Chicagoland area

[OldQuadDog]

I have a 2012 SL. Currently at 47,000 miles I use it every weekday to commute to work 18.6 miles each way. With the occasional lunch trip and seeing some customers and vendors within 10 miles....average 40 miles/day just 1 occupant. That's all surface roads with traffic control every 1/3 of a mile taking 45-55 minutes. Weekends - local shopping 2ppl.
Total about 1,000/month.
Battery degradation- Full charge is now only 88% ( I have a Leaf-DD readout connected)
Car is garaged - rarely below 30F

Yearly average usage 4.1 miles/Kw-h
Warm weather use is fine without additional charging. I average over 5.3 miles/Kw-h
Below 45 degrees I will charge at work to 80%. Weather like we have just had (teens) my range is a mere 35-45 miles at 80% charge (2.7-3.2 miles/Kw h with snow tires). Yeah that 2012 heater really sucks up the electrons! I occasionally use more Kw-h for heat than for propulsion. I braved it during the polar vortex and drove it to work when it was -13F. I did need to Bundle up, the heater cannot keep up with those temps. Battery pack heater came on for a few hours.

The battery capacity also drops as the battery gets colder.Frequency and length of charging and discharging, i.e driving, which heat the pack effect the battery temperature. Estimated that at 25F there is a loss of 2.4 Kw-h from a fully charged battery.

There are some apps like LEAF NRG that let you put in battery temp., mileage on the vehicle, air temp, elevation etc. and estimate the available power and usage for a trip.

OK I have rambled on enough........ Good luck, George

[redLEAF]

Haven't posted any higher EL series plate sightings in a bit (other than that white Tesla a while back) so this one is worth noting (although perhaps downtown Chicago spotters may have seen some even higher ones)

Yesterday, passed a silver LEAF with IL plate '3637 EL' out in Long Grove area so they've definitely passed the 3,500 level, slowly but surely more and more EV's being registered here; not a 'true' indicator of overall EV volumes as not everyone either opts and even knows about them who buys an EV here (no thanks to some dealers) but glad to see some new owners; perhaps these are re-registered used LEAF's in the secondary market (many are shipped in from auto auctions elsewhere rather than trade-ins') but doesn't matter .. the number is still going up!

Passed the 3700 level; spied a medium blue Tesla S sporting plate 3773 EL out and about in the NW 'burbs; have heard that new Tesla's have been showing up in the North Shore area so we should see the 3800 level or perhaps 4000 in the not so distant future ... far cry from the high 200's series that started with home-built EV's and a handful of Tesla roadsters and newLEAF's and a handful of Th!nk's but its been 4+ years now and IL showed over 611K new car registered in '13 so still a very small and pretty rare sight.

Just to update and also ask ... anyone see an IL 'EL' plate get past the 4000 level yet? We saw 3962 EL on a black Tesla S out on our errands yesterday in the NW 'burbs; LEAF of course loved the mild temps and we'll have more today (perhaps 60 F or more?) The pace of new EV's I'm sure has slowed due to the low gas prices but it seems they're now on the increase again; no stations above $2/gal regular yet but getting close

[redLEAF]

Was out of town all week (drove south from Chicago to both Melbourne and St. Augustine areas of FL) so need to catch up on MNL although did read a few posts when I had a chance; saw two Tesla Model X's (a dark red and white one) on the trip down but here back in Chicagoland saw an example of both a very low EL plate and highest one that we snapped photos of ... the highest crossed the 4,000 level (snapped by my son while we were away) and the lowest was under 100 so perhaps someone with connections in IL government or IL SOS office? Later this week (unlike it appears a majority of current LEAF owners will not) I'll be at our local Tesla 'store' to place a reservation for a new Model 3. We'll see how much interest these generate in Chicago soon enough ... pleased to see the EL plates pass that 4,000 threshold; sales of EV's may be slowing down due to a number of factors (gas, especially premium was really cheap in the south) but people are still buying them. I'm sure it will be awhile before we still them pass the 5,000 mark but that could change a lot once these higher range EV's (Bolt, Model 3) hit the area. I'm still trying to see how much more time would be added to my trip if I did this in a higher range EV; we took our trip car (a '13 VW Touareg V6 gas not diesel); speeds where possible were around 75 MPH on average; drove close to 450 miles between gas stops and 23 MPG average; drove about 2,500 miles with side trips ... I suppose with proper planning its doable and by the time the Model 3 gets to Chicago I'm sure additional supercharger stations will be available. We did also see a number of out of state Tesla S sedans (from the state we were driving in at the time) so people are doing some of this now ... of course the longest out of state car we saw in FL was from Alaska (of course they could have shipped it down but still ...)

highest EL plate.jpg

lowest EL plate.jpg

[redLEAF]

Perhaps a bit of a surprise from the current owner of a Tesla S sedan (as mentioned on previous threads; his plate is '1 EL') and one of our 'fair' minded politicians who all still can't seem to agree on a state budget within the Land of Lincoln we get this ...

http://wgntv.com/2016/04/13/lawmaker-pr ... hey-drive/

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/new-bill ... he-nation/

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltex ... =&Session=

The only 'good' news is that is would not go into effect (if it even passed) until 2025; plenty of time for this to hopefully simply go away; I'm all for repairing infrastructure but not this way; it calls for even MORE government to run it, etc. as well and does NOT take into consideration the effect of how much your car impacts roads (small lightweight cars pay the same as heavy trucks, etc.) which of course should be more be equally applied --- prepaying for 30K annual mileage??? Since when does the 'average' driver go 30K per year??? I know we have some long distance commuters on MNL but that's simply not typical ... IL in 2011 was only a bit over 8K per year; nationally it runs between 12K and 15K so basically you would pay double just to avoid being 'tracked' (my '12 LEAF averages about 9K per year; again NO long trips really possible so down at least 5K for that)

http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/ve ... state.aspx

Many articles mention CA and OR are doing something similar so I'm sure some form of this will be seen in other states sooner than later ...

[redLEAF]

Back to 'EL' plate sightings, saw an easy one to remember and a welcome sign that EV sales continue albeit slowly here in Chicagoland. This one once again on a Tesla Model S in Deer Park by Chipotle ... It was 4343 EL; anyone spot anything higher? Have also seen a fair number of other new and used EV's with IL temporary tags so hopefully we'll pass the 4500 level soon all the way to 5000; no where near the west coast but not bad considering the relatively low gas prices ... have also spotted a few new Volts but again these don't qualify for the EL plates

[redLEAF]

Another topic -- specific to Chicagoland area; with the Nissan battery settlement, they issued 90-day NCTC (no-charge-to-charge) cards to all LEAF owners not covered under the ones you get with a new car purchase and as I knew in advance I'd need it later due to my street construction that would limit access to the L2 in my garage just signed up within the last month -- (had some questions on what we see on the display -- thread linked below):

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=22064

In any case, that first use was flawless, system worked as designed, etc. -- well, now I REALLY need it and even after close to 30 minutes on the phone with their customer service, still didn't work so had to resort to using the L2 stations at Harper College (which is $2/hour); I do see that there are 2 DC stations included in the NCTC program near Woodfield Mall so plan to try one of those late today -- the DC station not responding is at the Walgreen's at the corner of Dundee and Hicks in Palatine.

At least the plan is to let me know via email when that station is 'fixed' -- basically the flush push buttons don't respond at all; they tried to remotely turn on the charger and while the signal went through, the button to 'start' charging failed to register despite holding it down as well as trying several times. Each QC session (if not free) runs $9.95 (the card was valued at $50) so its worth it when you need it.

Between the customer service person and what I saw on the display of the DC charger this at least doesn't seem to be an issue with my car but trying to use another DC charger should see if it might be; now if you look up this DC charger on one of the many apps that show them it shows 'in use' and believe me its NOT, just not working. This unit is relatively new as there was a whole debacle on getting EVSE public chargers in Chicagoland (if you look way back in this thread, lots of issues with who was providing them, etc.) but I've seen a number in use so perhaps most major issues have been resolved --- also, unlike Tesla Supercharger stations, there is just a single DC station (equipped for CHAdeMO or CCS) at this location; they had two L2's but this was my half-way point on my work commute and would have simply taken too long.

Anyone with an early LEAF use one of the Woodfield area DC's recently?

[redLEAF]

Back to 'EL' plate sightings, saw an easy one to remember and a welcome sign that EV sales continue albeit slowly here in Chicagoland. This one once again on a Tesla Model S in Deer Park by Chipotle ... It was 4343 EL; anyone spot anything higher? Have also seen a fair number of other new and used EV's with IL temporary tags so hopefully we'll pass the 4500 level soon all the way to 5000; no where near the west coast but not bad considering the relatively low gas prices ... have also spotted a few new Volts but again these don't qualify for the EL plates

Didn't take long to pass 4343 ... here is 4399 EL on a black Tesla X P90D (sorry for the fuzziness, still road construction so perpetually dirty windows) ... in black the X really blends in with other big SUV's out there

IMG_0357.jpg

[redLEAF]

Pair of red EL plated LEAF's (and both MNL forum members) ... still somewhat of a rare occurrence to see more than one at a time; perhaps out west but not here

IMG_0365.JPG

Starting to see a handful of Tesla X models on the roads; most with temporary tags ... also this month my 'fixed' kWh charge for electricity drops a bit to $0.06177 cents from $0.06970; doesn't include utility taxes and ComEd's 'delivery' costs so not always an apples to apples comparison with other states --- have often wondered about opting in for 'real time' pricing as a big chunk wouldn't change and possibly be offset when we would be paying more (daytime) to keep the house cool on high 90 F days --- anyone have some stats on if they tried it and how did it work versus flat rates?

[Phatcat73]

As some of you are aware, our IL Governor suspended the 10% IL tax credit, even for those applicants who submitted the paperwork prior to his election. In my case I purchased a 2015 Leaf in August of 2014, turned in the paper work about a month later, and was expecting the refund by Spring of 2015. Governor Rauner was elected Nov of 2014 and immediately cut spending, even for grants approved prior to his election.

To my surprise, today I received the belated 10% IL credit for my 2nd Leaf. Better late than never!

Hope everyone else in my category gets theirs as well.

[smitty89]

Phatcat73, I was in just about the exact same situation as you! Bought my Leaf at the end of June, so missed that cut off period. But lo and behold, I got my check today too!! I almost had a heart attach when I opened it up. Hopefully others will be getting theirs soon.

I did notice that the website is saying the rebate is suspended, so I'm guessing it won't apply to future buyers. But, hopefully some of us who had initially planned on getting that money back actually will now!