Archive for the ‘Passing the Pump’ Category

Do we need long range EVs?

Friday, November 4th, 2011

There’s an interesting article that came out last week discussing Nissan’s apparent position that there is “no market need” for a long range electric vehicle. The article says Nissan’s research has found that the average number of miles LEAF owners are driving per day is only 37 miles, and the average single trip distance is only 7 miles. So do we need a long range electric vehicle? I’m not sure. For most of the driving I do on a day-to-day basis, the LEAF meets my needs. But, it’s hard to get out of the mindset that your primary vehicle should be able to take you wherever you want or need to go. You could have a gasoline vehicle as your “second car” for long trips, or even rent a gasoline vehicle when you need to go farther, but in my experience with talking to people at electric transportation education and outreach events, this doesn’t seem to be a solution that many are comfortable with. So it’s interesting to me that Nissan would say there is no market need for a long range EV when, in my opinion, that’s not what the market is saying. At least not yet.

Here’s a link to the full article:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1067884_want-a-long-range-electric-car-nissan-doesnt-think-you-do

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Range Needs

Monday, October 10th, 2011

So far there has only been one time since I’ve been driving Advanced Energy’s LEAF that it didn’t quite meet my range needs. I took it out for some errands around town and on my way home I had a weird experience that I haven’t had before. Within a few miles of actual driving, the LEAF’s range estimate dropped over 20 miles! I was on the highway, but I’ve driven on the highway before and that hasn’t happened. When I got home the range estimate was at 35 miles left. I wanted to take the LEAF back out that evening, but I didn’t feel confident that I would make it to my destination and back, about 32 miles. I plugged the car in when I got home from my errands, but since I only have Level 1 charging capability at my house, it didn’t charge much before I was ready to go back out. To me, this points out the usefulness of having a Level 2 charging station, either at home or at shopping centers. Level 1 is fine for most planned trips like daily commuting, but Level 2 seems like it would give you more flexibility and probably would have allowed me to use the LEAF for all of my driving needs that day.

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Charging at Home and Work

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

I realized I haven’t talked much yet about charging the LEAF. The short summary is – it’s really easy. You just plug the car in and it does its thing. Actually, the most trouble I have with charging the LEAF is remembering that it’s plugged in. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten in the car and then realized I haven’t unplugged it yet. Luckily, the car won’t fully start while it’s plugged in, so they’ve done a good job of idiot-proofing it for me!

I don’t have a Level 2 charging station at home or at work (yet), so I’ve been mostly limited to Level 1 charging. While it gets the job done, it takes a looooong time. After my roundtrip commute to and from work, which is about 38 miles, it takes 12 hours to fully recharge the LEAF. At times when I’ve taken the battery level down farther, it has taken up to 23 hours to fully recharge. The Level 1 charging works well enough for the most part, but I can see how having a Level 2 charging station would increase the flexibility of when you have to charge the car.

And if you aren’t familiar with Level 1 and Level 2 charging, visit Advanced Energy’s transportation website for more information.

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“Refueling” Cost Comparison

Friday, September 30th, 2011

I took Advanced Energy’s LEAF down to the lowest charge level I’ve done so far. I drove 64.3 miles and the car told me I had 18 miles of range remaining. This is getting pretty close to the EPA listed 72 mile range of the car. I used a meter at my house to log the energy I’m using specifically to charge the LEAF. According to the meter it took 18.9 kilowatt-hours (kWh) to recharge. I pay 10.9 cents per kWh, so it cost me $2.06 to nearly fully charge the LEAF. This equates to 3.2 cents per mile.

LeafPwrMeter

The power meter monitoring the LEAF charging

RaleighGasPrices.com says the average price of gas in Raleigh right now is $3.445 per gallon. My personal vehicle averages about 30 miles per gallon, so that equates to 11.5 cents per mile.

So, driving the LEAF on this trip was about 8.3 cents per mile cheaper than my personal gasoline powered vehicle. Over a week of daily commuting, the LEAF will save me about $15.

The LEAF also reports the miles per kWh you’re achieving. I plan to use the power meter to log the kWh over a number of trips and double check how accurately the car reports this value. Stay tuned!

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Do you know what the price of gas is? I don’t!

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Heading into week 3 with Advanced Energy’s LEAF and I sure haven’t missed filling up my car with gas. I realized that I have no idea what gas costs right now – why would I when I don’t need it? In a fun bit of irony, though, I actually took the LEAF to a gas station this past weekend to fill up my gas can for the lawn mower. I thought I was being funny…no one at the gas station seemed to notice.

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