Hello World, New (to me) Leaf owner as of April 2024

[LeafBoy556]

Greetings,
In April I bought a used 2023 Leaf SV+ with 35K miles on the clock. The relatively high mileage worried me a little but everything else checked out and the price was right so I took the plunge. So far I couldn't be happier with the car. She's nowhere near as cool looking as my previous 2003 Corvette Z06, but she's far more civilized. 99.9% of my driving is under 25 miles one-way in traffic at moderate temperatures. It's immediately obvious to me that the little Leaf is built to do just that. I hope I can learn a few things from this forum. This is my first electric car, but I've been doing my own work on gas and diesel ones for about 30 years. If I can pass along some of my experience I will be glad to do so

 

[gozer]

Welcome! Let us know how the summer goes there as far as batt temp. I'm always interested in seeing how heat messes with these excellent cars.

 

[LeafBoy556]

Thanks gozer. The only way I have to measure battery temp is the onboard gauge. Every time I look at it, the gauge reads right exactly in the middle of its range. I have also reached under the car and felt around after a trip. Sometimes it's just slightly warmer than ambient temp, most times I can't feel any difference. FWIW I use the car pretty gently: short trips, low speeds, no hard acceleration, battery never deeply discharged nor fully charged, L2 charging at night, etc. Based on my experience, battery temp in hot weather appears to be of no concern. Fast charging or extended highway driving might raise issues, I just don't know. I hope my information is helpful.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

Welcome. Be sure to post your journeys.

 

[Babs3204]

Thanks gozer. The only way I have to measure battery temp is the onboard gauge. Every time I look at it, the gauge reads right exactly in the middle of its range. I have also reached under the car and felt around after a trip. Sometimes it's just slightly warmer than ambient temp, most times I can't feel any difference. FWIW I use the car pretty gently: short trips, low speeds, no hard acceleration, battery never deeply discharged nor fully charged, L2 charging at night, etc. Based on my experience, battery temp in hot weather appears to be of no concern. Fast charging or extended highway driving might raise issues, I just don't know. I hope my information is helpful.

Here in Sacramento, CA we went through a brutal stretch in July of well above 100° every day for about 20 days and upwards of 110 several days in a row and I only saw the temperature gauge rise a little over halfway on any of them. There was just one time when it stayed around 80° overnight and I had to give it a full charge and it was a little above halfway in the morning. I charge at the full 6.6 lvl 2 at night.

 

[Dooglas]

FWIW I use the car pretty gently: short trips, low speeds, no hard acceleration, battery never deeply discharged nor fully charged, L2 charging at night, etc. Based on my experience, battery temp in hot weather appears to be of no concern. Fast charging or extended highway driving might raise issues, I just don't know. I hope my information is helpful.

Your experience sounds consistent with that of most others here. Repeated fast charging and/or extended highway driving in hot weather can certainly be an issue. The use you describe sounds like best practices to me.

 

[Araknai]

Get a bluetooth OBDII port scanner compatible with the Leaf Spy app and get Leaf Spy.
It'll give you all the information about the battery you could want including real time temps of all the battery temp sensors.
The battery is perfectly happy being warm, up to ~95F.

 

[Bombastinator2]

Greetings,
She's nowhere near as cool looking as my previous 2003 Corvette Z06, but she's far more civilized.

And not a whole lot slower either.

 

[LeafBoy556]

The Leaf is surprisingly quick off the line. Mine will smoke the tires if I floor it. My old 'vette weighed about the same and had twice the power. She could get loose at 60 mph in 2nd or 3rd gear any time. The 'vette would win a 1/4 mile race by several seconds. That said, I prefer the mild manners and extra cargo space of the Leaf over the raw power of the 'vette. My plan is to drive the Leaf for as long as she lasts then look for a more performance-oriented EV. Cheers!

 

[Bombastinator2]

The Leaf is surprisingly quick off the line. Mine will smoke the tires if I floor it. My old 'vette weighed about the same and had twice the power. She could get loose at 60 mph in 2nd or 3rd gear any time. The 'vette would win a 1/4 mile race by several seconds. That said, I prefer the mild manners and extra cargo space of the Leaf over the raw power of the 'vette. My plan is to drive the Leaf for as long as she lasts then look for a more performance-oriented EV. Cheers!

I chirp the tires by accident even in eco mode. The thing has better 0-60 than my previous car which was a type4 GTI Autobahn. The thing has no transmission at all so it sort of like being stuck in 1st all the time. People complained about the the low top end of the Tesla roadster so they put a 2 speed power glide in it and the thing did 180. No other changes.
Nissan does sports cars too. I’m sorta waiting for them to take a leaf, put a second motor in back, throw an automatic transmission it, and smoke a 300z. I understand the model y dual motor long range has a 0-60 that is sub 5sec. 4.7 or something. The only difference between it and the sport is software and binning. No transmission either though.