Electric car facts

It has been almost 2 years of driving the Nissan Leaf!

So far it has lived up to its promise. A quiet ride in carpool lane for local commuting. 

Given my kids tell me that I drive like an old grandma, it is no surprise that the leaf has 5 miles/kwh. Leaf forums tell me that this is a pretty good record for a car that has since seen 15k + miles

One intersting thing is that the Leaf gives you an estimated miles left as you drive.. and that can sometimes be like the Windows File download or copy dialog box "time remaining" prediction!

You drive 3 miles and get back 5 more.. then you drive back 4 miles and lose 9! Net result is that the car was driven 7 miles and it shows 4 miles consumed. These numbers are also a function of recent trips and who knows what logic?!

One gets used to this after some time. Also if you remember which routes have roads that slope down vs. roads that slope up, you can optimize your mileage!

Only downside this year is that the Leaf is behind on the 10k mile per year we signed for in the lease. So far the dealership is getting a better deal. 

The charger is now fixed and the car is back on the road! These photographs were taken few weeks ago on a route that always makes me laugh when looking at the dashboard.

Here is to more fun!

3k and counting..

The Leaf hit 3k miles and the mileage per week is now decreased. One probable reason is that there are no zig zag routes being taken to go to work to avoid traffic. Get to zip through in the carpool lane. 

Getting 4.7 miles/kwh and the Leaf Forums tell me that anything above 4.5 is a great rating for energy efficiency.

So far, sooo good! Good thing the car was leased because the 2013 Leaf already has a 20% increased range than this 2012 Leaf! Hopefully the 2015 Leaf will go 250 miles to a charge and will go buy that in 3 years.. one can always dream on.

The Leaf Saga is now complete!

Car pool lane, here I come!

Drivers of fast cars who expect me to go zero to sixty in 4 seconds when you come behind me.... you can now relax! I will be in the far right lane on expressways.

On a side note, why does the DMV make us wait for 6 weeks to get license plates, then put the plate number in a separate form, mail it to Sacramento with a check and make us wait another 6 weeks to get the Access okay stickers?!

In this day and age, can't we just apply for both at the same time so you can update your records simultaneously? Would have been glad to pay that extra 8 bucks for the access stickers along with the hundreds I paid for the registration! At least an electronic submission for the sticker would have saved another few weeks.

This wait for access thing kind of takes the fun out of having bought a car knowing you get to use the car pool lane but only with a sticker! It is kind of "duh"!!!