I saw this on Google News, "We Drive A 2020 Nissan LEAF SL Plus At A Constant 70 MPH To Test Its Range

Thanks for sharing that video. It presents areal world vies it seems for a folks that are looking at or are new to EVs.
Tire pressures. I use the provided air compressor that comes with the car. If you leave the car on when you top up you will get a single horn honk @ 36 and a triple at 41psi. I use the triple for setting mine. Quick and easy.

It would have been nice if he showed the battery temp at the end of the run and the charge rate he got as well. Most of the time we shouldn't run the battery down that low as a norm. 20% is safe or a bit lower depending on you needs for the trip. I wonder how many times that trip could be repeated before battery heat slowed the charge rate too much to be practical. This is a test I plan to do this summer or when ever it decides to stop being winter here. 30F and snow this morning in Vermont.

It is nice to see a presentation like that. It's a car. People want to treat them as such. We all know we can eek out some impressive miles with some diligent hypermiling. Its a fun challenge and rewarding. Not everyone wants to play that game though. Most want to get to their destination. For folks converting to be aware of what they have with an EV this kind of education is important. Also important is getting EVs closer to what people are used to. Its happening. Helping folks be honest about their needs too.
For me the Leaf is perfect for what I do. Gets me anywhere in the state and back on a charge or may be with one top up. I can get to Boston or Montreal if I want. Not in the winter may be. Good for now. I will be getting a more suitable traveler in the future.
Again thanks for posting.

Greg

LeftieBiker said:

johnlocke said:

Running a tire pressure lower than 40 psi runs the risk of excessive wear on the outside edges of the tire and poor cornering due to excessive rolling of the tire. Nissan used 36 psi to soften the ride at the expense of tire wear. 40-42 psi seems to be the sweet spot.

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I don't strongly disagree, but I ran my 2018 with 38psi for the first Summer, with no issues. At the first tire swap I raised it to 42, letting it drop to 40. I didn't do much hard cornering, though.

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If most of your driving is on city streets and the freeway you won't notice the wear as much. I drive on a country road laid out by a drunken cow. I usually wear out a set of tires before half of the warranty miles on all my cars. Just twisty roads. Driving in straight lines is much easier on the tires. If the pressure is too low you wear the edges out because the center tread isn't bearing enough load. A few PSI is enough to make a significant difference in wear.

I do little freeway driving these days. Most of my driving is on secondary roads, followed by city streets. Plenty of twists, although not an unusual number of them.

A range test that assumes the remaining range and doesn't even complete the test is not a test at all. Nothing but an opinion piece stating how much range they are comfortable using, nothing more.

We all drive differently so my statement ONLY applies to me but when my SOC meter reads "_ _ _" I have 22 miles of range left.

Agreed, guess to flat out he could have done around the 203 that carwow achieved.

I think that range tests should include not one, not two, but three numbers: Range to Low Battery Warning, range to Very Low Battery Warning, and range to Turtle or equivalent extreme power reduction. If there are no low battery warnings, the car should be tested to whatever warning exists, and to turtle.

LeftieBiker said:

I think that range tests should include not one, not two, but three numbers: Range to Low Battery Warning, range to Very Low Battery Warning, and range to Turtle or equivalent extreme power reduction. If there are no low battery warnings, the car should be tested to whatever warning exists, and to turtle.

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I agree, different cars hide different amounts of energy. My SL Plus shows the first low battery warning with remaining energy equivalent to between 35% and 40% of the full capacity of my two previous cars when their batteries were new. There is more energy remaining in the 2019 SL Plus when the dashboard display goes to ---% SOC than the previous cars had at the first low battery warning. I just drove it 29.6 miles after the first low battery warning (LBW happened at 6% SOC and 11 miles remaining according to the dash display with Leaf Spy reporting 106 Gids); 20.4 of those miles were after what is generally considered very low battery warning (VLBW was when remaining miles went to --- at 2% SOC on the dash with Leaf Spy reporting 79 Gids); and 13.7 of those miles were after the dash SOC display went to ---% (Leaf Spy reported 64 Gids at the point when the SOC dropped from 1% to ---%). In order to do my quarterly full discharge/charge test I ran climate control in the driveway to Turtle (happened at 12 Gids) and Shutdown (7 Gids).

Edited to add: New tires are 215/55 R17 Bridgestone DriveGuards (run flat capable) inflated to sidewall maximum 51 psi cold. I recommend 44 psi cold for OEM Michelin Energy Savers for best tire life.

GerryAZ: I'm very curious about your experience with the Bridgestone DriveGuard tires. How about starting a thread dedicated to that specific tire, or PM me your thoughts?
I don't recall anyone else here moving to the DriveGuard, so I think the info would be valuable to many of us.
Thanks.

I would second that. I am also very interested to hear about your experience with them.

Wow, 51 psi side wall rated. That sounds like a receipt for efficiency.

DougWantsALeaf said:

I would second that. I am also very interested to hear about your experience with them.

Wow, 51 psi side wall rated. That sounds like a receipt for efficiency.

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Efficient right up to the point until you skid on a wet road and hit something....or can stop soon enough on a dry road due to the reduced contact patch.

I would be careful with that much over the recommend amount. There are many downfalls to over inflation that some of you guys seem to discount. These recommend tire pressures are based on size of tire and the weight they are carrying....this is NOT something Nissan came up with....for those who like to bash Nissan....these pressure vs. weights are based on tire engineering and standards set by standard tire certifications.

Over inflation is not just going over the max rated psi number on the sidewall...it's going over the optimum pressure for the max weight the tire will actual carry.

Learjet said:

DougWantsALeaf said:

I would second that. I am also very interested to hear about your experience with them.

Wow, 51 psi side wall rated. That sounds like a receipt for efficiency.

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Efficient right up to the point until you skid on a wet road and hit something....or can stop soon enough on a dry road due to the reduced contact patch.

I would be careful with that much over the recommend amount. There are many downfalls to over inflation that some of you guys seem to discount. These recommend tire pressures are based on size of tire and the weight they are carrying....this is NOT something Nissan came up with....for those who like to bash Nissan....these pressure vs. weights are based on tire engineering and standards set by standard tire certifications.

Over inflation is not just going over the max rated psi number on the sidewall...it's going over the optimum pressure for the max weight the tire will actual carry.

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The very idea that Nissan spent a dime to determine the correct tire pressure on the LEAF is quite laughable. The problem is they didn't. They simply plugged in their tired old formula that half ass works for gassers and called it good.

There are many downfalls to over inflation that some of you guys seem to discount.

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Not to seem like the vocabulary police, but this is a common flub that bugs me no end. The word(s) is "down side" or "downside" NOT "downfall." A down side is a disadvantage. A downfall is what it sounds like: something that ends a career or product run. Having extramarital affairs was John Edward's downfall. Being a political hack who is vague in speeches and on platform details is Joe Biden's downside.

You have to decide. Do you want a little more range and wear your tires out about 20 to 25% faster or a little less range and get another year out of a set of tires?
Those energy savers were about $150 each, I know I don't look forward to replacing them any time soon.

Learjet said:

DougWantsALeaf said:

I would second that. I am also very interested to hear about your experience with them.

Wow, 51 psi side wall rated. That sounds like a receipt for efficiency.

Click to expand...

Efficient right up to the point until you skid on a wet road and hit something....or can stop soon enough on a dry road due to the reduced contact patch.

I would be careful with that much over the recommend amount. There are many downfalls to over inflation that some of you guys seem to discount. These recommend tire pressures are based on size of tire and the weight they are carrying....this is NOT something Nissan came up with....for those who like to bash Nissan....these pressure vs. weights are based on tire engineering and standards set by standard tire certifications.

Over inflation is not just going over the max rated psi number on the sidewall...it's going over the optimum pressure for the max weight the tire will actual carry.

Click to expand...

They have far superior wet and dry traction compared to the ridiculous OEM Michelins, but the rolling resistance is higher. Based upon my experience with temperature rise of the tires (an indicator of amount of flexing under load), 51 psi seems about right and wet traction at that pressure is excellent for this heavy car.

Edited to add: To those who have asked, I will start a thread on the DriveGuards after I have enough miles on them to publish meaningful data. Preliminary indications are rolling resistance increase (range reduction) of somewhere in the vicinity of 20% with higher loss in stop/go driving and less loss at constant freeway speed. They are much quieter and offer much better wet and dry traction than the OEM Michelin Energy Saver A/S tires. I attribute the higher range loss during stop/go driving to the increased weight of each tire compared to OEM. The increased rotating mass is more of a concern during acceleration/deceleration than at steady highway speed.

Ok, I just did a test driving about 30 miles in each direction at a pretty constant 70 mph with tires at 44 PSI (outside temp was between 55 and 60F).

Results were 3.3-3.4 in each direction per the dash. A bit lower based on readings in Leafspy, but timing of readings might explain that.

At 58.4 usable kilowatts, that puts range at 192 miles - 198 miles, so pretty close to what Tom measured when you include some buffer.


This did make me realize how much efficiency mgmt I had been doing on my long driving runs in terms of staying with traffic and letting speed drift to compensate for terrain or wind.

Could someone with an S out there within a few hundred feet of sea level try the same. I am curious if the wheel size makes any difference at 70mph. I would say that tire pressure didn't do much at that speed.

I did gps check the speedometer at 70 mph, and it was pretty much right on.

Was watching the out of spec motoring videos for range tests. It looks like the Bolt gets almost the exact same efficiency as the Leaf Plus, though due to bigger battery gets another 20-30 miles more range (makes sense 7kWh x 3.4 = 23-24 miles) .

Interesting that the SR+ with Aero wheels was at about 220 watts per mile (or about 4.5 miles/kWh in perfect weather) at 68-70 mph, but with 20 inch wheels that dropped to 300 watts per mile, or ... 3.33 miles/kWh. This might give me hope that with an efficient wheel set, the Leaf Plus could be brought up to 3.7 or higher. Moving to 16" rims with flat covers would help. Lowering the car an inch would help as well. Other inexpensive ideas?