2011 Nissan Leaf: 11K Miles, No Battery Issues, Defroster Needs Work (Page 2)

Home

News

Electric Cars

2011 Nissan Leaf: 11K Miles, No Battery Issues, Defroster Needs Work Page 2

Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield

Contributing Writer BIO

Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield is a self-confessed petrol head. She grew up in a carless family but was able at a very early age to name cars passing her on... More

LATEST ARTICLE
Volvo S60 KERS Hybrid Prototype: Brief First Drive
Can you really improve fuel economy and performance just by taking a production car with a... Read More

#13LEADERBOARD RANK
1409ARTICLES CONTRIBUTED
22COMMENTS POSTED

2,856 views Nov 22, 2011

Follow Nikki

Add to circle

2012 Nissan Leaf

Enlarge Photo

Related Photo Galleries

See more photos »

Carwings isn’t aware of broken, missing charging stations

While Nissan’s Carwings system for the Nissan Leaf, may be a useful way of keeping track of your car’s state of charge from your smartphone, it isn’t so great at tracking charging stations.

On more than one occasion, we’ve arrived at a location recommended by Carwings as being suitable for charing our Leaf to find out that it is either broken, missing, or not publicly available.

It isn’t exactly Nissan’s fault. At the moment there isn’t a centralized charging station database that can track if charging stations are broken. And while many charging stations listed in Carwings have appropriate contact details for the organization or location providing charging, we don’t like having to ring ahead every time we want to charge somewhere new.

Reliable, predicable

Uk, 2011 Nissan Leaf
Enlarge Photo

Over the past 11,000 miles, we’ve got used to the 2011 Nissan Leaf’s good and bad points. While our car has never broken down, we’ve had to make use of two tow trucks after arriving at charging stations to find that the charging stations weren’t working.

So far, we’ve been able to learn how to drive the car to get the best range, and how to ignore its schizophrenic range prediction system in favor of its state-of-charge battery gauge.

We’ll be watching carefully as winter sets in to see just how well our non winter-package Leaf performs over the coming months, and we’ll be sure to share with you.

+++++++++++

Follow GreenCarReports on Facebook and Twitter.

Page 2 of 2

Posted in:

Contribute

Send us a tip Comment Contact the editor

People Who Read This Article Also Read

Have an opinion?

Comments (5)

Sergio Mendes Posted: 11/23/2011 3:44am PST

Strange.

Mine turns the AC on when the scheduled pre-heat starts.

Well, we do have a garage the Leaf sits in and we've never experienced any moisture inside, with the pre-heat feature. There's been raining a lot.
sm

Post Reply

Vote

Bad stuff?

JP White Posted: 11/23/2011 3:49am PST

Thanks for your post. It's reassuring to know that the battery is performing well despite the frequent 100% charging cycle you have used. Please let us know what your battery report shows at 15,000 miles.

I use the pre-heat less than I would have hoped for because of the heavy fogging. Pre-heating in the morning in our garage works well. It's the return journey when its parked outside that doesn't work as well.

Happy EV motoring.

Post Reply

Vote

Bad stuff?

Martin Thomsen Posted: 11/23/2011 9:43pm PST

Our Leaf use the AC so no problem here...

Se some puctures of our leaf:

http://www.cleardrive.dk/2011/11/danmarks-første-nissan-leaf-er-ankommet/

Post Reply

Vote

Bad stuff?

ian reeves Posted: 11/24/2011 4:39pm PST

Love the report and how well you describe how good the leaf is
but i can't let "its schizophrenic range prediction"
pass without comment,
it's probably an inappropriate use of a specific mental health term? You're describing erratic, difficult to comprehend behaviour of the range meter, not schizophrenia? http://www.mind.org.uk/

Post Reply

Vote

Bad stuff?

Eric P Posted: 11/25/2011 6:39pm PST

I experimented a little and found, with my Leaf at least, that the climate timer turns on the setting that I left when I set the timer. In my case I turned off the auto and turned on the AC, and that's what came on with the timer. It did however switch it to recirculate rather than outside, but that would be the better option if you have moist air outside, in my opinion. The AC should do a better job of dehydrating the small amount of air in the car, if new humid air isn't constantly being introduced from outside.

Post Reply

Vote

Bad stuff?