Dec 2018 Drive Report; I Can See Clearly Now!

Happy New Year!  2018 is in the books and lez be real, it kinda sucked.  I have definitely had better years! So welcome 2019 (and hopefully dozens more fast chargers in the area!)

The Numbers

For December, I drove 1268.2 miles costing me a grand total of  $4.25!  As I am sure you have guessed, NCTC was used quite a bit (297.03 kwh)  for various reasons with free being the main reason but also did a few charging observations so it wasn't 100% greed... High 90's for sure but not 100%.   Without NCTC, the cost would have been closer to $30.21.  Full disclosure will have to wait until power bill comes in in the next few days. Although I am sure I am still tier one, the usage that could have been from home might push me to tier 2 but we shall see.

For the year, I had total cost of $97.64 (includes $7.92 in public charging fees) 2597.78 kwh public charging over 14,768 miles.

The Battery

Again, another month with nearly no degradation with pack finishing 2018 at 109.22 (EOM Nov 109.31) ahr, 94.61 (EOM Nov 94.69) SOH, 119.78 Hx (new record) 160 QCs,  129 L2s over 318 days. (Picked up Feb 16th)

Another metric is full charge stats. I did a full charge (well, lights were still blinking but SOC in car said 100%...close enough, right?)  on Dec 28th getting 469 GIDs with 36.3 ksh available. Compared to previous full charge on Oct 12th 2½ months (2771 miles elapsed) ago with 474 GIDs and 36.7 kwh available.  Sounds like cold weather does a battery good!

Projecting each metric to 100,000 miles my ahr would be 75.89; SOH 65.8% and kwh available ~ 23.  This means "just" missing the warranty claim.  But realize we are averaging in several Winter months that have boosted the average.  As always we will continue to track.  TBH; my 30 kwh LEAF spoiled me...BAD!  My 40 kwh LEAF has half the miles my 30 kwh LEAF had and 4 times the degradation.

Now I would be lying if I said I didn't lease this car with the intent of buying it.  But that is the beauty of a lease. It gives you ample opportunity to think and rethink that decision and the more I think about it and the more charging vendors are coming out with per minute pricing, the more I don't think I would be happy with a car that only charges at 50 KW... But 2 years is a long time for things to change so we shall see.



E Pedal Verses B Mode Part 2

I have been experimenting with B Mode a lot this month. I know my previous blog said E Pedal is THE thing and I haven't changed my mind on that but at the same time, B Mode is a tool and like all tools, it does have a place in the right situations.  So I decided to do some comparisons to see if I could improve efficiency with a minimal amount of effort.  However, it quickly became obvious that my driving style also changed despite the lack of a conscious decision to drive differently and it was noticed.   In the first week, I had 2 people flag me down to advise me my brake lights weren't working.  Just another confirmation that brake lights only engage automatically in E Pedal.

I did notice a bump in regen miles (which can be accessed in the menus on every power off) but that was due to my "coasting" sooner to compensate for the longer distances needed in B Mode to stop.  FYI; B Mode is stronger on the 40 kwh LEAF than previous LEAFs.  I can slow down to a near crawl much quicker than before.  Most of the time, the light changed before braking was necessary. In other times especially if there was the slightest of slopes, I would slow down to 2-3 mph which I was ok with but people following me weren't always on the same page. A bit of a strange response as we were normally talking about maybe 50 feet along with traffic sitting at the light so its not like I was losing any ground... I guess the LEAF just idles at a slower speed than a gasser?  😏

Another thing I realized is that I "now" HATE having to hold my foot on the brake sitting at a light and after 3 days of putting up with it, I decided that it was ok to shift to E Pedal when the speed dropped to a low level like below 5 mph. I would shift back to B Mode as soon as I started moving. This made the experiment much more tolerable.   But to make a true evaluation, I will have to continue the experiment for several more weeks to have any hopes of seeing any real differences in performance.

Winter Tools

Olympia is the "Fog Capital of the World" and rightly so.  Due to the normal onshore flow, our humidity in the morning is 100% just about every morning. This high humidity makes keeping fog off the glass a constant battle.  With a longer range, I have a lot more options like heat, etc.  but for those who still make 24 kwh work, a few things to know;

Fog forms on glass easiest when it has a foothold.  Fog is nothing but super tiny droplets of water that form and bead up. Now, big beads of water is what you want because they are heavy enough that air flow will push them up your windshield and out of your main field of view. But fogging becomes an issue when the glass is dirty because each tiny spec of dust is a incubation center for a droplet of water.

So how to combat this? Well, its rather basic. The cleaner and smoother the glass, the harder it is for the droplets to form.  Now, you can do it the hard way by simply cleaning the inside glass religiously (realize every open vent blast onto the glass is essentially throwing dirt onto the wet windshield thanks to your fellow gasser commuters...) or do it the lazy way like me.

Rain X and anti Fog are basically the same thing.  Each is basically a glass polish. They fill the super tiny imperfections on your windshield surface leaving a smooth flat mirror like finish.  So instead of micro beads of water forming on every piece of dirt or divot, the water forms large beads that simply run off the windshield because there is nothing for the water to cling to.

Rain X works the best but needs to be applied more often.  New applications of Rain X negates the need to use the windshield wipers in nearly all circumstances but the windshield is still constantly pelleted with dirt and the occasional wipe is needed especially if mud is involved so plan to reapply every 2 weeks to as much as month.

Anti Fog works much longer but is not a perfect solution and requires a bit of help.  Water condenses when cold hits warm. Sitting in my garage, my windows stay clear because the interior of the car and the garage equalize in temperature.  But jump in the car, open the garage door and immediately the fog begins to form like a glass of iced tea on a hot Summer day because the colder air is now assaulting the outside of the glass making the inside of the glass colder than the interior of the car which is being warmed by your body and breath (which also adds moisture) This is why turning on heat quickens the fogging process. Its simply a greater temperature delta which means more condensation on the glass.

Both require applying onto a clean windshield so the cleaner the better. Its my contention that all Rain X neighsayers simply did not clean the glass very well.   As you have probably guessed, cleaning the inside of the LEAF windshield is not all that easy to do.  What I do is spray the windex onto  a coffee filter (use what you want. There are a lot of suggestions like ultra fine steel wool, Aluminum Foil, etc. but I found those hard to attach 😎) that I attach to my glass wiper thing pictured below along with spraying a wipe and using a circular motion to scrub the glass.  Then I use a squeegee to wipe the bulk of the Windex to an area where I can wipe it with a cloth. This prevents streaks but also (for short armed people like me) is MUCH easier to dry and polish the glass.

Glass Wiper. Works great but strongly recommend getting a few extra pads. I have 3 that 

I rotate in and out to prevent smearing dirt around the glass.  As Spring slowly arrives, the wiper comes in handy as you will have cold mornings that evolve into warm sunny days and will come out to find water literally dripping off the interior glass.  The wiper would in a few seconds, clear what it would take defrost 5 minutes on high to do. 

Settings

I have noticed that I have become much more sensitive to the smell of exhaust to the point where I drive with my vents closed as much as I possibly can.  Obviously not the best option for keeping the glass clear but stumbled upon this setting that is not perfect but reduces the need for defrost by quite a bit. About half the time, I can do my entire morning commute (roughly 18 mins) without opening the vent at all. 

On days when venting is needed at least I can wait until I am on the freeway before opening the vent which greatly lessens the amount of exhaust I must endure.


The Shrinking of WA

Phil Brooke posted an article about a proposal to make White Pass green.  White Pass has nearly no amenities for EVers and is all but unreachable for anyone with less than a 40 kwh LEAF and worse; Its the main Southern path from I-5 to Mt. Rainier and its nearly one million vehicles that visit annually. 

This opens up a much shorter and visually enticing route for anyone south of Olympia (Olympia is basically the halfway point to Yakima or the tricities area going north via 1-90 or going south via Highway 12 thru White Pass)

Now we need to get some chargers on the Western Half of Highway 12 going towards Aberdeen.   The Lucky Eagle Casino located between Oakville and Rochester would be a great starting point. I have to say I have been expecting them to put up something for years now.  Its 2019 now so no more excuses!!