Christmas marked three years since we bought a battery-powered 2012 Nissan Leaf, an automotive and occasionally patience-testing sociological experiment.
So it was only fitting that a Christmas family dinner would stretch the Leaf's winter highway range, when a rare trifecta of poor planning, charging errors and plain bad luck left us wondering whether we should have opted for a plug-in hybrid instead.
Even 34,000 kilometres worth of low-cost, silent commuting goodwill can be tested when there's no gasoline back up and few options.
Thankfully, Nissan Canada's level three (L3) quick charger at its headquarters worked on Christmas day, enabling us to reach our destination. However, the return trip would not have been possible except for the fact that my plugshare.com app informed me that Budd's BMW in Oakville – located only five minutes away – had an available charger.
So the Leaf was driven over to the dealership after dinner and plugged into a level two (L2) charger. BMW offers this service free, even to non-BMWs, and outside business hours, unlike Nissan.
The Leaf needed an hour of L2 charging to ensure a safe, stress-free trip home, and it would cost the benevolent dealer a quarter's worth of electricity – but we really needed that hour. That's why, over dessert, we kept an eye on our other handy Leaf app to ensure it was charging properly, and noticed that charging was soon interrupted.
Someone had either unplugged us, or the charger wasn't working.
After a trip back to investigate, it turned out over-zealous security guards – who didn't realize that non-BMWs were allowed to charge on the relatively new machines – thought I was "stealing" electricity. They then couldn't reconnect the Chargepoint-card equipped machine to the Leaf when they realized their error.
I plugged in once more, the third time connecting to a public charging station on Christmas.
Now, if Nissan had more L3 chargers available outside of the one at its headquarters in Mississauga, this situation may have been less harrowing. Canadian Nissan dealers are equipped with L2 chargers, which take 3-5 hours for a full charge versus 20-40 minutes for an L3.
Nissan's networks in the United States, England and Norway are much more advanced. Meanwhile, Tesla has rapidly accelerated its Tesla-only Supercharger network, leaving all other EV owners with a serious case of range and fast charger envy.
The most common questions we're asked about our Leaf are:
- How far can it go on a charge?
- How is the battery holding up, especially in winter?
The short answer to both: About as far and about as well as three years ago, when the car was new.
Even though most laptop lithium-ion batteries lose all power in that time frame, the capacity of our Leaf is only slightly diminished. Out of 12 capacity bars, which disappear as the battery ages and loses the ability to recharge fully, we still have all 12, and every battery test at the dealer shows the same five out of five stars. Granted, there's only 34,000 kilometres on it, which translates to about 945 kilometres a month.
Even with falling gas prices, and rising Ontario electricity rates, the cost savings of EV ownership are considerable, even without Ontario's $8,500 or Quebec's $8,000 clean car rebates. We spent $229.39 on electric fuel in the first nine months of 2014, and that included juice that fuelled a number of borrowed plug-in test vehicles. The priciest commuting month was a bitterly cold February, which cost $43.05 in electricity.
Range at about 0 C in January with low heat, plus heated steering wheel and seats came in at about 85 kilometres, compared to about 120 km on ideal spring and fall days, but as always depends on terrain, temperature, and speed. There has been a slight reduction in range year round, likely around 5 per cent, but that's largely offset by the greater number of level two and especially level three fast charging stations now available.
At least until one needs that last five per cent to make it home comfortably from Christmas dinner. It's nothing a few more 24/7 quick chargers wouldn't fix.
By the numbers
- Electricity use in 2014 (Jan. 1 to Oct. 1, 2014): 2,136.5 kWh
- Mileage: 33,853 km (approximately 8,700 km Jan. 1-Oct. 1, 2014)
- 2014 cost of electricity in (Jan. 1 to Oct. 1): $229.39
- Average cost per 100 km: (est.) $2.549 ($0.022549/km)
- Observed January range (after three years, at 0 C, with low heat): 85 km
- Battery capacity: 12 of 12 capacity bars; estimated 4-5 per cent reduction in range
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