Three Years of Driving Electric: What Have We Learned?
Nine months and almost 8,500 miles of driving our 2013 Nissan LEAF SL and the smooth sailing continues. No problems except for some early clicking from the front axles that was fixed by the dealership in short order. The car continues to be smooth, quiet, comfortable, roomy, relaxing and FREE to drive because of our home's solar panels. That's right, we haven't paid a penny for fuel in all of that driving (and in a total of three years and 32,000 miles of driving electric). We couldn't be happier, except that I really want a sportier car as my daily driver, and I'll be spending the next year deciding which EV will replace our LEAF in June of 2015, when the current lease expires.
Three Years of Driving Electric: What Have We Learned?
One of the reasons we wanted to be early adopters of a full battery-electric car (BEV) instead of a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) like a Volt was because we wanted to experience living with a full BEV. We wanted to see what it would be like to do most of our charging at home, in our own garage. We wanted to experience public charging, to see how readily available it would be, what it would cost, and how reliable it would be. We wanted to see what the costs of charging would look like if we had to provide most of our own electric power. We wanted to see whether we could take a BEV for medium range trips and whether DC quick charging would turn out to be quick enough and located in enough strategically placed locations to make such trips realistic. We wanted to know the answers to these questions first hand, rather than relying on what we were told by others. And we wanted to be able to share our experiences with other folks who might be interested in driving an EV, as well as providing information to the car industry and government to help them to make intelligent decisions. So what have we learned?
1) In driving over 32,000 miles 100% electrically, we've proven to ourselves that an electric car can easily replace one of two cars in a family fleet. We have done this with almost zero inconvenience and little need for advance planning.
2) With an average of about 35 miles of driving a day (on days that we drive) the 80 mile driving range of a BEV is easily enough to cover the vast majority of our trips. Our other car, a Prius, can handle any of our longer range trips.
3) We have NEVER come close to running out of charge unexpectedly and being stuck on the side of the road. This is because the car has plenty of readouts, warnings and navigation aids to help the driver to never find him or herself in that situation. I did once forget to plug in the car overnight. My bad. I was tired and distracted. No problem, I took the other car that morning.
4) Our longest trip was a 228 mile round trip, from Orange Country, California to Ventura and back in the 2013 LEAF SL on an overnight trip. We used public Level 2 (200 to 240 volt) charging in Santa Monica, Ventura and Malibu, and with some good planning, the charging stops were not an inconvenience. However, the time it took to recharge at Level 2 was a significant enough delay (2 1/2 to 3 hours), that we would not want to make a trip like this often. We will be much more likely to take the Prius because of convenience.
5) Our cost for home fueling has been ZERO for all of those 32,000 miles, and under $20 total for public charging. That's because we already had 24 solar panels on our home's roof, installed in 2007. With some careful conservation and energy efficient appliances, WITHOUT charging our LEAF, our solar panels generate about 1,200 kWh more per year than our household uses. But charging our LEAF uses close to 3,000 kWh per year, so our total power usage is about 2,000 kWh per year more than we generate. So why aren't we paying for the power that we use in excess of what our solar panels generate? Because of the benefits of Time Of Use electric rates, net metering and charging our LEAF during night time hours, when power is plentiful and rates are low. Essentially, we get credit for making solar power during Peak hours, when it is needed by other people and when power is expensive, and we use most of our power at night, when it is plentiful and cheap.
6) As a guide to the many who don't yet have solar power or for whom it isn't a possibility, I've been able to keep track of how much we would have paid for power to charge our LEAF if we hadn't had solar power. When we charge over night, using our Time of Use rates, our cost has averaged about ten cents per kWh. We used 9,210 kWh for charging the car at home in our first three years of driving electric. So if we hadn't had solar power, we would have spent about $921 on extra power for charging for three years and 32,000 miles, or about $25.50 a month for about 900 miles of driving a month.
[Note that if we were a household that uses a lot of electrical power during the weekday Peak hours, such as for air conditioning in the summer months, these Time of Use rates without having home solar power might end up costing us more than being on a regular domestic tiered rate schedule, and charging the LEAF might have cost us more. But my best guess from talking with other EV drivers is that it wouldn't cost very much more, and certainly much less than the cost of gas for a gas burning car.]
7) Driving the same 32,400 miles in a gasoline car that gets 25 mpg would have cost over $5,000. So we have saved over $5,000 in fuel costs over the past three years and even if we hadn't had solar power, we would have saved over $4,000.
8) Maintenance cost has been ZERO, except for replacing a set of tires on our 2011 LEAF after two years. This potential for savings is often overlooked. An EV like the LEAF has no belts to wear out, no oil to change, no transmission fluid, no ignition, and no exhaust system. Hence, ongoing repair costs are expected to be low. However, the big question mark, the elephant in the room, is the cost of replacing the large traction battery. Nissan recently made the long-awaited announcement that the cost of a new battery pack for the LEAF will be about $5,500 with exchange of your old battery pack, plus about $300 in parts plus the dealer's labor. I expect the full cost to be about $7,000. That isn't a small number, but it is considered to be much lower than was expected just a few years ago. This lower-than-expected cost may represent the reduction in battery cost over time that has been expected by EV industry watchers.
Nissan also has a battery capacity warranty which covers loss of 4 of the car's 12 capacity bars within the first 5 years or 60,000 miles, and which has covered the cost of replacement of some batteries, usually in hot climate areas of the US.
With values for used low mileage 2011 LEAFs currently running between $11,000 and $13,000, It now makes pretty good sense to buy a used LEAF, with the knowledge that a replacement battery pack will make your used car almost like new again in the event that your battery's capacity drops below a level that makes the car less useful for your needs.
Of course, if you lease your EV, as I recommend that you do in these early days of this new technology, the responsibility for replacing the battery pack rests with the dealer or the manufacturer, not with the customer. I personally don't expect to pay to replace an EV's battery pack any time soon.
9) Charging at home in our own garage has been the essence of simplicity and convenience. The time it takes to plug in the car is insignificant. The charging process has been completely reliable. And it is a pure pleasure to drive past gas stations, never having to stop, get my hands dirty, deal with payment and watch those rising prices, currently reaching what seem to be new highs locally.
10) The growth of public charging has been fairly slow, but steady in Southern California. Level 2 (200 to 240 volt) public charging has grown steadily, with the Charge Point network being the most reliable in every respect. But public DC Quick Charging has been woefully slow to appear. Ecotality (Blink) failed to install anywhere near the number of DC Quick Chargers promised in the Southern California region. A free DCQC at Mitsubishi headquarters was the only DCQC in the LA to San Diego region for many months. Meanwhile, Oregon and Washington State made good on their promise to create the West Coast Electric Highway by installing DCQCs every 60 miles or so along Interstate 5, while California did nothing, even though they were also part of that agreement. Eventually, in 2013, Nissan dealers began installing DCQC units at various dealership locations around the state. The ability to find quick charging at a variety of Nissan dealers helps tremendously when trying to get around the large LA metropolitan area. The problems are that some of these dealerships don't allow charging by drivers who aren't their customers, and most of the dealers lock up their chargers at night. Progress is likely to come with the installation of several hundred chargers by NRG in urban areas through an agreement with California government, but the needed quick chargers in remote areas along highways like interstates 5, 101 and 99 may still be lacking.
11) Electric cars ARE fun to drive, and way more pleasant to drive than most gas cars. The torque (twisting power) of an electric motor is 100% available from the moment power is applied to the motor. In an electric car, this means that the car shoots forward immediately when the accelerator is pressed. This instant torque makes EVs great fun to drive. Some EVs, those tuned for sporting performance as much as for economy, are as quick as any gasoline competitor. Our 2011 LEAF was quite quick off the line and I had great fun surprising other drivers with the car's acceleration when lights turned green. Our 2013 LEAF seems to have less torque, or the torque is limited electronically, so the performance off the line is less impressive, but the car still feels quick, smooth, quiet and fun to drive. EVs that have strong regenerative braking can also be more fun to drive because the car can be driven almost with the accelerator pedal alone. The strong regen feels like engine braking in a stick shift car. Driving enthusiasts definitely should look at electric cars if they are attracted by the other benefits of driving electric. There are definitely EVs out there that are real performance cars.
12) We need to plan our driving more carefully:
Driving an EV means that we need to become more aware on a regular basis of the car's current available driving range. We charge our LEAF to 100% on nights before needing to take a long drive, and to 80% on most other days, in an effort to take the best care of the battery (though this precaution might not really make a difference). When we decide to make a spur-of-the-moment trip, the first thing we think about is whether the LEAF has enough charge to make the round trip. If not, we take another car or we wait until we have time to charge the LEAF enough to make the trip. We become more aware of whether the trip will be uphill or if we need to drive on high speed freeways, both of which will sap our driving range more than driving more slowly on flat ground. And for longer trips, we need to really plan carefully, using web sites and smartphone apps to locate and check the status of public charging stations.
13) Our driving range in our nicest, newest car is limited:
When any of us gets a new car, we usually want to drive it to some of our favorite places and show it off to our friends. But with a new EV, if our friends live at some distance, it may not be convenient to allow time for public charging along the way. It's kind of a bummer to have to resort to our older Prius to make these trips to visit friends 100 miles away or more. Driving on vacation trips throughout the region can't realistically be done in our cool new EV, and that's a shame. It is exactly this convenience, the ease of rapid public charging with a car that has inherently longer range already, that Tesla has leveraged into a dominant advantage over most other EVs.
14) The most numerous (Level 2) public charging stations are too slow to make trips longer than about 80 miles convenient, and the fast DC public chargers have been rolled out far too slowly:
Even the Level 2 public charging stations, generally at 200 to 240 Volts and 30 Amps, provide only about 25 miles of driving per hour of charging. So an 80% charge for most EVs, a charge that will allow you to drive 60 to 75 miles, takes about three hours. This is fine if you are planning to stop for a movie, for a shopping trip or a long visit. But it is too slow to be convenient for travel between distant points. DC fast charging (DCQC) is one way to make such travel convenient because this level of charging can add 70 miles of range in just a half hour stop. But these DCQC stations are still few and far between, even in California, one of the hotbeds of EV ownership. This may change over the next few years for several reasons, but it hasn't happened yet.
15) Battery capacity declines over time:
It appears that all of the current crop of lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars suffer from capacity decline over time and usage, and our experience with the LEAF shows that it is no exception. In fact, quite the contrary. It is fair to say that the LEAF has been a very solid and reliable electric car, and given the LEAF's status as the first mass produced mass market electric family car offered widely for sale, Nissan's achievement in making a quality vehicle is quite amazing. While the LEAF has been extremely reliable in our hands and from what I've read, in the hands of most drivers, the only negative that has attracted mainstream attention has been the decline in battery capacity seen in hot summer climates, a decline that surprised owners when it appeared in just the cars' second summer of use.
For our own experience, even in our relatively temperate coastal Southern California climate, we saw a decline in available driving range of between 18% and 19% over the first 24 months and 25,000 miles that we drove our 2011 LEAF. We never lost any of the twelve battery capacity bars during that time, but we certainly saw the available range decline by that amount, as measured by carefully kept records of energy economy and the energy required to recharge the car from empty ("Turtle"). While the resulting 70 miles or so from full charge to empty after that two years of driving was certainly enough to handle our routine average of less than 40 miles per day, the range was closer to 55 miles when the "low battery" warnings began to sound, and fewer miles at freeway speeds. Suffice to say that we found the utility of the car reduced whenever we wanted to use it for the more distant of our round trips in our local region. Combine that with the 2011 LEAF's slow on board charger, and any attempt at longer trips, such as a 92 mile round trip to Oceanside from our Orange County home, was an exercise in patience and a long four hour wait for mid-trip charging in order to build a cushion of charge for the return trip. Though the car was equipped with a DC quick charge port, available public quick charge stations were almost non-existent until the last year or so, when Nissan dealers started installing them.
Some of this has been rectified in the last year. Nissan has announced that all 2015 LEAFs sold in the US will have their newly formulated "lizard" battery composition, which should give better resistance to capacity loss from heat. As I mentioned above, the availability of rapid DC quick chargers has increased substantially in some regions, including our own, largely due to Nissan's own efforts. And from the 2013 model year, the LEAF has been available with an on-board charger that is almost twice as fast as the one with which the 2011 and 2012 LEAFs were equipped.
Quantitative Findings after Three Years of Driving Electric:
Average Miles Per Day: 35 miles or less per driving day
Miles of Range per 100% Charge when New:
2011 LEAF: 86.5 miles at an indicated 4.0 miles/kWh
2013 LEAF: 88.9 miles at 4.1 miles/kWh
kWh of Energy per 100 Miles Range: 28.4 kWh most recent reading with 2013 LEAF
Charging Efficiency: Approximately 85% at 240 Volts, 32 Amps
2011 Nissan LEAF SL (Blue Ocean) Placed in Service: March 30, 2011
Three Years of Driving Electric: What Have We Learned?
One of the reasons we wanted to be early adopters of a full battery-electric car (BEV) instead of a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) like a Volt was because we wanted to experience living with a full BEV. We wanted to see what it would be like to do most of our charging at home, in our own garage. We wanted to experience public charging, to see how readily available it would be, what it would cost, and how reliable it would be. We wanted to see what the costs of charging would look like if we had to provide most of our own electric power. We wanted to see whether we could take a BEV for medium range trips and whether DC quick charging would turn out to be quick enough and located in enough strategically placed locations to make such trips realistic. We wanted to know the answers to these questions first hand, rather than relying on what we were told by others. And we wanted to be able to share our experiences with other folks who might be interested in driving an EV, as well as providing information to the car industry and government to help them to make intelligent decisions. So what have we learned?
1) In driving over 32,000 miles 100% electrically, we've proven to ourselves that an electric car can easily replace one of two cars in a family fleet. We have done this with almost zero inconvenience and little need for advance planning.
2) With an average of about 35 miles of driving a day (on days that we drive) the 80 mile driving range of a BEV is easily enough to cover the vast majority of our trips. Our other car, a Prius, can handle any of our longer range trips.
3) We have NEVER come close to running out of charge unexpectedly and being stuck on the side of the road. This is because the car has plenty of readouts, warnings and navigation aids to help the driver to never find him or herself in that situation. I did once forget to plug in the car overnight. My bad. I was tired and distracted. No problem, I took the other car that morning.
4) Our longest trip was a 228 mile round trip, from Orange Country, California to Ventura and back in the 2013 LEAF SL on an overnight trip. We used public Level 2 (200 to 240 volt) charging in Santa Monica, Ventura and Malibu, and with some good planning, the charging stops were not an inconvenience. However, the time it took to recharge at Level 2 was a significant enough delay (2 1/2 to 3 hours), that we would not want to make a trip like this often. We will be much more likely to take the Prius because of convenience.
5) Our cost for home fueling has been ZERO for all of those 32,000 miles, and under $20 total for public charging. That's because we already had 24 solar panels on our home's roof, installed in 2007. With some careful conservation and energy efficient appliances, WITHOUT charging our LEAF, our solar panels generate about 1,200 kWh more per year than our household uses. But charging our LEAF uses close to 3,000 kWh per year, so our total power usage is about 2,000 kWh per year more than we generate. So why aren't we paying for the power that we use in excess of what our solar panels generate? Because of the benefits of Time Of Use electric rates, net metering and charging our LEAF during night time hours, when power is plentiful and rates are low. Essentially, we get credit for making solar power during Peak hours, when it is needed by other people and when power is expensive, and we use most of our power at night, when it is plentiful and cheap.
6) As a guide to the many who don't yet have solar power or for whom it isn't a possibility, I've been able to keep track of how much we would have paid for power to charge our LEAF if we hadn't had solar power. When we charge over night, using our Time of Use rates, our cost has averaged about ten cents per kWh. We used 9,210 kWh for charging the car at home in our first three years of driving electric. So if we hadn't had solar power, we would have spent about $921 on extra power for charging for three years and 32,000 miles, or about $25.50 a month for about 900 miles of driving a month.
[Note that if we were a household that uses a lot of electrical power during the weekday Peak hours, such as for air conditioning in the summer months, these Time of Use rates without having home solar power might end up costing us more than being on a regular domestic tiered rate schedule, and charging the LEAF might have cost us more. But my best guess from talking with other EV drivers is that it wouldn't cost very much more, and certainly much less than the cost of gas for a gas burning car.]
7) Driving the same 32,400 miles in a gasoline car that gets 25 mpg would have cost over $5,000. So we have saved over $5,000 in fuel costs over the past three years and even if we hadn't had solar power, we would have saved over $4,000.
8) Maintenance cost has been ZERO, except for replacing a set of tires on our 2011 LEAF after two years. This potential for savings is often overlooked. An EV like the LEAF has no belts to wear out, no oil to change, no transmission fluid, no ignition, and no exhaust system. Hence, ongoing repair costs are expected to be low. However, the big question mark, the elephant in the room, is the cost of replacing the large traction battery. Nissan recently made the long-awaited announcement that the cost of a new battery pack for the LEAF will be about $5,500 with exchange of your old battery pack, plus about $300 in parts plus the dealer's labor. I expect the full cost to be about $7,000. That isn't a small number, but it is considered to be much lower than was expected just a few years ago. This lower-than-expected cost may represent the reduction in battery cost over time that has been expected by EV industry watchers.
Nissan also has a battery capacity warranty which covers loss of 4 of the car's 12 capacity bars within the first 5 years or 60,000 miles, and which has covered the cost of replacement of some batteries, usually in hot climate areas of the US.
With values for used low mileage 2011 LEAFs currently running between $11,000 and $13,000, It now makes pretty good sense to buy a used LEAF, with the knowledge that a replacement battery pack will make your used car almost like new again in the event that your battery's capacity drops below a level that makes the car less useful for your needs.
Of course, if you lease your EV, as I recommend that you do in these early days of this new technology, the responsibility for replacing the battery pack rests with the dealer or the manufacturer, not with the customer. I personally don't expect to pay to replace an EV's battery pack any time soon.
9) Charging at home in our own garage has been the essence of simplicity and convenience. The time it takes to plug in the car is insignificant. The charging process has been completely reliable. And it is a pure pleasure to drive past gas stations, never having to stop, get my hands dirty, deal with payment and watch those rising prices, currently reaching what seem to be new highs locally.
10) The growth of public charging has been fairly slow, but steady in Southern California. Level 2 (200 to 240 volt) public charging has grown steadily, with the Charge Point network being the most reliable in every respect. But public DC Quick Charging has been woefully slow to appear. Ecotality (Blink) failed to install anywhere near the number of DC Quick Chargers promised in the Southern California region. A free DCQC at Mitsubishi headquarters was the only DCQC in the LA to San Diego region for many months. Meanwhile, Oregon and Washington State made good on their promise to create the West Coast Electric Highway by installing DCQCs every 60 miles or so along Interstate 5, while California did nothing, even though they were also part of that agreement. Eventually, in 2013, Nissan dealers began installing DCQC units at various dealership locations around the state. The ability to find quick charging at a variety of Nissan dealers helps tremendously when trying to get around the large LA metropolitan area. The problems are that some of these dealerships don't allow charging by drivers who aren't their customers, and most of the dealers lock up their chargers at night. Progress is likely to come with the installation of several hundred chargers by NRG in urban areas through an agreement with California government, but the needed quick chargers in remote areas along highways like interstates 5, 101 and 99 may still be lacking.
11) Electric cars ARE fun to drive, and way more pleasant to drive than most gas cars. The torque (twisting power) of an electric motor is 100% available from the moment power is applied to the motor. In an electric car, this means that the car shoots forward immediately when the accelerator is pressed. This instant torque makes EVs great fun to drive. Some EVs, those tuned for sporting performance as much as for economy, are as quick as any gasoline competitor. Our 2011 LEAF was quite quick off the line and I had great fun surprising other drivers with the car's acceleration when lights turned green. Our 2013 LEAF seems to have less torque, or the torque is limited electronically, so the performance off the line is less impressive, but the car still feels quick, smooth, quiet and fun to drive. EVs that have strong regenerative braking can also be more fun to drive because the car can be driven almost with the accelerator pedal alone. The strong regen feels like engine braking in a stick shift car. Driving enthusiasts definitely should look at electric cars if they are attracted by the other benefits of driving electric. There are definitely EVs out there that are real performance cars.
12) We need to plan our driving more carefully:
Driving an EV means that we need to become more aware on a regular basis of the car's current available driving range. We charge our LEAF to 100% on nights before needing to take a long drive, and to 80% on most other days, in an effort to take the best care of the battery (though this precaution might not really make a difference). When we decide to make a spur-of-the-moment trip, the first thing we think about is whether the LEAF has enough charge to make the round trip. If not, we take another car or we wait until we have time to charge the LEAF enough to make the trip. We become more aware of whether the trip will be uphill or if we need to drive on high speed freeways, both of which will sap our driving range more than driving more slowly on flat ground. And for longer trips, we need to really plan carefully, using web sites and smartphone apps to locate and check the status of public charging stations.
13) Our driving range in our nicest, newest car is limited:
When any of us gets a new car, we usually want to drive it to some of our favorite places and show it off to our friends. But with a new EV, if our friends live at some distance, it may not be convenient to allow time for public charging along the way. It's kind of a bummer to have to resort to our older Prius to make these trips to visit friends 100 miles away or more. Driving on vacation trips throughout the region can't realistically be done in our cool new EV, and that's a shame. It is exactly this convenience, the ease of rapid public charging with a car that has inherently longer range already, that Tesla has leveraged into a dominant advantage over most other EVs.
14) The most numerous (Level 2) public charging stations are too slow to make trips longer than about 80 miles convenient, and the fast DC public chargers have been rolled out far too slowly:
Even the Level 2 public charging stations, generally at 200 to 240 Volts and 30 Amps, provide only about 25 miles of driving per hour of charging. So an 80% charge for most EVs, a charge that will allow you to drive 60 to 75 miles, takes about three hours. This is fine if you are planning to stop for a movie, for a shopping trip or a long visit. But it is too slow to be convenient for travel between distant points. DC fast charging (DCQC) is one way to make such travel convenient because this level of charging can add 70 miles of range in just a half hour stop. But these DCQC stations are still few and far between, even in California, one of the hotbeds of EV ownership. This may change over the next few years for several reasons, but it hasn't happened yet.
15) Battery capacity declines over time:
It appears that all of the current crop of lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars suffer from capacity decline over time and usage, and our experience with the LEAF shows that it is no exception. In fact, quite the contrary. It is fair to say that the LEAF has been a very solid and reliable electric car, and given the LEAF's status as the first mass produced mass market electric family car offered widely for sale, Nissan's achievement in making a quality vehicle is quite amazing. While the LEAF has been extremely reliable in our hands and from what I've read, in the hands of most drivers, the only negative that has attracted mainstream attention has been the decline in battery capacity seen in hot summer climates, a decline that surprised owners when it appeared in just the cars' second summer of use.
For our own experience, even in our relatively temperate coastal Southern California climate, we saw a decline in available driving range of between 18% and 19% over the first 24 months and 25,000 miles that we drove our 2011 LEAF. We never lost any of the twelve battery capacity bars during that time, but we certainly saw the available range decline by that amount, as measured by carefully kept records of energy economy and the energy required to recharge the car from empty ("Turtle"). While the resulting 70 miles or so from full charge to empty after that two years of driving was certainly enough to handle our routine average of less than 40 miles per day, the range was closer to 55 miles when the "low battery" warnings began to sound, and fewer miles at freeway speeds. Suffice to say that we found the utility of the car reduced whenever we wanted to use it for the more distant of our round trips in our local region. Combine that with the 2011 LEAF's slow on board charger, and any attempt at longer trips, such as a 92 mile round trip to Oceanside from our Orange County home, was an exercise in patience and a long four hour wait for mid-trip charging in order to build a cushion of charge for the return trip. Though the car was equipped with a DC quick charge port, available public quick charge stations were almost non-existent until the last year or so, when Nissan dealers started installing them.
Some of this has been rectified in the last year. Nissan has announced that all 2015 LEAFs sold in the US will have their newly formulated "lizard" battery composition, which should give better resistance to capacity loss from heat. As I mentioned above, the availability of rapid DC quick chargers has increased substantially in some regions, including our own, largely due to Nissan's own efforts. And from the 2013 model year, the LEAF has been available with an on-board charger that is almost twice as fast as the one with which the 2011 and 2012 LEAFs were equipped.
Quantitative Findings after Three Years of Driving Electric:
Average Miles Per Day: 35 miles or less per driving day
Miles of Range per 100% Charge when New:
2011 LEAF: 86.5 miles at an indicated 4.0 miles/kWh
2013 LEAF: 88.9 miles at 4.1 miles/kWh
kWh of Energy per 100 Miles Range: 28.4 kWh most recent reading with 2013 LEAF
Charging Efficiency: Approximately 85% at 240 Volts, 32 Amps
The Numbers: March 2014
All Home Charging Done Using: 240 Volt Aerovironment/Nissan Level 2 EVSE
Home Solar PV System: 24 Sunpower 215W panels totaling 5.16 kW DC mounted on a 20 degree South facing roof.
Total Solar PV Power Generated for Net Metering Year Ended February 2013: 8,448 kWh
2011 Nissan LEAF SL (Blue Ocean) Placed in Service: March 30, 2011
Our 2011 LEAF's Longest Range Full Charge to Empty ("Turtle"): 86.5 miles (at 4.0 mi/kWh on dash), April 2011.
Our 2011 LEAF's July 2012 Range, Full Charge to Turtle: 75 miles (at 4.1 mi/kWh on dash)
Our 2011 LEAF's Most Recent Range, Full charge to Turtle: 69.9 miles (at 4.1 mi/kWh on dash) June 11, 2013
NOTE: Longer maximum range is possible if the LEAF is driven more conservatively. LEAF owners have achieved range of well over 100 miles.
Our 2011 LEAF's Most Recent Range, Full charge to Turtle: 69.9 miles (at 4.1 mi/kWh on dash) June 11, 2013
NOTE: Longer maximum range is possible if the LEAF is driven more conservatively. LEAF owners have achieved range of well over 100 miles.
2013 Nissan LEAF SL (Super Black) Placed in Service: June 15, 2013
Our 2013 LEAF's Longest Range Full Charge to Empty ("Turtle"): 98.3 miles (at 4.5 mi/kWh indicated on dash) June 2013
Our 2013 LEAF's Longest Range Full Charge to Empty ("Turtle"): 88.9 miles (at 4.1 mi/kWh indicated on dash) August 2013Total Electric Miles with Two Nissan LEAFs: 32,424
Month: March 2014
(Data in the set below is for the new 2013 LEAF with 6 kW charger only)
Total Miles Driven at Month End: 8,470 miles (88 miles on odometer at delivery)
Miles Driven in Month: 604 miles
Electric Power Used for Charging in Month: 171.5 kWh (measured at wall power source, includes public charging)
Public Charging in Month, Power Use: 10.5 kWh
Total Miles Driven at Month End: 8,470 miles (88 miles on odometer at delivery)
Miles Driven in Month: 604 miles
Electric Power Used for Charging in Month: 171.5 kWh (measured at wall power source, includes public charging)
Public Charging in Month, Power Use: 10.5 kWh
Charging at Home in Month, Power Use: 161 kWh
Energy Efficiency, Month: 3.52 miles/kWh (wall to wheels)
Energy Efficiency, Month: 3.52 miles/kWh (wall to wheels)
Energy Efficiency, Month: 28.4 kWh/100 mi (wall to wheels)
Energy Efficiency, Month: 4.13 miles/kWh (in car main dash display, battery to wheels)
Charging Efficiency Wall to Wheels, Month: (3.58/4.09) = 85.2%
Total Charging Energy Used, Lifetime: 2,361.6 kWh (Includes public charging)
Energy Efficiency, Lifetime: 3.59 miles/kWh (wall to wheels)
Energy Efficiency, Lifetime: 27.86 kWh/100 mi (wall to wheels)
Number of Home Charging Days in Month: 20
Most Electric Energy Used for Charging in a Day in March: 17.3 kWh (2.6 charging hours in two sessions)
Most Electric Energy Used for Charging AT HOME in a Day in March: 17.3 kWh (2.6 charging hours in two sessions )
Least Electric Energy Used at Home for Charging in a Charging Day in March: 5.7 kWh (0.86 charging hours)
Average Electric Energy Used for Home Charging in a Charging Day in March: 8.1 kWh (1.2 charging hours)
Household Power Used for Month: 584 kWh (without car charging)
Total Household Power Used for Month: 745 kWh (includes car charging)
Solar PV Power Generated for Month: 723 kWh
Net Household Power Used or Sent to Grid for Month: 22 kWh net use
Average Electric Energy Used for Home Charging in a Charging Day in March: 8.1 kWh (1.2 charging hours)
Household Power Used for Month: 584 kWh (without car charging)
Total Household Power Used for Month: 745 kWh (includes car charging)
Solar PV Power Generated for Month: 723 kWh
Net Household Power Used or Sent to Grid for Month: 22 kWh net use
March Electric Bill, So Cal Edison, Schedule TOU-D-TEV: -$98.08 (a credit of $98.08, $40 of which was a new California Climate Credit)
Solar Net Metering Year Total Cumulative kWh Used at Month #1: -81 kWh
Solar Net Metering Year Total Cumulative Cost at Month #1:: -$98.08 (Net Metering total for the year so far is a credit balance due to Time of Use rates and charging car at night during Super Off Peak rates.)
Cost for Charging Car in March: $0
Cost per Mile for March: $0
Cost for Charging Car, Lifetime (for our 2013 LEAF): $16.69 (All public charging)
Cost per Mile, Lifetime (for our 2013 LEAF): $0.0020 (All from public charging)
(If We Didn't Have Solar Power, Est Cost for Charging Car in March: $15.30)
(If We Didn't Have Solar Power, Est Cost per Mile in March: $0.0253)
Average (Mean) Miles per Driving Day in March: 24.2 miles
Average (Median) Miles per Driving Day in March: 22 miles
Longest Day's Driving in March: 61 miles
Longest Day's Driving in March Without Mid-Trip Charging: 55 miles
Shortest Day's Driving in March: 4 miles
Number of Times we Took the Prius Instead of the LEAF Due to Low Charge or Lack of Range: 1
Unexpected Low Charge and Unable to Reach Destination: Never
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