Nissan Leaf – Test drive

What makes one get out of bed at 9am Saturday with 6 hour worth of sleep in a very cold day? Electricity! Provided by the “Nissan LEAF Tour” in Lisbon.

I had scheduled a test drive 2 or 3 weeks ago, and today was the day to engage in a first person pure electric drive. As i was rushing to Expo in my beaten diesel i wondered how it would feel as the only previous experience was in an Altima Hybrid (full electric up to about 25k/h)…  after arriving on site, the check-in process was a breeze , just signing up a responsibility term and show the drivers license, and 5 minutes afterward i was seated up in a brand new Nissan LEAF with Gary (a very nice Nissan technician) on the passenger side.

So, how was it? In two words, very cool. The test drive was a tour around the outer perimiter of Parque das Nações, 10kms worth of urban and sub-urban routes (not the usual salesmen drive around the block / or in the parking…yes it actually happened to me once…). So, how is it? Smooth, silent, powerful, calm, relaxing. Really smooth power delivery, the 0-100K/h acceleration is pretty good (around 10s), and almost no noise, just a cool “jet like” wine at wide open throttle, you really don’t feel no lack of power and you can merge to highways pretty easy. Really didn’t push hard on corners, but the direction feels good (not the normal Nissan feather like steering), so as the suspension and brakes feel pretty competent. This IS NOT a sports car, but a perfect commuter car, very easy and relaxing to drive. Its like a magic carpet, that slides down the road. It must be driven to be sensed.

Afterward when i went back home in my 10 years old diesel, it felt more like a 100 year old car with all those nasty engine/transmission noises…. Back to the Leaf, it is a real car, a real solid product, not a gizmo with wheels, is a great accomplishment by Nissan. I believe that if Tesla Roadster showcased the electric car technology and inspired many, the Leaf can be the dawn of the electric revolution.

For the bad part, the ugly design, other bad point is the ugly design, and of course the ugly design. Did i mention the ugly design? How hard could it be to make a (much) better looking car? Well, lets just hope Leaf 2.0 gets better looks. Also the range, of course always the range, only 160kms (at highway better to expect around 100Kms) so this implies a oil burner as a backup car for that 1% big trips. The range issue is something that will remain for many years, as the battery capacity trend show small improvements over time, about the double of capacity for each ten years. So, maybe only a 2030 Leaf can have a decent +600Kms range, and by then we can finally trash the oil burners.

The good news in this range/battery/electric car business, is that the engine is +90% energy efficient (almost no margin of progress here), so the battery as the weak link, in 10 years from now a “simple” battery swap upgrades the car to the latest technology.


I also did some number crunching…

Continue reading “Nissan Leaf – Test drive”

Lean is good, lean works

For me simply one of the worst inventions of the last years,  a 2ton+ pseudo-tank, pseudo-all terrain vehicle , pseudo-roomy/family vehicle, the SUV.

I usually don’t mind a shit to the vehicle one drives, neither alone value/rate a person for his/hers wheels, but for SUV drivers i open an exception, in my opinion all those guys/gals moving around in BMW X*, Audi Q’s, Volvo XC*, Touaregs, Cayennes and the likes are just plain retarded assholes, who should pay 10x times more road tax than the other drivers.

Why? Well, there are two main reasons, the first is that from the technical point of view they just suck, SUVs suck at off road, the ratio from total space/inner cabin space sucks, awful aerodynamics, prone to rollover due to high center of gravity, high fuel consumption, and the list goes on. So, all this sets up the other reason why i hate SUVs, because many (if not most) of SUV drivers know all these reasons but yet they choose them over better, more sensible options, because they are a status symbol. So these narrow minded people spent some tens of thousands just to show-off a status symbol… so for me is like “Hey, look at me! I drive a 40.000 euro SUV, here i am at the top of the world! Im successful!”, yet stupid enough to make a idiot choice.

Even in a collision, either with other vehicles or pedestrians, they are plain dangerous due to the oversize mass. So, this brings me closer to the post title, these vehicles should be heavily taxed (i mean really heavily), and the lighter more fuel efficient vehicles on the the other hand should be promoted with tax isentions. Also there should be a law limit to vehicle weight.

We really must be a dumb society to embrace SUVs, that are a ménace to the environment, the economy and other road users. Can really someone explain to me?

India’s environment Minister Jairam Ramesh even goes a little further and calls it (SUV driving) criminal. As the days go by i am more and more biased into his opinion.

Updates:

30-12-2010: SUVs and other gas guzzlers will be forbidden in Paris – http://www.leparisien.fr/avon-77210/les-voitures-polluantes-bientot-indesirables-21-12-2010-1199315.php

  1. roomy