So last month I traded in my variety Rover for a Nissan Leaf. Nee echt.
After my very first 1,000 miles right here are some rambling thoughts, early observations and opinions on living with an EV…
Herfstblad
I’ve been driving SUV’s for much more than 7 years, but in 2013 I had my very first test drive in an electric automobile and it’s been on my mind ever since. This isn’t something I’ve chose to do on a whim.
In purchase for our household to try living with an EV one of our cars and trucks had to go. With a little petrol saloon and a 3 heap 4.4L V8 diesel in the garage, in one method it wasn’t a difficult decision to make.
In another method of course it was. providing up the comfort, equipment and the high driving setting in specific will be difficult as I go back to sitting in a lower, smaller car.
Best wel lelijk
There’s no good method to put it, the leaf has a deal with only a mom could love. The shape of those front headlights is functional, managing the airflow around the bodywork. but Tesla can make an aero efficient car that’s stunning too.
Related: Is the Tesla design 3 the Tipping point for the EV
It seems well developed (in Sunderland) and does have personality. It’s bigger than it looks, can take 5 adults and has a good sized boot too.
My better half had only one stipulation about the new car, it had to have heated seats. That implied going for the Tekna design which includes some other upgrades like a Bose noise system, 360 degree outside video camera configuration and a leather interior, vegans requirement not apply.
The Tech
Getting the automobile enrolled on the ironically named ‘Nissan Connect’ system was painful. It took a number of days to get the app paired with our Leaf and there was even an excursion under the bonnet for a serial number engraved on the motor at the request of the support staff. It was disappointing after the outstanding experience we had with the salesman at the Belfast dealership.
When we lastly got the automobile linked we got an email confirmation which contained an inaccurate URL that result in even much more head scratching and lost time too.
I tried difficult to get somebody in Nissan to allow me to share my experience and tips and save others from going with the same pain (some have even provided up). but in spite of tweets emails and on the internet chats I got nowhere.
The web interface to the automobile is sluggish and poorly designed. The app is no better, although there are much more contemporary interfaces from third party apps like EVA for iOS and leaf manager for Android.
You can inspect on the specify of charge and begin the climate manage remotely with the apps. Usefully the on-board timer can schedule the automobile to pre-heat the cabin for you each morning while still linked to the mains.
Het rijden
The cabin is a good location to be and that incredibly strange and eerie silence as you back out of the garage each morning never gets old.
That sound, or lack of it, is something that’s commonly overlooked with an EV, but it makes it such a enjoyable experience, one that you truly appreciate when you go back to a routine car. The lack of vibrations, best from the starter motor on, truly does make a difference. My better half will take the leaf at any chance over the petrol car. and that’s not just because she doesn’t have to fuel it, she really prefers its quiet, smooth drive too.
Once you’re behind the wheel, utilizing the Eco mode dulls the acceleration for the most cost-effective driving. pressing the throttle flat finds a button on the floor that allows you to quickly over-ride it and temporarily access full power if required. It feels pleasantly torquey and is decently quick 0-30 and you can quickly invoke the traction manage on a moist road.
Of course it’s not the kind of automobile for hooning around in. The new challenge is to max out your economy. There are different features to assist you screen your driving style, score your method and gamify the whole experience.
The dash is a confusing, cluttered and inconsistent style from the institution of much more is more. You grow bit trees on the top display, the much more economically you drive, the much more trees you grow.
Flicking the ‘gear lever’ down into Drive a second time switches the automobile into Brake Mode. This boosts braking regen and recuperates much more energy, enabling you to one-pedal drive, only needing to touch the brake pedal when concerning a complete stop.
The web interface offers (slow) access to all this data and rates your driving too. Here’s a summary from the web interface after around 10 days of driving the Leaf.
I believe if everybody had an EV for a week it would provide them a excellent insight into exactly how to drive much more economically. Back in the petrol automobile I discovered myself frowning at all that energy I was throwing away on motorways off ramps and down hills.
Range & Public Charging
Even though its genuine world variety is only around 85 miles, we can reach quite much any part of northern Ireland in the 24kWh Leaf, even without a full battery (check out the variety map below with the automobile at around 65% charge). Both my other half and I averaged around 20 miles each day last year so 85 is much more than enough for 99% of our journeys. and unlike a petrol or diesel automobile you leave the home every morning with a full ‘tank’.
We have several Rapid chargers around us that can bring the EV to 80% in just 30 minutes. type 2 chargers are much slower but so far we’ve not needed them.
We did try the one in the picture below out of curiosity during a recent weekend away to the coast. Our destination was around 80 miles from house and although we could just about have made it we took a 20min fast charge on the motorway services. inspect out plugshare.com for a look at the chargers available in your area.
As an absolute last resort there’s a 3 year healing service with the automobile that will put you on a flat bed and take you to your nearest charger ought to you get into trouble.
We’ve met the nicest people at public chargers, an fascinating bunch that are friendly and helpful. So far we’ve not been ICE’d and all chargers we went to bar-one have been in working order.
There does seem to be a major problem with some public chargers being out of purchase for long periods though. also some are in automobile parks that are locked at night which seems truly stupid, particularly as many were installed with the assist of public money. They ought to all be accessible 24/7.
For the 1% of trips that are even more afield we have the petrol automobile to autumn back on. In addition Nissan will lend you a fossil powered car for as much as 2 weeks a year at no charge (you’ll requirement to switch your own insurance coverage onto the car for the duration).
Home Charger
The electric car Homecharge plan / OLEV provided us a £500 government grant and our PCP deal with Nissan qualified us for the rest of the money (£390) to in shape a totally free 16amp Pod point charger in our garage.
More accurately these are special power outlets as the charger is actually in the car.
Even though our leaf doesn’t have the quicker 6.6kW charger on board, we wished to future proof the grant-aided house installation as much as possible so we paid £95 to upgrade to the 32amp / 7kW version.
A grand (on paper at least) for this charger seems method over priced. A quick look on eBay shows 16amp chargers available for under £200 and the easy set up took less than 2 hours. Is somebody making a killing from this gov scheme?
Sun Powered Car?
We’re looking forward to charging the leaf from our solar array. While a 4kW system in northern Europe is unlikely to ever offer sufficient surplus power for even the lowest mileage users, it ought to be able to contribute something over the brighter months of the year.
That will rely on us charging relatively slowly though so as not to be pulling in power from the grid. We will have to utilize the 13amp 3-pin ‘granny’ charger to limit the rate.
Coal Powered Car?
So where does the electrical power for your fancy electric automobile truly come from then? It’s a fair question.
This table from our latest electricity bill shows the source of our electrons (using 2014 data). It may be a surprise to see that the largest contributor is Renewable (wind) energy at 36%. For EVs to make the most sense though we requirement to push that much higher – filthy coal is still third at 25%. but with the current trend, the EV you purchase today will get cleaner over time.
Electric Efficiency
Even if the BEV was powered completely by electrical power produced from fossil fuels, it would still be a significant enhancement over an ICE automobile though. The interior combustion engine is around 20% effective compared to much more than 80% for an electric motor.
1 litre of petrol or diesel includes approximately 10 kWh’s of energy (petrol 9.7 kWh/l, diesel 10.7 kWh/l ). Daarom…
1 litre of diesel takes you about 6 miles in the variety Rover
The equivalent 10.7 kWh takes you about 43 miles in the Leaf
But lets take a much more similar smaller ICE car that can average state 40mpg. The leaf will still go 4 to 5 times even more with the exact same amount of energy, whilst moving all those toxic fumes out of our towns and cities.
Even though there’s currently lots of spare generation capacity on the national grid at night, if all of us altered to EV’s tomorrow it would be in big trouble. last week Elon Musk stated that globally we need 3 times the current level of generation to relocation to an all electric economy.
The finest automobile is…..a Bike
We’re in a period of shift and we requirement to ramp up sustainable energy and transportation technologies. Sure there are environmental costs in building all these new things, but unless we’re all going to be huddlED in grotten die opnieuw dierbont gebruiken, moeten we een methode ontdekken om onze hedendaagse levensmethode in evenwicht te brengen, terwijl onze consumptie wordt verminderd. Op hetzelfde moment brengt deze blog je wekelijks glanzende nieuwe producten om te begeren en dat ironie niet verloren is gegaan.
Critici van elektrische automobile films plaatsen gewoonlijk hogere voorlopige producerende emissies voor deze voertuigen, maar we zijn nauwelijks in de tweede generatie van de moderne EV in vergelijking met een eeuw van vooruitgang van het ijs en het produceren processen. Oh, en houd er rekening mee dat de aanhoudende energievereisten de brandstoffen verfijnen om ons ijs te laten draaien …
Zelf rijden / niveau 5 autonomie
De milieuvoordelen van EV’s zijn ook in de toekomst voor minder auto’s en vrachtwagens op de wegen. In plaats van uw tweede grootste aankoop die 90% van zijn leven inactief zit, kan deze voor u werken. Bovendien kunt u in de toekomst een lidmaatschap voor een auto krijgen voor een auto (CAAS – Automobile als een service?), Het oproepen van een autonome auto uit een app wanneer u dit vereist.
Bekijk de video hieronder in het huiswerkgedeelte van dit week over de wetenschap achter de autonome zelfrijdende auto’s en vrachtwagens die mogelijk slechts een jaar verwijderd zijn (de technologie zal hier tegen die tijd zijn, zo niet de wetgeving).
Spaargeld
Een bijwerking van ons EV-experiment is de verlaagde kosten van ons huishoudelijke transport. Dit 24KWH -blad is in wezen een run -out -model, vanwege stopzetting ten gunste van het bestaande en grotere 30 kW -ontwerp extreem binnenkort. Bovendien is de verklaring van het volledig nieuwe generatieblad nu elke dag te danken aan de huidige verouderingstijl die er is omdat 2010.
Het enige dat impliceert dat er een aantal uitstekende aanbiedingen zijn. De £ 4.500 plug-in automobielbeurs van de overheid helpt het leasebedrijf, dus onze 3 jaar x 8.000 mijl PCP-betalingen komen niet eens in de buurt van het betalen van alleen de afschrijving op de auto.
Al met al een echt goedkope methode om onze teen in de EV -wereld te dompelen en als we rond kunnen komen met een allereerste gen, beperkte variëteit Automobile zoals deze, dan zal alles in de toekomst gemakkelijk zijn. Hier zijn enkele van de jaarlijkse besparingen …
£ 500 bespaard op wegenbelasting – £ 0 wegenbelasting voor blad versus £ 500 voor de Variety Rover.
£ 1,300 op brandstof – We zijn gemiddeld een voorgestelde 4,0 mijl per kWh tot nu toe, dat komt neer op iets meer dan £ 0,03 per mijl versus ongeveer £ 0,19 per mijl voor de SUV. Die kostenbesparingen worden berekend op elektrische stroom versus diesel van meer dan 8.000 mijl jaarlijks en negeert het potentiële voor huis opladen en (nog steeds gratis, maar niet voor lange) openbare opladers in Noord -Ierland.
£ 350 bespaard op verzekeringsdekking – niet verwonderlijk is het blad veel goedkoper om te verzekeren dan de RR.
BIK – Als je veel geluk hebt om een bedrijfsautomobile te krijgen (dat ben ik niet), dan biedt een EV het laagste voordeel in vriendelijk tarief. Ik sprak onlangs met een goede vriend die me vertelde dat hij zichzelf efficiënt een verhoging van £ 2k zou geven door naar een EV te gaan.
Fantastisch of dwaasheid
We zijn slechts 3 jaar verwijderd van het decennium van verandering naar de EV volgens Bloomberg. Het tijdstip waarop een elektrische auto exact dezelfde kosten zal zijn als een met ijs aangedreven, is variëteit voldoende hoog om niet langer toe te doen en de bedrijfskosten zullen nog steeds uiterst voordelig zijn. De tijd bij het kopen van de ICE -auto over de EV is de ongebruikelijke beslissing, niet de andere methode die er is.
Naarmate elektrische auto’s en vrachtwagens de norm beginnen te worden, zal de ontwerpkeuze een boost geven van het vrij weinig dat vandaag beschikbaar is. Wie weet zou ik weer hoog kunnen zitten, maar in een EV, of misschien blijf ik bij het dichter bij de grond.
Dus daar is het, het zijn vroege dagen in ons EV -experiment, maar tot nu toe zo goed.
Hoe noem je het tegenovergestelde van een mid-life crisis? Een mid-life kennis? Kan zijn. Ik doe mee.
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