A couple of weeks ago, we signed a lease on a 2015 Nissan Leaf 100% electric vehicle. Here are the most common questions, based upon our experience so far.
Q: Is it a hybrid?
A: . No. There is no gas engine. It runs on electricity alone, and we have to plug it in to recharge it.
Q: How far does it go on a full charge?
A: Right now, I'm seeing about 1 - 1.2 % battery use for every mile driven -with the A/C running some of the time, and the stereo always on. So with "conservative" driving habits (coasting, regenerative braking, not "punching it" off of the line), it should travel about 90-100 miles on a full charge.
Q: How long does it take to charge?
A: With the included 110v charging cord, and a regular 110v outlet (trickle charge), it can take up to 21 hours to charge fully from a fully-discharged battery. At 240v (Level 2 Charger), it's supposed to charge fully in 4-6 hours (@ 30 AMPs) or 8-10 hours (at 15 AMPs). There's also a "quick charge" plug (Level 3, 480v) that's supposed to fully charge in 30 minutes. An upgraded "charging pack" is required if you want to charge at 240v 30 AMPs or on a quick charger. The base model "S" charger only supports 15 AMP charging (21 hours at 110v or 8-10 hours at 240v). We have the "S" model with the upgraded charger pack (around $1500 difference retail.).
Keep in mind, these are maximum times. We've had the car for 3 weeks, and I've only charged it 4 times. In practice, it can take a few days to drive the car down to a 50% charge, at which point we plug it in by 8-9 PM, and it's full first thing in the morning. Round trip to work is about 27 miles, so it can be driven two work days before it needs about 11 hours of charging time to get to full. Also, it only needs to be charged fully enough to get you to and from your destination the next day. So over a period of a couple of days, you could "catch" up, starting fully-depleted one day, partially charging, driving, partially charging some more, etc... until you're back up at 100%.
Q: Can you only charge at home?
A: No. The car comes with a 15' charging cord that can be plugged into any 110v outlet. Additionally, many city buildings (libraries) and retail outlets (Walgreen's), are beginning to install Level 1 and Level 2 charging stations. A map can be found here: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html.
Q: Does the battery have a "memory effect"? Does it deplete over time?
A: The Lithium-Ion battery is not supposed to have a "memory effect", per-se, but the manual does say that continually recharging the battery from an almost fully-charged state can reduce the battery's life. The battery comes with an 8-year, 100,000 mile warranty (requires annual battery inspections to not void the warranty), and a 5-year, 60,000 mile guarantee that it's maximum capacity won't reduce below 90% of its original capacity. Not too worried about either of these metrics on our 4-year lease. I'm told that Nissan will likely sell replacements in the $5k-$6k range, and that they already have battery lease programs in Europe.
Q: Does running the heater, A/C, radio, etc... deplete the battery faster?
A: Yes, sort of. Just like in a gasoline car, all accessories run off of a 12v DC battery that is recharged by the motor. In this case, it's just recharged by an electric motor instead of a gas motor. That recharging can reduce the battery's range.
Q: Has it increased your electricity bill? Aren't you just using coal instead of gasoline to run your car?
A: We have solar panels on our roof, so we don't see an electric bill in the summer months. Whatever we use in Xcel's coal, we sell back to the grid in solar energy. That being said, we did install the solar array before getting the car, so it is possible that the car will bump our electrical consumption up to where we see some electric bills January - March. If you're planning to get a solar array before getting an electric car, you can, in some cases, oversize the array by 10-20% to account for the car's consumption.
Q: Would you recommend that I get one?
A: Yes, but a qualified yes.
- We have another car that runs on gasoline.
- We thoroughly thought out our driving needs to ensure that both of us shouldn't need to be more than 80 miles away from the house in separate cars at any given time. We mapped out distances to the airport, and to houses of friends and family who live on the other side of town.
- It has a lot of torque, so is responsive and fun to drive.
- The base model comes with tons of features - seat heaters, steering wheel heater, traction control, nice stereo, Bluetooth, USB, Aux port on stereo, keyless entry, smart phone app for remote start of heater or A/C.
- If you can deal with the distance limitations, it is a really nice driving experience, that I hope becomes the norm in the future. Am definitely NOT regretting the decision at this point. (Test drove a Prius and a Mitsubishi i-MiEV in the process as well.)
- Since the technology is so new, we decided to lease, keeping the car under warranty for the duration of our obligation to it. If it runs like this after the lease is up though, and there aren't newer models with longer battery life by then, we may consider buying it outright at that time.
