It's All Relative

A Facebook friend asked me a very good question about range.  What about the other uses of electricity in the Nissan LEAF such as lights, wipers, heater, heated seats, power windows and charging iDevices?  He figured that we'd have to give up most of those amenities in order to save electrons for moving.  He specifically cited the example of running the wipers in a snow storm.  But, it's all relative. Sure, you might be able to run down a regular car battery pretty quickly doing that, but you have to compare moving a few ounces of snow every few seconds to driving a 3,300+ lbs car up a hill at 40mph.  Once you think about that you realize that everything else is pretty small stuff.



The cabin heater and front defroster (and probably the A/C but we haven't gotten there yet) is the only "accessory" that really shows a drop in range. I put "accessory" in quotes because when the outside temp drops to 20 my toes don't consider it optional. In the 20 - 30 degree band I've seen it drop the range by 6 to 10 miles.

Per my prior post, Nissan has done a good job at minimizing the need to use the cabin heater by allowing you to remotely turn on climate control while the car's plugged in, providing heated seats in front and back that actually warm up faster than it takes a glacier to melt, and best of all, a heated steering wheel.  None of these involves heating the air around you which seems to be what sucks the range out of the battery.

That sort of direct heat is much more efficient.  Just watch Bear Grylls or Survivor Man light a fire by shorting out a 9V battery, or put a mid 2000s laptop actually on your lap and you can see how you can generate a fair amount of heat from a pretty small battery.

Also, Nissan runs most of the ancillary electrical stuff such as the computer, navigation system and lights off of a secondary 12V lead acid battery instead of the main motor battery.

We'll have to wait for summer to see what effect A/C has on the range as there are no "cooled" seats or steering wheel. You have to consider the negative effects of running the A/C against the drop in aerodynamic efficiency of opening the windows.  We'll see if the Mythbusters' findings on that hold true for the LEAF.

Yesterday's Statistics

• Description: Commuting all back roads
• Starting Range: 91 miles
• Miles Driven:  50.4 miles
• Ending Range: 49 miles
• High Temperature: 48
• Low Temperature: 26
• Wind: 8
• Average MPKWh: 4.1
• Average MPG: 24.5
• Energy Cost/KWh (Wind): $0.0899
• Delivery Cost/KWh: $0.092
• Unleaded Regular/Gallon MA: $3.422
• Savings/Mile: $0.095
• Total Savings: $4.80
• Lifetime Savings: $32.01

• Description: Errands, 7 miles on highway
• Starting Range: 60 miles
• Miles Driven:  17.5 miles
• Ending Range: 32 miles
• High Temperature: 48
• Low Temperature: 26
• Wind: 8
• Average MPKWh: 4.1
• Average MPG: 24.5
• Energy Cost/KWh (Wind): $0.0899
• Delivery Cost/KWh: $0.092
• Unleaded Regular/Gallon MA: $3.422
• Savings/Mile: $0.095
• Total Savings: $1.67
• Lifetime Savings: $33.68

• Description: Local roads
• Starting Range: 42 miles
• Miles Driven:  9 miles
• Ending Range: 25 miles
• High Temperature: 48
• Low Temperature: 26
• Wind: 8
• Average MPKWh: 3.9
• Average MPG: 24.5
• Energy Cost/KWh (Wind): $0.0899
• Delivery Cost/KWh: $0.092
• Unleaded Regular/Gallon MA: $3.422
• Savings/Mile: $0.093
• Total Savings: $0.84
• Lifetime Savings: $34.52