% 'Heart-stopping terror', writer's fears> not an EV candidate %
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/nissan/10564296/Living-with-a-Nissan-Leaf.html Living with a Nissan Leaf by Neil Lyndon 16 Jan 2014 [image http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02793/Nissan-Leaf_2793453b.jpg Will driving a Nissan Leaf for a year convert us into electric car enthusiasts? ] We report on the pros and cons of the Nissan Leaf electric car, one of which we have on long-term test Nissan Leaf electric car long-term review After five months with our Nissan Leaf long-term test car, here are our thoughts on electric motoring. PROS: • Our year's savings on petrol could pay for a holiday. On average, in the past, I have filled one tank a month. Since September, when I started using the Leaf full time, I have filled only one tank – for a long trip in the family bus Peugeot 5008. So the 2p per mile cost of running the Leaf electric car (setting aside purchase cost) will have saved us at least £300. • I have my own parking space in the heart of our town which is always empty. No matter if it's Saturday morning or the middle of a busy working day, the two spaces for electric cars – with recharging points – which the council has provided at the municipal car park will always be vacant. It's bliss. I don't even have to buy a ticket to park (though you do have to pay for the electricity). • The Leaf sets you apart (if you like that sort of thing). Never mind your Bentleys and Ferraris: if you go out in a Leaf, you can bet you won't see another. Ours seems to be the only one in daily use in Scotland, where I live. People stop and stare when it glides silently by. • It's one of the best-built cars I've driven. Nissan reckons the 24 kWh lithium-ion battery will be good for 10 years. Nobody can be sure about that claim until 2023; but I'm confident the body and structure will last, in good order, at least a decade. No car that costs less than £100,000 feels more solid and resolutely built. With all the weight of that battery under the floor, its ride is as fluent and composed as a presidential limousine. • It heats up instantaneously, even in the depths of winter. If you switch on the Leaf's window heaters on a frosty morning, the ice on the glass dissolves in seconds. Internal combustion engines take an age to warm the air in a car (and, meanwhile, their tailpipes are putting out noxious gases and carbon matter); but the zero-emissions Leaf gets cosy inside in no time. • It is changing my family's way of life. Since the Leaf arrived, I have embarked on a full-scale programme of reform to cut our household energy consumption. By the end of this year, I should be charging the car for free during the day with electricity generated from our own solar panels and CHP boiler, pumped through our Pod Point charging unit. CONS: • I'd certainly love ours less if I'd had to pay for it. The Leaf we've got at home would cost £30,000-plus (less the £5,000 grant the Government gives to purchasers of every electric car). That's double the cost of a similar-size Focus or Golf. You'd have to keep the Leaf for at least 10 years to save that much money on fuel. • They talk about range anxiety. Heart-stopping terror is more like it. The Leaf's nominal range of 80-plus miles on a fully charged battery is as fanciful as the mpg figures manufacturers publish for conventional cars. Any round trip of more than 60 miles might give you a seizure as you watch the meter run down. More than once I have had to creep home with everything switched off, looking out through a tiny slot of unmisted windscreen. THE FACTS Nissan Leaf Price as tested: £31,600 (less £5,000 gov’t grant) Power: 80kW Top speed: 90mph Acceleration: 0-62 mph in 11.5sec Average energy consumption: 150Wh/km CO2 Emissions: nil [© Telegraph Media Group Limited 2014] For all EVLN posts use: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=evln&sort=date Here are today's archive-only EV posts: EVLN: BMW i5 electric hinted > a larger i3 EVLN: $400+ Bosch plug-and-play eBike system r:12/72mi ts:20mph EVLN: San Diego, CA EV parking spaces keep ice pollution down EVLN: Kansas "kind of watching" plugins> eyeballing flat road-tax + EVLN: Smart42ed Jeremy Scott Edition EV {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Real-Leaf-Driving-and-living-with-an-EV-tp4667621.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
