April 2018 Drive Report; I Think We Are Alone Now

The monthly drive report has morphed quite a bit over the years. My blog was never intended to be public. It was essentially a group of notes on my transportation costs recorded for use on various online sites, a diary more than anything dating back to Thanksgiving 2003 7 months before the arrival of Prius #1.

My monthly logs started out comparing the cost of my Prius to the "average" car. Then it was my two Priuses, then the Prius and the ZENN, Prius and LEAF,  LEAF and Corolla, etc.  During my time at RGIS, it morphed again into a very interesting "Gasser verses EV" contest due to a very heavy driving schedule that illustrated a shifting balance dictated by an ever increasing range, more public charging and simply a shrinking need to use gas. But that job is no more. There was just too many obstacles including massive road construction projects that would have greatly impacted my day.  That combined with the fact that my job was hardly coveted meant it was simply time to move on.  So that reason along with the much more useful 40 kwh LEAF's range meant the Corolla's time was done.

So now I am down to one.  So comparisons against "phantom facts" is not something I can participate in but mostly because I constantly chide and challenge others who do the same thing.  This morning from Green Car Reports;

What kind of car are you driving? It costs me about $30 to put diesel in my 2015 Golf here in Florida and that is good for 600 miles under typical highway 75 mph conditions. I am 100% certain that I would be saving no money using a fast charger and travelling under equivalent speeds and conditions.

This is THE reason why this blog exists. I record the data. Anything you see here comes from personal observations (which can include personal conclusions) or data logs (mostly from LEAF Spy) but more importantly,  its not a "seat of the pants" estimation.   The person above is claiming 5 cents per mile and I have no doubt he attained that figure a few times but claiming that this is normal?  Maybe a few months ago when gas prices were lower?

Back in the early days of LEAFdom (driving my ZENN around created more laughter than curiosity...) I had a lot of interested people come up to discuss why their gas so and so was a better fit for them and the logic employed was frequently both comical and mathematically impossible.  But what proved to be the more difficult challenge was showing how their thought processes were flawed.  I realized I was not going to teach the World to change, I had to do it by example.  So the monthly driving log lives on only to show what can be done since I actually did it.  Can you duplicate (or even possess the desire) what I did?

Maybe, maybe not.  You could easily do better. My days of driving carefully left soon after I got my S 30.  The teeny tiny range boost was shockingly liberating.  Sure, I had challenges, but I also had several days when I knew I would be getting home with several miles to spare no matter how fast I drove so I broke the law.  I can honestly say that in the short 2½ months I have had my 2018, I have easily exceeded the combined total of miles driven over 70 mph in both my 2011 and 2013!

Any way, on to the stats!  My LEAF traveled 1876.6 miles costing $13.44 or .7 cents per mile.  Public charging usage totaled 340.55 kwh costing me 61 cents (Blink overruns) Without that benefit, I would have paid $45.09 or 2.4 cents per mile.

My battery stats finished lower again with ahr; 113.43, SOH 98.26% and Hx still lofty at 115.90%

month	miles	ahr	SOH	Hx	kwh
Day One	24	115.05	99.66	99.86	38.5
Feb 2018	866.7	114.91	99.54	106.95	38.2
Mar 2018	3292.6	114.47	99.16	115.75	38.2
Apr 2018	5168	113.43	98.26	115.9	37.8

Obviously hard to extrapolate much from this limited data set.   I guess I should add a few columns; % lost since new.  Now what is considered the most important of the stats is an opinion expressed by many so I will express mine and say that I have lost 1.4% of my ahr potential in 5,000 miles which equates to under 9% at the end of my 45,000 mile lease. That is ok, I guess.  I personally think 5% considering the much larger pack size is more appropriate but I guess we will continue to monitor and see what happens.  Summer has yet to arrive and yeah, I have baked my pack over 115º just under 20 times but that probably didn't do much. 

I will say I had one LARGE drop that I cannot explain. Nothing unusual around this time I can think of but before that ONE day, I was well on my way to about 5% loss in 45,000 miles which is very much ok.  

4/11/2018	98.2	4.5	114.31	99.02	115.25
4/12/2018	68.9	4.2	113.55	98.36	115.57

Up until that one day, the drop has been consistent but very gradual and no, I have not gained back anything so maybe it was a "pack adjustment?"  I am guessing there is something here but just not seeing it yet. I will be looking at this more for sure.