Nissan LEAF - General

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287 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1991633 8-Apr-2018 19:08

ascroft:

My question is - can the LEAFs etc keep up with the rest of us at highway speeds. The odd times I have seen them they travel at 90km/hr and hold everybody else up..........

My take is still they are really only for round town - on the open road too many compromises - mainly for other drivers!! :-)

I enjoy passing other cars in my Leaf on the open road, but I'm seldom going past Upper Hutt so I'm never worried about range. If I go up Kapiti on a longer drive I do stay under the speed limit most of the time. I think the Leaf is limited to 150 km/h but takes a blink of the eye to get there. The conservative speeds you're seeing is due to the people driving the car, not the car itself.

afe66

3181 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1991634 8-Apr-2018 19:14

Not wanting to encourage speeding but I overtook two capervans in Cromwell gorge and the speed got to 135 km/hr.

But the faster you go the lesser the range.

I cruise at 90km/hr and frequently pull over if people queue behind me.

Pretty sure they are not driving to 100km/hr though...

In my ice I travel at 100km/hr but there still seems alot of people wanted to overtake because they want to drive at 110km/hr. Am I in the wrong because I drive to the posted speed limits?

daparrot

128 posts

Master Geek

#1991679 8-Apr-2018 20:52

ascroft:

My question is - can the LEAFs etc keep up with the rest of us at highway speeds. The odd times I have seen them they travel at 90km/hr and hold everybody else up..........

My take is still they are really only for round town - on the open road too many compromises - mainly for other drivers!! :-)

The leaf under reports your speed consistently by 10 percent
So most drives think they are doing 100km but are only doing 90

GV27

5897 posts

Uber Geek

#1991680 8-Apr-2018 21:03

Linuxluver:

I have driven from Auckland to the Coromandel and gone right around the peninsula (Coro town, Taurua, Whitianga and Whangamata).....and then carried on to Opotiki.

It's 108km to Thames from my house. I typically arrive with about 30-35% left over. *almost* enough to carry on to Coromandel Town without charging (It's barely more than 50km)......but I haven't risked it because of the big hill. At this point your battery will be only slightly warmer than when you left assuming you drove the 90kph speed limit on SH2 in the safer speed zones.... and 100 the rest.

OK...so where are you going now? Charging up to 80% will warm the battery up by maybe 8C.....so no issues with heat. You've just added 120km....and you can then drive around to the coast to Whitianga or beyond to Tairua. Then charge to 80% again. In winter or at night the battery will cool down a lot. In summer all the hills will keep it warm. It you charge to 80% in Tairua you can easily get to Thames for maybe a 5 - 10 minute charge to 80% or 85% and then carry on to Auckland. The battery will be getting warmish (40-45C) about now if it's a warm summer day......but all you need to do it drive home. No problem. Total drive about 300km and well within the battery heat tolerance for the LEAF.

If you were going to this whole drive TWICE in on day (600km)......I'd suggest a cooling break of a couple of hours between them while you charge at home.

I'd previously go through Botany, along the Seabird Coast and through Kaiaua/Miranda to get to Thames and then from Thames to Coromandel (maybe around the loop to Tuatewawa and Little Bay), back through Coromandel and then either to Kuaotunu for an early dinner or to Tairua for fish and chips on Paku Hill. That's the absolute furthest I've ever gone (at least as far as the Coromandel is concerned) and it's just over 500km.

A more realistic (I'm older and tend to spend less time driving Bathurst-stint distances in a single day now) trip would be along the Seabird Coast, through Coromandel and grabbing dinner at Tairua and driving home the same day.

I currently have a BMW Mini Cooper S that sits idle in a carport because replacing simple parts (e.g. the broken gearknob) is nightmarishly expensive and a Toyota Corolla which has done 310,000km. The Corolla costs me nothing to run in depreciation and insurance, but the Mini is currently a lot of capital that I'm not particularly emotionally attached to other than it having a nice six speed manual box.

If a 24kwh Leaf can do it then I'd be extremely tempted to ditch the Mini altogether.

Journeyman

1186 posts

Uber Geek

#1991681 8-Apr-2018 21:16

afe66:

In my ice I travel at 100km/hr but there still seems alot of people wanted to overtake because they want to drive at 110km/hr. Am I in the wrong because I drive to the posted speed limits?

You're not technically wrong, but if there are people behind you that want to get past, why not let them?

robjg63

4098 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1991685 8-Apr-2018 21:44

daparrot:
ascroft:

My question is - can the LEAFs etc keep up with the rest of us at highway speeds. The odd times I have seen them they travel at 90km/hr and hold everybody else up..........

My take is still they are really only for round town - on the open road too many compromises - mainly for other drivers!! :-)

The leaf under reports your speed consistently by 10 percent
So most drives think they are doing 100km but are only doing 90

This is true for all cars:
https://www.aa.co.nz/cars/motoring-blog/why-does-my-speedo-overestimate-and-how-do-i-fare-with-a-4kmh-speed-tolerance-this-summer/

In case you don't want to read the whole article....

The most important thing to bear in mind, first and foremost, is that speedometers in most vehicles are designed to overestimate the speed of travel.

AA Motoring Affairs expert Mark Stockdale explains.

“International law has long required modern cars to overstate true speed. The applicable standard for most vehicles sold in NZ is a European standard that specifies that speedometers must not indicate a speed less than the vehicle’s true speed, or a speed greater than the vehicle’s true speed by an amount of more than 10 percent plus 4 km/h.”

What does this mean in real driving terms?

Well, another way to look at it is, at an indicated speed of 100km/h, the vehicle's true speed must be between 87.3 km/h and 100km/h.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

ANglEAUT

2322 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1991744 8-Apr-2018 23:18

Yeah, bring it on.

158km range @ 95.7% state of charge on a 24kW Leaf

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Dulouz

883 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1991761 9-Apr-2018 06:51

@lcl - what year is your car and how much mileage?

Amanon

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#1991874 9-Apr-2018 10:15

ascroft:My question is - can the LEAFs etc keep up with the rest of us at highway speeds. The odd times I have seen them they travel at 90km/hr and hold everybody else up..........

My take is still they are really only for round town - on the open road too many compromises - mainly for other drivers!! :-)

This is a driver issue, just like any other modern car. They're typically going slow to squeeze out more range. This is exactly what I was talking about in my earlier post - people noticing Leafs leading tail backs and deciding they're not a good purchase choice.

happyfunball

287 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1991898 9-Apr-2018 10:43

tripper1000:

ascroft:My question is - can the LEAFs etc keep up with the rest of us at highway speeds. The odd times I have seen them they travel at 90km/hr and hold everybody else up..........

My take is still they are really only for round town - on the open road too many compromises - mainly for other drivers!! :-)

This is a driver issue, just like any other modern car. They're typically going slow to squeeze out more range. This is exactly what I was talking about in my earlier post - people noticing Leafs leading tail backs and deciding they're not a good purchase choice.

This will change as more EV models hit the roads. Many Leaf drivers are slower drivers, because its better for the environment (in a small way). This is exactly why Elon Musk made Tesla, he wanted to break that association. Its just a Leaf issue rather than an EV one.

SaltyNZ

8230 posts

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2degrees

Lifetime subscriber

#1991900 9-Apr-2018 10:51

happyfunball:

This will change as more EV models hit the roads. Many Leaf drivers are slower drivers, because its better for the environment (in a small way). This is exactly why Elon Musk made Tesla, he wanted to break that association. Its just a Leaf issue rather than an EV one.

Probably not so much 'more EV models' as 'models with longer average range'. When your EV range is merely adequate for daily use with such and such a caveat (like, you can't use the a/c all the time) then you do drive to extend range. When you've got a 60kWh car and you only need 20kWh for your daily run, then you'll drive it without spending so much effort on maximising economy and instead just go with the traffic like any other car.

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ANglEAUT

2322 posts

Uber Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#1991902 9-Apr-2018 10:55

@Dulouz: lcl - what year is your car and how much mileage?

It's a 2015 model with ±26000 on the clock.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#1991906 9-Apr-2018 11:04

Point is, be conscious and considerate of the other traffic when hyper-miling. Not only is causing a tailback bad manors and illegal, but it paints the Leaf in a poor light, as typified by ascroft's question (potential assumption) above. Ultimately it risks creating an additional barrier to EV uptake in the mind of Joe public which I think we can all agree is a bad thing.

happyfunball

287 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1991934 9-Apr-2018 12:12

SaltyNZ:

happyfunball:

This will change as more EV models hit the roads. Many Leaf drivers are slower drivers, because its better for the environment (in a small way). This is exactly why Elon Musk made Tesla, he wanted to break that association. Its just a Leaf issue rather than an EV one.

Probably not so much 'more EV models' as 'models with longer average range'.

Of course. Newer models will have bigger batteries and longer range, lowering range anxiety and hyper-miling. Its possible there will be less of this slowpoke driving on the road in the future since electricity is so much cheaper than petrol, and at least some hyper-milers do it out of 'frugality' rather than environmental or safety reasons. Speeding might actually get worse in a few years if you assume those people will speed up driving an EV instead of a small economy ICE.

afe66

3181 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1991935 9-Apr-2018 12:16

Journeyman:

afe66:

In my ice I travel at 100km/hr but there still seems alot of people wanted to overtake because they want to drive at 110km/hr. Am I in the wrong because I drive to the posted speed limits?

You're not technically wrong, but if there are people behind you that want to get past, why not let them?

Oh, I do.

I'm not one of those types who sits there on the limit holding back those who want to go faster.

You go at what ever speed you want.

I suppose I was countering the argument that EV were holding up traffic vrs it being those who are driving over the limit getting angry at those who are driving at limit.

(often it seems those who get angry at not being able to drive faster than speed limit because they get held up by others also complain about speeding tickets)

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