The Apartment Dweller and the Leaf – Day 2

A reader of yesterday’s introductory blog asked what the point of this experiment is, and while it all made perfect sense when I thought of it, the best way I can describe it now is “because you asked for it.”

That is to say, those of you who are skeptics or outright critics of the Leaf or EVs in general. When we first reviewed the Tesla, Leaf and Volt, there was a hearty contingent of detractors who were quick to point out the limited range and long recharge time. We, of course, responded by orchestrating or participating in tests that played to the vehicles’ strengths. And for that, the calls for “real world” testing got louder.

So here’s the real world. It’s a place where electric charging stations are, for now, few and far between and certainly not installed at apartment complexes where real-world city dwellers live. We all know that, and that limitation is the point the detractors are trying to make. The question I’m really trying to answer, then, is “can I work around that?” Or, more importantly for the average consumer, “can I find a work around that’s only slightly more inconvenient that stopping at the gas station?”

By convenient, I mean changing my normal gas-powered car routine as little as possible. For that reason, the A/C is on Auto and set between 70 and 73 degrees depending on my mood, the stereo is on and I’m paying no heed to the various features designed to coax me into “greener” driving. More importantly, I’m going to drive until the “tank” is empty before I bother plugging it in. What happens when I do run out of juice? I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The short answer, then, is that I’m doing this to demonstrate what living with an EV is like for people who find it too inconvenient to change their driving style and refueling schedule. You can argue that I’m using the car wrong, and you’d be right. Consumers willing to use the car “right,” though, are still firmly in the minority and already know how the car performs when used as intended. This is for everyone else.

That said, here are the stats from Day 2. I left home with an indicated 78 miles of range remaining and drove exactly six miles to work. Apparently, my typical commuting route is slightly longer than the route I took when detouring to the grocery store the night before. Learn something new every day. By the time I reached work, I’d driven 11.1 miles since I unplugged the car and was averaging 3.3 miles per kilowatt-hour and 21 mph. My estimated range was down to 73 miles when I parked, picking up an extra mile of range that wouldn’t be reflected in the actual distance traveled. Charge times were indicated at five hours on 120v power and three hours on the 240v stuff.

My trip home was a bit more interesting. I left work a little late and rushed to the Post Office hoping to get there before it closed. Like the grocery store, it’s right on my typical commute, but the hard accelerating took its toll. I’d traveled another 6.3 miles, but my remaining range was down to 64 miles, my efficiency had dropped to 3.1 miles per kilowatt-hour and, somehow, my average speed had dropped to 20.9 mph.

To be fair, I took a slightly different route that I had thought was quicker because it has less traffic, but apparently more signals (I’ve never bothered to count them). Recharge times were up to eight hours on 120v swill and, somehow, still just three hours on the good stuff. Total mileage since unplugging: 17.4 miles. Also, for those who are curious about such things, it’s been hot and dry here in Los Angeles this week with temperatures ranging from 60 degrees Fahrenheit when I go out to the car in the morning to 85 degrees when I’m headed home.

Tune in tomorrow for more counterproductive EV driving.

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The Apartment Dweller and the Leaf – Days 4 and 5 and the Conclusion

Danger, Will Robinson.

When The Robot wanted your attention, it usually involved flailing appendages. The Leaf prefers warning lights with its audible warnings. By the time I pulled into work this morning (Friday), I had racked up three warning lights, an empty battery gauge and a blinking “—“ where my estimated range used to be. But how did I get here?

Back up to Thursday morning, when I left home with only a third of my battery gauge remaining (four of 12 bars) and an estimated 37 miles of range left. The drive to work was perfectly routine and done in 5.4 miles, slightly further than the 32 miles of range remaining would indicate. With 43.7 total miles down, my average consumption was hanging at 3.4 miles per kilowatt-hour and my average speed was down to 20.7 mph. The Leaf was asking for five-and-a-half hours to charge on 240v power and 17 hours to charge on 120v.

My trip home was a bit more interesting, and where my experiment took a turn. I had to swing by the grocery store again since my trip earlier this week returned only beer and a candy bar. That added a few blocks to the trip and by the time I was home, my estimated range was down to 24 miles, several more than expected, and it was dropping fast.

Thursday, as you know, was Cinco De Mayo and my wife and I made plans to go out for a bit of dinner and celebrating. The restaurant, as it happens, is just a mile or two up the road from the office, which meant another 12 mile roundtrip, but the Leaf had other ideas. By the time I found parking, my estimated range was down to 18 miles and it was blinking to let me know I was living dangerously.

At this point, I was getting a little nervous. I needed to use the headlights on the way home and the range was dropping quickly. I know I promised you I wouldn’t try any tricks to extend my range, but I have to confess that I caved. To be honest, if I were in a gasoline-powered car and the needle on the fuel gauge was in the red, I’d back off the throttle as well, so I think this was only fair. I’d already killed the climate control since it was warm in the car as it seems to have the biggest effect on the battery life.

When we left the restaurant, we got our first audible warning that the charge was getting low and advising us to find a plug. Warning messages also popped up on the screen in the gauge cluster and the nav/radio screen and offered to locate the nearest plug for us. We declined and headed home. By the time we got there, the estimated range was down to nine miles, far more than the actual distance traveled despite my newfound light-footedness. My average speed was also down again to 20.3 mph while my efficiency had climbed to 3.5 miles per kilowatt-hour. The Leaf was demanding seven-and-a-half hours to charge on 240v and 22 hours on 120v. Total trip was up to 62.2 miles.

The situation looked grim the next morning. The Leaf doubled up the audible warnings, advising that the battery level was both “low” and “very low” and again offering to find the nearest charging station. Short of running an extension cord out the window of my apartment, my options consisted of the airport or the office. Making the decision harder was the fact that my estimated range was now reading “—“ and the battery gauge was in the red zone with only two bars left. At the same time, I’d picked up three warning lights on the dash, a yellow triangle with an exclamation point near the speedometer, a yellow icon showing a gas pump with an extension cord hanging off it in the center of the main gauge cluster and a similar icon with an arrow next to the range indicator. I was not feeling confident.

With a gentle touch of the throttle and the climate control and stereo off, I rolled out. I had no choice, I had to stop at the Post Office again and get those Mother’s Day cards out (If you’re reading this, Mom, ignore that) and Motor Trend policy dictates we return the cars clean rather than stick the next guy with a dirty ride, and the Leaf was quite dirty after parking under the trees on my street all week. Between the Post Office and the car wash, I lost one of my remaining two bars of battery power and the “—“ readout began flashing. Less than a mile from the office, I lost the last bar.

But I made it. According to Nissan’s online Leaf owner’s tool, the car actually had four miles of range left when I parked it in the garage. I never did get the turtle warning light and accompanying loss of top speed, but previous tests have indicated those don’t come on until the battery is right about to give out, around a mile before it quits. With no other public charging station within four miles of the office, I had no choice but to plug in.

I’d gone 67.6 miles total, putting the actual range at 73.6 miles, or right about what the EPA predicts but 11.4 miles short of what the Leaf predicted when I first unplugged it. Average speed was down to 20.1 mph and efficiency was up to 3.6 miles per kilowatt-hour. The Leaf told us it would need seven-and-a-half hours to charge on our 240v charger, or a whopping 23 hours on a 120v outlet. In actuality, it needed only six-and-a-half hours to fully charge, sucking up 23.09 kilowatt-hours of electricity, just shy of the battery’s official 24 kilowatt-hour capacity. Not all of that charge actually went into the battery of course, as there are always losses due to heat and resistance during charging.

With that, I’ve failed to reach my objective. It’s possible I could’ve milked it home with some serious hypermiling, but doubtful. And let’s not forget, I didn’t drive the Leaf into work Monday morning, so in a real week of commuting we’d need to add another six miles onto my trip and in all likelihood I wouldn’t have made it to work this morning. Of course, I brought this on myself. I could’ve driven more gently. I could’ve used the Eco mode, boring as it might’ve been to drive with an electronic brick under the pedal. I could’ve stayed in Thursday night, or picked a restaurant near a public charging station. But I didn’t, and I paid the price.

Now, this raises an important question. If I owned this car, what would I do now? Assuming I didn’t have a charging station at work, I could try to talk my employer into letting me plug in to a 120v wall socket and add enough charge to get me home (assuming the 240v charging station in the MT garage didn’t exist). Then what? Well, I could drop an extension cord out the window of my apartment and across the parking lot, but I doubt that would’ve gone over well. I could talk to my landlord about installing a 120v plug at my parking space (the area is lighted, it would be relatively easy), or taking the plunge on a public 240v charger, but it would be a tough sell. There are public chargers at the airport, which is only three miles or so away, so I could put my bike in the back and leave it there to charge, though someone might’ve complained after seven hours. There are also public chargers near a major shopping area up in Santa Monica. Assuming I had the charge to get there, I could plug in then go to dinner and movie or some such.

That last option is really the only one that wouldn’t be completely equivalent to planning my life around my car, as it could be worked into a weekly routine so long as I had the disposable income for a night out at least once a week. I had planned to do this over the weekend, but obviously I ran out of charge before I could try it. Still, I’d have to find a way to kill six-and-a-half hours in order to get a full charge, which is a pretty big time commitment. This issue could be mitigated, though, when some of the promised 400v quick-charge stations actually come online and shorten the charge time to 30 minutes or so from empty, but that raises the issue of potential battery damage if I were to use the quick-charge station for every fill-up.

Then there’s the matter of the cost. Electricity is pretty cheap, so I could probably slip my employer a couple of bucks to cover it. Most ChargePoint public charging stations we’ve found around the Los Angeles area are free for now, a means of attracting EV-owning customers rather than a profit-generator. Stations that do charge seem to be asking between 30 and 50 cents per kilowatt-hour, well above market rates.

The actual market rate is tricky to determine, as the LA Department of Water and Power, like most utilities, uses different rates depending on the application and the amount of power consumed. Single family homes get different rates than airports, summer and winter command different prices due to demand, there are different rates for “standard” service and “Time-of-Use” service and the price per kilowatt hour increases with every 350 kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed. Counting only the electricity needed to fill the Leaf, my 23.09 kilowatt-hour fill-up should’ve cost between $1.62 and $3.69 were I charging at home depending on my service plan, household usage and the season. Businesses like malls and airports get a better rate, so charging there would’ve cost them about 69 cents.

Can the Leaf be used as an eight-to-five commuter for and apartment dweller like me? Yes, it can, if driven properly. I probably could’ve done it without resorting to the Eco mode if I’d tried hard enough, or if I’d simply consolidated my errands and not gone out to dinner. But then what? Options certainly exist for charging the car, but none is nearly as practical as the old gas station. I could make it work, but would I?

If I’m completely honest, no. I like electric cars, what they’re capable of and what they represent. The compromises necessary to make EV ownership compatible with my apartment dwelling, however, are simply more inconvenient than I’m willing to accept. If I lived in a house or had an available charger at work (ours is already servicing two cars and most consumers don’t even have that option right now), it would be a different story. In my case, a hybrid would be a better option, as even a plug-in hybrid would run into the same charging challenges. Perhaps other apartment dwellers, those even more enthusiastic about EVs than I or with better access to charging infrastructure, could make it work. I’m sure someone out there is. For the average apartment-dwelling consumer, though, the infrastructure just isn’t there yet and the compromise isn’t worth the cost. Someday.

View the original article here

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.”

View the original article here

The Apartment Dweller and the Leaf – Day 3

If this thing zaps me with static electricity one more time, I’m going to drive it into the ocean.

Every time I get out of the Leaf, I inevitably get zapped with static electricity when I touch the metal outer door skin. I’m up to 12 shocks this week and it’s getting very old, very fast. I went back and checked the logs and other staffers have complained of the same problem. A review of a Nissan Leaf online forum also reveals complaints of static shocks. I don’t know what’s causing it — though the recycled seat material seems a likely culprit — but it’s enough to stop me from buying the car. It really doesn’t bode well for EV skeptics who take a test drive, either. Next to this, my complaint about the lack of a telescoping steering wheel feels like nit-picking.

Back in the land of the quantifiable, I had a rather busy Wednesday. I had to detour to the airport in the morning to pick up my wife and bring her home, after getting coffee, of course. Luckily, the airport is again not far out of my way, but my total trip after leaving the apartment in the morning was 13.3 miles and my estimated remaining range had dropped from 63 miles at the start to 47 miles when I switched it off. After gaining some range on the way home the night before, I was back to my lead-footed ways. By the time I reached work, my average consumption was back up to 3.3 miles per kilowatt-hour while my average speed had dropped to 20.8 mph. Total mileage was up to 30.7 miles since the last charge and the computer was calling for four hours of charge on a 240v supply and 13 hours on a 120v trickle charge.

My trip home was also slightly off the approved route. I needed to swing by the hardware store to pick up a part to fix my closet doors, which according to the odometer was a two-mile detour. Again, not much, but every mile counts when you’re not headed home to an electrical outlet. As has been happening, the Leaf again picked up an extra mile of range after sitting in the parking lot at work all day and showed 48 miles remaining when I headed out. By the time I got home, my range was down to 36 miles after a 7.6-mile trip home. Average consumption held steady at 3.3 miles per kilowatt-hour, as did average speed at 20.8 mph. Recharge times were up to five hours on 240v power and 15 hours on 120v juice.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I also ran across one of our Leaf’s many identical twins at a stop light and drag raced him across the intersection. Pretty sure he didn’t know we were racing (especially since we only hit maybe 30 mph), but I let him get ahead of me so he’d feel better about losing, and to get a picture. I also ran across the Leaf’s cousin, the Versa, but I didn’t race that one.

Total mileage halfway through my test is 38.3 miles, which when added to the 36 miles remaining gives me a total range of 74.3 miles, or more than 10 miles short of the original estimate the Leaf gave me when I unplugged it. A bit more than I expected, but not too bad. I’ve given up trying to avoid using the regenerative brakes to extend my range because they’re going to come on regardless, so I’m doing my best to avoid intentionally using them instead.

Drop back in tomorrow for a wrap-up of the experiment and a discussion on how I would go about charging the car once I’ve worn it out.

View the original article here

The Apartment Dweller and the Leaf – Day 2

A reader of yesterday’s introductory blog asked what the point of this experiment is, and while it all made perfect sense when I thought of it, the best way I can describe it now is “because you asked for it.”

That is to say, those of you who are skeptics or outright critics of the Leaf or EVs in general. When we first reviewed the Tesla, Leaf and Volt, there was a hearty contingent of detractors who were quick to point out the limited range and long recharge time. We, of course, responded by orchestrating or participating in tests that played to the vehicles’ strengths. And for that, the calls for “real world” testing got louder.

So here’s the real world. It’s a place where electric charging stations are, for now, few and far between and certainly not installed at apartment complexes where real-world city dwellers live. We all know that, and that limitation is the point the detractors are trying to make. The question I’m really trying to answer, then, is “can I work around that?” Or, more importantly for the average consumer, “can I find a work around that’s only slightly more inconvenient that stopping at the gas station?”

By convenient, I mean changing my normal gas-powered car routine as little as possible. For that reason, the A/C is on Auto and set between 70 and 73 degrees depending on my mood, the stereo is on and I’m paying no heed to the various features designed to coax me into “greener” driving. More importantly, I’m going to drive until the “tank” is empty before I bother plugging it in. What happens when I do run out of juice? I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The short answer, then, is that I’m doing this to demonstrate what living with an EV is like for people who find it too inconvenient to change their driving style and refueling schedule. You can argue that I’m using the car wrong, and you’d be right. Consumers willing to use the car “right,” though, are still firmly in the minority and already know how the car performs when used as intended. This is for everyone else.

That said, here are the stats from Day 2. I left home with an indicated 78 miles of range remaining and drove exactly six miles to work. Apparently, my typical commuting route is slightly longer than the route I took when detouring to the grocery store the night before. Learn something new every day. By the time I reached work, I’d driven 11.1 miles since I unplugged the car and was averaging 3.3 miles per kilowatt-hour and 21 mph. My estimated range was down to 73 miles when I parked, again losing slightly more range than the actual distance traveled. Charge times were indicated at five hours on 120v power and three hours on the 240v stuff.

My trip home was a bit more interesting. I left work a little late and rushed to the Post Office hoping to get there before it closed. Like the grocery store, it’s right on my typical commute, but the hard accelerating took its toll. I’d traveled another 6.3 miles, but my remaining range was down to 64 miles, my efficiency had dropped to 3.1 miles per kilowatt-hour and, somehow, my average speed had dropped to 20.9 mph.

To be fair, I took a slightly different route that I had thought was quicker because it has less traffic, but apparently more signals (I’ve never bothered to count them). Recharge times were up to eight hours on 120v swill and, somehow, still just three hours on the good stuff. Total mileage since unplugging: 17.4 miles. Also, for those who are curious about such things, it’s been hot and dry here in Los Angeles this week with temperatures ranging from 60 degrees Fahrenheit when I go out to the car in the morning to 85 degrees when I’m headed home.

Tune in tomorrow for more counterproductive EV driving.

View the original article here

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.”

View the original article here