I got my Nissan LEAF electric car

[cardw]

I finally picked up my Nissan LEAF electric car on 1-11-2011. It drives great and no more gas. My fuel bill went from $390 to $160 and my electricity cost for 500 miles last month was $12.

The local article on my car delivery went national on Nissan's Face book page.

You can read it here.

Lodi News Sentinal Article on the LEAF

[Gail]

Well, how cool is that? I have one of those keys, too, that I keep in my purse and unlock my door and start my car with.

Richard, it sounds like it would be perfect for getting around town!

[Sonny]

My fuel bill went from $390 to $160 and my electricity cost for 500 miles last month was $12.

This is where we need to go....The problem right now is these cars are very expensive, right? The battery too...

What do you mean you went from $390 to $160 on your fuel bill? Are you talking about your electric car and your other gas cars?

Where do you plug in the car - at your house? How long does it take to charge up?

I almost bought an Insight (the older 2 seater). It's a hybrid...gets from 55 to 70 miles per gallon of gas.

In the future I think they'll get these electric cars to travel 200 miles before charging. Also, I've heard of batteries you can charge up in 3 min up to 80% of full charge.

What we need is the infrastructure. We need charging stations....We need off oil!!!

The nice thing for me is I can work on these cars....The inverters are electronic devices that takes a DC bus (from 150 to 300VDC) from the car battery and creates 3 sinusoidal currents, 120 degrees apart, through the stator of the car's AC induction motor. Theses currents vary in amplitude and frequency. The drive does this through what is called PWM (pulse width modulation). Lot's of trig and calculus involved.

Of course the inverter is open loop. When you push down on the gas pedal you are really giving a velocity command to the AC open loop drive. It then turns the motor, which moves the car. The output stage of the drive most likely uses IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor). It's very reliable....

[Stan]

sweet! Thanks for sharing that.

[phkrause]

Mazel Tof Richard and a great article to boot.

[abelisle]

Congrats!

Very informative article - enjoy it - you deserve it.

[cardw]

Sonny,

My gasoline bill is less because we are only buying gas for my wife's car. As soon as there is an electric car that meets her needs we will replace hers as well.

My electric cost for the car this last month was about $12 for 500 miles driven. Once I get solar power I won't have any monthly cost.

The cost for the car, which is fully loaded with GPS, back up camera, radio, internet, XM radio, electric windows, remote lock, is about 33,000 before tax incentives and rebates. It's about $3000 more than you would pay for a similar equipped Prius. My cost with incentives went down to about $20,000 so it was a no brainer for me because I was ready to replace my vehicle anyway.

The LEAF can be charged by either a regular 110 volt plug, 220, or quick charge 440 DC.

110 takes 20 hours from empty. About 5 miles range per hour.

220 takes 8 hours from empty. About 12.5 miles range per hour.

440 DC quick charge takes 26 minutes from empty to 80% charge.

The reason it only goes to 80% is that the last 20 percent charge raises the battery temperature very high and is hard on the battery. These will be available as commercial charge stations.

I simply use 110 every night and top off the charge like a cell phone. For my use 100 miles is plenty of range. If I drop too low the GPS shows a map to the nearest charge station within the available range left. It's pretty hard to run out of charge without knowing it.

There are some new batteries that can be charged in 6 minutes and Hitachi has an anode modification with nanotechnology that can increase battery capacity by 10 times.

Mass production is the barrier for these technologies. They work, but getting the manufacturing price down is what is needed. We have the potential for batteries giving us 1000 miles range and charging in 6 minutes.

Nissan has done a lot of work on the controller to give you a familiar driving experience. It even creeps forward when you let off the brake while in drive. It doesn't drive like a golf cart.

You also have an ECO mode for when you are in stop and go traffic or going down hill. The regenerative braking is a lot more aggressive and your acceleration is not as quick, though if you floor it the acceleration goes back to normal, which is pretty quick from 0-40. After that Nissan limits acceleration to preserve battery power.

I think the battery puts out about 600 volts and the motor can be used to drive the car and charge the battery during braking or coasting down hill.

[cardw]

Gail,

It is great for getting around town, but I commute on the highway every day and it has a top speed of 90 miles per hour, so it can really get up and go too.

[Gail]

I'm impressed!! Way to go Nissan!

(I was raised on Datsun (Nissan)... my dad was Canada's first or second sales rep for the firm and we always had company cars. Before that he sold Studebakers- remember them? )

[cardw]

Gail,

That's cool. My dad had a Datsun truck and it was built like a tank with a full size drive shaft. I had a Nissan truck for about 15 years/140,000 miles and I bought it for 11,000 and sold it for 4,000.

I drove it hard because it had a 6 cylinder engine/5 speed and was really light. It was fun to move out past the BMWs in third gear.

The LEAF is really put together well. Nothing rattling so far. With the electric motor everything in the motor compartment stays really clean. No oil on the floor of my garage either.

[Sonny]

okay, I could see why they would have a 600Vdc battery. I know on the hybrids they use between about 130 to 300VDC, but that's a different animal.

Given P=IE & Q=It, t=Amp.hr/I

If the battery voltage is higher less current is drawn off the battery, which means you hold a charge longer. Makes sense....