leafme
Well-known member
Wow. Randy and I made the drive from Fontana Nissan to San Diego today. What an experience. Vic (VKruger) decided to truck his down but Randy kept insisting to me, "We gotta drive it... I don't want to tow it any of the distance. I wanna drive it the whole way."
The quick story is we got 111 miles out of a full charge (with a 90 minute L2 charge boost in Temecula from Quality Nissan) at about 55 mph (eco mode the whole way of course and the last half of the trip with with the headlights on). It was difficult with all the cars riding our tail in the right lane but we only got honked at once by a dude (pissed off cuz we were so slow) and a "growled at" look from some gal. After seeing we were doing 51-52 mph I can see why. Yep. Too slow. We ended up keeping it at 55 after that and near the end of the trip I upped it a bit going the last 3-5 miles in non-eco mode to press the pedal to the metal for some "regular" action. Glad Randy was so insistent. It was a blast. We were on the phone with each other almost the whole way calling out each others remaining range (among other topics or course). We were amazed at what we were doing. At one point Randy said, "Hard to believe we are propelling 3500 lbs of car down the road for two hours on a battery just like it was a regular car."
Well, future driving won't be quite as conservative as all we were thinking on this drive was, "I hope this makes it." We really knew it would after doing all the math but none-the-less, until you get home you never know for sure if it's gonna be walking time or not. Very fun experience. It was interesting to see the "miles to go" indicator drop like a rock as we headed south on I-15 from Temecula and up the long hill. But I knew it would be ok so it was just entertainment watching the gauge change.
During the ride up there (Fontana sent driver Cody the 111 miles to pick us up - very cool I must say - thank you very much Joanna) I found out that SDG&E was setting my EVSE meter today at noon only 6 hrs before I pulled in the garage to begin "refueling." It did take a while at the dealer with all the details to go over and Randy, Victor and I were interviewed by LA ch4 TV which was aired at 6pm tonight (we were still driving when it was aired). As we understand it, Vick was the 8th, Randy was the 9th and I was the 10th LEAF purchaser in the entire "grit eating world" (credit to My Cousin Vinny of course). Cool.
Fontana Nissan is a fantastic dealer with Joanna and Danny very helpful (and fed us lunch) ! Special thanks to Mark at Quality Nissan who gave us both eJuice and popcorn for 1.5 hrs (added 18 miles) to settle our range anxiety so when I pulled into my garage the range still had 19 miles to go. Randy and I both bought the Nissan LEAF lic plate frames at Quality Nissan and they look sharp.
Ok, enough incoherent ramblings for a while.
Malcolm
The quick story is we got 111 miles out of a full charge (with a 90 minute L2 charge boost in Temecula from Quality Nissan) at about 55 mph (eco mode the whole way of course and the last half of the trip with with the headlights on). It was difficult with all the cars riding our tail in the right lane but we only got honked at once by a dude (pissed off cuz we were so slow) and a "growled at" look from some gal. After seeing we were doing 51-52 mph I can see why. Yep. Too slow. We ended up keeping it at 55 after that and near the end of the trip I upped it a bit going the last 3-5 miles in non-eco mode to press the pedal to the metal for some "regular" action. Glad Randy was so insistent. It was a blast. We were on the phone with each other almost the whole way calling out each others remaining range (among other topics or course). We were amazed at what we were doing. At one point Randy said, "Hard to believe we are propelling 3500 lbs of car down the road for two hours on a battery just like it was a regular car."
Well, future driving won't be quite as conservative as all we were thinking on this drive was, "I hope this makes it." We really knew it would after doing all the math but none-the-less, until you get home you never know for sure if it's gonna be walking time or not. Very fun experience. It was interesting to see the "miles to go" indicator drop like a rock as we headed south on I-15 from Temecula and up the long hill. But I knew it would be ok so it was just entertainment watching the gauge change.
During the ride up there (Fontana sent driver Cody the 111 miles to pick us up - very cool I must say - thank you very much Joanna) I found out that SDG&E was setting my EVSE meter today at noon only 6 hrs before I pulled in the garage to begin "refueling." It did take a while at the dealer with all the details to go over and Randy, Victor and I were interviewed by LA ch4 TV which was aired at 6pm tonight (we were still driving when it was aired). As we understand it, Vick was the 8th, Randy was the 9th and I was the 10th LEAF purchaser in the entire "grit eating world" (credit to My Cousin Vinny of course). Cool.
Fontana Nissan is a fantastic dealer with Joanna and Danny very helpful (and fed us lunch) ! Special thanks to Mark at Quality Nissan who gave us both eJuice and popcorn for 1.5 hrs (added 18 miles) to settle our range anxiety so when I pulled into my garage the range still had 19 miles to go. Randy and I both bought the Nissan LEAF lic plate frames at Quality Nissan and they look sharp.
Ok, enough incoherent ramblings for a while.
Malcolm