Nissan leaf correct decision?

Skeeter said:
Its an offence to knowingly run out of fuel on a motorway isn't it? I assume the same applies to EVs?
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I think that's one of those "urban myths", the highway code does allow stopping on the motorway if you run out of fuel -

"You can only stop on the hard shoulder in an emergency. The following would be emergencies:

The vehicle has broken down or has a mechanical defect.
The vehicle has run out of fuel or water.
There has been an accident or illness.
The driver or passenger needs to help someone in one of the emergencies mentioned above."

I suppose it could be argued that it's careless driving to get on a motorway knowing you wouldn't make it and would have to pull up though.

And I don't imagine that having to coast on to the hard shoulder having instantly lost all drive then wait to be picked up and sit at a service station for a few hours while you charge would be a particularly nice experience either :D
 
Well mondeo goes on ebay tonight ( will miss it) dealer has offered to drive the car to our home for £70 so have taken him up on the offer should be here on Friday.
 
Leaf has arrived, goes well and has a lot of things to get used to. Plastics are OK but I would be worried if I had purchased the car. As a lease over 2 years it should be fine . tried 2 local fast chargers just to get used to them.
First day to work in the leaf , quiet, audio ok not brilliant . Getting 4 miles per Kwh so just under 100 miles range
 
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We have done 6000 miles in it so far for about £50 in electricity, free charging at work. I would not buy one but for £150 a month including fuel it is cheap motoring. You certainly notice how noisy ice cars are now.
 
Thing is the range will slowly get less and less as the batteries age/degrade as well. I think the life expectancy on them is only something like 8 years (which makes selling them on a nightmare once they hit a certain age) :/

Then what if some prankster decides to unplug it during the night? :P
 
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Surprised I've never seen an electric car at the side of the road after it's ran out of charge. I have a charge point at work which would be handy but the outlay is too much at the moment
 
Nasher said:
Thing is the range will slowly get less and less as the batteries age/degrade as well. I think the life expectancy on them is only something like 8 years (which makes selling them on a nightmare once they hit a certain age) :/

Then what if some prankster decides to unplug it during the night? :P
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just no, the warranties is eight years or 100,000 miles, there were lots of scare stories when electric cars first started taking of, the actual decrease in battery capacity is far smaller than most people think or realise,. i cant find proper stats for nissan, but tesla is just 5% dederigation after 100,000 miles and stabilised. you get an a reasonably fast derogation the curve effectively hits 5% at 50k miles and then remains flat. Although nissan will be worse as their battery packs both chemically, cooling battery management etc aren't as advanced and yet more expensive, when are car companies going to start copying tesla.
 
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Copying tesla, no thanks. Rest of your post no idea what you're on about (as usual). It's certainly more than 5% (what ever metric you are using) old batteries will go into grid storage anyway where the charge and discharge rate is far less demanding than a car.

Key difference with the Leaf is it's an air cooled battery, way cheaper and far more elegant than the tesla mental case cooling system. Did you get a heat pump OP?
 
Carwings (the Nissan app) was a bit junk at launch but yes you could precondition the car, I think there is a new app now.

You can do that with JLR products with incontrol apps and auto transmissions, it's not unique to electric cars
 
I'd like to give one of these a crack, especially on a cheap lease deal like they have been in the past. Problem for us is that we regularly make 200mile journeys meaning we'd have to stop maybe twice for a charge each way.
 
The more I have driven these the more I appreciate them, the interior is a bit plastic fantastic but if all you do is town mileage then they are great, the instant torque is great for urban roads even if its not the fastest thing on the road, and the refinement is really nice.
 
Question.
If you lease an electric car such as the Leaf are you still entitled to a free charging point installation as you are when you buy one? If not, and you have to pay for installation yourself, then that would need to be factored into the running costs.
 
peter said:
We plan on charging twice on the way home , almost all uk service stations have fast chargers that are free to use ( at the moment) 30 mins 0-80 % so it should not be too bad . Still in at the deep end.

https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-the-road/our-electric-highway
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They may have them but whether they are in service is another matter. Last few I have seen have been covered over with 'out of order' or 'not in service' notices posted over them.

Good luck with it, though.
 
The_Dark_Side said:
Question.
If you lease an electric car such as the Leaf are you still entitled to a free charging point installation as you are when you buy one? If not, and you have to pay for installation yourself, then that would need to be factored into the running costs.
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I can only speak for Renault , but the Charger was free for me. Renault made up the difference between the install cost and the Government Grant. Only cost to me was British Gas putting an Electric Isolation switch in (think it was £39)
 
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