2019 "60 kWh" Leaf e-Plus

[SageBrush]

Correct, I believe it is not much more then petal remapping. Lower more drawn out draws during acceleration do wonders for range. Same with coasting and trying to time intersection lights (when not holding up other traffic).

That all depends on the driver and the route. This test was pretty steady state speed so ECO mode would not be expected to matter.

I thought it was an excellent (and predictable) test for the un-involved driver who sets the cruise speed and goes. In that situation the heavier car has quite a fuel economy penalty on a mountain route because regen is only ~ 50% efficient.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

Can a couple posters tell us their max gods for a full charge with the leaf plus. What’s the usable kWh?

 

[LeftieBiker]

Let's hope that they aren't atheists.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

The AWD Tesla is heavier then the leaf. I kind of felt that was offset by the heavier father in the leaf

 

[lorenfb]

Can a couple posters tell us their max gods for a full charge with the leaf plus. What’s the usable kWh?

And what are your parameters for the test, e.g. vehicle speed, air-heat/no-air-heat, slight grade/flat/some downhill, number of passengers,
time of day, what ambient temp, after a Home Depot visit with concrete bags, what tire pressures, in what mode ECO/B/E-pedal, traffic
conditions, city/highway, etc. It's really simple and an easy question to answer, right?

Here's a guy that gets an incredible kWh range. You can use his numbers to extrapolate what you might get with a Leaf Plus.
You both live in the Chicago area too. Of the many parameters, could speed be one of the dominate parameters for range
based on his data?

http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3207&p=554374&hilit=Chicago#p554374

Using his best miles/kWh of 7.2 and the Leaf Plus battery capacity of 62 kWh, his range could be as high as 446 miles,
or realistically assuming a usable capacity of about 85%, which results in a range of 379 miles. That's a lot better than
even a LR M3, right?

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

A max Gids reading would give us a ballpark for the usable capacity.

We just need a couple readings.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

In that hour long test drive of the plus from Japan on YouTube, he showed 210 Gids at 28% SOC, which translates to 60 kWh usable of the 62 kWh battery

 

[Kieran973]

I test drove an S Plus yesterday. A few brief observations.

1.) The 16" alloy rims on the S Plus are much nicer in person than they appear in photos. When the salesperson brought me out to the S Plus they had on the lot, I originally thought he'd gotten confused and steered me to an SV Plus or SL Plus.

2.) As others have mentioned here, the ride in the Leaf Plus is noticeably stiffer than in the 40 kWh version. "Harsh" would be going too far, because the impact absorption when going over potholes/bumps in the 40 kWh and 62 kWh feels roughly comparable. Instead, the difference seems to be that the 62 kWh has a more pronounced hop from the rear axle. But the S Plus still has a much softer ride than my wife's 2014 Honda CRV (though a firmer ride than my own 2016 Honda Civic).

3.) The Leaf Plus does feel faster, but not in a torquey way, more in a "holy ****, I'm going 80 mph" way. The added power is there, but it's subtle.

4.) Someone else on here mentioned that the seats in the Leaf Plus feel less comfortable than in prior generations Leafs. It's funny - this could totally be in my head, but I did feel like the S Plus had a less comfortable driver's seat than the 2018 SV that I rented for 24 hours last summer and drove for 200 miles. It felt like the 40 kWh had more support/padding for my shoulders and upper/middle back area. I have no reason to believe that the seats in the 40 kWh and 62 kWh are anything but identical, so this may just say more about the mood I was in yesterday than in any actual objective differences between the seats.

 

[LeftieBiker]

They may have "pulled a GM" and lightened the seats, while making the remaining foam stiffer.

 

[Kieran973]

Good point. I sure hope not. Why, because with the added weight of the 62 kWh battery, the regular non-Plus seats would have dragged down the EPA range?

Speaking of GM, one of the the biggest arguments for the Leaf over the Bolt is comfort. If I'm going to spend 150,000 miles in a car, I'm going to be comfortable, dammit. But if Nissan made the suspension choppier, and the seats stiffer, well....that liquid-cooled battery in the Bolt is starting to look pretty good....

 

[OrientExpress]

The seats in the LEAF Plus are unchanged from the regular LEAF and from the 2018 LEAF. What has changed is because the battery is thicker, the floor pan is slightly higher and the seats sit higher as well.

The total weight of the LEAF Plus SL is now 4060 pounds up from 3508 on the SR version.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

SL plus is 3,853 Lbs

 

[rogersleaf]

You sit slightly higher because they lifted the car slightly to accommodate the thicker pack (similar to what might be done to a 4X4 truck). It's not by much, maybe 1/2 an inch. It would also be appropriate to stiffen the strut dampening to offset the extra 350 lbs of battery, otherwise the car would ride like a boat. So the efficiency penalty is more weight to start & stop, extra motor output to compensate for the extra weight, and marginally more wind drag from the slightly lifted body. In ICE terms, similar to the efficiency penalty for buying a bigger engine.

 

[OrientExpress]

SL plus is 3,853 Lbs

No the Leaf SL Plus is 4060 pounds, 552 pounds more than the LEAF SL. And yes the car sits higher but the floor pan is also higher. I took a SL plus and weighed it when I spent a week in one and measured the seat height differences from the regular one.

 

[jdcbomb]

Motortrend actually has some decent things to say about the Plus. Their 0-60 times are the most consistent in testing overall and got 6.5s for their SL.

https://www.motortrend.com/cars/nissan/leaf/2019/2019-nissan-leaf-plus-first-test-review/

 

[umdkevin]

I have no reason to believe that the seats in the 40 kWh and 62 kWh are anything but identical,

like others mentioned the Plus seat sits higher. I traded in an '18 that I drove daily for 8 months for the '19 Plus and the difference is noticeable. I feel higher with the seat control at it's lowest position. It also does feel stiffer/firmer

 

[Nubo]

But how does Eco mode actually work to use less energy. It has to come from somewhere. Just curious. I just like to use it because the pedal is less sensitive.

It does bugger all to improve efficiency. It's the same motor that takes the same wattage to perform the same physical job of moving the car along and overcoming friction, drag, and elevation changes. Yeah canna' change the laws of physics!

Eco modifies the pedal/torque curve, which Nissan would have you believe coerces drivers to accelerate less briskly. This oddly assumes it somehow never occurs to drivers that they can simply move their foot a little more. Personally I know how quickly (or slowly) I wish to accelerate, and I move my foot accordingly until it happens. Eco or D doesn't change this!

Eco also (slightly) reduces the kW cap on HVAC consumption from (5.5?)kW down to about 3kW. In temperate climates it's rare to consume over 3kW anyway. In hotter or colder situations it would take longer to achieve the desired temperature set point, which just means 3kW for a longer period of time instead of 5kW for a shorter period of time. No real energy saving. And if it's even hotter or colder to where desired temp isn't achievable with 3kW, i'm going to turn off Eco to get what I want. And I'd rather not, because I enjoy the linear pedal response of Eco.

Nissan's tactics here are purely psychological and assume an oddly insensate driver. Like any other driver I'm more than capable of simply adjusting the temperature to a more efficient level if desired, or turning off heating or cooling altogether. Nerfing the HVAC is unhelpful at best, and at worst just another annoyance I have to swat away to drive the car the way I want.

If I had my way, Nissan would stop pretending that energy can be created via software, and pedal-response would be honestly reclassified as a performance preference. "D" would become "Sport", "Eco" would become D, and the car would stop fucking with the HVAC settings. The responsibility for economy would be assigned to the driver, where it always resided anyway.

 

[OrientExpress]

The other noticeable change is the NVH on the Plus. At 60 mph on my "noisy test road" the Plus measures 62.8 dB. which is luxury car quiet.

 

[lorenfb]

SL plus is 3,853 Lbs

No the Leaf SL Plus is 4060 pounds, 552 pounds more than the LEAF SL

So 552 lbs more for 22 kWh?

Nissan advertising quotes:

2013 24 kWh - 3300 lbs
2017 30 kWh - 3400 lbs
2018 40 kWh - 3500 lbs
2019 62 kWh - 3800 lbs

What are the real numbers?

 

[OrientExpress]

For the third time, the actual weighed number is 4060 pounds.