7 ms·

Nissan claim to have sold over 250,000 Leafs so far, and the new model has range similar to the Model 3. The race is definitely on, which is great news for tho

Nissan claim to have sold over 250,000 Leafs so far, and the new model has range similar to the Model 3. The race is definitely on, which is great news for those of us who just want the best electric car :) https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/nissan/leaf/first-drives/nissan-leaf-2018-review https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/nissan/leaf/first-drive...

drb91 9y ago
What’s the charging network like?
- tobyhinloopen 9y ago
  The same as the Tesla's charging network, since they are compatible...
  - drb91 9y ago
    Are you sure leafs can use superchargers? That doesn’t seem correct at all. I’m not sure what other charging network i would refer to.
    - EwanToo 9y ago
      In the UK I've never seen a supercharger (though they exist) but lots of car parks at offices, shopping malls, etc, have generic charging points. BP are adding them on petrol forecourts too. See this map for example https://www.zap-map.com/charge-points/ https://www.zap-map.com/charge-points/
      - _ph_ 9y ago
        Superchargers are usually built outside of cities along the long-distance routes. So they might not be as obvious as other chargers. Here is a map of all active superchargers: https://supercharge.info/ https://supercharge.info/
    - tobyhinloopen 9y ago
      You can use all non-tesla fast-charging stations, charging to 80% in 20 minutes. Do note that tesla supercharger stations also have "normal" fast-charging stations. Tesla is the only company remaining to deploy vendor-specific chargers.
      - bdcravens 9y ago
        Interesting that while we tend to beat on the standards drum in HN, Tesla might get a pass ...
        marvin 9y ago
        I don't think it's entirely fair to expect Tesla to _wait_ for the rest of the car industry to agree on a standard that suits everyone. When the Model S was developed, no other car company except Nissan had any notable interest in electric cars, and no other company had plans to make cars even _close_ to Tesla's in terms of battery capacity. Assuming that a charger network was necessary for success, which I would argue it was, waiting for the others to catch up could have killed the company. Note that there have still been no large-scale deployments of charging standards with more than 50-60kW of power, which is half what Tesla is currently deploying to most of its charging stations in North America.
        ClassyJacket 9y ago
        They don't even have to wait for an open standard, they could make their proprietary system one.
        AckSyn 9y ago
        Are Tesla super chargers really proprietary, or were they built for use with their cars when no one else had any kind of infrastructure in place? Tesla has given away a lot of tech for electric cars and I've read that's why China has had a boon of them recently. Can't say I wouldn't see them giving the specifications for the charging units to US manufacturers as well...
  - codeulike 9y ago
    Teslas can use the other chargers, but no-one except Tesla can use the Superchargers
- Shivetya 9y ago
  I really dislike this focus on charging networks. Long distance trips with current generation electrics is not comparable to current petrol powered cars. If anything we should use the roll out of electrics to take back land to service cars which includes "charging stations" other than those already used for parking cars. with regards to my trip comment, the contorted thought processes people go through to justify one hour stops for full recharges plus what can be ten to fifteen minute side trips to charging stations should clue many in on how not ready it is. (and yes it is an hour if not more even for Tesla to fully charge and range dives in winter)
  - Coincoin 9y ago
    >the contorted thought processes people go through to justify one hour stops for full recharges But everybody knows you need to stop a full hour to pee for every two hours of driving else you might die. Think about all the delicious restaurant meals and fun you haven't had because you never needed to wait for your ICE car to recharge in the middle of nowhere.
    - pkaye 9y ago
      Most people I know stop 15 minutes every two hours and maybe stop for a meal every 4 hours. An hour every two hours is too much. It extends the travel time by 50%.
      - username223 9y ago
        My old rule for long drives was to drive for 3 CDs (i.e. albums), fuel up for 10 minutes, and repeat until done. On a highway, that's 200+ miles per 10-minute stop. EVs are already great for commuting and errands, but they have a long way to go before being even close to competitive for long-distance driving.
        greglindahl 9y ago
        And yet lots of Tesla owners drive long distances.
- ebbv 9y ago
  There is no Nissan specific charging network. The rest of the industry besides Tesla have long since settled on standards for charging and the presence of regular charging stations is improving but slowly. A large part of why is that up til this generation of EVs (Chevy Bolt and new Nissan Leaf and others that are coming), they have really not made sense to drive far. You would have had to stop too often. They were in town or short (sub 30 miles) commute cars. And having owned the previous generation Leaf for the last 3 years I can tell you 99% of our charging is done in our garage. Once in a while we park somewhere that has charging or my wife will luck into getting a charge spot in a parking garage. But we don’t take it on drives where we need a charging station to complete the journey. We have a gas car for those longer drives right now. But that will change with this new generation that have 40KWh+ batteries.
  - madengr 9y ago
    There is an extensive charging network here in Kansas City area; > 2000 plugs. Though as of 1/18 many have started charging $0.20/kWh, which is double the rate at home. I’ll still use them though. Places like grocery stores are still free.
    - toyg 9y ago
      I still wouldn’t leave my car just plugged in somewhere while I walk away for extensive amounts of time. Call me paranoid, but in urban Europe people will steal and vandalise the shit out of anything that looks slightly unprotected.
      - lostapathy 9y ago
        Help me understand that - leaving your car plugged in while shopping is no different than leaving your gas car not-plugged-in while shopping, in terms of leaving your property around. The cord is part of the fixed charged, and not my problem ... just like the hose on a gas pump.
      - stefan_ 9y ago
        You typically can't unplug it without the key while charging.
tobyhinloopen 9y ago
I'm glad they dropped the awful look of the car.
- perilunar 9y ago
  Still looks pretty ugly to me. Why does an electric car need such a large front grille?
  - icc97 9y ago
    Yeah, it was an improvement, but very small. I just don't understand why car designers think it's OK to make ugly electric cars. The craziest example is the i8 vs the i3. The i8 is lovely but the i3 is beyond ugliness. It's the same designers trying to build for the same line of cars. A regular BMW 3-series is no uglier than a 5 or 7-series. Tesla built a beautiful car in my eyes. They took the look of an Aston Martin from what I see. Then in a similar fashion as converting the style of a 7-series into a 3-series, they've managed to shrink and simplify the design whilst keeping the look. It's ridiculous that other car companies can't do this with electric cars. I know it's pure vanity, but the Tesla is worth more simply because you don't have to wear dark glasses and a hat to drive it.
    - olyjohn 9y ago
      It's the same reason that I believe the Prius sold so well over other hybrids. A Hybrid Civic or Hybrid Fusion just looked like regular cars. Nobody looked at the tiny badges so nobody knew they existed. You see a Prius, it's ugly, but you know what it is right away, an economical hybrid. People who didn't know asked WTF is, and the car kinda sold itself. I think Toyota knew that the people lining up to buy them would not care about how good the car looked. They just knew that the Prius was the weird car they saw over and over that was a Hybrid. I mean, most people don't even know the 1st gen Prius existed. They look like a regular car. They still got great economy, but IIRC the car didn't sell nearly as well as the newer, more ugly Prius.
acd10j 9y ago
how many among these 250,000 leafs sale are for new model, for proper comparison ? This seems like total sale of all Leafs ever sold.
- ebbv 9y ago
  The new model just went on sale this week so, none. That’s how many of the old ones they sold.
dalbasal 9y ago
I don't think there is much (or any) zero sum competition dynamics is EVs for now. More sold means more consumer familiarity, better price curves on components, better supporting infrastructure. Meanwhile, there is not real market share to quarrel over. There isn't a fixed number of EVs that will sell in 2019. It'll depend on price, consumer familiarity, supporting infrastructure... btw... I think Musk has said things to this effect, at least back in TSLS's earlier days. I don't think they're worried about competing too much
- Barrin92 9y ago
  not being in a zero sum environment doesn't mean that people aren't going to look at the price. When big manufacturers can scale up output I don't see how Tesla is going to justify their price. And that isn't even taking into account that Tesla is burning through crazy amounts of cash already.
  - dalbasal 9y ago
    Sure. If you're expecting a total Tesla failure on price performance... then they'll fail. In terms of the EV models out in 2018, I don't think this is what is happening here. Tesla are having trouble keeping up with demand. They've also been playing a big risk strategy all along, so they still may explode or run out of money. ..I'm just skeptical that the last line of this article: If Tesla can’t figure out how to make more cars soon, it could open a lane for rivals from Detroit and overseas to... I don't agree. There is a big market here, it's basically the market for cars. There's no way Tesla could have ever held that whole market, I don't think they expect to and we shouldn't want them to. Within the market for cars, Tesla could be selling many times more cars than they are optimistically promising to make currently. I think competition is, in this case, way down the list of problems. The problem is as they've been saying all along, they need to build more cars faster.
spaceisballer 9y ago
Model 3 says 220 miles base model and Leaf says 151, I don’t find their range to be that similar. 70 miles is a lot of distance. Granted the model 3 is more expensive but I would much rather have that extra range.
drewg123 9y ago
I was excited by your comment, so I looked up the 2018 Leaf's range: 151mi in the US vs 310mi for the Model 3. Is there a different model in Leaf the UK? The article you link to says "235 miles (NEDC)/177 miles (WLTP combined)" for the Leaf. Or is the way EV's are rated for range in the UK just different than is the US?
- Ardren 9y ago
  That's interesting, this[1] press release says: 400 km (248 miles) using a Japaneses standard JC08. 241 km (150 miles) with EPA 380 km (236 miles) with NEDC That's quite a range. http://www.nissan.com.au/Discover/News/2017/September/06/The-new-Nissan-LEAF-raising-the-bar-for-electric-vehicles http://www.nissan.com.au/Discover/News/2017/September/06/The...
  - namlem 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure you can't buy that version in the US.
    - daveguy 9y ago
      I think those are for the same car, just using different standards for measuring range. Depends on which is most accurate. If the US measure for Tesla 3 is 300+ then it's probably apples to apples. But it would be interesting to see the same standard measurements for the model 3.
      - thijsb 9y ago
        Correct. And the EPA tends to be most accurate. I've never hit NEDC numbers in any EV.
  - codeulike 9y ago
    That's the same car, with three different range ratings based on different standards. The EPA one is the only one that bears and relation to real world performance.
jsight 9y ago
The Model 3 has over 300 miles of range. As far as I know, the Leaf is less than 250.

drb91 9y ago

What’s the charging network like?

tobyhinloopen 9y ago
The same as the Tesla's charging network, since they are compatible...
- drb91 9y ago
  Are you sure leafs can use superchargers? That doesn’t seem correct at all. I’m not sure what other charging network i would refer to.
  - EwanToo 9y ago
    In the UK I've never seen a supercharger (though they exist) but lots of car parks at offices, shopping malls, etc, have generic charging points. BP are adding them on petrol forecourts too. See this map for example https://www.zap-map.com/charge-points/ https://www.zap-map.com/charge-points/
    - _ph_ 9y ago
      Superchargers are usually built outside of cities along the long-distance routes. So they might not be as obvious as other chargers. Here is a map of all active superchargers: https://supercharge.info/ https://supercharge.info/
  - tobyhinloopen 9y ago
    You can use all non-tesla fast-charging stations, charging to 80% in 20 minutes. Do note that tesla supercharger stations also have "normal" fast-charging stations. Tesla is the only company remaining to deploy vendor-specific chargers.
    - bdcravens 9y ago
      Interesting that while we tend to beat on the standards drum in HN, Tesla might get a pass ...
      - marvin 9y ago
        I don't think it's entirely fair to expect Tesla to _wait_ for the rest of the car industry to agree on a standard that suits everyone. When the Model S was developed, no other car company except Nissan had any notable interest in electric cars, and no other company had plans to make cars even _close_ to Tesla's in terms of battery capacity. Assuming that a charger network was necessary for success, which I would argue it was, waiting for the others to catch up could have killed the company. Note that there have still been no large-scale deployments of charging standards with more than 50-60kW of power, which is half what Tesla is currently deploying to most of its charging stations in North America.
        ClassyJacket 9y ago
        They don't even have to wait for an open standard, they could make their proprietary system one.
        AckSyn 9y ago
        Are Tesla super chargers really proprietary, or were they built for use with their cars when no one else had any kind of infrastructure in place? Tesla has given away a lot of tech for electric cars and I've read that's why China has had a boon of them recently. Can't say I wouldn't see them giving the specifications for the charging units to US manufacturers as well...
- codeulike 9y ago
  Teslas can use the other chargers, but no-one except Tesla can use the Superchargers
Shivetya 9y ago
I really dislike this focus on charging networks. Long distance trips with current generation electrics is not comparable to current petrol powered cars. If anything we should use the roll out of electrics to take back land to service cars which includes "charging stations" other than those already used for parking cars. with regards to my trip comment, the contorted thought processes people go through to justify one hour stops for full recharges plus what can be ten to fifteen minute side trips to charging stations should clue many in on how not ready it is. (and yes it is an hour if not more even for Tesla to fully charge and range dives in winter)
- Coincoin 9y ago
  >the contorted thought processes people go through to justify one hour stops for full recharges But everybody knows you need to stop a full hour to pee for every two hours of driving else you might die. Think about all the delicious restaurant meals and fun you haven't had because you never needed to wait for your ICE car to recharge in the middle of nowhere.
  - pkaye 9y ago
    Most people I know stop 15 minutes every two hours and maybe stop for a meal every 4 hours. An hour every two hours is too much. It extends the travel time by 50%.
    - username223 9y ago
      My old rule for long drives was to drive for 3 CDs (i.e. albums), fuel up for 10 minutes, and repeat until done. On a highway, that's 200+ miles per 10-minute stop. EVs are already great for commuting and errands, but they have a long way to go before being even close to competitive for long-distance driving.
      - greglindahl 9y ago
        And yet lots of Tesla owners drive long distances.
ebbv 9y ago
There is no Nissan specific charging network. The rest of the industry besides Tesla have long since settled on standards for charging and the presence of regular charging stations is improving but slowly. A large part of why is that up til this generation of EVs (Chevy Bolt and new Nissan Leaf and others that are coming), they have really not made sense to drive far. You would have had to stop too often. They were in town or short (sub 30 miles) commute cars. And having owned the previous generation Leaf for the last 3 years I can tell you 99% of our charging is done in our garage. Once in a while we park somewhere that has charging or my wife will luck into getting a charge spot in a parking garage. But we don’t take it on drives where we need a charging station to complete the journey. We have a gas car for those longer drives right now. But that will change with this new generation that have 40KWh+ batteries.
- madengr 9y ago
  There is an extensive charging network here in Kansas City area; > 2000 plugs. Though as of 1/18 many have started charging $0.20/kWh, which is double the rate at home. I’ll still use them though. Places like grocery stores are still free.
  - toyg 9y ago
    I still wouldn’t leave my car just plugged in somewhere while I walk away for extensive amounts of time. Call me paranoid, but in urban Europe people will steal and vandalise the shit out of anything that looks slightly unprotected.
    - lostapathy 9y ago
      Help me understand that - leaving your car plugged in while shopping is no different than leaving your gas car not-plugged-in while shopping, in terms of leaving your property around. The cord is part of the fixed charged, and not my problem ... just like the hose on a gas pump.
    - stefan_ 9y ago
      You typically can't unplug it without the key while charging.

tobyhinloopen 9y ago

I'm glad they dropped the awful look of the car.

perilunar 9y ago
Still looks pretty ugly to me. Why does an electric car need such a large front grille?
- icc97 9y ago
  Yeah, it was an improvement, but very small. I just don't understand why car designers think it's OK to make ugly electric cars. The craziest example is the i8 vs the i3. The i8 is lovely but the i3 is beyond ugliness. It's the same designers trying to build for the same line of cars. A regular BMW 3-series is no uglier than a 5 or 7-series. Tesla built a beautiful car in my eyes. They took the look of an Aston Martin from what I see. Then in a similar fashion as converting the style of a 7-series into a 3-series, they've managed to shrink and simplify the design whilst keeping the look. It's ridiculous that other car companies can't do this with electric cars. I know it's pure vanity, but the Tesla is worth more simply because you don't have to wear dark glasses and a hat to drive it.
  - olyjohn 9y ago
    It's the same reason that I believe the Prius sold so well over other hybrids. A Hybrid Civic or Hybrid Fusion just looked like regular cars. Nobody looked at the tiny badges so nobody knew they existed. You see a Prius, it's ugly, but you know what it is right away, an economical hybrid. People who didn't know asked WTF is, and the car kinda sold itself. I think Toyota knew that the people lining up to buy them would not care about how good the car looked. They just knew that the Prius was the weird car they saw over and over that was a Hybrid. I mean, most people don't even know the 1st gen Prius existed. They look like a regular car. They still got great economy, but IIRC the car didn't sell nearly as well as the newer, more ugly Prius.

acd10j 9y ago

how many among these 250,000 leafs sale are for new model, for proper comparison ? This seems like total sale of all Leafs ever sold.

ebbv 9y ago
The new model just went on sale this week so, none. That’s how many of the old ones they sold.

dalbasal 9y ago

I don't think there is much (or any) zero sum competition dynamics is EVs for now. More sold means more consumer familiarity, better price curves on components, better supporting infrastructure. Meanwhile, there is not real market share to quarrel over. There isn't a fixed number of EVs that will sell in 2019. It'll depend on price, consumer familiarity, supporting infrastructure... btw... I think Musk has said things to this effect, at least back in TSLS's earlier days. I don't think they're worried about competing too much

Barrin92 9y ago
not being in a zero sum environment doesn't mean that people aren't going to look at the price. When big manufacturers can scale up output I don't see how Tesla is going to justify their price. And that isn't even taking into account that Tesla is burning through crazy amounts of cash already.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  Sure. If you're expecting a total Tesla failure on price performance... then they'll fail. In terms of the EV models out in 2018, I don't think this is what is happening here. Tesla are having trouble keeping up with demand. They've also been playing a big risk strategy all along, so they still may explode or run out of money. ..I'm just skeptical that the last line of this article: If Tesla can’t figure out how to make more cars soon, it could open a lane for rivals from Detroit and overseas to... I don't agree. There is a big market here, it's basically the market for cars. There's no way Tesla could have ever held that whole market, I don't think they expect to and we shouldn't want them to. Within the market for cars, Tesla could be selling many times more cars than they are optimistically promising to make currently. I think competition is, in this case, way down the list of problems. The problem is as they've been saying all along, they need to build more cars faster.

spaceisballer 9y ago

Model 3 says 220 miles base model and Leaf says 151, I don’t find their range to be that similar. 70 miles is a lot of distance. Granted the model 3 is more expensive but I would much rather have that extra range.

drewg123 9y ago

I was excited by your comment, so I looked up the 2018 Leaf's range: 151mi in the US vs 310mi for the Model 3. Is there a different model in Leaf the UK? The article you link to says "235 miles (NEDC)/177 miles (WLTP combined)" for the Leaf. Or is the way EV's are rated for range in the UK just different than is the US?

Ardren 9y ago
That's interesting, this[1] press release says: 400 km (248 miles) using a Japaneses standard JC08. 241 km (150 miles) with EPA 380 km (236 miles) with NEDC That's quite a range. http://www.nissan.com.au/Discover/News/2017/September/06/The-new-Nissan-LEAF-raising-the-bar-for-electric-vehicles http://www.nissan.com.au/Discover/News/2017/September/06/The...
- namlem 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure you can't buy that version in the US.
  - daveguy 9y ago
    I think those are for the same car, just using different standards for measuring range. Depends on which is most accurate. If the US measure for Tesla 3 is 300+ then it's probably apples to apples. But it would be interesting to see the same standard measurements for the model 3.
    - thijsb 9y ago
      Correct. And the EPA tends to be most accurate. I've never hit NEDC numbers in any EV.
- codeulike 9y ago
  That's the same car, with three different range ratings based on different standards. The EPA one is the only one that bears and relation to real world performance.

jsight 9y ago

The Model 3 has over 300 miles of range. As far as I know, the Leaf is less than 250.