August 2017 Drive Report; Getting Ready For the Big Reveal!

Ok, first off; my plan to shift more driving to the Corolla failed.  If not for the next to the last day of the month, it never would have even started.  This cost me a lot of money because instead of driving early in the month and gassing up before the storm, I gassed up afterwards which means I paid 22 cents per gallon more for gasoline on Thurs than I did on last purchase in mid July. So my calculated cost for the 136.5 miles driven was $10.50 or nearly 8 cents per mile! And to top it off, I am almost sorta close to my annual oil change which I also missed by a few weeks but I haven't come close to my 5,000 miles yet...

The LEAF traveled 2771.4 miles costing 26.90 in charging costs which does include $2.55 in public charging fees (2nd month in a row!) costing just under a penny a mile.  I gathered 371.2 kwh from public charging which was mostly free.  One thing to mention; I plugged into a Blink L2 while working and got over 10 kwh and was charged $2.05. The station did say the first hour was free. I was under the impression that Blink L2's were no longer part of NCTC?  Now wondering if its up to the host?  But if using market rates for all power received (plus the public charging fees) my power cost would have been $58.88 or 2.12 cents per mile. Still pretty reasonable!

Other charging milestones; Got 21.158 kwh measured from LEAF Spy (22.27 kwh calculated at 95% efficiency)  from the EVGO 125 amp station in Tacoma yesterday which was an all time high.  (guess that wasn't part of August) and ran into Mike another LEAFer on his way to the coast for the weekend.  He was having issues with the touchscreen.  I got his charge going but forgot to mention that if you are having issues. Simply plug the car in and swipe your card. This eliminates the need to select your plug or payment type....

But the real story is it is finally September! Seems like the Summer just flew by although our Summer-like weather is far from over.  Predictions are for the hottest Labor Day Weekend here in over 40 years but then again our last super hot predictions never materialized due to heavy smoke "protecting" us from the full force of the Sun. Having experienced both, I prefer "Eclipse" protection!

But September means we are finally about to find out the wow in the 2018 LEAF!  A lot of hints from Nissan and a leaked configurator has generated almost as much excitement as questions. The configurator gave a lot of details but it was pretty clear that it did not have all the info. For example; "all" of the dimensions were EXACTLY the same as the current LEAF. How is that possible? The dimensions change slightly from model year to model year so how could a dramatic refresh not change?  As mentioned before, I stood next to a test mule and pretty sure the car was longer so gotta think something changed!

But no sense in discussing rumors any more since we will have the real deal soon enough. The Worldwide reveal will happen shortly after 5 PM Pacific on Tuesday the 5th. I am lucky enough to be doing a test drive the next day so watch the reveal and send me any specific questions you might have and I will do what I can to get an answer for you.

Battery Report; well for a while (Again!) I was thinking my batt stats would finally start to tarnish a bit. My Hx was stuck in the 98-99's for a while despite driving every day averaging a good (low for me) 50-60 miles a day. My eclipse trip was well over 300 miles and had 4 QCs in less than 24 hours and that didn't push me over 100% either  but this past week, I recovered so I guess I will have to hold the degradation report for one more month.

Finally; the LEAF is a "love it or hate it" car very much like the iconic Prius was.  I like the look of my LEAF and its uniqueness but yesterday, I realized that I wasn't looking at it the right way. Here is an interesting perspective.