Nissan LEAF Drivers

Katie Metzroth: It’s the Little Things

Sometimes in life, you get lucky. Sometimes you get the last copy of that movie you wanted to see at the video store on Friday night. Sometimes you find the exact flavor of ice cream you were craving. Sometimes you run across your favorite brand of yarn in in the perfect color in the clearance bin. Sometimes you buy a car because you want to help the environment and you end up LOVING it.

It is the little things that make the difference…like the fact that I can fit my aviator sunglasses in the sunglass-holder thingy. I can also fit my black Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany’s wannabe shades in the holder. The Nissan LEAF is not one of those cars that you are going to have to buy tiny “cool” special driving shades for just because the sunglass holder is too small.

My son Brandon and I just got back from a fantastic spring break road trip. We went a total of 850 miles, from San Diego to San Luis Obispo and back. What was so special about it? Aside from spending quality time together for the entire week, what made the trip so memorable was that we drove our Nissan LEAF®! It gave us a chance to get off the beaten path, use some of the newer public charging infrastructure, and “stop and smell the roses” along the way.

Webchat with Mark Perry, Nissan North America’s Director of Product Planning. Mark will be answering your questions about the 100% electric Nissan LEAF today at 1pm CDT.

<a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=a6e1f7cf40” data-mce-href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=a6e1f7cf40”>Nissan LEAF In-Depth: Webchat with Mark Perry</a>

Nissan LEAF In-Depth Series

We sat down with Mark Perry, Nissan North America’s Director of Product Planning, in the Nissan LEAF In-Depth series to answer questions from fans on the Nissan LEAF Facebook page and @NissanLEAF Twitter page.

We’ll be hosting a webchat with Mark, and Brian Maragno, Senior Marketing Manager for the Nissan LEAF, on Wednesday, April 11 at 1pm CST to answer more questions for the Nissan LEAF community.

UPDATE (04.11.12):
Brian Maragno will unfortunately not be able to make today’s chat but we plan on having him as a guest in future Nissan LEAF In-Depth webchats. Mark Perry will still be with us for today’s chat!

If you missed any of the six episodes in the series, you can view them below:

Episode 1: The Basics

Episode 2: Charging

Episode 3: Battery Performance

Episode 4: Smyrna, TN Plant + Owner Insights

Episode 5: Upgrades + Environmental Impacts

Episode 6: Myth Busting

Brandon Hilpert: Save 75% Off on Gas

Now, I know the watercooler comments of late revolve around gas prices. But as a Nissan LEAF driver, it’s not something I really think that much about any more. Sure, I drive by a gas station as I hop on the freeway on my way to work and I see the prices, but it doesn’t really impact me. (I do have to admit that I don’t miss the trips to the gas station.)

The other day, I noticed three different friends post photos of their gas pump charges. One friend was astonished to pay $5.19 a gallon here in San Diego. (He only got 2.5 gallons – and at that price who can blame him?) Another filled up their Camry to the tune of $75.

At the end of August last year I took delivery of a new black Nissan LEAF and I’ve now crossed 9,000 miles. I LOVE my new car. Prior to commuting in the Nissan LEAF, I drove a smallish truck that got about 20 miles to the gallon. The Nissan LEAF allows me NOT to have to hyper mile anymore and I am saving over $220 a month on gas! I used to spend over $250 on gasoline and the electric is only costing $20-30 a month. I took the Nissan LEAF in for its 7,500-mile checkup recently and those run $20, which sounded pretty happy to me.

More than four years ago, I put solar panels on my house and haven’t had an electric bill since. More than six months and 7,700+ gas-free miles ago, I got my 100% electric Nissan LEAF and haven’t been to a gas station since.

After months of deciding what options to pursue for more environmentally friendly transportation, and test-driving both the Chevy Volt (plug-in hybrid) and Nissan LEAF (100% electric), we got on the waiting list for the Nissan LEAF and, at the end of August, finally took delivery of our fully electric car.

We were one of the first families in Washington to receive their Nissan LEAF. We recently celebrated our first year of ownership on January 19, 2012.

Owning our Nissan LEAF has been a life-changing experience for our family. We gleefully drive past gas stations. We are proud of reducing our emissions while getting where we need to go. And we love talking about the benefits of EV ownership with whoever will listen.

The first thing you need to know is that driving a Nissan LEAF is almost exactly like driving any other car. The most important difference between driving a Nissan LEAF and any other car is planning. You have to think out how much driving you’re going to be doing on a given day, and figure out how much juice the car will need. And that takes some practice, because the Nissan LEAF is much, much more sensitive to how you drive than a gasoline-powered car. Let’s say you turn on your Nissan LEAF, and the display shows you have 82 miles of charge in regular Drive mode. That will probably be 90 miles in Economy mode. But driving at expressway speeds, driving in very cold or very hot weather, and using the heater or A/C all reduce your mileage significantly. So if a good part of my day’s driving is on Atlanta’s interstates — I might only get 50 miles of driving before having to recharge. And here in Atlanta, there aren’t yet many public charging stations. So I’ve got to be sure I’ve got enough juice to get home, where I can recharge in my garage.

Lisa C: How Much Does it Cost…

People always ask me how I like my Nissan LEAF and then they can’t get me to stop talking about it. What do I say? I LOVE IT!

And then the next question is usually, “How far does it go?” So we all know the range is about 100 miles, but I usually tell people it can comfortably go 70 on any terrain with any driving style. And then I often get the sarcastic, “What if you want to drive to LA?” OK, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that over the 10 years I’ve been talking about EVs, I could have bought my Nissan LEAF outright with those nickels. It’s not for trips to LA, and how often do you drive to LA from northern California anyway? We sold our gas car, so now I say, “We rent a car or use car sharing for our longer trips – it works for us pretty well.”