62kwh Leaf Plus Efficiency Posting

Dmacarthur - my simple trick to higher efficiency in winter is to never use heat. My daughter does use it sometimes as we share the second car (wife has the SV+, and basically has the heat glued on from mid October).

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With gas prices the way they are, and our electric rates what they are, we pay $.13 for a kWh which drives us 3.3 miles in the winter (pretty much the worst we have seen). That translates to 33 miles for a buck thirty or about the cost equivalent of 80 miles for the cost of a gallon of gas. Just my way of rationalizing not being quite such a cheapskate any more by not using heat (and my wife is REALLY done with that!). During the summer this number goes way up over 100 miles. Our particular electrical sources are about as green as they can be, with lots of Canadian hydro power and a fairly large portion coming from solar including our own approximately 9 kW systems. But this is all a rationalization- we should definitely be driving less and conserving the vehicle for many more years of service.....

Very true.

I have made myself even crazier this year and moved to spot/real time home energy pricing. Riding a 0 cent per kWh wave as I type with both cars sucking it up. For the pennies I have saved, not worth the aggravation.

DougWantsALeaf said:

Dave - I reset the trip average many times on the way to and from Kansas, so I am sure any tabulation would be a little off. In short though I was being lazy.

Dmacarthur - my simple trick to higher efficiency in winter is to never use heat. My daughter does use it sometimes as we share the second car (wife has the SV+, and basically has the heat glued on from mid October).

No 0 heat is usually not enjoyable for most, that is kind of my cheap side leaking out ...then immediately freezing.

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Milder weather most of the time but rainier so not using defrost is almost never an option. I do the Rain x (great results) and Fog X (barely noticeable improvements) so I use heat when I want to as range is not really an issue any more going in any direction. But passengers are a "same story" situation. I have an electric blanket that draws like 50-60 watts or something and that has proven to be VERY effective at muting the peanut gallery.

I do have an issue with cold feet sometimes that only happens when I am just sitting or driving. There is nearly always a bit of a moisture issue no matter how I try to stay dry. I have battery socks that resolves that issue but don't really use them for driving much. I did use them for outdoor activities that involved minimal activity like parade watching, etc.

But when it gets cold here, its rarely snowing so roads are clear and dry and efficiency doesn't drop that much even with bouts of heat. I see 3.9 to 4.2 (from 4.7 to 5.0) in those conditions. But rain (November set a record in most regions here. Not sure about us yet?) is a different story and even conservative driving and only minimal defrost (blasted on high just long enough to clear windows usually less than 10 seconds) and I am struggling to stay in the low to mid 3's.

I should mention also that another reason my range is so low, averaging 3.3 this November, is that the longest trips the car gets used for are delivering Meals on Wheels once a week and my elderly neighbor rides along with me so the heat is left on all the time, whether the car is moving or not (I would feel terrible if he were to freeze to death during this ride). Average PTC heater use is probably 1.25 kW maybe more, and of course miles traveled is zero during the time I run the meals to the recipients, so..... 0 m/kWh during a portion of the trip which brings the average down considerably.

dmacarthur said:

I should mention also that another reason my range is so low, averaging 3.3 this November, is that the longest trips the car gets used for are delivering Meals on Wheels once a week and my elderly neighbor rides along with me so the heat is left on all the time, whether the car is moving or not (I would feel terrible if he were to freeze to death during this ride). Average PTC heater use is probably 1.25 kW maybe more, and of course miles traveled is zero during the time I run the meals to the recipients, so..... 0 m/kWh during a portion of the trip which brings the average down considerably.

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Surprised you are as high as you are. Opening the doors basically blows up a mile of range within seconds :lol:

As mentioned above, I got an electric blanket that is low wattage (around 60ish or so?) and it is quite effective. Might be worth a look. I am thinking about doing a search for one with arm holes which allows the same insulating wrap up but also prevents that "mummified" feeling.

What a wonderful use for a Leaf. That's awesome.


As for cold feet, I find 2 layers of socks with wool (or eco alternative) on the outside helps enough unless we are subzero (F).

Heavy rain is the worst for efficiency. It's like driving through a milk shake.

DougWantsALeaf said:

Heavy rain is the worst for efficiency. It's like driving through a milk shake.

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Had first hand experience in realizing how true this is. Had a 101 mile trip (each way) in really hard rain 2 days ago. Averaged about 3.1 miles/kWh on the way out. Later the same day rain had stopped as I returned and hit 3.5 miles/kWh.

I would have thought that a "slush storm," where mixed rain and large snowflakes fall and turn to slush on the road, would be worse.

LeftieBiker said:

I would have thought that a "slush storm," where mixed rain and large snowflakes fall and turn to slush on the road, would be worse.

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Speeds being equal, it probably is...

Wet snow and heavy hard rain are pretty equal if the road is flooding.

One trip I was driving back from Iowa city to Chicago (on 1 charge...though down to the wire), we hit large droplet size heavy rain. Water was pooling on the highway, and even at 40mph (and 0 visibility), we were sub 3 miles/kWh for efficiency for a number of miles.

Driving though wet thick snow combined with colder weather could be worse I am sure.

DougWantsALeaf said:

Wet snow and heavy hard rain are pretty equal if the road is flooding.

One trip I was driving back from Iowa city to Chicago (on 1 charge...though down to the wire), we hit large droplet size heavy rain. Water was pooling on the highway, and even at 40mph (and 0 visibility), we were sub 3 miles/kWh for efficiency for a number of miles.

Driving though wet thick snow combined with colder weather could be worse I am sure.

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Last Winter, I tried an experiment when I drove a measured distance (to the local takeout and back) spinning my tires a "bit" which was easy to do since my drive never gets plowed but luckily only a few blocks long. The experiment was seeing if spinning tires was more efficient than actually having to carry the weight of the car along on relatively unobstructed road. Traction was actually quite good considering bare crappy Ecopias pumped to within a hair of the max but the snow level was rather inconsistent which caused me to go sideways a bit in spots. This required a couple of runs at these spots.

So spun almost all the way there, about ¾ of the way back and....

Well, performance was a bit low at 2.2 miles/kwh but what shocked me is the distance was the same. I figured my spinning should have at LEAST doubled the distance?

But the distance was short; .7 miles in optimal weather so... probably need more data.

If your speedometer doesn't shoot up to 90-100MPH when the tires spin, then the speedo/odometer is ignoring the irrational input.

Ok, 2021 is done.

Dec stats

2019 SV+ 398 miles and 3.5 miles/kWh

2019 S+ 300 miles and 4.7 miles/kWh.

Mostly local driving this month. December weather was pretty temperate.

For all of 2021, the SV+ efficiency was 4.1 miles/kWh on 6600 miles vs. 4.2 in 2020 on 4700 miles.

December 2021
2022 SL+ 1574 miles, 3.7miles/kWh
First month of use and enjoyed a lot of 75 to 80 mph highway driving. Need to train myself more on less brake more coasting style.

Jan target - 4 miles/kWh

Happy new year everyone

May 2022 at the very least be better than 2021...

2019 S+ 300 miles and 4.7 miles/kWh.

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I am seriously envious of your efficiency- our S+ gave us, in December:

1011 miles, exactly 3.0 m/kWh

All with studded winter tires, on snowy or icy roads, using heat, but trying to drive as efficiently as possible (always in Eco, etc.). Ah well, summer is on the way!

It is good that people pay attention to efficiency. I've learned that our car annualized consumption is 4.5 miles per kWh. It has been that way for years. Periodically I check the meter and so long as it stays at 4.5 I leave well enough alone.

My Tesla Model 3 had easily retrievable lifetime and current drive energy meters. I used the current drive meter most trips for the first 1 mile of driving away from home because it was very consistent year round and I thought it would be a good early warning system of those problems that result in increased friction. Since I live on a hill, the first mile is mostly a coast-down test. I learned to expect about (-100) Wh/mile.

When I feel like playing games, I try to drive the 8 miles to downtown at 0 Wh/mile. I usually fail, and end up in the 20 - 50 Wh/mile range

I was able to keep the S+ so high this month because of
1. Almost no heat
2. 42-44psi , ev01+ rims
3. Moderate December weather with most days at or above freezing
4. Limited highway travel in the month


Let's see what Jan brings.

When I feel like playing games, I try to drive the 8 miles to downtown at 0 Wh/mile. I usually fail, and end up in the 20 - 50 Wh/mile range

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Since we also live up in the hills, a trip to the nearby town can usually result in the Leaf showing 50 or more miles per kWh (the inverse of the Tesla numbers). It is fun to see how high we can get that number, and to see how much we can increase the % of charge..... This is a good game but we all know that he exact opposite is about to happen on the way home- whatever power is stashed away is gone before the hills even begin.

3.9 mi/kWH for December, 4.3 overall for 2021. 2.5 today, what with single digits, snow packed roads and heavy use of the heater.

My wife is primary driver and she’s not as obsessed with efficiency as I am.