It's funny how strong stereotypes are, especially with Prius'. In Europe they are taking over the cab industry literally. I was just in Spain EVERY cab was either a Prius or VW TDI. I've gotten into some with huge mileage that were at least 10 years old.

I just picked up a new LEAF yesterday (and I'm definitely not the new car buyin' type).

Why?

I have 2 other cars, so having access to an internal-combustion car is not an issue.
I drive 8.5 miles one-way to/from work. My airport is ~25 miles away. The LEAF range readily covers that (84 miles on a fresh battery; figure 60 miles in 5 years).
Kris is stay at home mom with the kids, so if I had a day where I needed to drive 100 miles, she could easily use the LEAF for the local errands and kid logistics.
Most of our long trips are by airplane already.

The government is giving away $10K in cheese ($7500 fed, $2500 Mass); NIssan is discounting aggressively and giving $3500 rebates if you finance with them (at 0% for 6 years), so my net out the door price was around $22K, including title, tax, and registration and 2 chargers, a level 1 (plugs into a 120V outlet) and a level 2 charger (to be installed as my house, charges the car in 4-6 hours). That's with no trade-in.

There's no way that this car, at $22K out-the-door, is anywhere close to "twice the price" of a competitive car (and I got a pretty well loaded LEAF; the base model would be ~$4-5K less, which would make it cheaper than a competitive new car.)

After that, I have a car that's mechanically simpler and costs around $0.05 per mile for energy, compared to ~$0.15/mile for the car it's replacing (diesel E-class). Annually, I was driving the Mercedes about 6K/yr. That was ~250 gallons or $875 at today's prices. Add an oil change at $70 in materials. LEAF electricity should run me about $270 (and no oil change).

At the end of the day, I bought it because I thought it was interesting, but I do expect it to be very cost-competitive with a gas vehicle, with a non-trivial chance to beat it, and I look forward to stopping at a gas station once per year in my commuter car (for the state inspection).

I could certainly afford a Tesla, but the $10K is less material against a $65-95K car and if I'm going to spend that amount of money on a fun car, it's going to have a flat 6 in the back. I don't think that a Tesla is even 2x the cost of a competitive car, but it's closer.

It's funny how strong stereotypes are, especially with Prius'. In Europe they are taking over the cab industry literally. I was just in Spain EVERY cab was either a Prius or VW TDI. I've gotten into some with huge mileage that were at least 10 years old.

The problem with TDI's is the current 33% cost of fuel premium in the states. That and VW's service cost and reliability that seems to run hot and cold, depending on who you are. I would rather drive a manual transmission TDI on primarily highway trips, as long as it was under warranty.

Better check on that Leaf real range, all the test that were done in Canada it could not get anywere close to that mileage, especially in the north in winter on a cold battery.
Give us a pirep after a few trips.





I just picked up a new LEAF yesterday (and I'm definitely not the new car buyin' type).

Why?

I have 2 other cars, so having access to an internal-combustion car is not an issue.
I drive 8.5 miles one-way to/from work. My airport is ~25 miles away. The LEAF range readily covers that (84 miles on a fresh battery; figure 60 miles in 5 years).
Kris is stay at home mom with the kids, so if I had a day where I needed to drive 100 miles, she could easily use the LEAF for the local errands and kid logistics.
Most of our long trips are by airplane already.

The government is giving away $10K in cheese ($7500 fed, $2500 Mass); NIssan is discounting aggressively and giving $3500 rebates if you finance with them (at 0% for 6 years), so my net out the door price was around $22K, including title, tax, and registration and 2 chargers, a level 1 (plugs into a 120V outlet) and a level 2 charger (to be installed as my house, charges the car in 4-6 hours). That's with no trade-in.

There's no way that this car, at $22K out-the-door, is anywhere close to "twice the price" of a competitive car (and I got a pretty well loaded LEAF; the base model would be ~$4-5K less, which would make it cheaper than a competitive new car.)

After that, I have a car that's mechanically simpler and costs around $0.05 per mile for energy, compared to ~$0.15/mile for the car it's replacing (diesel E-class). Annually, I was driving the Mercedes about 6K/yr. That was ~250 gallons or $875 at today's prices. Add an oil change at $70 in materials. LEAF electricity should run me about $270 (and no oil change).

At the end of the day, I bought it because I thought it was interesting, but I do expect it to be very cost-competitive with a gas vehicle, with a non-trivial chance to beat it, and I look forward to stopping at a gas station once per year in my commuter car (for the state inspection).

I could certainly afford a Tesla, but the $10K is less material against a $65-95K car and if I'm going to spend that amount of money on a fun car, it's going to have a flat 6 in the back. I don't think that a Tesla is even 2x the cost of a competitive car, but it's closer.

Yeah, cold batteries (below 0*C) are definitely worse for range.

I'm a mechanical nerd, so I plan to track things pretty closely and be happy to give a PIREP (DRIREP?) after I've had it a while. I expect that I have pretty realistic expectations (and multiple ICE cars to fall back on), so I doubt I'll be seriously disappointed. (Of course, no one ever does...)

There is a Nissan LEAF forum (of course) and it's interesting to see the spread of advocacy vs realism. Some people are realistic; others seem to believe that the car runs on pure fairy farts.

Two things about this argument I find interesting

First I hear WHEN we get a better battery like it was a fact we are going to achieve a fundamental change any day now,that would be like saying when we invent better gas all cars will get 100mpg.
Probably true in both cases but it's not written in stone it will ever happen in either case.

second IF some smart small start-up company had just invented gasoline and was just now explaining the potential advantages of this NEW thing call "Gas" it would be considered the technological break thru of this century.

It is also quite possible to design an efficient (Energy wise) mass transportation device that no one wants.
A case in point in 1973 during the first gas crisis Ralph Moody the self taught engine guru half of Holman/Moody(HUGE Nascar team and the Ford arm of Nascar at the time) built and publicly tested a new Pinto which got 73 MPG.
The above is neither a misprint or a fable BUT the disadvantages out weighted the worth to a consumer at the time.
Ralph decided if a VW bug with 23 HP (At the time)was drivable then a Pinto would only use ABOUT 35 HP to sustain 55 mph and not much more to accelerate to that speed.
He then took a stock 4 cyl 2300CC engine and pulled 2 rods and pistons (Over simplified by about a thousand) and with some kind on cobbled together muli speed transmission managed to make it SOMEWHAT drivable and at a steady rate of 55 mph it really did get a measured 70+ mpg.
As this was but a proof of concept I don't think he worried much about engine odd firing pulses vibrations or practical drive-ability.
A even lighter veh with a tiny turbo-ed engine would probably have done better but no one WANTED one.
I wouldn't want to invest much money in the idea battery powered cars will replace fossil fueled cars at ANY time let alone in the near future.
Other fuels maybe but not anything battery powered.

I'm in the market to buy a new car for my fiancee. She wants an SUV. There is literally nothing around if you want a plug in hybrid. I will not buy a new pure gas car ever again, it's gotta at least be plug in hybrid. I'm not the only one who thinks this way, I'm assuming. It's frustrating how slow the process is. I'll just have to wait for the new Volvo XC90 or the Tesla Model X in a couple of years.

Meantime the established makers are missing a sale. And they will never get back all those people who've moved to plug in or pure electric. Those customers won't magically turn around one day and decide to buy a pure gas car again. They're lost forever to the electric side. So logic tells that the pure gas car is in for ever diminishing customer base as times moves on. Yeah, they can all be bully and cocky today when the sales are at 1%, but believe me they won't be in 10 years time.

That's interesting. Why?

It seems like you're carrying around all the normal complexity, maintenance hassle, and expense of the ICE engine, but you're then additionally saddling the car with a comically small battery pack and all the complexity of the electric drive, but only getting a couple dozen miles of electric range. I think of the plug-in hybrids as literally the worst of both worlds, not the best.

I think you'd be overall ahead to just go traditional turbodiesel and skip the electric drive component. If my Mercedes wasn't rusting away to nothing, I'd drive it another 5 years. It's tough to be the high pressure diesels for efficiency and longevity. Glowplugs, oil changes, and brakes are all the maintenance I did on mine for 5 years and 35K miles.

That's interesting. Why?

It seems like you're carrying around all the normal complexity, maintenance hassle, and expense of the ICE engine, but you're then additionally saddling the car with a comically small battery pack and all the complexity of the electric drive, but only getting a couple dozen miles of electric range. I think of the plug-in hybrids as literally the worst of both worlds, not the best.

I think you'd be overall ahead to just go traditional turbodiesel and skip the electric drive component. If my Mercedes wasn't rusting away to nothing, I'd drive it another 5 years. It's tough to be the high pressure diesels for efficiency and longevity. Glowplugs, oil changes, and brakes are all the maintenance I did on mine for 5 years and 35K miles.

I don't understand where you're going with the second statement. What are you implying with the "funny looks"? Seems that would indicate they never change them, opposite of your first opinion. Maybe they don't last forever, but they last a long time.

I've had a Prius. Mostly for the last decade, I've driven HD trucks, but for about 1.5 years, I drove a Prius. Averaged just over 50 mpg. My favorite car I've ever had, outside of my '66 Mustang.

We have two other Prius in the family. I've got two friends that drive them. One over 150k miles. Never a battery problem.

When Uncle Jim inquired about a Prius, they said retail price for a replacement pack was $2,500, but they could replace them for $1,800.

I'm sure they do, but I've not known anyone who has need to replace one.

Prius is regularly listed at the top of the trouble free cars.

I find that remarkable.

I would love a Tesla. But I just like technology. To get OVER 50 mpg in the Prius, you have to game it a bit. I'd have to pull my records, but I'm thinking my best full tank was around 67 mpg. Dad drives his fairly hard - 80 on the interstate at times, and does not game it at all. He averages around 46 mpg, to the best of my memory.

Unfortunately, I tried the car route, and I just need a pickup.

If I had the money and conscience, Jay Leno's garage has a lot of appeal.

Quotes:
Toyota says the battery pack is designed to last for the life of the car -- which it defines as about 180,000 miles. But some cars go beyond that. Consumer Reports tested a privately-owned Prius that had logged over 200,000 miles and found no significant dropoff in gas mileage or acceleration.

I loved my old Prius, a 2005 model that might be on the road today -- one that we drove 530,000 miles -- until we were rear-ended in February 2012. The only problem that I had regarding the battery was a cooling issue that occurred due to dog hair sucked into and clogging the battery cooling fan located below the rear seat. Toyota did not design an air filter for this rear seat vent. It is probably the only design flaw I would mention about the car. The clogged dog hair cost me about $1,500 as the Toyota technicians replaced $1,100 worth of logic boards before they found the dog hair in the fan.

Really?

Think about it. They would have to explain that you drill into the earth and get crude oil at considerable cost and mess. Then this has to be refined to gasoline in expensive and polluting refineries. Gasoline has to be transported and this subjects people on the road with these tanker trucks to danger from this highly flammable liquid. You have to build "gas stations", since they don't exist. The engines convert the liquid to work by exploding the fuel and creating noxious exhaust that can kill in a confined space. The energy output is only 20% efficient. The engine has to be serviced every 5K miles or so and break down a lot. In car crashes, the gasoline can catch fire and explode. The critics would be all over these issues.

We forget all the infrastructure required to use gasoline and all the negatives we accept without thinking about it too much.

Ironically, some of the oldest cars were electric. Baker Electric produced electric cars from 1900 to 1914. One of the claimed advantages, you didn't have to find a rare gas station!

The critics of EVs always say they can't fully replace a gas car. That is true, but misses the point. The vast majority of driving miles fit an EV profile. So the EV has a use, it just isn't 100% replacement of gas cars.

EV cars plus wind generation is a natural fit. Wind runs at night when power usage falls, so doing demand side regulation allows the wind generation to be stored in EV batteries. In essence, the power company has a distributed energy storage system in EV batteries.

Mike C.

We have an 07 and an 08. Just for errands and estimating runs, because I need my 2500HD also. Both zero problems and they deliver the mileage, the norm. as you said. Yet strong beliefs in rumors still exist. You have a Cirrus so this can't be anything new.

Thank you, sir. May I have another.

And what always gets forgotten is to refine gas, you need heat. A lot of it. Refineries heat the crude oil electrically. They say that it takes 1KW to refine 1gal of fuel. That right there makes fuel unable to ever compete - that 1KW would have been better spent propelling an electric car than going through the rigmarole of refining fuel that you then truck out and burn in inefficient engines.