Nissan LEAF: Long-Term Test (Part 2)

In this month’s update to our Nissan LEAF long-term test, we take a closer look at charging and range.

For most potential electric car buyers, range and charging time are the two biggest concerns. To that end, LEAF owners can purchase a quick charging station for their home (approximately $350). The cost of the hardware is not the only cost to consider, though, as installation of a 220V line can be expensive. Once installed, the quick charger is capable of charging the car from empty in about 4-5 hours.

Also available for LEAF owners is the standard charger that comes with the car. The standard charger can be plugged into a normal 110V wall outlet. But because the portable charger operates at only 110 volts, a full charge from empty can take up to 20 hours. Finally, scattered around Central Ohio are a variety of 220V charging points. These are handy to top off your charge while running errands during the day. A map of available charging points can be found at http://www.plugshare.com.

Overall, keeping enough juice in the LEAF’s batteries does require a bit of planning (and potentially a bit of investment for the quick charging station). If you are running low, you can’t just pop over to the nearest gas station to refuel in a few minutes. At least with the current infrastructure, maintaining adequate charge will indeed involve some amount of thinking ahead. But, with the variety of charging options available, it is doable.

Finally, we reported last month that for the most part, range had not been an issue for Alice. That remains true, but there has been one close call. From Alice:

I ran into a snag last month. I had been driving around for work all day, so I had already put significant miles on the car. My daughter forgot her tae-kwon-do uniform and didn’t realize it until we had already driven from Westerville and pulled up in front of the martial arts studio on the Hilltop. It was a cold night and I had enough juice to drive there and back once, but not twice.

 

I headed home and picked up her uniform, and on the way back west, I started frantically trying to find a charging facility near W. Broad and Hague. The Chevy dealership in that area allegedly had a charging station in the service department, but they were closing in 10 minutes. I checked the http://www.plugshare.com site, and there was a charger listed at a residence only a few blocks from Tae-Kwon-Do.

 

I took a chance and called a total stranger.

 

The man who answered was friendly and excited. He used to own a LEAF, but had sold it about a year ago. At first he thought he still had the charging “station” (the middle ground between the big 4-pronged plug in his garage and the car). But he called me back to say he had sold that, too. My big charging “station” is technically portable, but it’s big and I leave it mounted on the wall at home. (Of course, had I known in advance, I could have brought it with me.) Still, he offered a regular wall outlet and a warm place to rest for an hour while I received the slower trickle charge from a 110V outlet. The big charger works about five times faster, but this was better than nothing. So my 8-year-old son and I dropped off the tae-kwon-do uniform and then pulled into their driveway in Westgate. We plugged into an outlet in the garage, and hung out in their living room and talked. The young couple had a toddler and lots of valuable advice about driving an electric car. For awhile, they had been a one-car family sharing a LEAF. Wow! 

 

They shared with me a few reliable locations for charging I hadn’t visited, and when I left with not too many more miles in the tank than I had before, my new friend advised me to go back to Westerville via Broad Street and Cleveland Avenue. Taking surface streets instead of the freeway improves efficiency dramatically. It was a good route.

 

I felt like it was an adventure and I was kind of looking forward to “turtling” the car. That means driving it to empty, when the car will only let you drive 5MPH to protect the remaining battery. It’s enough to limp along and maybe find a house with Christmas lights that I could unplug and plug in the car. (Just kidding.) My car gave me the “low battery” warning several times, and then went from showing 8 miles left to drive to displaying just a series of dashes. Uh oh. But we made it home without turtling. Life’s an adventure!