Saturday, December 7, 2013

Troubles in Leaf Land

The other day it was quite cold here. I have nearly 30,000 miles. Just 400 miles short. It is now my third winter and things are not so good. It was 22 F outside the other morning when I left for work. I preheated the car via external power and then did not use any heat except a couple quick defrost blasts to clear the windshield. Other than that I used NO heat. It was COLD. My drive to work is 22 miles each way from drive to parking lot where I park. Cold is a known problem but was not expecting to such a great degree after only 2 years. Without heat I got a grand total of 45 actual miles with the guess o meter showing 2 miles to go. Had I used my heater at all I would not have made it home and if I had driven any faster I would not have made it home. Speed was 55mph each way. Flat ground. This just sucks. Being that I'd have 2 miles left it would not leave enough to be considered reliable in such an environment. I am going to contact Nissan about this issue. If I can't get better I will have to let my Wife drive it locally and I will have to once again resort to diesel to get me to work and back. This just totally sucks. My desire to go completely electric is high but with this I can't yet say it will actually happen. This is the sort of issue that needs to be known. Gas companies will suck it up fast while electric companies will say something must be wrong. I really should get better. I used to get about 65 miles total in the cold using the heat while going to work and back. I can accept that but not 48 miles. Its just too close to the edge that I would get range anxiety. Up to the other day I had not worried at all about range. I was worried the other day. I was ready to call for a tow. Did not need it thankfully but at only 2 miles left it was a close call. Too close. So those battery packs Jack is getting may not be worth any more than $3k. Knowing the cold issues with these cells I would not pay more than $3k for the packs Jack Rickard is getting. I'd more like to spend $2,500 bucks.



3 comments:

  1. Interesting Pete, is it possible it could be a problem with the guess o meter more that the actual capacity of the batteries? I thought some of the Leafs were equipped with battery heaters so Nissan must have anticipated the problem.Your weather in California is usually warmer that what we have here in Ohio; Are you having unusually cold weather this year? This really does put a bit of a nut in the wringer on getting a pack from Jack. I guess the Better Place packs have cooling but not sure if they are heated.

    Good Luck,

    Randy

    cztree.blogspot.com

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  2. Randy,
    I highly doubt that its the Guess O Meter at this time. Even if it was I doubt it would be this off. I hope to have it in to the Dealer this coming week. No heat and no insulation. No real cooling either. Just a temp gauge to check pack temps. Either Hot or Cold. In the mean time I am playing with my new camera. So far I love it. Using some old glass on heavy zoom lenses. But the results are so far excellent. I used an old Tamaron Zoom just a few minutes ago. Did pretty lousy on my Canon but so far I like the results on my Sony.

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  3. Pete,

    I ran into a blog of another Leaf owner who is having cold weather range problems.'

    http://stevecoram.blogspot.com/

    Can't wait to see some video from your new camera.

    Randy

    cztree.blogspot.com

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