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🚨L1's euro♦️ shenanigans 🍷🚨


loserone

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Also harbour a medium want-on for one of these, if the 171k ex-taxi one was £500 there would be an extension cable dangling out of my kitchen window right now.

Seconded - and my kitchen window is about a quarter of a mile from my parking space :D

 

Edit - I live in a block of flats with a multi storey car park for residents not some private estate with a very long driveway :D

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The sums for us were fairly straightforward - tax and fuel on one side, electric and depreciation on the other.  Commute is a 50 mile round trip, therefore the petrol offset (which we assume is >8p/mile) takes up a lot of depreciation.  We've made the assumption that the car will be worth £0 after three years, but that the battery will be commute-able for that long.  That might be dangerous.

 

There was a similar one at Western Nissan in Edinburglar for £5k, with £1k off for taking Nissan PCP and another £1k off for trading in anything with an MOT.  However, it was a Flex, which means another £79/mo - but at least that way you have a guaranteed minimum battery capacity.

 

Still haven't tried a public charger, maybe we'll manage it this weekend.

 

Question for the jury: Would you go back and sign the invoice (30 mile round trip, minor pain in the arse) when you've had the car a week, have a receipt, and the V5 is in the post anyway?

 

The last winter of the 50 mile round-trip might need you to take it a bit steady on the coldest days. It will be OK though - the battery degradation is well understood now they've been making these for several years. The cold British climate makes them last; in Arizona they degrade very quickly.

 

Public charging is turd.

 

I wouldn't go back and sign the invoice, I'd wait for them to whinge about it then ask them to post it.

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Well, we've had it a week now and there's 310 miles on the trip meter.  Overtaking things is entertaining and verging on silly.  The ride is pretty good, and it's quiet, and the basic stereo is good enough to stream Jeff Buckley from my phone over bluetooth and actually hear it.

 

The shit branded tyres are shit in flood water.  It aquaplanes and you can't even tell through the steering.  Not sure if I should try and sell them whilst they're still nearly new.

 

We might conveniently forget about the appointment to sign the invoice, good suggestion TXE4

 

We're not averse to putting another battery in it in the future, as long as the maths works at that time.  A lack of active cooling is very heavily criticised in the US, but I figure it's a minimal issue here.  Apparently many Tesla batteries are still at 98%+ after 5 years, whereas leaves have really started degrading by then.

 

The manual states not to charge above 80% unless you need the extra juice - unless it's below 14C, when there's minimal negative effect.  

 

I live in Durham.

temperatur.eng.png

 

No charging to 100% in July, then.

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The manual states not to charge above 80% unless you need the extra juice - unless it's below 14C, when there's minimal negative effect.  

 

 

It's not so much "charging to 100%" that's "bad" as "letting it sit for a long time with very high, or low, level of charge".

 

Even then, I don't think that in the British climate it makes enough difference to worry about - especially as you have a post-2012 car with the more resilient battery. When they made the 30kWh version they removed the "limited charge level to 80%" option entirely.

 

Just relax and use it.

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The sums for us were fairly straightforward - tax and fuel on one side, electric and depreciation on the other.  Commute is a 50 mile round trip, therefore the petrol offset (which we assume is >8p/mile) takes up a lot of depreciation.  We've made the assumption that the car will be worth £0 after three years, but that the battery will be commute-able for that long.

 

This thread had me seriously thinking about a Leaf, not because I want to save the planet but because I am a world-class cheapskate.

 

The outcome of my own calculations was different, though. I do around 1000 miles per month and made the (optimistic) assumption that insurance and maintenance costs would be comparable to my current, petrol-powered modernshite. Said modernshite has a £150 RFL and returns 45mpg on average.

 

I worked out that running a Leaf would save me slightly over £1000 annually. Considering that they are £6K to buy and depreciation is steep, I would need to keep a Leaf for five years to amortise the purchase cost.

 

Verdict : No, thanks. But I'll certainly be watching this thread closely !

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Insurance for me was £100 less than a 405, and I've no intention to use main dealers for servicing - there's not a lot to service -, but I've made the same assumption around running costs.

 

The bigger difference is I don't have a car that gets 45mpg, and I do a few more miles.

 

All of the calculations could be screwed up in either direction by an unexpected bill or a wet roundabout incident, but we wanted an appliance, and appliances come with three pin plugs

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I find your curiosity quite exciting, what do you intend to build?

Mostly pipe dreams at the moment, but it can't be that hard to adapt into an Anglia. Easier still with a FWD classic like my Ami. The price of a good, couple of year old Leaf is entering the right sort of cost to do a conversion and have a really good, useable car.
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Now up to 475 miles.  

 

Couple of observations;  This one being a Visia doesn't have a B mode, only ECO mode (I.e less responsive throttle and a bit more regen, but not *LOTS* of regen).  I've found, particularly given County Durham is mostly hills and not much traffic, that just driving in D and not using ECO is actually more efficient.  Presumably because I read the road ahead enough to not need the car to sap as much back as possible every time I let off.  ECO mode is used only on steep downhill sections where I don't need to keep the speed.  I might also use neutral on occasion to coast without having to be mega accurate with the throttle or stare at the dashboard (let off too much and you start to regen).

 

I do kinda feel it would be nice to have more control over the amount of regenerative braking available - a third pedal, a lever, whatever.  You can use the brakes and get regen but that also uses friction braking.  Maybe that's good anyway, to keep them in good fettle.  Anyway, it's not a big issue, and I won't be spending money on a LeafBox.

 

The battery has gained 3% on it's state of health by being used for a week.  Presumably it was just sitting round for ages.

 

Still yet to use any public chargers, but CYC seem to run all of the ones around Newcastle, so ordered on of their cards for £20 as I'm likely to be working in the city centre a bit over the next few months and want to try the experience.  I've since read that Polar have bought out CYC, so might have been better with a Polar card - but that's £8/month!  Suspect public charging doesn't make sense generally.

  

Mrs_L1 rang the dealer and told them the Appt. would be a PITA to keep; they said they'd email out the docs, and haven't done.  Mustn't* be anything important.

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Really interested thread. A Leaf (well I prefer the Zoë) makes a lot of sense for us as a city runaround. It's the likely replacement for my Civic when either it breaks catastrophically or taxed out from the city.

 

They're starting to get down to sensible prices now. Both Zoë and Leafs can be had for around the 5k mark now and hopefully will fall again soon.

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Good thread and interesting to read it's more efficient - logically - to drive intelligently than use lots of regen braking.

 

As I've mentioned before on the forum, the speakev forum has had some earlier Leafs for £99/month on a 3 year contract, very tempting!

 

The batteries are reported to be in a mildly pressurised container so should be ok through floods, plenty of side impact protection for them from looking at this pic

 

post-4845-0-31998400-1511736256_thumb.jpeg

 

I wonder how many others have missed this thread, being tucked away in the modern section?

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3 degrees this morning, had the leaf pre-heat to 18 on the timer before I unplugged it. Then drove the 23 miles averaging 4.8 miles/KWh. I used ECO mode only in the stop-start traffic down Blaydon bank.

That's with lights on but no heating, Loake Wolf boots and wool lined leather gloves more than enough. Arrived at work with 78% battery remaining.

 

It's possible an early Insight, or an NA MX5 with the B3 engine from a Kia Pride might be more entertaining, but neither will take the rest of the family out to the beach after dinner..

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3 degrees this morning, had the leaf pre-heat to 18 on the timer before I unplugged it. Then drove the 23 miles averaging 4.8 miles/KWh. I used ECO mode only in the stop-start traffic down Blaydon bank.

That's with lights on but no heating, Loake Wolf boots and wool lined leather gloves more than enough. Arrived at work with 78% battery remaining.

 

It's possible an early Insight, or an NA MX5 with the B3 engine from a Kia Pride might be more entertaining, but neither will take the rest of the family out to the beach after dinner..

 

Blimey you're good already. 3 degrees here and I got a very sad 3.2miles/kWh on the way in this morning - mostly motorway at 70mph (79 on the clock gives 70 over the ground), heater on low.

 

 

The battery has gained 3% on it's state of health by being used for a week.  Presumably it was just sitting round for ages.

 

 

The indicated state of health goes up if you drive like a twat. Seriously - it goes up a tiny bit every time you use full throttle acceleration. It will also go up a bit if you use a rapid charger.

 

I'm not saying I drive like a twat. I am, however, saying that my 4 year old leaf has 100% SoH.

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I don't think anyone could argue a three and a half year old car, bought from a main dealer, and being used according to the manufacturer's instructions, was anything other than 'Modern' :)

Point being, while many of us ignore sub-10 year old cars as less well proven, over-complicated, fin de siecle, less efficient and less interesting than what preceded, there could be more than a few of us who see the relative simplicity and low costs of a Leaf as something very unlike newish ICEvs, indeed something to take the place of the built-in reliability of mechanical injectors and pumps.

 

Anyway, I'm pleased I've stumbled on this thread, it's a very interesting account of an EV. What price are you paying for the electricity to power it?

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Just an experiment! According to the GOM I could have gone to work and back twice on a single charge at that rate of consumption, not that I'd try it.

 

Mrs_L1 had it again today, and had the heating and air con on to Hartlepool and back, with a diversion to the parish council office and the allotment (I'll guess at 65 miles), and confessed to a little spirited driving throughout.

 

Spirited driving for Mrs_L1 tends to entail the throttle being flat on the floor whenever the brakes are not being applied, as ScaryOldCortina (as a passenger in the K11C, but probably never again) and the LS400 (Yeah, perhaps that never again either) will both attest, so it's doing reasonably well to not cause any range anxiety 

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