Living With A Nissan Leaf Electric Vehicle -

Living With A Nissan Leaf Electric Vehicle.

I have had my third Nissan Leaf now for 3 months and I thought it time I reflected on what it is like to live with an electric car like the Nissan Leaf.

Holidays In An Electric Vehicle.

In May Karen and I had a week staying in Mawgan Porth Cornwall on the Park Holiday Complex. I chose this site as we had wanted to visit North Cornwall as a lot of the beaches are dog friendly all year which means Archie can enjoy himself and the scenery is superb.

I also chose Park as it had an electric vehicle charging point which was free for customers to use.

In this case it was a Tesla Destination Charger which had two chargers mounted on a surf board, the red sign denotes the Tesla only connection but the white sign denotes any type 2 electric vehicle connector will work.

This meant that the whole week touring around Cornwall was free of fuel costs as all I had to do was to top up each night. In an earlier post I described a short holiday to North Devon chosen because it had a free electric vehicle charging point.

Destination Charging

This should be a must for any small business, we have a local garden centre just a walk away but 10 miles away another garden centre has installed two 7 kWh destination chargers and now I only ever shop there for my garden purchases.

Driving Range And Range Anxiety

For those new to electric vehicles the phrase range anxiety will be a turn off. What does it actually mean? I liken it to any car with a small petrol tank.

When was the last time you ran out of petrol?

In a fossil fuel car you never let the tank go empty so why would you in an electric vehicle.

Electric cars used to have short range but now my 40 kWh leaf will easily do 120 – 140 miles between charges. In the last three or 4 years I can count on one hand the number of trips which exceeded this distance.

Rapid Charging

With limited range you need to charge frequently if you do a very long trip. I have just come back from the Fully Charged Live 2019 event at the Silverstone Racecourse. This was a round trip of 440 miles over 2 days.

For this trip I stopped twice on the way up at the Ecotricity chargers at motorway services and twice on the way home. Below is an image of my Leaf plugged in and charging on the way home.

It is a simple process to connect via an app to the network and start and finish a charge. There are a couple of issues worth mentioning.

Unlike a garage forecourt there is no cover. When it is raining you get soaked stood outside the vehicle connecting to the pump. This will change over time as companies such as Fastned build charging stations much like garages with proper roofs on which are solar panels.
Cost – For my home electricity I get charged about 0.14p per kWh when it is not free from my solar panels. Ecotricity charge a flat rate of 0.30p per kWh. On this trip 440 miles cost me just over £33 whereas diesel would have cost me just over £80 for my old car.
Queues! I suppose it was because nearly 2000 electric cars were converging on one site. When I was at the Travel Lodge 15 miles from Silverstone there were queues of electric cars waiting to charge. In time as more charging points role out this will not be an issue.
Charging duration. These chargers are limited to 45 minutes per session, Despite being 50 kWh chargers. I was only getting 40 kWh at the beginning and this tapers rapidly towards the end to stop overheating the batteries.
This meant an extra 90 minutes added to my travel time. As I am retired and have only a 100 mile bladder limit the need to stop twice for 45 minutes was not an issue for me. For others this may be. Newer vehicles such as the Jaguar Ipace, kia e Nero and other will now have larger batteries and faster charging rates but the they will need faster chargers to make this worth while.

Home Charging

99% of the time I charge at home for 14p per kWh which means it costs about 3p per mile. However from about April to September my solar panels generate enough to power the house and fill up the car for free!

Should You Buy One?

If you run two cars in your family then there is no excuse not to make the second run around and electric vehicle. Used Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe prices are coming down in value to make them a viable second car.

With an electric car as your main car and you do not have a drive way or home charging solution then likely is the answer will be no, not yet. If you live in Scotland or Milton Keynes then the answer could be yes as these have multiple charging options.

If you travel regular long distance the only option I believe today will be the Tesla or Jaguar Ipace but they come at an expensive price.

Need to Research More?

Do go onto Youtube and follow the Fully Charged Show It has nearly 500000 subscribers and is the number 1 go to source for all information regarding renewable energy and electric vehicles.

I have been following them for years and that is why I made the 440 mile round trip to the second year of what will turn out to be an annual event. I include some images below of the displays and exhibitors.