Winter Update

Yikes!  We've really slacked off on the blog here  The last entry was over a month ago.  Some of the blame can be placed with season four of Downton Abbey and season two of House of Cards but it's also because there hasn't been anything especially interesting to report.  The LEAF has pretty much just become a car.  Getting us from place to place like any other car.  But anyway why not an update!  Read on.

Get it While the Getting's Good

Being an EV early adopter has its perks. Not only does Nissan really, really, REALLY want you to have a great experience, the lack of a crowd can be nice in other ways, too. This weekend a friend invited me to coffee in Cambridge. I figured that without traffic, range would be no problem, even though it was highway the whole way. However, it was snowing. A wet, slushy snow and I knew my friend would be walking from Boston to Cambridge. I wanted to be able to offer her a ride home without risking range.

You Don't Take an Electric Car to a "Gas" Station

And I'm not talking about the awkward times I've actually driven the LEAF to a gas station to get an inspection sticker or fill up the gas can for my snow blower.  I'm talking about the paradigm shift in how you think of when and where you refuel an electric car.

It's My Way or The Highway

Today it was the highway.  To work and back on the Mass Pike and 128 (95 to non-natives).  No back roads.  I tend to commute off hours and so can travel at actual highway speeds.

We're out of the Polar Vortex so there wasn't much pressure on the climate control so I figured today was going to be a good time to get over what I think is my last bit of range anxiety. The full highway commute adds about 10 miles and a lot of mph but cuts of a good bit of time.

Wow! Check Out the Range on the 2014!

84 miles!  9 more than the 2013!  Well, not exactly.

"The Weather Outside is Frightful..."

...But the LEAF is quite delightful...

A Facebook friend cracked that after the snowstorm and exceptionally cold weather before Christmas that our purchase of the LEAF had apparently singlehandedly reversed global warming and that maybe we should go back to gasoline.

Life Without a High Speed Charger

Now that the holiday craziness is over it's time to get back to posting.  Looks like this one should have been posted a while back before we actually got the 240V charger but here it is anyway.

Harkening back to an earlier post in which we may have come to the conclusion that we were a little premature in actually bringing the car home, we learned to live with the trickle charger, but it wasn't easy.