Edmunds squeezes 132 miles out of a Leaf on a single charge...

Neat, but from the point of practicality it was a pretty useless test.

 

I think it was a good, practical test for one sort of driving. There are peeps out there who are just driving around town, and 35 mph is reasonable. Out in other parts of the country, maybe it's more wide open with faster speed limits, but we're all bunched in like sardines on the East Coast. One of my commutes is on narrow, one-lane roads, average speed when the summer traffic picks up (as I found out the other day) ends up under 20 mph.

 

So it must take them 4 hours non-stop driving to drain it.

 

What a stupid test. No stop and go, hills, morons, all those things that kill that milage you are looking for. All this test proves is that if you drive at a set speed, with no impediments in your way, is your estimation of how good of a battery you have will really plummet! Don't get me wrong, I love this concept, but the batteries really need to be much bigger. It's a great start, quadruple battery ueful life for actual driving on real roads!!

 

Here is a dose of reality from an article in the Boston Globe today:

2011 Nissan Leaf: Fear and charging in Boston - Boston Overdrive - Boston.com

 

Lesson learned: Don't be an idiot.

...or maybe just blame the vehicle.

 

I wouldn't put my grandchild in a Leaf...too risky.

 

I wouldn't put my grandchild in ANY car... too risky.

2009 (the lowest in 55 years) 33,963 died on US highways.
None I have heard of in a Leaf.

 

Leaf earned top ratings in IIHS crash test.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-mpf0Xb8O8]YouTube - Nissan Leaf Crash Tests Top Safety Pick Crashing Destruction Videos[/ame]

 

Leaf is a midsize. Volt compact size weights even more and it did well in the crash test as well. Your point is?

 

Still wouldn't do it. Me, child on side of road, car with dead battery.
not worth the gamble.

 

. . . . and that's because of why ? Is it because it doesn't have a 10-20 gallon tank filled with toxic liquid explosive? Do you know how many die in auto fires each year? If no, it's likely because our culture expects us to be acclimated to that risk ... as being acceptable. Good luck with that.

.

 

No infrastructure in place to handle an emergency. AAA won't show up with a spare battery. I doubt if the nearest house would run an extension cord out to me and invite me in for 8 hours while it charges.

I'll take my chances with the exploding gas tank. Been driving for 45 years, hasn't happened yet. Now making cars run with coal, and nukes, that's not toxic is it?

You must be an early adopter. Once you overpay to get all the bugs out and an infrastructure in place let me know and I'll take another look.

Till then, its a gas sipping Prius (or two) for me. That's a philosophy I can live with til you get that infrastructure in place for me.

C'mon...get goin, you're wasting toxic liquid explosive just sittin there

 

This applies how, exactly?

 

This is a classic example of how the human mind compartmentalizes risk. We downgrade familiar risks while elevating novel ones, regardless of their relative danger.

My mother will willingly ride in a car driven by my 88 year old father, but she won't fly in a commercial aircraft flown by a professional crew because it is "too risky". She isn't the only one. It's pretty typical of how we think.

Tom

 

I'd agree. You need a minimal level of IQ to be able to use an EV without running out of juice. If you don't have that minimum you don't qualify to be buying one.

Let us take an example. You start swimming out into the ocean. How far would you swim ? Do you take care to turn back so that you can make it back to the shore ? If not, you shouldn't be driving an EV (nor swimming into the ocean).

 

Well, not entirely. It showed that in the world's most ideal conditions that are impossible to emulate in real-life it can get 100 miles. Which basically means that in the real world slash that in half and...well, that's exactly what the real range really is (maybe a touch higher). Kind of interesting but I'd love to know what a 3rd gen prius can get running around at track at 35 mph. I am betting over 70 mpg at the absolute minimum.

Spot on. If a terrorist blew up a train station tomorrow and you ask the average person what scares you right now terrorism or heart disease we both know the answer.

 

I rode a pair of nuclear reactors for 5 years and probably covered several tens of thousands of miles in it all the while hurtling tons of aluminum, bombs and fuel onto and off of it and didn't once have a meltdown, fire, or a flood.

Musta just narrowly missed that catastrophe.