EV (electric vehicle) News & Discussion

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2121 posts

Uber Geek

#2548730 24-Aug-2020 14:10

As always, context matters. Personally, I'd consider both the Aqua and Leaf to be city cars and in that use case the Leaf would win out against the Aqua. Even if you did a couple inter-city trips throughout the year I think the Leaf would still be the better choice.

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HarmLessSolutions

956 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#2548741 24-Aug-2020 14:37

Also worth considering that the main reason for owning a hybrid is their increased range capability, by way of an ICE. As improving battery technology gives EVs range capability sufficient for most owners' requirements the market niche for hybrids will disappear and they will become a redundant concept. The economics of fueling and maintaining an ICE tips the balance further in favour of an EV. The only question is how long this change will take to happen.

So, is owning a hybrid a bad long term investment as the resale value of it will essentially evaporate?

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Dugimodo

168 posts

Master Geek

#2548994 24-Aug-2020 18:39

Obraik:

As always, context matters. Personally, I'd consider both the Aqua and Leaf to be city cars and in that use case the Leaf would win out against the Aqua. Even if you did a couple inter-city trips throughout the year I think the Leaf would still be the better choice.

I agree around town but for the inter-city trips it really depends how often and whether you're ok with renting a car or putting up with really slow trips. I have recently taken my 24kwh leaf from Hamilton to Tauranga and back and it's not an experience I care to repeat.

In total it cost me $26 in fast charging and about 90-100 mins of charge time. It also added an extra 20km to the round trip to reach a charger. My other car is a corolla and could easily have made the trip for the same cost.

When you can charge at home or at a free charger EVs are very economical, but as soon as you use a paid fast charger that advantage starts to disappear, and that's without RUC charges. Part of the issue is the 24kwh leaf will not charge any faster on a 50kw charger than a 25kw one and the per minute charges really start to add up if you have to charge past 80% to get to your destination which is quite likely in the 24 or 30kwh leafs. If you only have one car and you need it to do long trips very often I personally think an EV will only work out when the 40kwh+ models become affordable.

I've owned one for a year and I really like it, it's done more than 90% of my transport and I drive it in preference to the corolla whenever possible. I just find for me personally it doesn't cover my needs by itself and I am not wanting to own two cars.

Really I just wanted to point out the down side so anyone considering a leaf makes an informed choice, they are good vehicles but will not suit everyone.

HarmLessSolutions

956 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#2549003 24-Aug-2020 19:00

Good comments regarding Nissan Leafs. We have had our 24kWh Leaf since July 2014 so well experienced with their limitations especially as ours now has 60K km+ on the clock and is around 75% SOH so range is definitely declining. We have an ancient Commodore SW for cargo and trailer work and out of province trips which like you is very much a second vehicle to the Leaf, especially since my partner stopped using it as her daily commuter as she is now permanently working online from home. For the month plus we were in lockdown V1 the Commodore was started twice and had over 3 months between refuels.

Our plan is to eventually replace the Commodore with a longer range EV but in the meantime it owes us near to nothing and not worth trading in. A Kona is one possibility but I figure we have a few years before we have to make that move.

The problem with Leafs is that they protect their non-thermally controlled batteries by limiting charge input to around 3.3kW no matter the capacity of the charging facility and as the ChargeNet ones base charge cost on kWhs and time the slow charge costs more. They really are an awesome round town car and if you've taken the PV plunge they're ultra cheap to run.

As you've hinted at one option for Leaf owners is to hire a car for the occasional long trip, or if you have a neighbour that is curious about your EV maybe offer them a vehicle swap for a few days and take their ICE on a trip while they experience the "EV smile' for themselves.

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MarkH67

517 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2549022 24-Aug-2020 19:31

I have to agree with the downside of the 24kWh Leaf.

I bought my '15 leaf 3 years ago with only 7,500km on the clock, it is now at 58,000km, I've definitely saved enough to make it worthwhile. For me it works well for the 36km drive to work and back again. It still has 11 bars despite now being 5 years old and I expect to keep making my 72km round trip for at least a couple more years.

But for long trips, I'd rather borrow my mother's Corolla. The people that claim it is fine for long trips - they must be masochists! At 100kph (speedo reading 110kph) I'd be lucky to get 100km from 100% to 0% (and no sane EV driver aims to go from 100% to 0%), once you fast charge to 80-85% (charging is really starting to slow down beyond that) you are not going to go as far. Once you have done one or two fast charges, the battery temperature is rising and you can't keep up that speed of charging - slowing down your trip even more. If I had a 64kWh Kona or eNiro or a 62kWh Leaf or anything else with a decent range - long trips wouldn't be a problem, most only needing one fast charge (many trips needing none). My next car will hopefully have the necessary range to be fine for ALL my car needs, my current car works well for commuting to work and other short trips.

In my case, over 50,000km of driving - No petrol, no oil/filter changes, no breakdowns, almost no fast charging. In fact I have not one time paid for fast charging since I got my car. I've saved having to burn over 3,000 litres of petrol. My only service/maintenance & repair costs have been for tyres and windscreen wiper blades. For my use case the Leaf has been a worthwhile car, for others it might or might not be the same. I would give my conditional support for a 2nd hand Leaf, but definitely NOT unconditional support.

kingdragonfly

11081 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2549037 24-Aug-2020 20:03

Anyone have an opinion on the Nissan e-NV200?

I understand it's basically a Leaf, but has active cooling.

I admit the interior's bland, and the exterior so boring it could serve as punishment for a wayward teen driver.

kingdragonfly

11081 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2549056 24-Aug-2020 20:38

I put a giant battery in our e-NV200 and it's glorious

Obraik

2121 posts

Uber Geek

#2549089 24-Aug-2020 21:24

Dugimodo:

I agree around town but for the inter-city trips it really depends how often and whether you're ok with renting a car or putting up with really slow trips. I have recently taken my 24kwh leaf from Hamilton to Tauranga and back and it's not an experience I care to repeat.

In total it cost me $26 in fast charging and about 90-100 mins of charge time. It also added an extra 20km to the round trip to reach a charger. My other car is a corolla and could easily have made the trip for the same cost.

When you can charge at home or at a free charger EVs are very economical, but as soon as you use a paid fast charger that advantage starts to disappear, and that's without RUC charges. Part of the issue is the 24kwh leaf will not charge any faster on a 50kw charger than a 25kw one and the per minute charges really start to add up if you have to charge past 80% to get to your destination which is quite likely in the 24 or 30kwh leafs. If you only have one car and you need it to do long trips very often I personally think an EV will only work out when the 40kwh+ models become affordable.

I've owned one for a year and I really like it, it's done more than 90% of my transport and I drive it in preference to the corolla whenever possible. I just find for me personally it doesn't cover my needs by itself and I am not wanting to own two cars.

Really I just wanted to point out the down side so anyone considering a leaf makes an informed choice, they are good vehicles but will not suit everyone.

Yes, as I said, context matters. Absolutely if you're doing trips between cities a handful of times a year then a Leaf wouldn't be ideal for the journey if that's the only car you had...but I would also argue that the Aqua wouldn't be a great tool for the task either. It'll be a gutless noisy drive on anything other than a perfect flat road. I'm also not sure how good its fuel efficiency would be traveling at highway speeds.

If one didn't want to deal with hiring a vehicle for longer road trips or had to have a single vehicle that could do everything and a longer range pure EV is out of the budget then my next recommendation would be a PHEV. At least there's actual EV range to be had from it for when cruising around the city unlike the older style hybrids. Assuming stopping to charge a shorter range EV (like a Leaf) is out of the equation.

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Obraik

2121 posts

Uber Geek

#2549469 25-Aug-2020 14:30

Speaking of PHEV's, there are two rare examples (for NZ) on TradeMe at the moment - the Holden branded Volt known as the Chevorlet Volt in the US

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DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2556907 4-Sep-2020 12:08

No surprises to most here but good to get further well researched confirmation

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129478_lifetime-carbon-emissions-for-evs-is-much-lower-than-previously-suggested-study-highlights-errors

wellygary

8254 posts

Uber Geek

#2556988 4-Sep-2020 13:08

Obraik:

Speaking of PHEV's, there are two rare examples (for NZ) on TradeMe at the moment - the Holden branded Volt known as the Chevorlet Volt in the US

The motor vehicle register shows 27 Volts currently registered in NZ, so yip, pretty rate...

tdgeek

29639 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2556995 4-Sep-2020 13:26

wellygary:

Obraik:

Speaking of PHEV's, there are two rare examples (for NZ) on TradeMe at the moment - the Holden branded Volt known as the Chevorlet Volt in the US

The motor vehicle register shows 27 Volts currently registered in NZ, so yip, pretty rate...

Watt? Really? Thats shocking. There must be some resistance.

wellygary

8254 posts

Uber Geek

#2556997 4-Sep-2020 13:27

tdgeek:

wellygary:

The motor vehicle register shows 27 Volts currently registered in NZ, so yip, pretty rate...

Watt? Really? Thats shocking. There must be some resistance.

Ohm My... :)

SaltyNZ

8154 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

2degrees

Lifetime subscriber

#2557006 4-Sep-2020 14:10

I have an endless capacitor for puns.

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These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

Scott3

3945 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2557077 4-Sep-2020 15:24

wellygary:

Obraik:

Speaking of PHEV's, there are two rare examples (for NZ) on TradeMe at the moment - the Holden branded Volt known as the Chevorlet Volt in the US

The motor vehicle register shows 27 Volts currently registered in NZ, so yip, pretty rate...

There are now three up for sale (one of which has a Chevrolet badge, apparently one of only two such cars in NZ, ex UK).

This is quite unusual, there have been none for sale for an extended period.

While I have never been in one, these are quire special cars.

It and the nissan leaf were the first modern really mainstream, walk to a dealership and buy one kind of Electric cars (of course stuff like the Getz conversions came first in NZ, and the i-miev was around the same time, and there were to odd home conversion, but those were relatively lower volume).

Of course for NZ at $84k of the Volt, and $70k odd for the leaf, sales volumes of both were relatively low. This all changed when many cheap used leaf's started turning up from japan. Volt was never sold in japan, and the 2nd generation was never offered in RHD, so the numbers in NZ have remained low.

In 2011 I recall USA media focusing on green cars running monthly sales comparisons between the two, and online discussion covered if the pure EV or plug in hybrid (or as GM called it Range extended electric vehicle) approach was better.

Consensus was that the volt's design was much more conservative with regards to battery health than nissan's. It has a 16 kWh pack with only 10.4kWh usable, meaning the most damaging high and low charge states are never used.

I kinda want one, but it would be an illogical car for my needs.

Quote from the chevy listing:

"We have owned Nissan Leaf’s, Prius PHV and Outlander PHEV plugin cars. Volt is by far the best drivers car. Solid, quick, stable & quite.
...

In the last 75000km it has used just over 300 litres of fuel returning and average of 0.3L/100km! Lifetime consumption 0.4L/100km. 6L/100 on a trip in hybrid mode.

With our twisty hilly road and spirited driving we get 49km EV range in winter and 58km in summer. Some owners get 70+km. When that runs out it seamlessly becomes a very efficient hybrid and can travel another 450km.

Battery is still holds the original 10.6kWh of capacity. Car shows 91% oil life remaining."

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