LeftieBiker wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:28 pm
Any BEV only becomes compelling when it becomes cheaper to operate than a ICE.
For large numbers of people, yes. There can be other, more individual reasons, though. Aversion to gas and oil fumes and stains (and gas stations), ICE noise, regular trips to dealers for oil changes and other ICE services, and a desire to be moving away from the carbon energy sector. They aren't majority concerns, but they weigh heavily among many early adopters. In these cases we are willing to pay more, as long as we can afford it.
Thats probably the boat we are in, if I did the math, how many miles we drive, depreciation, insurance, need to keep a second ICE for trips, etc. the Leaf isn't saving us any money but I sure like to be able to look at gas prices YoYo and not really give a damn

The Leaf also has several driving advantages, quick warm-up, nice heated steering wheel, ability to easily preheat, easy to make many short trips with no adverse effects to vehicle, etc.
To me I just don't see an advantage to a 300+ EV, most of our trips are either 1000 miles+(where a BEV just wouldn't be as practical) or in suburb/in-town and a 100 mile(even with lots of heat use) would be sufficient(note we currently have an 8 and 11 bar 24kwh Leaf which does not meet that need) so I'm thinking our ideal BEV would have say a 40kwh battery, maybe 62 max. Of course were also thinking about a PHEV such as a Prius Prime or RAV4 prime that would kill 2 birds with one stone and save money on insurance and upkeep of 2 vehicles.....if/when the RAV4 Prime comes out to our area and doesn't cost an arm and a leg or have any deal breakers such as no heated steering wheel, cramped cockpit or lack of storage, at least as much storage as our old Prius.....
Not so sure the Leaf was a car before it's time but Nissan sure didn't improve on it much after introduction, well unless you include the longer range battery which is important but many of the other quirks/annoyances since introductions are still around from what I've read. Too bad as Nissan really had the leg up on basically everyone else, I think it must be a management thing at Nissan, ineptness at a high level
