My leaf has arrived!

I did not get it in time for Christmas, but my long wait is over -- my Leaf has arrived -- in the garage, plugged in and charging up!  I've been on Nissan's waiting list since June of last year, but I have actually been looking forward to buying an electric car for much longer than that.  Back when my previous car was about seven years old, I figured that if I could just make it last until it was ten years old, surely there would be a good all-electric car available at that time that I could buy.  My plan did work, it just took a little longer than expected -- if you're looking for a good fourteen-year-old Acura Integra with just under 250,000 miles on it, I can make you a good deal on it.  :)

So far I have had the opportunity to drive it to work once.  It was fun to drive!  It comes with a lot of cool features, such as both an audio jack and a USB port for the stereo, an in-dash GPS navigation system, which doubles as a video screen for the rear-view camera that activates whenever you back up.

My commute is a little immodestly-long an electric car, so range is a very critical issue for me.  The leaf has a 24 kW/hr capacity battery pack; the in-dash remaining-charge display divides this into twelve bars to show how much go-juice you've got.  There is also a miles-remaing indicator, but the thing is so darned arbitrary and unpredictable, I have just been ignoring it.  I'm doing my own real-world measurements to attempt to get a good idea of what my actual range will be.  The Leaf's consumption can range anywhere from less than one mile per kW/hr (going up a hill at highway speeds) or over eight miles per kW/hr (going downhill with your foot off the accelerator, or driving under 10 mph in a parking lot).  On my commute so far I have averaged 3.8 miles per kW/hr and 4.4 miles per kW/hr.

Fortunately, I don't need to worry too much about range.  My commute in to work used about half of my available charge, but fortunately for me, my employer agreed to provide an outdoor electrical outlet, so I can do a bit of charging at my destination.  It seems that I can charge about one bar (2 kW) in an hour from the 120V plug.

I will definitely be posting more on consumption and range as I gather more data.