redLEAF wrote:Ualdriver wrote:I live up in the NW suburbs of Chicago and put an order in the day they took deposits like most did. We're hoping to have the Leaf in our area within a year. The Leaf will replace a 16 mpg Honda Odyssey, making our other car, a Prius, the new gas guzzler in our household.....until it gets replaced with hopefully a Volt.
Welcome Ualdriver! (assuming that might have something to do with working for United Airlines?) in any case please be sure to add your reservation location to the forum member map ... that brings to 3 for Chicagoland. You can find it below, if you have a Gmail account you can add it yourself otherwise look at active topics containing this URL for the forum member who set it up:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&m ... 9e01b60343
He-he.........your assumptions are correct
I don't have a g-mail account, and probably won't open yet another online account. If there's a way to put a pin in on the map, or if someone else wants to do it, I'm up in Woodstock, IL.
Also, if you guys hear of anything as far as deliveries out in our area, please post here or PM me and I'll do the same for you guys. I have no idea when we will actually see the car out by us, but I hope within a year. I select M'Lady Nissan in Crystal Lake as my dealer (with the Libertyville Nissan "Leaf" Dealer as a backup), although I will not go through with the purchase of the car if either dealer tries to stick overpriced "extras" on the car or adds one dollar more to the sticker price as some sort of "market adjustment fee" like the local Toyota dealers tried to do with the Prius I purchased a couple of years back. I'll lease it for the advertised price, and not a penny more. If they try to overcharge us, I'll wait until the Leafs (or is it Leaves?) become more available and price rationality settles in or I'll just wait a few more years and buy a Volt instead.
Hopefully there's more than just a few of us in the Chicago area on the waiting list. I would be disappointed (and concerned) if there wasn't more considering the population density of Chicago and the local suburbs. I'm also very concerned about cold weather performance, as you guys are well aware the temperatures out here in the winter can dip well below zero.
I've been exchanging a few e-mails with a Mini-E driver in NJ specifically discussing this issue. He seems like a really bright guy and pretty passionate about his Mini-E. He told me that his Mini-E has a 35kwh battery and got 156 miles on the LA4 cycle (the Leaf got 100 on a 24kwh battery), and from his blog it appears he gets around 100-110 miles range of "real world" driving in warm weather, and in the 80's in cold weather. Supposedly our battery chemistry is slightly different than the Mini E's, so hopefully that will make a difference.
Anyway, that's enough blabbing. Let's hope that Nissan doesn't over-promise and under-deliver, and gets cars out to us Chicago guys post haste!!
if we all wanted to meet some day!