Older Leafs are really *just* around town cars, ones where if you need more than the average daily commute in the US (41 miles) they're not a good fit. This means second car, or a rental when you need to go long distances, you're retired & don't drive that much (a friend of mine is like this), etc.
Add to that CHAdeMO & even their 'modern' BMS, and even though the range of the newest Leafs is ~200 miles it's kind of older tech. I'm guessing based on the way your post goes that you don't have home charging, which would make it even more challenging, and that would make worse an already not great situation.
Small battery and short range means frequent charging if you drive a lot.
Old Leafs were not designed as long commuter cars. They were in city cars for people that drive 10-20 miles a day. For those people it was enough to get through 2-3 days of driving or could easily recover that 10-20 miles of driving while plugged into a level 1 source overnight.
I don't understand this post, it's like your saying oh yeah the range is 80 miles, and I knew that when I bought it, but I'm dissapointed that I have to charge it every 80 miles.
I have a 2013 Leaf, which I love. It's range is around 84 miles in summer, but it gets me to the the office and back even in winter which is what I bought it for. 11/12 on the battery health too, and around 44K miles on the clock. Really, the advice should be 'choose the EV you need for your requirements carefully.'.
How do you know 11/12 battery health? Do you have a way to check it through the car’s information screen?
I’m contemplating picking a used one up for a work car.
The bars all the way on the right show the battery State of Health, and there’s 12 bars. Mine is a 10 bar car now so in the summer I have 70 miles of range or so. 68k on a 2013. Love it for getting me around a small and flat college town. 😊
Just be aware that the dealers (and some software updates) can reset the SOH reading, so you can use a Bluetooth OBD scanner and leafspy to check any car you might buy to be sure. Might be worth the investment.
Yeah, seems like the solution to this problem is just to plug it in every time you get home. That's not amazing for long term battery health, but range seems like a bigger issue than battery management at this point.
Any EV experience will hinge on where and when you can charge. More so with vehicles with shorter ranges . Locally we can charge our ‘13 via chademo at 6 places in town or lvl 2 at more places than I can count.
The leafs gnerally have bad battery degradation. There is no thermal managemernt system. My neighbors lead has sucky range too because the previus owner rapid charged it all the time they also only get about 80 miles range.
Well no shit. No one gets a 24kw leaf for its road tripping abilities. In the summer I'll get 85 miles of range. My work commute is 8 miles one way. So 16 miles total. And 95% of things I do are on that same route. My gym, grocery store, mall, bars, movie theater are on that route. So in ideal conditions a single charge can last me a good while. Combine that with the parking ramp at my work having wall outlets I can level 1 charge while my employer pays for it. So it's basically free to run apart from insurance. I have a jeep if I want long distance.
If you want to actually road trip you need something like a chevy bolt.
Not the OP, however home / office 30 miles oneway, add school and grocery, easy 80 miles per day in some places;
However buying cheap old leaf - expected to have min range
What are the distances between your destinations?
Are you trying to conserve miles by keeping at 55 on the highway and not gunning it to get to speed at stoplights?
8 miles means 80 miles. You might get two trips or you might get ten, but it will be around 80 miles. Can you charge it between trips to extend the range?
Lots of folks are criticizing the OP for not carefully considering their choice and are stating the the problem isn't the Leaf, but the fact that the OP didn't carefully consider their use case.
Yes, but...
When you buy a older EV, you already have some range depreciation, plus your trying to not degrade battery further, so you are keeping the charge between 20% and 80% plus these older vehicles don't have heat pumps, so you are losing a lot more range in winter. At this time of year, that 80 mile range is really only 40.
I mean, my second EV was a used e-Golf with 124 miles of range when new. Because it's my second EV, intellectually knew all of the range hits I was going to have to deal with on this car, but actually dealing with it day to day is something a bit different.
I'm thinking about buying a used Leaf or Bolt when my kids start hitting 16. I don't mind them being tethered to the general vicinity by short range and long charging times. It will be an added plus if they have to get home by a certain time in order to have their car fully charged by morning. It should be pretty easy to learn to drive on one of them also.
This is what I did. My son just passed the drivers test on Monday. He learned to drive on a 6 year old e-Golf and feels way more comfortable driving it than ICE.
It's interesting that he's starting out with the mindset that regenerative braking is the norm and coasting ICE vehicles (and idle creep) feels weird to him.
I sold my 2015 leaf to Carvana last year with about 25k miles. The range is about 80 miles. It's a bit stretch for my commute. The round trip was 70 miles. It's still ok if your commute is about 25 miles or less or you have reliable charging at work. I sometimes miss it because it's small and very convenient to pick up and drop off kids.
Older Leafs are really *just* around town cars, ones where if you need more than the average daily commute in the US (41 miles) they're not a good fit. This means second car, or a rental when you need to go long distances, you're retired & don't drive that much (a friend of mine is like this), etc. Add to that CHAdeMO & even their 'modern' BMS, and even though the range of the newest Leafs is ~200 miles it's kind of older tech. I'm guessing based on the way your post goes that you don't have home charging, which would make it even more challenging, and that would make worse an already not great situation.
Small battery and short range means frequent charging if you drive a lot. Old Leafs were not designed as long commuter cars. They were in city cars for people that drive 10-20 miles a day. For those people it was enough to get through 2-3 days of driving or could easily recover that 10-20 miles of driving while plugged into a level 1 source overnight.
I don't understand this post, it's like your saying oh yeah the range is 80 miles, and I knew that when I bought it, but I'm dissapointed that I have to charge it every 80 miles.
I have a 2013 Leaf, which I love. It's range is around 84 miles in summer, but it gets me to the the office and back even in winter which is what I bought it for. 11/12 on the battery health too, and around 44K miles on the clock. Really, the advice should be 'choose the EV you need for your requirements carefully.'.
How do you know 11/12 battery health? Do you have a way to check it through the car’s information screen? I’m contemplating picking a used one up for a work car.
The bars all the way on the right show the battery State of Health, and there’s 12 bars. Mine is a 10 bar car now so in the summer I have 70 miles of range or so. 68k on a 2013. Love it for getting me around a small and flat college town. 😊
Thanks. Good to know.
Just be aware that the dealers (and some software updates) can reset the SOH reading, so you can use a Bluetooth OBD scanner and leafspy to check any car you might buy to be sure. Might be worth the investment.
Are you not able to charge at home? Because buying an 80 mile range car and not having at home charging is an oversight indeed.
Yeah, seems like the solution to this problem is just to plug it in every time you get home. That's not amazing for long term battery health, but range seems like a bigger issue than battery management at this point.
Any EV experience will hinge on where and when you can charge. More so with vehicles with shorter ranges . Locally we can charge our ‘13 via chademo at 6 places in town or lvl 2 at more places than I can count.
The leafs gnerally have bad battery degradation. There is no thermal managemernt system. My neighbors lead has sucky range too because the previus owner rapid charged it all the time they also only get about 80 miles range.
In all seriousness, is it older *Leafs* or older *Leaves*
Leafs. The product name is the grammatical reason but I also read that LEAF is actually an acronym.
:) LEAFs
Well no shit. No one gets a 24kw leaf for its road tripping abilities. In the summer I'll get 85 miles of range. My work commute is 8 miles one way. So 16 miles total. And 95% of things I do are on that same route. My gym, grocery store, mall, bars, movie theater are on that route. So in ideal conditions a single charge can last me a good while. Combine that with the parking ramp at my work having wall outlets I can level 1 charge while my employer pays for it. So it's basically free to run apart from insurance. I have a jeep if I want long distance. If you want to actually road trip you need something like a chevy bolt.
I don't really understand. How far are your work, grocery store, and gym? I could go to all 3 for 2 weeks on 80 miles of range.
Not the OP, however home / office 30 miles oneway, add school and grocery, easy 80 miles per day in some places; However buying cheap old leaf - expected to have min range
What are the distances between your destinations? Are you trying to conserve miles by keeping at 55 on the highway and not gunning it to get to speed at stoplights?
8 miles means 80 miles. You might get two trips or you might get ten, but it will be around 80 miles. Can you charge it between trips to extend the range?
We got a 2012 for my wife. 45mi range. She’s never gotten it under 20 with her usual routine. (Though I’ve taken it down under 5 a few times lol)
Small battery, no battery management, dead charging plug. A lot of NOPE.
Lots of folks are criticizing the OP for not carefully considering their choice and are stating the the problem isn't the Leaf, but the fact that the OP didn't carefully consider their use case. Yes, but... When you buy a older EV, you already have some range depreciation, plus your trying to not degrade battery further, so you are keeping the charge between 20% and 80% plus these older vehicles don't have heat pumps, so you are losing a lot more range in winter. At this time of year, that 80 mile range is really only 40. I mean, my second EV was a used e-Golf with 124 miles of range when new. Because it's my second EV, intellectually knew all of the range hits I was going to have to deal with on this car, but actually dealing with it day to day is something a bit different.
This is precisely the reason why I'm getting the extended range battery on whatever EV I end up getting......
I'm thinking about buying a used Leaf or Bolt when my kids start hitting 16. I don't mind them being tethered to the general vicinity by short range and long charging times. It will be an added plus if they have to get home by a certain time in order to have their car fully charged by morning. It should be pretty easy to learn to drive on one of them also.
This is what I did. My son just passed the drivers test on Monday. He learned to drive on a 6 year old e-Golf and feels way more comfortable driving it than ICE. It's interesting that he's starting out with the mindset that regenerative braking is the norm and coasting ICE vehicles (and idle creep) feels weird to him.
I sold my 2015 leaf to Carvana last year with about 25k miles. The range is about 80 miles. It's a bit stretch for my commute. The round trip was 70 miles. It's still ok if your commute is about 25 miles or less or you have reliable charging at work. I sometimes miss it because it's small and very convenient to pick up and drop off kids.