Now, don't get me wrong, like ALL cars, there are compromises and the 2018 version did come with more than a few surprises. But first, the basics.
The Numbers;
Miles driven; 10,315.4
Projected Cost; $230.72 or 2.23 cents per mile
Real Cost; $67.86 or .7 cents per mile
Public Charging; 1817.78 kwh
Public Charging Fees; $7.92
93 Level 2, 116 Level 3 charges.
Ok, so saying that driving an EV "can be" economical goes without saying. Now you can argue that in areas with high utility rates, I couldn't do this but you might want to notice that despite living in one of the lowest utility rate areas (WA is the lowest by mostly because we have areas of the state that bill LESS THAN 3 cents per kwh. My rates are in the "lower" range) I don't charge that much at home. This is made possible by a job change (Even when I was driving 30,000 miles a year, I was charging publicly ¾ of the time anyway due to the shorter range of my 30 kwh LEAF) and a commute that is so short, I can do a weeks worth on 70%! Over 70% of my home electrons happened in the early days before the job change.
So yeah, I an taking advantage...or am I? NCTC is simply part of driving a LEAF. Its two years that is baked into what I paid for the car. Not using it is like.... like paying for an extended service agreement; A TOTAL waste of money! Now I will admit that the recent past has mostly been exploring new stations or verifying new compatibility with old stations. EVGO has a decent and growing presence in the region but I have not visited them in over 3 weeks. I should "share the load" since they do now have new stations at the Tacoma Dome/ LeMay Car Museum.
The Battery;
Day One; ahr; 115.05, SOH; 99.66, Hx; 99.86, 491 GID 38.1 kwh available.
6 Months; Ahr; 111.05, SOH; 96.20, Hx; 114.29 (8/9/18) 483 GID 37.4 kwh available.
Unlike previous LEAF versions, all the stats except Hx continuously dropped (or stayed the same) without a single uptick event. Not one. My LEAF's brief life has actually gone thru several changes in driving patterns. The first two months before the job change was driving 60-200 miles a day for work. Fully charging every night at home, then grabbing a QC or two on the road.
I then changed jobs and before the weather changed, I would charge to 50% more or less and sometimes grabbed a 80 minute boost in the morning before leaving for work with maybe a QC once a week. I also did several roadtrips where 3 to 7 QCs per day was done. Thru all of that the numbers continued their slow decline.
But the decline is slow. Usually the drop is .01 to .03 with many days staying the same BUT there were two major exceptions when I lost a LOT all at once. The first event happened April 12, at 4499.5 miles when my ahr went from 114.31 to 113.55 and SOH went from 99.02 to 98.36. Now if we look at the degradation rate before that one day drop, we are looking at roughly being at 85% SOC after 100,000 miles. I was VERY pleased at that. Now, I am not really that upset over the drop since its still rather small but I am somewhat confused as to why it happened? Examining the period of time surrounding the event (which was easy back then when it was fresh in my mind) revealed nothing unusual or out of the ordinary.
The 2nd time it happened, the drop was much larger. I went on vacation leaving July 6th parking my car in an open lot near Seatac returning the afternoon of July 17th for a day before starting the 3rd leg of my vacation. At 8467.1 miles my ahr went from 112.89 to 111.45 and SOH dropped from 97.80 to 96.54. I have to think the pack sitting for that length of time is what did it but I parked it with 41% SOC so thought that would be ok but apparently open asphalt and 90º temps were enough to make a permanent impression on the pack. FYI; On the 18th full charge was 485 GID, 37.4 kwh available.
The other thing that crossed my mind is the BMS doing some sort of recalibration occasionally which accounted for the drop.
So I have lost 5 ahr or 4.34% and 3.46% on SOH. Now my 100,000 mile stats are looking like 66% SOH which means I will "just" miss a warranty pack replacement. I would be under 60% ahr so very close for sure. Now, this assumes a continuing random "recalibration" at the same rate. Take out the 2nd drop and I am looking at 80% left at 100,000 miles. Still very ok with that!
Despite only doing full charges for "most" road trips which means only 4 full charges since March 29th, the cells have done a remarkable job of balancing. Maybe this accounts for the very predictable LEAF Spy stats?
At any rate, I am simply not going to worry about this until say... 35,000- 40,000 miles when I have 6 months left on my lease.
Range
Yes, I have had 2 "100 mile" LEAFs and actually did over 100 miles in both of them but it was TOUGH to do! Nissan learned and so overestimating range is something they decided not to do in their 30 kwh LEAF and that continues with the 40 kwh LEAF. The official 151 mile range is quite easy to do in the 2018 LEAF. In reality, I "count" on 165 miles in Summer with 135 miles in Winter. I continue to minimize heat mostly using defrost only as needed with seat heaters and heated steering wheel more than giving me what I need most of the time. I will say I had a day where my estimated range was 128 miles (drove 90) but that was with full car (4 adults) and constant rain. The passengers were picked up at the office and from there to the job site, it was constant defrost the entire time to keep the windows clear. For Heaven's sake People, its Washington! Get a garage!
A good example of Summer range; Last Thursday, I decided to attend the grand opening of the Yakima QC which is about 149 miles away from the QC in Centralia. After the event where I charged up to 99% or so, we went downtown for a quick trip which added 8 miles to my trip back West which in itself would have been doable despite now being well over the 151 EPA "suggestion" but there was an obstacle... a BIG one.
White Pass outside Mt. Rainier (Elevation data courtesy of Plugshare's New Trip Planner!)
But the drive was a GORGEOUS one and what else is the LEAF for but roadtripping! So even with the elevation change and AC (it was well over 90º in Yakima) blasting away until the pass, I made the 157 miles quite easily with a good 6-7 miles to spare.
One thing about the GOM (LEAF range estimator) is that it slowly hides a reserve which is actually quite significant adding at least 10-15 miles of range well after the low battery warnings start. Even when the SOC meter goes to "_ _ _" you have the same range left that you had in earlier LEAF models with the GOM went to "_ _ _" or about 5-7 miles of careful driving. FYI; On the 40 kwh model, the GOM goes to "_ _ _" about 10 miles before the SOC meter does.
Driving
Well, as we all know by now, the murder of my 30 kwh LEAF put me in a time crunch for a replacement vehicle which meant my first choice of an SV with Pro Pilot Assist was as much as a 30 day wait AFTER I had already waited nearly that long already so I took the S simply because it was already available. So my planned evaluation of Pro Pilot, Adaptive Cruise, etc. has been dashed and thought about just skipping this segment altogether but I do have to mention Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) as it most likely saved me from an embarrassing situation.
Automatic Emergency Braking
What AEB does is automatically starts the braking process if the car senses a collision is imminent. First though, it will provide a warning beep. It is this beep that alerted me in time for me to apply the brakes. I am not sure I would have noticed the car in front of me in time since I had only glanced away for less than 3 seconds but as it was, the situation was way too close for my rather risky comfort zone. But what it also did was really gave me a renewed sense of security knowing how conservative the AEB is (yes, that means sometimes it beeps at relatively mundane situations like diverging lanes, etc) and how well and quickly I reacted to the beeps which are not loud or alarming at all. It just worked.
E Pedal
Maximum regen at last! I did a few experiments and saw 67 KW regen which is simply awesome. I would go into great lengths to explain how nice E Pedal is but it simply would not be effective. I would only be parroting the same thing I was told before my test drive in Las Vegas last September and trust me; words simply don't do justice to how nice E Pedal really is.
What it does do is simply allows you to do one pedal driving nearly all of the time. The hassle of switching from gas to brake to gas to brake is no longer! It is such a small thing in words but such a HUGE change in the driving experience.
BMS/TMS/ Charging
TMS??? Say what? This is a LEAF a TMSless LEAF, right? Well, technically yes, but changes in the quick charge profile have been made to help control the heat buildup in the battery pack hence TMS! Well, sort of...
What I am referring to AKA "Rapidgate" is the ramp down when quick charging. The charge rate slows based on two criteria; SOC and starting battery temperatures. The ramp down from full power starts between 58 to 62% and is rather gradual.
Here is a good example of how the change in charging curve helps to control temperature. The Green line represents the charging speed, the red line, SOC and the black line is the temperature. I started this charge at a high SOC to limit the very fast part of the charge to better illustrate how the curve controls the heat build up. As you can see, the black line is relatively flat due to the short time 45 KW charging speed happened before the ramp down in charging speed takes place. If you click on the picture, you will get a larger version which will show a change in the temperature slope as charge rate drops.
Now if this was all there was to it, no problemo! But Rapidgate is the 2nd controlling parameter of charging speed and that starts to happen when battery temps hits the 90's F.
Here is one of the most extreme cases (My only 16 KW charging session) where I started with a low SOC in the 20's and charging speed of 16 KW from a station that charged me at 46 KW earlier the same day. But I started the charge with a battery temperature exceeding 120º. Now this was at the end of a 400 mile trip to Central Washington with temps in the mid 90's crossing over Snoqualmie Pass, etc etc so all the things that creates a hot pack were abundantly present. FYI; I did this charge at an EVGO machine which only runs 30 minutes as part of my free NCTC program. I gained about 20% or about 32 miles in range. But part of the heat buildup was a lot of elevation gain and it was all down hill from there to home so 20% was enough but definitely something that needs to be known and prepared for.
Truth be told; The above resulted from a trip done purposely with ZERO prep. I got up, decided to do a 350 mile road trip to the hot side of the state and left... with 25% SOC. I did it but not without a bit of charging.
Hindsight
So this is when I do the "if I knew then what I know now" game. Well, the wreck really limited my options A LOT! My real plan was to have not been in the way of the car that totaled my 2016, finished the lease, probably bought it to sell (due to over mileage penalties...) so I could get the new 2020 LEAF or perhaps a LR CPO T3. (my 2016 lease would have ended Nov 2019)
I missed the chance at the really good Bolt deals and kinda glad I did. The car is smaller and not sure it would have been good for me and right now, a lot of the new fast charger installs I roadtripped to in my LEAF are not working for the Bolt. A temporary thing I am sure but still...
But truth be told, if I had to do it all over again, I still would have picked the LEAF. The T3 I still think is the only EV worth the MSRP is not going to come with the full tax credit or the WA State sales tax waiver (although that has a good chance of returning next year) so its simply out of my budget. Changing jobs also meant a pretty significant pay cut as well. More and much better benefits in new job but that doesn't help out my bank account so stretching the budget for a car isn't going to be nearly as easy as it was.
But the LEAF despite it being a half step in many ways, does add some essential functionality and all at a price that is cheaper than the previous versions. Again, I leased and payments are $137 more per month than my 2016 but residual is nearly the same at $9600. Whether that is a good price all depends on what the battery pack does but right now, its more range than I need 90% of the time and that is very liberating. But the real benefit of the range is a better ability to pick and choose charging stops. I now skip over several on trips. In the past, I could only dream of driving from my home to Ellensburg before stopping to charge or from my home to Astoria (past FIVE stations) before stopping to charge. Now if I can get my bladder to understand I don't have to stop as often...
Great post, very informative thanks!
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