So, owners what range are you getting ?

[SparkyEV]

With 270 gas-free miles behind me and 3.5 iterations of my 55-mile commute (90% freeway @ 60mph with several stop-n-go segments), I'm averaging 5.0 miles/kWh per the Leaf dash (5.2 on my last two legs). Per the mpk*21 formula, that translates to 105 miles at 100% charge and 80 miles at 80% charge (mpk*16), and that matches my actual distance covered very closely. On my ride home last night it was 85 degrees outside, so I had the A/C on (78), but still got 5.2 miles/kWh. Performance is better than I expected, and I am a very happy leafer

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

That is very good. I struggle to get 4.5 mpk on the freeway

 

[IBELEAF]

For WA I've basically settled that realistic range with 80% freeway driving in cold weather and hills is only 50 miles. In nicer weather I can stretch it to 70 miles.

 

[Stoaty]

That is very good. I struggle to get 4.5 mpk on the freeway

I am getting 5.2 mpk so far, including mostly freeway driving. I see several possibilities why you aren't:

--you are driving faster than I am (I set cruise control to 54 MPH)
--you have a LOT of hills (I have 1000 feet of gain--and loss--in my commute)
--you are using climate control
--your battery isn't up to snuff

 

[surfingslovak]

I'm about to complete first week of driving with 230 miles driven so far. My mph average is 4.0 mpk as of this writing. I drove the car quite aggressively the first couple of days and the average mpk was around 3. I changed my ways because the estimated range was consistently around 60 miles, which I found a bit discomforting. I now drive almost exclusively in ECO mode, and I would like to bring my average mpk to 4.5 or 5 if I can help it.

 

[trojanm50]

That is very good. I struggle to get 4.5 mpk on the freeway

I am getting 5.2 mpk so far, including mostly freeway driving. I see several possibilities why you aren't:

--you are driving faster than I am (I set cruise control to 54 MPH)
--you have a LOT of hills (I have 1000 feet of gain--and loss--in my commute)
--you are using climate control
--your battery isn't up to snuff

Hmm
I am averaging 4.2 mpk

I drive at 55-60, i also have about 1000feet gain and loss in my commute. I dont use climate control. I am driving conservatively whenever possible. My commute is around 76 miles.

 

[IBELEAF]

Comparing mostly flat and warm California to very hilly and cold Washington is like comparing cherries with bananas. We would be lucky to meet the EPA numbers during warmer months.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

For WA I've basically settled that realistic range with 80% freeway driving in cold weather and hills is only 50 miles. In nicer weather I can stretch it to 70 miles.

how many miles do you have on the car? are you driving in D or Eco? I'm finding even with the hills that my range is pretty decent now with nearly 2K on the car.

g

 

[IBELEAF]

how many miles do you have on the car? are you driving in D or Eco? I'm finding even with the hills that my range is pretty decent now with nearly 2K on the car.

g

I am driving mostly in ECO and I am at 1700 miles to date. Try driving on a freeway from Bellevue to Lynnwood (20 miles of hilly freeway) on a cold day even at 60 mph and you won't think that your range is "pretty decent" when you see 5-6 bars loss. On a warm day I use 4 bars on the same route.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Temps can play a huge difference. I am already seeing a 10a mile increase in range from jan and this is for temps that barely make the mid 60's.

Now if we had a run of 80°the days we might see 5people as well...

A parting note; todays estimated high....64°

 

[IBELEAF]

Low temps, hills, freeway all make an impact on the range, so even EPA range of 73 miles is not real world experience

 

[JohnnySebring]

Use the Power Meter and keep the number of dots as low as you can and drive safely. Accelerate with only 3 dots or less if you can, slow on hills, ect... There are many good tips on the forum as well, but driving with the Power Meter helps me the most to get 5 mpk when i want or need to. It's fun for a few days to shoot for max mpk.

Mostly I drive with the climate control on auto at a comfortable 67 degs and drive to beat traffic and get where i'm going as quick as I can. That driving will bring me down to 3.6 mpk. I only do about 60 miles a day and have never seen less than 2 bars remaining. I always plug in when I can at home or office to top up. No range anxiety issues at all in my drive.

 

[LEAFfan]

I hit 6.0/mpkh on the dash for the first time the other day. I usually average around 5.5-5.8. It's relatively flat, no freeways, no A/C, and when no one is behind me, I go 38mph (in a 45). Even when I accelerate up to the speed limit, I keep the Power to one dot, then put the dot in the center (almost neutral).

 

[SparkyEV]

That is very good. I struggle to get 4.5 mpk on the freeway

I agree that hills make a big difference. I only have a 250 foot elevation change on my commute with a lot of small ups & downs over that range.

It seems like the temperature effect is not linear. I have not noticed much of an mpk difference between my morning commute (around 55 degrees) and my evening commute (75+ degrees), but I would guess that there's a bigger difference between 55 and 35.

Also, as I pointed out I am unable to maintain a constant 60 mph due to traffic congestion. My average speed over the whole leg has been closer to 40mph (stretches of 60 with chunks of 0-15 thrown in). I have noticed that the Leaf seems to pay less of a penalty for those 0-15 stop-n-go segments than my Civic Hybrid did. I'm curious to see how my mpk changes once I get my carpool stickers. I still plan to stick to 60mph, but I'll use the carpool lane to get around the rough spots.

I've been keeping a log with entries for each trip, where each half of my commute is counted as a trip.I'm also logging non-commute trips. I'm logging the following (reseting before each trip):

date
temp
distance
elapsed time
average speed
miles/kWh (dash)
miles/kWh (nav)
bars used
starting range estimate
ending range estimate
range error (starting estimate - ending estimate vs. actual distance)

What else are people logging?

 

[mark13]

Leaffan 6M/KWH.. wow congrats... Doing the winter that will equate to 140 per charge..

 

[zigadabooga]

I get 4.1miles/kWh reported from my Leaf, 3.36miles/kWh calculated from my Kill-A-Watt meter and the trip reading. Gauging by that, either 98.4 miles actual (including regen breaking) or 80.64 miles pre-breaking calculations (all highway in other words). So far 450 miles.

 

[LEAFfan]

Leaffan 6M/KWH.. wow congrats... Doing the winter that will equate to 140 per charge..

Thanks, but that's on an 80% charge so around 100. But tonight, I went on a 20 mile trip all on city streets with different speed limits. So I was going between 25 and 38 mph. I hit 6.6m/kwh for those 20 miles. That would be 106 (6.6 X 16) miles on an 80% charge. It's hard to believe that the guess-o-meter is off by that much. I lost the third bar (only ten to start) at 5.5m, 4th bar at 11.0m, and the 5th bar at 18.0m traveling all about the same speed when I lost the previous two. It pretty much proved for me that the bars aren't linear, but have different values. Even if you look at the bars, they get wider as you go down which I believe means you get more miles with each one.

 

[wildcatzoo]

This weekend everything finally lined up to take the Leaf to our volunteer job. We live in Altadena CA and volunteer in Rosamond, 85 high speed freeway miles or 69 miles over Angeles Crest/Angeles Forest/Sierra Highway. Angeles Crest was closed until 2 weeks ago, and we just got our modified L2 EVSE from Phil (and made an adapter). After a test run on the Crest, we were ready to go over the mountain!

Started with 12 bars, arrived in Rosamond with 2 showing, but only 1 after an on/off cycle. That was with some hypermiling, but 60 mph on Sierra Highway when we were confident of making it. This was our first use of the modified EVSE and it seems we charged in about 5 hours.

The trip home was done in 8 bars - 4 remaining! With the aircon on all the time, and a few miles of high speed freeway driving at the end.

We are very glad we can take the Leaf, we do this drive every Sunday and will save a lot on gas. (The leaf is also extensively used weekdays of course!)

Nancy & Eric

 

[evnow]

Low temps, hills, freeway all make an impact on the range, so even EPA range of 73 miles is not real world experience

The real problem is combining them. Highspeed hill climbing on the freeway is very punishing.

BTW, as we went back to low 50s to low 60s last week, my commute mpk has dropped below 5 again.

 

[LEAFfan]

I went on a 60 mile round trip today (no A/C/ECO/CC), so a total of 80m. on the 80% charge, averaging 6.3m (dash)/Kwh (lost the 6.6 with this second trip), had one bar left and then a few miles later, the low fuel light with 11 miles on the gom which means I had another 20 miles left if I remember correctly from Tony's post. The ave. number of miles per bar came out to 8.2. So if I do 6.3 X 16 that equals 101 on an 80% charge. So evnow's calculation is right on.