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.

EV of the Day

I really hope It gets to the point where I can no longer play this game. The game where my daily goal is unfulfilled until I spot an electric car. I win the game most days by spotting Tesla Model S's, Mitsubishi iMEVs, Nissan LEAFs or Chevy Volts. If I excluded the Volts I'd have a much lower win-loss ratio but I include them because they run all-electric for 30 miles or so. Those are my rules. Your game can have its own rules.

When This Van's a Rockin'...

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.