I Drove a Nissan Leaf and the Anxiety Was Real

"Nauraushaun" (nauraushaun12)
11/16/2016 at 20:03 • Filed to: LEAF, IMPENDING_DOOM

I thought electric cars were a good idea. You can’t go 700km to a tank, but that’s fine, I’d say, most people don’t do 700km in a day anyway! Then I drove one.

I was on holiday recently, not far from home, just trying to escape some work they’re doing to my train line that’s destroying my commute. I even left my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at home, so nothing too exciting. The place I stayed had a Nissan Leaf available for hire, just $20 for a half day. How could I skip the chance to drive an EV for my first time when it’s practically free?

So I did. And so began many new experiences for me. The newest car I’ve owned is !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! so the newfangled Leaf was all kinds of different. In general I felt they’d tried very hard to make it some sort of appliance, or something like an iPhone. It even had a startup chime like you’d get from a Mac. It’s like they’re trying to convince you you’re not driving a car, but that you’re using a device to get to your destination. It was cool, but I sort of hated it too - it’s everything I don’t like.

Look at me, I’m a Mac

Then we got to driving. It was very much how I expected it to be I suppose. Quiet, refined, and though it wasn’t powerful the power was always there. I did engage in some wheelspin on the perpetually wet roads of Inverloch. We’d received grave warnings from the staff who gave us the car, not to aim for more than 70km of range, but we were going to a small cheese farm about 25km away so it should’ve been perfect.

!!! UNKNOWN HEADER TYPE (MULTI-LINE BREAK?) !!!

We started the trip with 130km of range left and with me feeling confident. The power surged, I was charging my phone, the heater was on, we had some hills to climb, the Leaf swallowed it up. But some 15km into our trip the range had dropped. In fact, it had halved , and was hovering around 58km. And the panic came on like a cold sweat. Part of me thought the 130km was probably optimistic, it’s probably learned a thing or two since we hit the road and adjusted the estimate accordingly. But another part thought we’ve got less than half our range left and we’re not even halfway into the trip. Only one of those explanations involves us making it back to the resort.

I should have been confident. The estimate when we set off should’ve been less hopeful, but I shouldn’t have been too worried regardless. They said a 70km range and surely that was under-doing it, right? Well, I’ll say this: the charging and the heating and the fun stopped. No matter how many times I told myself it would be okay, I still couldn’t take my eyes off the range meter. Or the little meter that tells you whether you’re using or regenerating charge. I watched those bad boys like a hawk until, some 10km from home, I was confident we’d be okay.

So, was it the electric power that induced my waking nightmares? Or is this just what it’s like having a “distance to empty” gauge (something I’ve never had)? Is it something about seeing how many kms I have left that scares me to death?

Something about the (analog) fuel gauge in my car is comforting. It’s not some computer, dishing out wildly optimistic claims then slashing them because it clearly has no idea what’s going on. The smarts come from me and me only. The gauge tells me the accurate information that there’s 1/4 a tank left, and it’s up to me to calculate a distance to empty based on how I have been and will be driving. Is it so hard, people? Would you rather a computer like the one in the Leaf, and risk being told hopelessly inaccurate information, just so you don’t have to think? Open your eyes sheeple .

Anyway, we made it, and the car was fairly nice and a good bit of fun. I’m sure if you owned one you’d learn how the range worked and it would be fine (but what’s the point then of the computer?). But it’s not really the car for me.

DISCUSSION (38)

pip bip - choose Corrour > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 20:07

how was the cheese?

AntiSpeed > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 20:09

My mom owns one and she uses it as a short-range urban commuter. That’s pretty much it’s niche and its range and lack of infrastructure prevents it from being anything else.

The electric motor is fun though, about as much power as any eco-hatchback but the torque is instant.

Also the ECO button makes a HUGE difference, both in extending range and dramatically cutting power.

comes over to help work on your car and only drinks beer > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 20:15

Part of it you probably aren’t intentionally thinking about, but your basic understanding is feeding the anxiety. With gas, even if your DTE is 3 miles, if you’re in a city, you’ve probably got a few choices as to where you can extend your range by several hundred miles in less than 10 minutes. With the electric, you need to get back to that specific place, or perhaps a few other places in the general vicinity, or you’re flat hosed. Even if you find a place, it’s not a 10 minute deal to extend your range by a few hundred miles.

Wobbles the Mind > pip bip - choose Corrour
11/16/2016 at 20:18

Some good ass cheese!

wiffleballtony > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 20:23

I have a digital guage, and it emboldened me to be riskier on my fuel fill ups. I would have never risked driving near empty on my older cars.

Honeybunchesofgoats > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 20:25

I can honestly say that range gauges are the only modern car convenience I would not ever want to do without.

That said, they’re definitely not all created equal. Even with my two cars, one bases it on a very long period of driving behavior, while the other is constantly adjusting and it more or less useless in terms of accuracy beyond the first digit.

In an electric car though, that would definitely have freaked me out. It’s one thing if your range is suddenly halved in a normal car, because you can just stop and fill the tank, an EV would be super stressful.

Nauraushaun > Honeybunchesofgoats
11/16/2016 at 20:36

You’d think this is something Nissan would want to get right! When the shorter range is such a big talking point, having a useful range meter could make or break a person’s experience with the car. Like it did for me.

Regardless of how good the car’s drivetrain and batteries may be.

Nauraushaun > wiffleballtony
11/16/2016 at 20:37

I guess without the gauge all you have is your experience with the car - which you may or may not have.

Nauraushaun > pip bip - choose Corrour
11/16/2016 at 20:39

The goddam place was closed. It was actually a few months ago and they close for the Winter. Despite their website saying they’re open Thursday to Sunday!

The Leaf made the trip worthwhile though :)

wiffleballtony > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 20:42

It used to be that if I had less than an 1/8 of a tank I’d fill up. Now if I know the gas station near my house is 30 miles away, if the guage says 4o miles I’ll risk it.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 21:14

The range indicator’s a complete joke on these: you could guess better by taking the last 2 digits of the nearest car’s number plate. I have no idea how they managed to come up with such a consistently inaccurate algorithm.

But you do get a “fuel gauge” - the bars to the left of the range indicator. You have 2 bars left in the photo, or 2/12 of a “tank”. This is the actually useful range indicator: I know I get about 8km per bar in mine, given my usual driving patterns.

Range does vary quite a bit depending on what you’re doing though: freeways really chew it up, for example. This is also true of regular cars, but when you have 60 litres of gas, tripling your fuel consumption for 20km or so doesn’t really matter. When you only have 6 “litre-equivalents” of electricity to start with, it does. So you need to know roughly what your route looks like if you’re planning to go further than 50km or so round trip.

gmctavish needs more space > Nauraushaun
11/16/2016 at 21:29

Coming from a string of cars with non-functioning gas gauges at the worst, so vague suggestions at best (I’m looking at you, old bmws), having a car with not only a perfectly working gauge, but a range estimator as well is truly strange, but really accurate and nice. I’ve yet to experience an electric car though

pip bip - choose Corrour > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 00:11

lol.

GTiceman > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 08:38

A big portion of this comes from chargers are not on every corner yet. I ahve only had my Tesla for a month and during our road trip home we had range anxiety one time. Once we got home, our current place lacks a charger, I had range anxiety one other day. Tampa though has a ton of charging stations and if you own one of these cars you typically charge it full at home overnight.

That being said everything you do in the car drains battery. Radio, HVAC, windows (both opening/closing and aerodynamics), weight. Obviously many of these factor into an ICE vehicle but you don’t realize how much seat heaters use. It is scary to think you could get somewhere and be out of range to get home with no charger nearby, but there are a ton of apps that help you locate public stations and you should always have your charging cable in the car just in case. Worst case scenario, you find a 110 outlet and plug into get enough charge to get to a better station.

The leaf is a different animal though and I would never own it as my only car as it is a commuter and not a road trip car. Nice write-up though. Sorry to hear you didn’t get any cheese.

jimz > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 09:11

If you had the cabin heat on, that’s where a lot of your range went.

Moves-Like-Senna > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 10:51

Personally, I don’t drive EV’s outside of a city due to that reason. I find that for long hauls, I’m normally going far enough I need 2-3 tanks of gas (I also have a lead foot).

In a city though, there’s nothing like an EV, it’s quick, plows through snow and you’re never worried about juice as there’s a station nearby.

vicali > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 11:36

After driving a few vehicles with non-linear gauges and suffering gas induced half-tankitice I put scangauges into our current ones.. The D>E is wicked accurate - I can watch it dip with the gas pedal on the Tacoma..

Still carry a jerry in the back though.

Ynot-mor > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 12:01

I’ve sold LEAF’s and I am on my 3rd one (2 leased now buying one).. Just wanted to correct some info and give some experience. Radio and charging your phone uses only the car battery and not your drive (lithium) battery so doesn’t affect charge.. Only diving, AC and heater affect range. The newer (2013 and higher models) have a percentage battery gauge which is more accurate and less stressful than the estimated miles... The anxiety goes away after about 3 weeks and it becomes a normal car... I would never recommend using one untill its been fully explained and you have a good app that will show you the available stations..you can’t see them,they’re not on a corner, but in CA they are everywhere..in almost every parking garage. Lastly, I would only purchase or lease one with the available quick charge option. 0-80% in 30 min. So still not 100 miles in 10 minutes but 15-20 miles in 10 minutes is nice and can usually do the trick. I commute 47 miles each way in mine..traffic helps for more range and I recharge at work.

Nauraushaun > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
11/17/2016 at 16:41

So it was nearly empty? Seriously?! If that’s range, what’s the bar on the far right? One has a battery, one has a fuel tank with a power plug.

Freeways chew up fuel? Compared to what? I thought freeways were good for economy, compared to city driving anyway.

Nauraushaun > gmctavish needs more space
11/17/2016 at 16:41

Maybe one day I’ll get a good estimator and I’ll be able to report back!

Nauraushaun > jimz
11/17/2016 at 16:42

It was a mix, it was on earlier in the trip. I was aware of the fact that it had to generate its own heat, but our range got slashed !

I feel like this is a subtle side-effect of electric cars. There’s the range issue, but having to balance that with your own comfort makes it all the more worse.

Nauraushaun > Moves-Like-Senna
11/17/2016 at 16:43

You’re right, and that’s what these are mostly made for.

Nauraushaun > Ynot-mor
11/17/2016 at 16:46

Sounds like you’ve got it made! Having to have the car properly explained to someone is a another drawback of these things though. These days people don’t care, and people who are moving out of petrol cars really don’t care. They want their car to take them places without them having to think - petrol cars are really good at that.

This wasn’t in California. This was the middle of nowhere some 150km from Melbourne. The charging point where we picked up the car was likely the only one within the car’s range.

I’m glad you’re enjoying them :)

Edit: I was wrong! We were near Cape Patterson at the bottom there, there are a few points that are close enough. Unfortunately if we had to drive home we’d have to make the whole loop around the top of the bay past French Island - that might have been a struggle. Funny how the East side of the state is almost cut off completely from the West side owing to a desert of charging points.

Kinja'd!!!

Nauraushaun > GTiceman
11/17/2016 at 16:55

Kinja'd!!!

The charger situation in Australia isn’t actually as bad as I thought! We picked up the car from the botom there, near Cape Patterson. But this was an hour ‘round trip, I wasn’t even thinking about finding a charger. I was thinking about reaching my destination! (closed though it may have been :<)

But you can see Melbourne on the left there with millions of charge points. Being in a location like that makes a car like this worthwhile, and I guess in the future it will become more and more viable.

Thanks!

Moves-Like-Senna > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 17:43

For now yes, something I do enjoy in them is also off roading... I know it sounds crazy but through mud/snow they’re so heavy and have so much torque they plow right through everything.

Nauraushaun > Moves-Like-Senna
11/17/2016 at 17:49

Maybe that will catch on one day, if the bro-dozers out there can ever get over such childish activities as spewing out smoke and making noise. Would be a top way to troll them

DynamicWeight > Moves-Like-Senna
11/17/2016 at 19:27

2-3 tanks of fuel!? Is this is a gas tank for ants? My truck goes 400 miles to the tank!

BigBlock440 > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 21:12

Sort of, but the difference is with a normal DTE readout, I’ll start looking for a gas station once it gets under 100 miles or so. With a Leaf, it’s like you’re never able to fill it past 1/8 of a tank.

BigBlock440 > DynamicWeight
11/17/2016 at 21:15

That’s only 1,200 miles if you run it empty, not terribly difficult to do in a day.

BigBlock440 > Nauraushaun
11/17/2016 at 21:19

For gas cars, steady state at moderate speeds is good for economy, for electrics, slow speed without aerodynamic drag is better.

Nauraushaun > BigBlock440
11/17/2016 at 21:44

Ohh! That makes perfect sense.

Moves-Like-Senna > DynamicWeight
11/17/2016 at 23:44

I get about 250-280 miles in most vehicles I drive, honestly, if I slowed down a little I’d double it or more. I do 95% highway milage so I tend to well exceed the most economical speed by a large multiplier.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Nauraushaun
11/18/2016 at 00:00

If your driving habits are anything like mine, you had between 16 and 24km of range left, plus an unknown amount of “below zero” reserve, which I’ve nevr tested but I bet is substantial, since running out of charge is so much more of a problem than running out of gas.

As to “gauges”, the one on the left with the “battery and thermometer” symbol is battery temperature. Pretty much the same as a regular car - ignore it unless it gets too hot in which case you’ve got a problem.

The one on the right with the “pump & plug” symbol is charge level. The narrow strip on the far right of that with 2 red and 10 white segments is “total available capacity”: effectively, how big your battery is. Batteries degrade over time, so as the car gets older you lose capacity. A new car has 12 bars; my car’s 4 years old and down to 11 bars. 8 bars is where the battery warrantee kicks in and they’ll give you a new one.

The blue and white wide strip just inside that is “instantaneous charge”: how much “fuel” you have in the “tank” right now. Stupidly, that’s measured as a fraction of “available” capacity not of “theoretical” capacity, so (a) a full tank is 12 bars on the “charge level” graph even if you only have 10 bars available on the “total capacity” graph, and (b) the mount of distance you get per bar decreases as the car gets older.

As to freeways and range: what BigBlock440 said. EVs don’t have all the parasitic losses IC engines do, so their power consumption is pretty much proportional to drag. Which goes up as something like speed cubed. So they hate going fast on the freeway, and they like slow traffic. Stop-go and hills don’t bother them much because they recover most of the braking energy.

The other big effect on range is temperature. When it’s really hot the battery capacity decreases so you’ve got less range, and when it’s really cold you’re using the heater, which on 1st-gen Leafs is electric and really inefficient (later ones use a heat pump). For example steady state on the freeway at 60mph uses about 20kW. Heater on full blast uses about 4kW. You do the math. If your outside temp is between about 10 and 30C the temp effect isn’t too noticeable though.

Nauraushaun > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
11/18/2016 at 01:06

It’s mind-bending how different their efficient times are! But it all makes sense, guess I’m just stuck in the old way.

You really know your Leafs! It seems complicated but I guess it all makes sense. It’s probably no worse than an ICE - if we’d been using EVs for the last 100 years we’d probably call oil pressure and boost gauges complicated.

The turbo compresses more air into the engine to make power, but it slurps up the exhaust gas and only works once the turbine is spinning, so there’s lag at lower revs .

Compared to the all the torque, all the time of EVs it just sounds absurd! And it leads to its own weird efficiency characteristics, where you use less fuel at lower revs, which means 50km/hr and 100km/hr might both be more efficient than 75km/hr

DynamicWeight > Moves-Like-Senna
11/18/2016 at 11:07

Even still. You’re normally driving at least 500 miles one way? I still think that’s way out of the spectrum of normal driving habits.

Moves-Like-Senna > DynamicWeight
11/18/2016 at 11:21

I would agree with the latter sentence. Much of my driving is in rural parts of the continent where I may come across 20 other cars over the entire drive and not much more so it’s fairly less patrolled routes. Today I’ll be doing 200 miles after work, I’ll measure and report back

DynamicWeight > BigBlock440
11/18/2016 at 11:43

1,200 miles is pretty tough to do in a day. 14 waking hours times an average speed of 60 mph is still only 840 miles. I’ve driven across the country 5 times so I have some experience in this. Even going 85 miles an hour when I could, it’s pretty tough to break 1,000 miles.

BigBlock440 > DynamicWeight
11/18/2016 at 12:05

Just googled it, my record’s 1,400 miles, but I still stand by the “not terribly difficult part”, just get a little stiff. My wife wasn’t too happy about it though. But 2-3 tanks is only 1200 miles if you go 400 miles between fill-ups, as most people consider that a “tank” even if it’s technically 3/4 of a tank. That puts you at 900, even easier of a drive.