philipscoggins
Well-known member
Well, today's my 2 year anniversary with my 2012 LEAF SL & it's as unseasonably cold as the first day I bought it!
My experience... I notice I'm over the thrill of flooring it and getting the smooth acceleration that was the extreme thrill of the LEAF for the first year or so.
I have a longer commute than the LEAF is made for. Around 75-90 miles/day on average (single parent 3 kids & work). When the weather is nice I can do that with a full charge in the morning, L2 when I go home for lunch and hopefully an hour of L2 before I pick up my high schooler about 6pm. During the winter, with conservative heat, I arrive at work with about 6kWh of charge remaining & the building owner let's me L1 charge until lunch. I've discussed installing a L2 charger at work next winter and reimbursing him with voluntary donations to cover my "parking" in the spot with the charges (Tennessee you can't resell electricity).
Stats
53,536 miles
168 QCs
2898 L1 & L2s
Ahr=53.28
SOH=81%
100% charge=219 GIDs
By my math 281GID-219GID=62 GID lost. 277 GIDs usable of the original 281 means 1% of battery is 2.77GIDs. So I have lost 22.38% of my battery capacity even though I have only lost 1 capacity bar. I should mileage out of the battery replacement warranty in a little less than 3 months.
I do love driving electric & can make the 150 mile round trip to Nashville using free Nissan quick chargers along the way. Blink has crazy prices on L2 charging in Tennessee, it has risen from $1/hr to $2.50/hr (billed by the seconds now). With my stock 3.3kwh charger on the 2012, that sucks pretty bad.
To compensate for my capacity loss my miles/kWh has been steadily rising. During warm weather I average 5.1 m/kWh but with our unusually cold November I'm only at 4.5 m/kWh so far this month.
I wasn't able to use very much of the $7500 tax credit that many were able to count as a discount on the car, I wish I'd understood how I could have leased my car, let Nissan take the $7500 and then bought out my lease, to bring down the price. But hindsight huh?
I don't think my LEAF will meet my needs for too much longer & I'm WAY upside down in it, something like $10,000 so I will have to deal with it for a little while. I do love EVs, but don't think Nissan has won me over with brand loyalty, so I can't guarantee my next car will be a LEAF, but couldn't imagine going back to buying gas.
My favorite things about the LEAF. Never having to stop to buy gas, preheated car, silent drive & still just cool factory of owning a fully functional car that's all electric.
Least favorite things. I HATE the recycled fiber interior, I've tried to take care of it, but with 3 kids, it looks horrible after 2 years & nothing I've found cleans it. The RSS feeds have never worked consistently & I haven't been able to send a google maps trip to my car in forever. And of course battery degradation. I understand 26,768 miles/yr is a bit higher than average and I have quick charger a lot, but I've never gone over 7 bars on the battery temp (in the summer I start out at 6 bars during July & August) so I like to think I'm not cooking it too badly.
Going into my 3rd winter, I'm not looking forward to it, I am a bit tired of freezing toes & blankets for the kids. I ran a payment calculator for a Model S the other day & I could handle the $500 monthly payments, but the $62,000 down payment was a little beyond my ability :shock:
Charge on!
My experience... I notice I'm over the thrill of flooring it and getting the smooth acceleration that was the extreme thrill of the LEAF for the first year or so.
I have a longer commute than the LEAF is made for. Around 75-90 miles/day on average (single parent 3 kids & work). When the weather is nice I can do that with a full charge in the morning, L2 when I go home for lunch and hopefully an hour of L2 before I pick up my high schooler about 6pm. During the winter, with conservative heat, I arrive at work with about 6kWh of charge remaining & the building owner let's me L1 charge until lunch. I've discussed installing a L2 charger at work next winter and reimbursing him with voluntary donations to cover my "parking" in the spot with the charges (Tennessee you can't resell electricity).
Stats
53,536 miles
168 QCs
2898 L1 & L2s
Ahr=53.28
SOH=81%
100% charge=219 GIDs
By my math 281GID-219GID=62 GID lost. 277 GIDs usable of the original 281 means 1% of battery is 2.77GIDs. So I have lost 22.38% of my battery capacity even though I have only lost 1 capacity bar. I should mileage out of the battery replacement warranty in a little less than 3 months.
I do love driving electric & can make the 150 mile round trip to Nashville using free Nissan quick chargers along the way. Blink has crazy prices on L2 charging in Tennessee, it has risen from $1/hr to $2.50/hr (billed by the seconds now). With my stock 3.3kwh charger on the 2012, that sucks pretty bad.
To compensate for my capacity loss my miles/kWh has been steadily rising. During warm weather I average 5.1 m/kWh but with our unusually cold November I'm only at 4.5 m/kWh so far this month.
I wasn't able to use very much of the $7500 tax credit that many were able to count as a discount on the car, I wish I'd understood how I could have leased my car, let Nissan take the $7500 and then bought out my lease, to bring down the price. But hindsight huh?
I don't think my LEAF will meet my needs for too much longer & I'm WAY upside down in it, something like $10,000 so I will have to deal with it for a little while. I do love EVs, but don't think Nissan has won me over with brand loyalty, so I can't guarantee my next car will be a LEAF, but couldn't imagine going back to buying gas.
My favorite things about the LEAF. Never having to stop to buy gas, preheated car, silent drive & still just cool factory of owning a fully functional car that's all electric.
Least favorite things. I HATE the recycled fiber interior, I've tried to take care of it, but with 3 kids, it looks horrible after 2 years & nothing I've found cleans it. The RSS feeds have never worked consistently & I haven't been able to send a google maps trip to my car in forever. And of course battery degradation. I understand 26,768 miles/yr is a bit higher than average and I have quick charger a lot, but I've never gone over 7 bars on the battery temp (in the summer I start out at 6 bars during July & August) so I like to think I'm not cooking it too badly.
Going into my 3rd winter, I'm not looking forward to it, I am a bit tired of freezing toes & blankets for the kids. I ran a payment calculator for a Model S the other day & I could handle the $500 monthly payments, but the $62,000 down payment was a little beyond my ability :shock:
Charge on!