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Came here to say the same thing. I recently bought a 2013 Nissan Leaf, which has a bit of a reputation as the first really good electric commuter vehicle model/

Came here to say the same thing. I recently bought a 2013 Nissan Leaf, which has a bit of a reputation as the first really good electric commuter vehicle model/year, and it's the best car I've owned by a wide margin. I will never tire of leaving every other car on the line from every stop haha. It charges to 80 miles in the summer and 60 (effective) in winter. Keep in mind that I lose about 10 miles of range if I run the heater the whole time. So that's really comparing 80 to 70, and that's with 2 bars lost off the battery after 9 years. The only time I ever got range anxiety was last minute shopping once around the holidays when I got home with 7 miles left. So I'm happy to live with 10-15% less range in freezing whether. A few details: * It uses a lithium manganese battery, which I believe performs better in the cold, that is kept warm by an internal heater that I've never observed to reduce range. Personally I prefer lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), as it's the easiest/cheapest battery to make, arguably the safest, but also tends to be about 10% heavier. I really wish there was an open source approach to building them for hobbyists, since the only complicated part is maybe the carbon fiber, but I digress * I almost bought a (2015?) Fiat 500e, as it had a little better performance. But the one I test drove had a conservative white pearlescent paint job that made me consider my retirement, so maybe I dodged a bullet. But holy (mackerel) was that thing fast. Also the smaller roof size wouldn't have left much room for the planned solar panel(s) * I always charge overnight on ordinary 120 V for about 8-11 hours (I think, from memory?) and never notice an issue. They say that trickle charging is bad, but the physics just doesn't support that. My feeling is that the rush towards 240/400 V fast chargers was to appease a fossil fuel industry that wanted to preserve the muscle memory of filling up with gas, but I certainly don't miss the gas station. Our electric bill is $20/month more to drive 300-400 miles on electric to commute to a neighboring city, which is like 1/7 the cost of driving my 15 mpg truck (electrics get around 100 mpg equivalent) * The battery is 24 kWh, but they also have 30, 40 and 62 kWh upgrades. At some point I may opt for the 40 with a small LiFePO4 reserve battery in the trunk to buffer the solar energy and roughly double my range, but haven't decided yet, maybe I'll max it out: https://leosons.com/nissan-leaf-battery-upgrade-frequently-ask-questions/ https://leosons.com/nissan-leaf-battery-upgrade-frequently-a... Edit: how could I leave without mentioning the heated seats, steering wheel and instant-on electric heater/defrost. Most comfortable winter driving I've ever experienced. Also I'm not affiliated with Nissan, they just won me over for finally doing going engineering: good/fast/cheap pick any THREE!

SimonPStevens 5y ago
Nice. I'm pretty sure it's fast charging that is more detrimental to the battery life. The included charge cable that charges from a regular home socket charges at 3.3kw, which is the max you can do with the type1 socket on the car even if you use a dedicated home charge point (unless your particular car has the optional 6.6kw onboard unit upgrade). My charge point can deliver 7kw, but the car limits it to 3.3kw. The ChaDeMo socket can charge much faster (50kw I think?), But you aren't easily going to do that at home.
- zackmorris 5y ago
  Wow that's cool, I didn't know chargers could deliver that kind of power. 7 kW is about 10 hp, 5 space heaters, 2 ovens or dryers, anyway it's a lot. 50 kW would charge my car in a half an hour if the batteries could handle it! My Leaf doesn't have the optional 480 V charging port, to anyone reading this who might be interested in the Level 3 fast charging. I hadn't researched it yet, but that's a CHAdeMO port, thanks for mentioning that, this article claims a 40 minute charge to 80% on a 40 kWh Leaf: https://www.davidaltmejd.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-a-nissan-leaf/#Charging_Your_Nissan_Leaf_in_Stations_Level_3_Or_DC_Fast_Charging https://www.davidaltmejd.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge... 55 kW @ 480 V DC would be 115 A and can go up to 400 A or 192 kW (258 hp)! I also realized that I left out the detail that my car has about 60,000 miles. I test drove almost the same model from the same year with 90,000 miles and from what I could tell, it performed the same. Batteries today are so much better than when they were first used in laptops in the late 2000s and only got 300 cycles. Li-ion batteries today are getting more in the 4,000-40,000 (in the lab) cycle range. Oh! Another details is that my Leaf was $7900 + ~$1000 taxes and fees or $8900 total. They were about $6900 right before the pandemic. The dealers don't really understand how well batteries hold up, and demand is low in flyover states like mine. But word is getting out, and I think that when people are powering their home off their electric Ford F-150, demand is going to rise substantially even for older used electrics.

SimonPStevens 5y ago

Nice. I'm pretty sure it's fast charging that is more detrimental to the battery life. The included charge cable that charges from a regular home socket charges at 3.3kw, which is the max you can do with the type1 socket on the car even if you use a dedicated home charge point (unless your particular car has the optional 6.6kw onboard unit upgrade). My charge point can deliver 7kw, but the car limits it to 3.3kw. The ChaDeMo socket can charge much faster (50kw I think?), But you aren't easily going to do that at home.

zackmorris 5y ago
Wow that's cool, I didn't know chargers could deliver that kind of power. 7 kW is about 10 hp, 5 space heaters, 2 ovens or dryers, anyway it's a lot. 50 kW would charge my car in a half an hour if the batteries could handle it! My Leaf doesn't have the optional 480 V charging port, to anyone reading this who might be interested in the Level 3 fast charging. I hadn't researched it yet, but that's a CHAdeMO port, thanks for mentioning that, this article claims a 40 minute charge to 80% on a 40 kWh Leaf: https://www.davidaltmejd.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-a-nissan-leaf/#Charging_Your_Nissan_Leaf_in_Stations_Level_3_Or_DC_Fast_Charging https://www.davidaltmejd.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge... 55 kW @ 480 V DC would be 115 A and can go up to 400 A or 192 kW (258 hp)! I also realized that I left out the detail that my car has about 60,000 miles. I test drove almost the same model from the same year with 90,000 miles and from what I could tell, it performed the same. Batteries today are so much better than when they were first used in laptops in the late 2000s and only got 300 cycles. Li-ion batteries today are getting more in the 4,000-40,000 (in the lab) cycle range. Oh! Another details is that my Leaf was $7900 + ~$1000 taxes and fees or $8900 total. They were about $6900 right before the pandemic. The dealers don't really understand how well batteries hold up, and demand is low in flyover states like mine. But word is getting out, and I think that when people are powering their home off their electric Ford F-150, demand is going to rise substantially even for older used electrics.