Nissan LEAF - General

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#1621409 2-Sep-2016 13:45

gzt: I don't do this at present (petrol) because

a) hate looking at the back of a big truck!
b) higher risk of stone chips to windscreen etc.

The method is a significant saving in charging convenience if driving electric so maybe I would reconsider. As for the stone chips maybe it is about picking the right trucks. Any doing rural roads or picking up partly tarred gravel are the ones to avoid. Hard to pick I'm thinking. Some routes will be worse than others.

Totally agree. I look for the long mud guards....and only do this on a clean, clear highway. If there are any roadworks around and gravel on the road service......forget it. So easy to just back off if the road gets gritty.

Still.....if you saved $500 in petrol and had to spend $300 every now and again on a new windscreen....you're still ahead. Just not........as much. :-(

If there is a truck with a deep tread with NO mudguards.....I'll let him get a km ahead of me (or behind) no matter what I'm driving. They can throw a stone a long way.

I've had a couple of windscreens broken / chipped and it's typically a truck coming the other way. On a divided highway, this risk is reduced. I had one last year on the road to Whangarei Heads.......truck went past in the opposite direction....CRACK!!!....and a spider web in my windscreen.

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paulchinnz

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#1621427 2-Sep-2016 14:19

Linuxluver:

paulchinnz: Hi thanks for sharing. Do you find B mode makes much of a difference on top of ECO?

I have a 2015 Gen 2 Model S. It doesn't seem to have B mode....or I don't know how to run it on. There's nothing on the steering wheel but the horn and the shifter toggles back and forth between ECO on and ECO off.....and the dash has a little "A" on it. I don't know how to get it to say "B". Maybe I should google that, eh?

I always have ECO on.....it gives me an extra 5-10km depending in the context..and I see no point in giving that away in exchange for (a faster) "ZOOM". My LEAF zooms just fine in ECO mode. :-)

Not sure about 2015 but on 2013 the B-mode is engaged by moving the joystick to D position twice (the first time engages D-mode, second time B-mode)...

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#1621533 2-Sep-2016 17:24

Linuxluver:

Thanks! :-) I've explained it to a couple of people and they assume I'm really close. Just in case, I'd like to be clear I'm typically 30m-40m behind. Far enough to be safe, close enough to gain at least some benefit of the truck breaking the wall of air in front.

Wow your EV must be very long. You said 4-5 car lengths before ...

dwl

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#1621662 2-Sep-2016 21:19

paulchinnz:

Linuxluver:

paulchinnz: Hi thanks for sharing. Do you find B mode makes much of a difference on top of ECO?

I have a 2015 Gen 2 Model S. It doesn't seem to have B mode....or I don't know how to run it on. There's nothing on the steering wheel but the horn and the shifter toggles back and forth between ECO on and ECO off.....and the dash has a little "A" on it. I don't know how to get it to say "B". Maybe I should google that, eh?

I always have ECO on.....it gives me an extra 5-10km depending in the context..and I see no point in giving that away in exchange for (a faster) "ZOOM". My LEAF zooms just fine in ECO mode. :-)

Not sure about 2015 but on 2013 the B-mode is engaged by moving the joystick to D position twice (the first time engages D-mode, second time B-mode)...

The Japanese Gen 2 S only has Eco, no B. For the models that do have B it feels more aggressive than Eco although you can get that regen braking effect by lightly touching the brake pedal.

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#1621716 2-Sep-2016 23:13

dwl:

The Japanese Gen 2 S only has Eco, no B. For the models that do have B it feels more aggressive than Eco although you can get that regen braking effect by lightly touching the brake pedal.

I love B-mode. It feels like engine braking on a manual (but its not aggressive). Been driving a manual most of my life, so it feels pretty natural.

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#1621717 2-Sep-2016 23:14

Having had my interest piqued by this thread and the EV one (both 'generated' by @Linuxluver) I took a Leaf for a test drive. It was a Gen 2 with 9K on the clock and still 12 segments showing on the battery.
So smooth and quiet with plenty of pep. One thing I noted was how much more evident other motoring noises are when you subtract internal combustion from the equation. Included in that are other people's noisy bloody heaps! The range readout was almost magnetic in its attraction while driving. Especially the impact of airconditioning, heating, lights, etc had on the range. No wonder I have seen a couple of Leafs driving with no lights on when conditions would have made it prudent to have some illumination. Must have been running the range close to the bone to need to leave the lights off. Don't know what the excuse was for ICE drivers sans lights in similar circumstances :-/
Must say I was pleasantly surprised by the EV experience. And if I could afford to have one just for to and from work, and the odd grocery run, I probably would. But $27K for the Leaf I drove is beyond my meagre finances.

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#1621718 2-Sep-2016 23:21

Linuxluver:

Do you find the EVs clog the bus lanes? Are PHEVs allowed to do this, too?

They have had to restrict certain routes to EVs with passengers. And they have also excluded EVs on certain routes where they are doing construction work (to allow for better flow for the busses).

But in general I have not seen any big problems with EVs in the bus lanes. And there are MANY EVs in Oslo. There are about 70,000 EVs in Norway, and half of them belong to the area in and around Oslo.

PHEVs are not allowed in the bus lanes at all.

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Linuxluver

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#1621732 2-Sep-2016 23:52

joker97:
Linuxluver:

Thanks! :-) I've explained it to a couple of people and they assume I'm really close. Just in case, I'd like to be clear I'm typically 30m-40m behind. Far enough to be safe, close enough to gain at least some benefit of the truck breaking the wall of air in front.

Wow your EV must be very long. You said 4-5 car lengths before ...

You're right! More like 6-8 car lengths..... Maybe more. :-)

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dwl

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#1621807 3-Sep-2016 09:20

Dingbatt: ...snip...Especially the impact of airconditioning, heating, lights, etc had on the range. No wonder I have seen a couple of Leafs driving with no lights on when conditions would have made it prudent to have some illumination. Must have been running the range close to the bone to need to leave the lights off. Don't know what the excuse was for ICE drivers sans lights in similar circumstances :-/

Great to hear that you liked the experience.

There isn't any good reason to run with lights off. The halogens only draw 55W each plus with all the others should be less than 200W. At 70 kph the car is using about 8 kW so a small percentage. It is the heating on the Gen 1 and Gen 2 S (heat pump on the G and X) that is the range killer but if you pre-heat while plugged in then don't need much, especially if you have seat and steering wheel heating.

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#1621822 3-Sep-2016 09:55

dwl:
Dingbatt: ...snip...Especially the impact of airconditioning, heating, lights, etc had on the range. No wonder I have seen a couple of Leafs driving with no lights on when conditions would have made it prudent to have some illumination. Must have been running the range close to the bone to need to leave the lights off. Don't know what the excuse was for ICE drivers sans lights in similar circumstances :-/

Great to hear that you liked the experience.

There isn't any good reason to run with lights off. The halogens only draw 55W each plus with all the others should be less than 200W. At 70 kph the car is using about 8 kW so a small percentage. It is the heating on the Gen 1 and Gen 2 S (heat pump on the G and X) that is the range killer but if you pre-heat while plugged in then don't need much, especially if you have seat and steering wheel heating.

The lights comment was as much a jibe at f... wits who drive grey/silver cars at dusk without their lights on, rather than a range extending tip.
The quietness reminded me of the Rolls-Royce comment about the tick of the dashboard clock being the loudest interior noise. It's a shame NZ uses such coarse chip in its road construction, otherwise the noise difference would be even more evident.
In the end I have bought a hybrid this time round. Next car change (about 3 years away) I think an EV may be in contention.

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RUKI

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#1622249 4-Sep-2016 09:29

Dingbatt: ......
In the end I have bought a hybrid this time round. Next car change (about 3 years away) I think an EV may be in contention.

re: Hybrid or EV - when it comes to testing HV batteries or actually any batteries - you may wish to save this link to my page for future reference:

https://www.facebook.com/toyotahybridbatteryexperts/

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#1622769 4-Sep-2016 23:12

Linuxluver:

I drove home....no special effort...and arrived on 4%.....

I think the "Low battery" warning popped up around 20%. How low can you go? Does the car work fine until 0%? (I have not dared to try).

Linuxluver

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#1622896 5-Sep-2016 09:46

dwl:

Dingbatt: ...snip...Especially the impact of airconditioning, heating, lights, etc had on the range. No wonder I have seen a couple of Leafs driving with no lights on when conditions would have made it prudent to have some illumination. Must have been running the range close to the bone to need to leave the lights off. Don't know what the excuse was for ICE drivers sans lights in similar circumstances :-/

Great to hear that you liked the experience.

There isn't any good reason to run with lights off. The halogens only draw 55W each plus with all the others should be less than 200W. At 70 kph the car is using about 8 kW so a small percentage. It is the heating on the Gen 1 and Gen 2 S (heat pump on the G and X) that is the range killer but if you pre-heat while plugged in then don't need much, especially if you have seat and steering wheel heating.

I think my 2015 LEAF has LED lights. They would use even less power than halogens.

I do try to avoid using the heater. A Canadian saying is helpful here: "There is no bad weather. Only bad clothes". It's so true.

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Linuxluver

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#1622900 5-Sep-2016 09:50

jarledb:

Linuxluver:

I drove home....no special effort...and arrived on 4%.....

I think the "Low battery" warning popped up around 20%. How low can you go? Does the car work fine until 0%? (I have not dared to try).

I got home (to Auckland) from Tauranga one night on "---" for battery percentage and "---" for estimated remaining distance. The last solid numbers displayed prior to that were 4% and 8km. But I knew I was barely 1km from home at that point so didn't care. I went faster. :-)

But I did not see the wee yellow turtle. If you see the turtle the car limits battery draw and you can't do more than about 40kph...and the faster you try to go, the sooner your battery completely dies. crawling at 15kph some people have said they can manage 3-5km on flat ground in turtle mode. Trying to go fast uphill had one person I saw say his car dies about 800m later. Turtle mode is designed to either let you crawl that last wee bit to the farmer's house so you can plug in after begging.....or to just get to the side of the road and call for a tow (lift the front not the back if you don't want you car wrecked).

I have a cable that lets me charge up from ANY 3112 'normal' power point...so if I ever saw the turtle and had NOWHERE public to go....I'd have enough power to door knock my way down a street and beg for a charge for an hour or two for $5. That would get me to 8% - 16% and that should be enough to get to a charger unless I was a complete idiot and went where I had no business going.

Failing that....book into a motel and throw the extension cable out the window and charge the car up. I'd prefer that to running flat nowhere and needing a tow.....which would cost more than a motel.

This is all rapidly becoming academic. Four new 50kw fast chargers have opened in Auckland in the past 2 weeks. A new 50kw fast charger just opened up in Thames this week. There is a 30amp charger just 16km down the highway at a Spark phone box at Waitakaruru. There is a 50kw fast charger being installed now in Rotorua. Tokoroa to follow. There soon won't be any scope for 'range anxiety' because there will be enough chargers around you can't get stuck anywhere unless you've lost the plot.

There is an excellent chance that by Xmas I'll be able to drive my LEAF from Kaitaia to Wellington on a continous string of 50kw fast chargers. When it's possible....I'll be doing it just for the fun of it. charge.net.nz have just received 25 new fast chargers and they want them in by the end of the year.

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#1622937 5-Sep-2016 10:59

My mum just bought a Leaf for herself and she loves it so far.

No problems is range anxiety as her one is just for around town and getting to the Langs beach and back.

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