Nissan LEAF: Long-Term Test (Part 1)

Perhaps you like the idea of driving an electric vehicle. You like the idea of never having to pay for gas and reducing your greenhouse gas emissions. But what’s it actually like to live with an EV? Do the fuel savings really add up? And will “range anxiety” sap any and all joy from the driving experience? Starting this month, Go Green Hilliard begins a long(ish)-term road test of the Nissan Leaf.* Alice Foeller (whose firm SiteInSight designed this website) recently leased a Leaf. It is indeed her only vehicle, and we’ll be following her experience along the way…

First impressions are good. The Leaf is a well-built piece of kit, and it is simply a pleasant place to sit. The interior is nicely finished and build quality feels excellent. It’s not perfect, though. Although certainly not a unique problem to the Leaf, the small, narrow buttons on the touch-screen infotainment system make it unnecessarily difficult to use. Also, its packaging seems oddly inefficient–it doesn’t seem like the Leaf makes the most of what should be available storage space. Generally, though, the car feels solid.

To drive, Alice reports that the linear power delivery from the electric motor is deceptively quick. With an abundance of torque available, midrange acceleration is particularly good (at least when not in Eco mode). So a great car for city driving, then. As with all electric vehicles, the Leaf is also exceptionally quiet. But between this lack of noise and the  linear nature of the electric motor, the sensation of acceleration does take some getting used to. Likewise, in its most aggressive setting, the Leaf’s regenerative brakes create a sensation like the engine braking from a manual transmission car. But generally, the driving experience is again decidedly normal.

The elephant in the room, though, is the car’s range. With an advertised range of 85 miles, “range anxiety” is necessarily an issue. You do think twice when turning on the heater or when using other accessories that might reduce the available range. In the back of your mind is always the notion that if you do run out of go-juice, the resulting refueling stop is measured in hours and not minutes. What’s more, if you do run out on the road, you can’t simply call AAA for a gallon of gas. That said, Alice says that in her experience thus far, this generally isn’t as much of a problem as it might seem. Although Alice puts in significant miles between her job and her family (so much so she had to modify the standard lease), she has yet to be forced out of a trip due to limited range. And between the home charging station she has installed (more on this next month) and available public charging stations (yes, even in Columbus, OH), there are ample opportunities for a quick top off during the day. So far so good, then, when it comes to range.

Coming next month: a first look at the savings/costs of owning an EV, and a first look at how the Leaf handles winter temperatures (and snow?).

*Sometimes stylized as LEAF,  the name is an acronym for “Leading, Environmentally friendly, Affordable, Family car.”