2011 Nissan Leaf: One-Year Drive Report
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On March 28, 2011, I took delivery of a European-specification 2011 Nissan Leaf.
Yesterday, a few days short of our 1-year anniversary with the car, its odometer passed the 15,000 mile mark.
But what have we learned about Nissan’s first electric car after living with it daily for a year?
Reliability
As with most new cars today, our 2011 Nissan leaf has been extremely reliable over the past 15,000 miles.
In fact, to date, we’ve not run out of charge or broken down.
What we have experienced however, are some minor faults which we’ve had to refer to the dealer.
- During early June, the cover on the USB port for the audio system snapped, requiring a replacement part.
- Shortly after delivery, we noticed one front caliper had begun to rust as it was incorrectly sprayed at the factory. This was replaced under warranty at the 13,000-mile mark.
- During winter months, all four windows were slow to operate. At its peak, the drivers’ side window refused to rise properly. This was remedied by a team of engineers from Nissan Japan, and shown to be a defect in manufacturing.
All work was carried out under warranty.
Range, Predicted Range
Although our Leaf is used daily for a 40-mile round commute, we’ve regularly seen 70 miles from a full charge, even with a heavily-laden car.
With careful driving, we’ve managed 80 several times and even traveled 120 miles with a few hours of top-up charging. With heating on full, a sub-zero outside temperature and heavy, aggressive freeway driving, we’ve gotten less than 50 miles out of a full charge.
During the past year, we’ve learned to not rely on the Nissan Leaf’s on-board range calculator. Notoriously inaccurate, it must have told us at least 80 times in the past year that we wouldn’t reach our destination, when in every case we did.
Carwings, Charging
In the past year, our main gripes have been with Nissan’s online and smartphone telematics service, Carwings.
Designed to let you interact with your car remotely to check state of charge, plan routes and precondition the car as necessary, we’ve found Carwings to be severely bug-ridden, with continued connectivity issues throughout the majority of the year.
In some cases too, we’ve found the Carwings database of charging stations to be patchy at best, and inaccurate at other times.
In fact, during the past year, we’ve been directed to charging stations in the U.K. by Carwings that were either non-existent, or reserved for private use by the company who owned them.
A lack of awareness about current charging station infrastructure from Carwings, combined with poor field support form third-party charging station suppliers, has meant that at times, charging has caused a major problem.
For reference, although it isn’t the fault of Nissan, we’ve arrived at eight charging stations during the year which were non-operational. In three of those cases, we had to call for a tow due to remaining range of less than 10 miles.
Most importantly, however, the Nissan Leaf charging cable has never let us down, charging the car every night from our 240-volt standard U.K. domestic outlet.
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Have an opinion?
In my year of LEAF ownership I've charged away from the standard "overnight" home charge less than 10 times.
For the record, this particular car is my own personal car, one I paid nearly $40,000 for (U.K. list price).
Believe me, I haven't tried pushing the limits! ;)
Regards
Nikki.
Clearly it isn't always easy to be an early adopter....
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1063459_feeling-flat-the-aaa-will-soon-be-able-to-charge-you-up
So that is over one year. Right?
"also had to pay nearly $1000 in combined loan payments, insurance and electricity costs,"
So $1000, in loan payments over the same one year period? Seems doubtful unless you put down a huge down payment. Seems more likely that the loan would be $1000 every two months.
I actually meant $10,000! Thanks for spotting that. And yes, This is over a 1 year period.
Can you tell us more about the window motor problem? I noticed that the windows in my car to roll up and down pretty slowly when it's cold outside. Did they replace the motors, or is that the way they work? I've never had the windows not work, but I don't think it gets at cold here as it does for you.
thanks,
Peter
So far, the lowest I've ever got is the Very Low Battery Warning, which I've experienced a handful of times in the past year. I've never got to below that, or experienced turtle mode.
The lowest miles remaining has been a flashing 4 miles, followed by a flashing dash.
It is my daily car used for transporting kids to school and all daily chores.
Give me an infrastructure and I would not drive any other car.
I had warranty work done on my passenger door this last winter, they replaced the window track, but it didn't seem to address the issue. I waited until tire rotation time to point out the fault only to find the window was working normally in March. I never considered the cold in the winter might be involved. I'll be interested if my window issue returns again this coming winter.
You said you never ran out of charge, but three tows is a lot IMHO. I rely upon PlugShare in the US to keep track of reliable charging stations. Are there any good 3rd party charging network apps available in the UK?
No electric bill since we have GRID Tied solar that makes more than we use for the home and LEAF.
Have an opinion?Join the conversation!