Nissan Leaf

A few facts to consider first..........?

The energy needed to recharge a Leaf will cause Power Stations to emit 15000g of CO2. No way round it, this car is far from being 'emmission free', in fact it is really quite a dirty car!

Depreciation is now forecast to be horrendous at an average of £5000 a year. Even Nissan will charge you £15000 for just three years use.

The real Range will be a shock. With brisk driving and a passenger or two on board. in an area with a hill or two and, if you dare, the heater on, you might be sub 50 miles!
Don't go too far from home is the recommendation.

The equivalent conventional car (according to the Telegraph) is a 5 door Golf at under £14000. So, bank the balance saved and leave on compound interest for five years, at which time you will have nearly twenty grand to spend on a decent motor.

By Hasselblad on 12 April, 2011, 12:01pm

Don't turn them off...

Things aren't looking too good at the minute for the this car. From what I gather they've had a bit of a nightmare introduction too. Once you power them down, many of them are failing to re-start!!!

By mitchell on 13 April, 2011, 2:39pm

Yes, you rock ......... not

This is the way the industry is going, make no mistake.

But this is still playing with the food.

Time to get real.

By FloatingVoter on 14 April, 2011, 3:03pm

Is this the way to go......yet?

There are some real advantages to the electric motor et al but until some properly functioning method of enegy storage is available, sad efforts such as the Leaf will do little but 'poison' the water for future vehicles.
As James May keeps pointing out, electricity IS NOT a source of energy.......it merely is a means of transference.

All these wasted Government subsidies and the Godawful 'initiatives', should be channelled into real battery or other storage developments. The same goes for Nuclear Power Stations( These could be serious job creaters in the UK).

Until we get those two ingredients right, we are indeed just 'playing with the food'. And it doesn't taste very nice!

By Hasselblad on 15 April, 2011, 2:41pm

Hasselblad is right...

Totally agree with you Hasselblad, it isn't a solution. Not totally convinced as to whether Nuclear power is the way forward but you're right. Until the bigger problem of finding sustainable renewable energy is solved, this is not a solution!

By mitchell on 18 April, 2011, 2:27pm

Good Job Nissan

I think people should realize this is the first real affordable E.V from a major manufacturer, and they deserve a lot of credit for a very fine product.

It's not perfect but the first generation of a new product never is. This car would be more than suitable for 80% of my driving needs and the prius I will keep for the long drives. If I can pick up a leaf in 5 years for €8000 or less, then happy days, If I have 70 miles range, I don't care. If the new battery costs 5000 I don't care either, it will still be a cheap e.v!

It was costing me €94 to fill my Audi A4 for 600 miles range, it would cost 12-14 Euros in an E.V, so this is the point that people need to understand! And people shouldn't just think about where the electricity has to come from. And that's even worst case where the leaf will only do 70 miles. I don't care about C02, but I do care about all the other toxic emissions from Diesels especially, and Europe mainly focus on C02, that is ridiculous as more and more diesels drive in our towns and cities because of cheaper tax!

The Gen II leaf will have a range of around 200 miles, as they are already working on the new battery, I would imagine that battery would be suitable for the Gen I. Batteries will not be a problem in a few years as some of us electric bikers know, we already have 20 mins charging capability, the only problem next is the damn electric house wiring!!! :-)

I used to believe electric cars will win, but I believe the ultimate fuel is Hydrogen, the Mercedes F-Cell will be here in 4 years and can refuel in 5 mins for 400 kms (don't quote me on that) range. And for the price of a Diesel Hybrid. Not bad!

Now we need the E.U and all it's countries to realize Hydrogen is the way forward and start building the infrastructure and make it in the E.U. And the only way to do that is Nuclear.

Fusion is a long way away yet and Thorium Nuclear power using L.F.T.R reactor design is the only viable and much safer nuclear power that I want to see in the future, they have built them before and can do it again. It emits less than 1% of the waste of Uranium reactors because it's so efficient, they cost a lot less to build, and can burn off old waste from uranium reactors. And the waste is safer in a much shorter time, and the waste from current reactors can be the source of fuel now! They also CAN NOT MELT DOWN! And can be turned on and off when required without problem!

There is thousands of years supply of thorium, much more than uranium.

It's crazy to think this technology existed and was used in the 1960's in the U.S but was abandoned because they couldn't make nuclear weapons from the waste. The military couldn't have that now could they? That is crazy to think about! Crazy to think Chernobyl, Windscale (Sellafield), 3 mile Island and now fukushima need never have been!!!

Abundant, clean energy, and much safer than current Nuclear, we could be energy independent in Europe and need not import a single drop of oil. But instead they will make wind turbines at massive costs with minimum gain and they still need the power stations burning fuel on standby!

But Back to e.v's are good but will never be as good as hydrogen, and the F-Cell will beat it by miles, now if the E.U only woke up to the fact and start to create a Hydrogen infrastructure, they want rid of C02, Thorium could very well be the answer.

Sorry for my usual long posts folks, but I am very interested in your opinions. And if we should put more pressure on the E.U to make a hydrogen Infrastructure and not leave it up to each country or it will never happen!

By Mad_Lad on 19 April, 2011, 8:55am

Good post (essay) Mad_Lad

Thanks for your comment Mad_Lad, I found that really informative and will have a look into a few of the things that you mentioned and see what I think of them. I'm very intrigued by the Hydrogen Mercedes F-Cell you spke about and will certainly research into that.

By mitchell on 19 April, 2011, 3:13pm

Don't worry, be happy...

Sorry Mad_Lad, I baulked at the point where you said the Leaf was "affordable" (I'm an average guy, happy to compare payslips) and again when you said "And people shouldn't just think about where the electricity has to come from".

I think we're in the same ultimate camp, but I see the Leaf as a superficial but clever investment in the future marketing of the "green" credentials of Nissan rather than a serious attempt to crack this nut. Necessity is the mother of invention and the day that someone produces something that folk CAN afford and that offers a reasonable range in a way that doesn't hide behind the skirts of our inefficient electricity generating infrastructure, that's the day that customers will lead the market by buying thousands of units, rather than the market (Nissan) trying to lead the customer.

By FloatingVoter on 19 April, 2011, 6:33pm

Nothing good at all.

This Forum is about cars not the imaginary possibilities of Nuclear Power. I mentioned Nuclear as it is the only atmospherically clean energy source that we know of today.I worked on Nuclear Reactor safety design and it is simply money that prevents them being made safe.
Thorium or whatever based reactors are a very very long way in the future and most of the readers of these posts will likely be dead before all our UK electricity comes from a truly clean source.

As for hydrogen, I will simply say Hindenburg! Imagine driving alongside an old hydrogen car that some clown has been 'customising' in ignorance. I'll die soon enough without the help of hydrogen.

However, back to the Leaf.

As Floating Voter says, the Leaf is far from affordable at £31,000 and indeed, everyone I speak to who has seen one and been in one(as I have) comments on the plasticy cheapo finish. Even allowing for our appalling wastage of £5000 tax money, this car bears no comparison with BMWs or Mercedes at these prices.
It may be attractive to some buyers when it is old, well worn and in need of £8000 of new batteries but don't count your chickens yet.

As for what it is right now, it is sadly not well thought through.

It takes 10 hours to charge up; less if you spend another £1000 plus installation on a unique charger; will NOT work with the proposed 'in ground' Public Services chargers; has a savagely compromised range if you use it for anything but crawling around town like a geriatric.....try putting the heating on in the Winter when those batteries are already at low efficiency or try a bit of motorway driving when the wind is in your face!

I have had a couple of new Priuses and currently a Lexus hybrid and believe me, they are not all they are cracked up to be. If you are not interested in CO2, then buy a conventional small car such as a Golf or Hyundai as they will be far far more cost effective and invariable a lot more fun.

I have discussed all the failings of the Leaf with Nissan themselves (the dealers were useless) at considerable length and no answers were forthcoming.
I was left with the coclusion so aptly put by Floating Voter,,,,namely that this is a superficial investment.......of the 'green' credentials of Nissan.

I am particularly disappointed as I was willing to buy one.

By Hasselblad on 20 April, 2011, 7:50am

Food for thought

To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.

How far would the electricity used to refine the oil get you in a Leaf?

How much does it cost to support western friendly regimes to give us access to their resources?

How many petrol heads are prepared to fight in a foreign land for access to those resources or send their sons off to fight for that matter?

You could with enough money and space to buy the kit generate your own electricity, can the same be said of fossil fuel?

Once oil runs out will diehards refuse to use an electric vehicle because it isn't as good. There may never be anything as good as oil for energy density. I'll happily take second or third best.

If I got a electric car I'd never have to visit a petrol station again (for fuel), I could just plug it in when I get home, just like I do with my mobile phone, sat nav, shaver, etc. I wouldn't have to deal with dirty (possibly toxic) items such as air filters, oil filters, fuel filter, particulate filters/additives, dirty oil, power steering fluid, etc. and I wouldn't have to buy such items either. I can't think why the oil and vehicle parts industry is so set against electric vehicles.

By steelcityuk on 20 April, 2011, 9:13am

Hasselblad REPLY

Totally agree with all you have said, it's a NO BRAINER" buying this car.
Any Diesel will beat it hands down.

By johnbmwx6 on 21 April, 2011, 9:19am

Dirty? Don't think so

Hasselblad thinks the car is very dirty, well let's have a look at that.

According the the government, last year's UK grid emissions averaged 410 grammes / kWh electricity, with 10% lost to transmission*.

A Leaf driving friend is averaging 0.21 kWh per mile or 0.13 kWh per km. They've measured about 5% of the electricity is lost charging the battery.

So 474g CO2 is emitted for every kWh put in the car's battery, meaning --driving emissions are 62g/km--. That's quite a bit less than a Prius or so-called clean diesels.

As for diesels beating it hands down. Well, I'm pretty sure anyone buying this car will have considered whether the range fits with their needs. So then, if you ignore the lower CO2 emissions, lower NOX emissions, immunity against rising oil prices, starting each day with a full "tank", better driving experience** and not sounding like there's a bag of spanners under the bonnet, then yes you could be right...


* http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/fuel_mix/fuel_mix.aspx

** Yes I have driven it.

By dpeilow on 26 April, 2011, 10:50am

dpeilow, better driving experience?

hope you re-visit this thread dpeilow. Could you elaborate on what you think makes the LEAF a better driving experience? Are you talking mainly about the comfort of the interior or the way the car handles etc? Or both?

By mitchell on 28 April, 2011, 4:56pm

Back to Basics

OK, I'm an average Joe. I earn £25k per annum. With the debate raging about electricity generation, the internal combustion engine, global warming etc. let me just (OK, selfishly, I can't help it) state my requirements:

I need a vehicle to transport me, usually 5 days a week (but with exceptions for public holidays, annual holiday periods etc.), on a 30-50 mile return journey to work, with a few miles (say, up to 100) at the weekend for shopping etc.

I want to be confident that I I can quickly ensure sufficient capacity to meet my needs on a daily basis. I also have a hankering to enjoy my driving.

Does the "Leaf" meet my needs and affordability?

By FloatingVoter on 29 April, 2011, 10:39am

FloatingVoter... it's not for you

After a bit of research I have the stats to prove the Nissan LEAF doesn't meet your requirements buddy.

The Nissan LEAF has an expected range of 100miles, however testing has brought up varying results. The worst case scenario has been measured at 47miles, whilst the best has been recorded at 138miles. This is dependant on weather conditions, driving style on so on...

So from that I'm afraid until the technology is improved in such a way to increase the distance, the Nissan LEAF will not guarantee to meet your needs to commute 30-50 miles to work everyday.

By mitchell on 18 May, 2011, 4:18pm

Dirty? I sure think so!

Now we have some genuine independent and professional figures to use as regards how much CO2 the Leaf REALLY pushes out.
Edmunds is a highly reputable organisation that takes cars seriously and uses them in the real World.
They quote the following based on a selection of professional drivers and varying terrain over a very goodly mileage.

The WORST charge usage was 53.8KWh for a range of 65.8 miles.
The average was 31.5KWh for 85.6 miles.

Being very kind indeed, let's take the average figure.
If we accept the 410g per KWh generated by our power stations ( and it is actually worse than that in true life), we have an average pollution figure of 12915g for 85.6 miles. That's a staggering 151g of CO2 for every mile!!!

The worst figure is 335g for every mile. That is,of course really awful!

How can anyone call this a 'zero emmission' vehicle? IT IS VERY DIRTY INDEED!

To floating voter, I can only say, you already know the answer to your question...simply because you are sensible enough to ask it! Buy a Golf or ANY other smallish car.

By Hasselblad on 19 May, 2011, 4:02pm

Missing the point

There are hundreds of millions of vehicles in use around the world. Even if a significant proportion of them were battery-powered right now, it would have no impact on the emissions from all the fossil-fuel vehicles still in use. If bio-fuel were used more, this would immediately reduce the release of fossil carbon, and this can be done to a limited extent quickly and easily around the entire globe. If you run a diesel in the UK, you already use 5% carbon-neutral biodiesel, set to increase to 15% by 2013. If this were replicated world-wide, it would reduce global fossil carbon use by that percentage, a far greater impact than the relatively small global percentage contributed by even the best electric vehicles.

By Ironic on 22 May, 2011, 12:37pm

I'm A Boy At Heart (At 48)

I like to believe I'm not dislike other contributors here when I say that I would absolutely love to have a viable "clean" vehicle with a minimum (boy racer!) range of 250miles. Is this too much to ask?

By FloatingVoter on 23 May, 2011, 4:00pm

To Hasselblad,

I happen to have had many diesels over the years, and the prius I own now is actually a far better car by miles in town and city driving than any diesel, bar maybe a vw polo 1.2 tdi with start stop, but the prius is a bigger car and far better than the 3 pot diesel rattle and I can easily achieve 65 mpg and 55 on the motorway. And thet's in the 07 model!

And Thorium is being used in India, though not in L.i.f.t.r reactors.

Thorium may be years away but that's only because of the Nuclear industries total refusal to change, and the investment has to come from private companies and governments. It has been done and there is still research to be done, but it can be done!

Anyway back to e.v's, people should think along the lines of how much it costs to run an e.v compared to a petrol or diesel car, and the e.v wins hands down!

Where the electricity comes form I couldn't care less, I only care about being ripped off for petrol or diesel! And e.v's are still much more efficient even giving the losses in the electrical system!

If it cost me 12 Euros to travel 600 miles in my Prius, then I wouldn't care less about E.V's either!

We have an abundance of energy in the earth, we will never run out, but what will we pay for petrol or diesel in 10 years? 2 or euros, 2.50? Or will the nuclear industry realise finally that there is better alternatives to uranium, that are far safer, What nuclear accident will it take to finally wake them up?

People can say what they like about e.v's or hydrogen the simple fact is ice cars are already becoming too expensive to run and e.v's even today offer a real alternative to a lot of people, and their time is coming a lot quicker than people might like to admit!

By Mad_Lad on 25 May, 2011, 1:51pm

Not the long term solution!

I think the conclusion seems to be that the EV is already cheaper to run than any alternative but it is not the long term solution to eco-friendly motoring! I for one will be monitoring the progress of Hydrogen based power and think that the motor industry will orient itself in this direction n the next few years!

By mitchell on 26 May, 2011, 2:30pm

Mitchell

Indeed it's far cheaper to run an E.V, but the initial costs are still a bit high and the range for a lot of people still isn't enough. And recharging is a pain!

Mercedes will only develop the fuel cell if the infrastructure is put in place, and only in Germany that I know of are they planning a few hydrogen stations, but they are the ones planning to be Nuclear free by 2022, So I have no idea where they are going to get their energy from, though only 25% of their energy comes from Nuclear, it's still a Hugh gap to fill. And if they have to replace petrol and diesel and make Hydrogen? that's not going to happen if they can't generate the power!

How are they going to make Hydrogen? Wind? I don't think so, Wait and see the Germans will not abandon nuclear when the japan disaster goes away, people forget easily enough! 2022 is a long way away yet and Angela Merkel will be long forgotten about!

Here in Ireland we have so many wind turbines that are costing billions to install, we will want the whole island full of them and it still won't be enough, and what if we abandon petrol, coal, diesel that's an awful lot of energy that has to come from some place else! And we are almost 90% dependent on foreign energy and that's unacceptable. 14.4 Cent per KWH, France it's 7 cent!

Over 10,000 years supply of clean, safe Thorium in Norway, cheap as chips. I know what I'd do!

By Mad_Lad on 31 May, 2011, 12:16pm

Just thought of another requirement...

If this is all going to work (and in addition to my needs for an electric car that is still fun to drive and has a reasonable range), I want to be able to stop at a garage anywhere, hand in a dead battery and pick up a charged battery (say, up to the size and weight of a 5 litre screenwash container) which will get me a further useful distance (say, 100 miles of driving).

Also, I really don't want my car to look like, or be emblazoned as, an "electric car", that's for smug tree huggers who bring their own bags to Tescos yet fly to Bali and Florida for holidays twice a year.

By FloatingVoter on 2 June, 2011, 7:52pm