200 miles one day trip in Bay Area for $1 !!

[leafetarian]

Last weekend, I made my longest LEAF trip in one day - 201 miles. Longest leg without charging was 80 miles from Los Gatos, CA to Vallejo (about 15 miles away from Napa, CA) with 2 stops in the middle at Berkeley. When I arrived at Vallejo Nissan I had about 15 miles left on dashboard range. I have made this 80 mile trip to Vallejo several times and always with about 14-15 miles remaining on range. Since range amortization was pretty much constant and dependable at that time I feel comfortable driving from Los Gatos to Napa (about 95 miles) without any charging in middle.

I left my car plugged in at Level 2 while I had to take care of lunch and other business for 3 hours or so. Although I could have made the trip back without Quick Charge I wanted to try it out so I needed just enough charge to reach QC stop at San Ramon (about 33 miles away from Vallejo). However, I got more than I needed on Level 2 so when I reached QC stop, I had 40% charge in battery (as per Blink QC). I just charged up to 80-90% level in about 20 minutes and then drove back to Los Gatos. Twenty minutes were nicely spent talking to two LEAFers that were returning back from SF BayLEAFs http://sfbayleafs.org/ meeting at Cupertino. One of them was also making more than 200 mile trip in one day (Cupertino to Sacramento).

Immediately afterwards, had to go from Los Gatos to Fremont and back to Los Gatos (about 40 miles round trip). So, total for the day was about 201 miles.

My net cost for this 200 miles:
100% charge on LEAF 24 kWh battery at 4 cents / kWh ( PG&E time of use night rate E9A) ~ giant cost of $1 !!
Level 2 at Nissan dealership and QC were free.

With my ex (combustion car) that did 30 miles/gallon, my cost would have been about $27 at $4/gallon
I never had Prius and not sure of exact Prius mpg on freeways but assuming Prius gets 45 mpg, the cost would be $18.

So, there you have it : $1 vs. $27!!! It is so great to divorce combustion!

[dandrewk]

Nice post.

It's a bit annoying when I read the "How long it takes for an EV to justify it's premium cost" analysis's, taking worst case scenarios by combining an aggressive driver profile with $/KWH rates that NOBODY pays. The reality is much closer to your experience. Even not using any free public charging, I figure I pay about $1.25 per 100 miles charging at home. That would be about 3 gallons of ICE fuel.

[DaveinOlyWA]

over past 3 days (not counting today) i drove 245 miles and did not pay anything. was lucky enough to feed off the DCFC in Tumwater and Centrailia for the last few days... still free here

[cwerdna]

My net cost for this 200 miles:
100% charge on LEAF 24 kWh battery at 4 cents / kWh ( PG&E time of use night rate E9A) ~ giant cost of $1 !!
Level 2 at Nissan dealership and QC were free.

With my ex (combustion car) that did 30 miles/gallon, my cost would have been about $27 at $4/gallon
I never had Prius and not sure of exact Prius mpg on freeways but assuming Prius gets 45 mpg, the cost would be $18.

So, there you have it : $1 vs. $27!!! It is so great to divorce combustion!

Awesome!

Prius mileage depends on the generation and speed. 45 isn't too far off. With CA gas and my old commute (about 2/3 freeway, by distance) on my 2nd gen (06) Prius, I could get a entire tank barely above 50 mpg if I kept my speed below 70 mph the whole time. Otherwise it was 45-46ish, usually.

The 3rd gens (2010+) are better on the freeway.

[leafetarian]

cwerdna, nice to know that you are considering getting Leaf to replace your Prius. I have been driving Leaf as my primary car for 14 months and put 17k miles on it. I highly recommend Leaf (or other all electric cars) based on my experience and I know former Prius owners who switched to Leaf and are very happy with Leaf now.

[cwerdna]

^^^
Heh. It won't be replacing it. Leaf would be a 2nd car.

Actually, I've wanted a Leaf for a long time, but my situation is unusual and I've posted about it many times here, in the past. Not sure if everyone wants to hear it again.

It might be resolved (one way or the other) by the time the '13 Leafs become available.