The Apartment Dweller and the Leaf – Day 1

“Range Anxiety.” It’s a rather insidious bit of marketing strategy, but an effective one. GM’s marketing team coined the term in describing the claimed benefits of the Chevrolet Volt’s hybrid architecture. Since then, it’s become somewhat synonymous with pure electric vehicles because, statistics be damned, it’s a very real phenomenon.

But we modern, sophisticated consumers aren’t about to let some marketers tell us how to feel about a product are we? Never mind, don’t answer that. The point is, electric vehicle detractors say that their inherent shorter range and longer refueling schedule make EVs impractical and unwanted in the American auto market. Only the tree-huggers will buy them, right?

Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? After all, how’s an apartment-dweller going to get by with an electric car? That’s what I aimed to find out. I’m spending a week with our long-term Nissan Leaf and I won’t be plugging it in until I return it.

Of course, there are caveats. I live six miles from the office and don’t use the freeway on my normal commute. I also deliberately chose a week during which I had no plans to deviate from my normal routine. After all, even local press event would eat up my range and end my experiment early. Conveniently, common stops like the grocery store are all on my typical commute, so I won’t have to go far out of my way. It’s all rather ideal, really. The plan, then, is to commute with the Leaf for a full work week without plugging it in, because like many city dwellers, I live in an apartment where that isn’t feasible.

So, is the Leaf a real substitute for a gas-powered commuter? To find out, I’ll be driving my normal route, running normal errands and otherwise treating the Leaf as though it were a Versa hatchback. No hypermiling, no drafting and no tricks to increase the range. I’ll be using the climate control and the stereo, but not the “Eco” drive mode. Is the Leaf up to the challenge?

Day 1

I arrived to work Monday in a Ford F-150 SVT Raptor, just to drive the point home. To be perfectly fair, I should’ve arrived in the Leaf, but there was no good way to go about that. I’d still have had to drive the car home from the office the night before and wouldn’t be able to charge it, so the experiment wasn’t going to be perfect regardless. We’ll see what the remaining range is at the end of the week and determine if I could’ve made the extra trip.

When I arrived, I found the Leaf’s charger had been co-opted by our long-term Volt. No matter, as long as the Leaf was plugged in by 11:30 a.m., it would be fully charged by quitting time, and indeed it was. I made one stop at the grocery store on my way home, which is only a few blocks off my typical route.

Leaving the office, the Leaf reported that it was fully charged with an anticipated range of 85 miles. My trip home was all of 5.8 miles according to the trip odometer and I averaged 3.4 miles per kilowatt-hour and 21 mph according to the car. During the trip, my remaining range fluctuated between 78 and 83 miles, finally settling on 78 miles when I parked it on the street in front of my building. Were I able to charge it, the car predicted it would take 4.5 hours on 120-volt juice and an hour-and-a-half on 240-volt current.

The difference between the actual distance covered and the amount of range “lost” tells me I’m not driving especially economically. If nothing else, the range lost should at least match the distance traveled. Ideally, the range lost would be less than the distance traveled had I driven lightly and made good use of the regenerative brakes to recharge the batteries a bit. And, you may argue, that simply means driving the car as it’s meant to be driven, but I’m not out to find how it performs when driven right. That’s been done plenty of times already. I want to see how it stacks up against a gasoline car. Plus, hypermiling in Los Angeles traffic is a good way to get shot at.

To be honest, it’s all easier said than done. The natural inclination when behind the wheel of an EV is to go easy on the gas pedal, coast as much as possible and maximize regenerative braking. While that in and of itself is an adaptation from “normal” driving, “normal” driving itself is an adaptation in the Leaf. The remaining range staring you in the face doesn’t help, either. In a gasoline-powered car, I start looking for gas stations when the estimated range falls below 100 miles. The idea of being stranded halfway home on Thursday afternoon with a dead battery isn’t especially appealing, either.

Stay tuned the rest of this week for more impressions as I continue to drive the Leaf “wrong.”

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