Jan 2017 Drive Report

LEAF went 1160.4 miles costing $23.08 or  1.98 cents per mile. NCTC pitched in 105.92 Kwh for the month. A bit too early to start reporting battery stats as far as highs and lows.  Other than one day (in Feb actually) all my stats are still the same as new which is to be expected since I only have 4800 miles on the LEAF.

The Corolla traveled 531.8 miles costing $40.05 or 7.61 cents per mile. Winter range degradation hit the Corolla hard averaging a "career" low under 35 MPG. 

Anyway, in other news, My 2016 is still sucking on the efficiency meter but becoming more and more convinced every day that the previous LEAF instrumentation was simply inaccurate.  LEAF Spy allows me to estimate my range based on my expected performance and I use 3.3, 3.7 and 4 miles per kwh as a guide depending the weather conditions. First thing I realized is those numbers still work. So... pretty much just another reason to ignore the GOM.

I am continuing my data gathering on how well the 30 kwh pack dissipates heat. If you didn't see it earlier, I noticed that the 30 kwh pack simply does not heat up as much nor does it retain the heat when it does.  I have consistently seen the heat from a fast charge completely dissipated in less than a day including several times in roughly 12 hours.  This means at least one temperature sensor is within 2º of my ambient garage temperature.  IOW, no I am not leaving my LEAF out in the cold overnight to help speed the cooling process.  So far the results have been encouraging.  Anxious to see how she does when its over 80º!

For all current LEAF leasers; the deals are still flying! Do not be discouraged when NMAC does not discount your residual!  Although NMAC owns your car and does actually provide any discounts off your residual, you MUST go thru a dealer! Why is this?

Uhh, well, that is actually a very good question and anyone who knows for sure, please chime in but I suspect its done this way because the dealer incurs costs to handle your return and its another way for them to get a little money out of the deal so does this mean that you might not get a good deal on a lease to purchase if the dealer is too greedy?

Well there is very little evidence of that and the reason is likely due to the fact that 2014 was Nissan's best LEAF sales year ever so that means a lot of lease returns due back and Nissan doesn't want them so guessing there is perks for everyone. So what can you expect?

Well again, you simply need to beat feet to your dealer to find out!  Some dealers are very helpful in this regard but the "deal of the week"  a person just bought out their 2014 S with charge package and had 3 months lease payments waived. So total cost to them (without $2500 state incentive that not all of us qualify for) was  $16.7K!! (yeah that means just over $14,000 in real terms!)  IOW, the deals are getting better and better.

Finally; its Winter and sometimes our best estimation of our range might not be as accurate as we had hoped. If you find yourself just a little teeny bit short of a plug, your best bet is to shut the LEAF down even if you are less than a mile away. Look at your power circles on the dash for guidance. Don't go below 5 if you are more than a few hundred yards away.  You run a strong possibility of killing your 12 volt battery and if you do, its tow time!

But if you shut down just before that point, your LEAF may be able to rest up enough to make it that extra mile down the road to the charger.  Your LEAF will shutdown when the weakest cell in your battery pack hits a certain point. Resting the LEAF allows pack balancing (which is pretty much going on all the time) to boost that weak cell and it might just be enough for you to make it.  It might take an hour of sitting and balancing but then again, how likely is it a tow truck will be there in significantly less time?  Not very in most cases!