVSE!! :)
+1 for opportunity charging! Everybody seems surprised when I suggest that more places get NEMA 5-15 outlets installed for charging... I'm fully charged before I leave work!
 
I just drove form SF to Stinson beach over some long serious hills with 100% at start and did 50 miles on hills, freeway and large climbs with no climate control. I returned with 55 miles remaining and more than 50% SOC.
 
Back
Top