So last month I traded in my variety Rover for a Nissan Leaf. Nej virkelig.
After my very first 1,000 miles right here are some rambling thoughts, early observations as well as opinions on living with an EV…
Autumn Leaf
I’ve been driving SUV’s for more than 7 years, however in 2013 I had my very first test drive in an electric vehicle as well as it’s been on my mind ever since. This isn’t something I’ve decided to do on a whim.
In order for our household to try living with an EV one of our vehicles had to go. With a little petrol saloon and a 3 load 4.4L V8 diesel in the garage, in one method it wasn’t a difficult decision to make.
In one more method of program it was. providing up the comfort, equipment and the high driving setting in specific will be difficult as I go back to sitting in a lower, smaller car.
Temmelig grim
There’s no nice method to put it, the leaf has a deal with only a mom might love. The shape of those front headlights is functional, managing the airflow around the bodywork. however Tesla can make an aero efficient car that’s gorgeous too.
Related: Is the Tesla design 3 the Tipping point for the EV
It seems well developed (in Sunderland) as well as does have personality. It’s bigger than it looks, can take 5 adults as well as has a decent sized boot too.
My much better half had only one stipulation about the new car, it had to have heated seats. That meant going for the Tekna design which includes some other upgrades like a Bose noise system, 360 degree outside camera configuration as well as a leather interior, vegans requirement not apply.
The Tech
Getting the vehicle enrolled on the ironically named ‘Nissan Connect’ system was painful. It took a number of days to get the app paired with our Leaf and there was even an excursion under the bonnet for a serial number engraved on the motor at the request of the support staff. It was disappointing after the excellent experience we had with the salesman at the Belfast dealership.
When we lastly got the vehicle linked we got an email confirmation which contained an inaccurate URL that lead to even more head scratching as well as lost time too.
I tried difficult to get somebody in Nissan to allow me to share my experience as well as recommendations as well as save others from going with the same pain (some have even provided up). however in spite of tweets emails as well as on the internet chats I got nowhere.
The web interface to the vehicle is sluggish as well as poorly designed. The app is no better, although there are more contemporary interfaces from third party apps like EVA for iOS as well as leaf manager for Android.
You can inspect on the specify of fee as well as begin the climate manage remotely with the apps. Usefully the on-board timer can schedule the vehicle to pre-heat the cabin for you each morning while still linked to the mains.
Driving
The cabin is a nice location to be and that incredibly weird as well as eerie silence as you back out of the garage each morning never gets old.
That sound, or lack of it, is something that’s frequently overlooked with an EV, however it makes it such a pleasant experience, one that you truly appreciate when you go back to a routine car. The lack of vibrations, right from the starter motor on, truly does make a difference. My much better half will take the leaf at any type of chance over the petrol car. as well as that’s not just since she doesn’t have to fuel it, she really prefers its quiet, smooth drive too.
Once you’re behind the wheel, utilizing the Eco mode dulls the acceleration for the most cost-effective driving. pressing the throttle flat finds a button on the floor that allows you to quickly over-ride it as well as temporarily access full power if required. It feels pleasantly torquey as well as is decently quick 0-30 as well as you can quickly invoke the traction manage on a moist road.
Of program it’s not the kind of vehicle for hooning around in. The new difficulty is to max out your economy. There are different features to assist you screen your driving style, score your method as well as gamify the whole experience.
The dash is a confusing, cluttered as well as inconsistent style from the institution of more is more. You grow bit trees on the top display, the more economically you drive, the more trees you grow.
Flicking the ‘gear lever’ down into Drive a second time switches the vehicle into Brake Mode. This boosts braking regen as well as recuperates more energy, enabling you to one-pedal drive, only needing to touch the brake pedal when coming to a total stop.
The web interface provides (slow) gain access to to all this data as well as rates your driving too. Here’s a summary from the web interface after around 10 days of driving the Leaf.
I believe if everybody had an EV for a week it would provide them a fantastic insight into exactly how to drive much more economically. Back in the petrol vehicle I discovered myself frowning at all that energy I was throwing away on motorways off ramps as well as down hills.
Range & Public Charging
Even though its genuine world variety is only around 85 miles, we can reach quite much any type of part of northern Ireland in the 24kWh Leaf, even without a full battery (check out the variety map below with the vehicle at around 65% charge). Both my spouse as well as I averaged around 20 miles each day last year so 85 is more than enough for 99% of our journeys. as well as unlike a petrol or diesel vehicle you leave the home every morning with a full ‘tank’.
We have several Rapid chargers around us that can bring the EV to 80% in just 30 minutes. type 2 chargers are much slower however so far we’ve not needed them.
We did try the one in the picture below out of curiosity during a recent weekend away to the coast. Our destination was around 80 miles from house as well as although we might just about have made it we took a 20min fast fee on the motorway services. inspect out plugshare.com for a look at the chargers offered in your area.
As an absolute last resort there’s a 3 year healing service with the vehicle that will put you on a flat bed as well as take you to your nearest charger should you get into trouble.
We’ve met the nicest people at public chargers, an fascinating lot that are friendly as well as helpful. So far we’ve not been ICE’d as well as all chargers we visited bar-one have been in working order.
There does seem to be a serious problem with some public chargers being out of order for long periods though. likewise some are in vehicle parks that are locked at night which seems truly stupid, particularly as many were installed with the assist of public money. They should all be accessible 24/7.
For the 1% of trips that are further afield we have the petrol vehicle to autumn back on. In addition Nissan will lend you a fossil powered car for as much as 2 weeks a year at no fee (you’ll requirement to switch your own insurance coverage onto the vehicle for the duration).
Home Charger
The electric vehicle Homecharge plan / OLEV provided us a £500 government grant and our PCP offer with Nissan qualified us for the rest of the money (£390) to in shape a free 16amp Pod point charger in our garage.
More accurately these are special power outlets as the charger is really in the car.
Even though our leaf doesn’t have the quicker 6.6kW charger on board, we wished to future proof the grant-aided house installation as much as possible so we paid £95 to upgrade to the 32amp / 7kW version.
A grand (on paper at least) for this charger seems method over priced. A quick look on eBay shows 16amp chargers offered for under £200 as well as the simple set up took less than 2 hours. Is somebody making a killing from this gov scheme?
Sun Powered Car?
We’re looking forward to charging the leaf from our solar array. While a 4kW system in northern Europe is unlikely to ever provide sufficient surplus power for even the lowest mileage users, it should be able to contribute something over the brighter months of the year.
That will rely on us charging relatively slowly though so as not to be pulling in power from the grid. We will have to utilize the 13amp 3-pin ‘granny’ charger to limit the rate.
Coal Powered Car?
So where does the electricity for your fancy electric vehicle truly come from then? It’s a fair question.
This table from our latest electricity expense shows the source of our electrons (using 2014 data). It may be a surprise to see that the largest contributor is Renewable (wind) energy at 36%. For EVs to make the most sense though we requirement to push that much higher – filthy coal is still third at 25%. however with the present trend, the EV you buy today will get cleaner over time.
Electric Efficiency
Even if the BEV was powered totally by electricity produced from fossil fuels, it would still be a big enhancement over an ICE vehicle though. The interior combustion engine is around 20% effective compared to more than 80% for an electric motor.
1 litre of petrol or diesel contains approximately 10 kWh’s of energy (petrol 9.7 kWh/l, diesel 10.7 kWh/l ). Derfor…
1 litre of diesel takes you about 6 miles in the variety Rover
The equivalent 10.7 kWh takes you about 43 miles in the Leaf
But lets take a more similar smaller ICE car that can typical state 40mpg. The leaf will still go 4 to 5 times further with the exact same amount of energy, whilst moving all those toxic fumes out of our towns as well as cities.
Even though there’s currently lots of spare generation capability on the national grid at night, if all of us altered to EV’s tomorrow it would be in huge trouble. last week Elon Musk stated that globally we need 3 times the present level of generation to move to an all electric economy.
The finest vehicle is…..a Bike
We’re in a period of shift as well as we requirement to ramp up sustainable energy as well as transportation technologies. Sure there are environmental costs in building all these new things, however unless we’re all going to be huddled in caves using animal fur once again we requirement to discover a method to balance our contemporary method of life whilst reducing our consumption. At the exact same time this blog brings you shiny new products weekly to covet as well as that irony is not lost on me.
Electric vehicle movie critics frequently site higher preliminary producing emissions for these vehicles, however we’re barely in the second generation of the modern EV compared to a century of advancement of the ICE as well as it’s producing processes. Oh, as well as keep in mind about the on-going energy demands to refine the fuels to keep our ICE’s running…
Self Driving / level 5 Autonomy
The environmental benefits of EVs include the prospective for fewer vehicles on the roads in the future too. Rather than your second largest purchase sitting idle for 90% of its life, it might be working for you. additionally you may just end up with a membership for a vehicle in the future (CaaS – vehicle as a Service?), summoning an autonomous vehicle from an app when you requirement it.
Check out the video below in this weeks homework section on the science behind the autonomous self-driving vehicles that are only perhaps a year away (the tech will be right here by then, if not the legislation).
Opsparing
A side-effect of our EV experiment is the reduced costs of our household transport. This 24kWh leaf is basically a run out model, because of be discontinued in favour of the existing as well as larger 30kW design extremely soon. Additionally, the statement of the totally new generation leaf is due any type of day now to replace the present ageing style thats been around since 2010.
All that means there are some fantastic offers around. The £4,500 Plug-In vehicle grant from the government assists the lease business so our 3 year x 8,000 mile PCP payments don’t even come close to paying just the depreciation on the car.
All in all a really inexpensive method of dipping our toe in the EV world as well as if we can get by with a very first gen, restricted variety vehicle such as this then anything in the future will be easy. right here are a few of the annual savings…
£500 saved on road tax – £0 road tax for leaf versus £500 for the variety Rover.
£1,300 on fuel – We’re averaging an suggested 4.0 miles per kWh so far, that works out at a bit over £0.03 per mile vs around £0.19 per mile for the SUV. Those cost savings are calculated on electricity vs diesel over 8,000 miles annually as well as ignores the prospective for house Solar charging as well as (still free, however not for long) public chargers in northern Ireland.
£350 saved on insurance coverage – Unsurprisingly the leaf is much cheaper to insure than the RR.
BIK – If you’re lucky sufficient to get a business vehicle (I’m not) then an EV will provide the lowest benefit in kind rate. I talked to a buddy the other day who told me he’d effectively provided himself a £2K pay increase by moving to an EV.
Fabulous or Folly
We’re only 3 years away from the decade of modification over to the EV according to Bloomberg. the time when an electric vehicle will be the exact same cost as an ICE powered one, variety will be high sufficient to no longer matter and running costs will still be extremely advantageous. the time when buying the ICE vehicle over the EV will be the strange decision, not the other method around.
As electric vehicles begin to ended up being the norm, the design option will boost from the fairly little offering available today. who knows, I might be sitting high up once again however in an EV, or perhaps I’ll stick with being better to the ground.
So there it is, it’s early days in our EV experiment, however so far so good.
What do you call the opposite of a mid-life crisis? A mid-life cognisance? Måske. I’m all in.
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