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The EPA lists the Nissan Leaf at 30 kWh per 100 miles. This is energy stored in the battery. Getting the energy into the battery involves a charging efficiency of about 80% (i.e. only 80% of the electricity coming out the wall socket makes it into the battery, the other 20% becomes waste heat).

First, your charging efficiency of 80% is too low. 90% is a better estimate. More importantly for your calculations though, the EPA fuel economy estimates already include the charging losses: "The recharge energy includes any losses due to inefficiencies of the manufacturer’s charger." (Source)

This means that you need to remove the first step of your efficiency calculation.

Furthermore, Momentum Dynamics claim that their losses are lower than with a wired charger (only 4% compared to 7%). If that were true, the consumption figure should be less than the 30 kWh per 100 miles.

This drops the energy efficiency of EVs below that of ICEs.

The EPA lists the Nissan Leaf at 30 kWh per 100 miles. This is energy stored in the battery. Getting the energy into the battery involves a charging efficiency of about 80% (i.e. only 80% of the electricity coming out the wall socket makes it into the battery, the other 20% becomes waste heat). Transmission over power lines is about 95% efficient. And electricity generated from coal plants is about 37% efficient, about 58% efficient for natural gas plants. Split the difference and call it 47.5%. So to move an EV 100 miles requires (30 kWh) / (0.8 * 0.95 * 0.475) = 83.1 kWh = 299 MJ worth of fuel if you're generating the electricity from fossil fuels.

The Nissan Versa hatchback (ICE equivalent to the Leaf) uses 2.9 gallons of gasoline per 100 miles. Gasoline has an energy density of 34.2 MJ per liter, or 129.5 MJ per gallon. So 2.9 gallons holds 375.4 MJ. Making the ICE vehicle slightly less energy-efficient than the EV (uses about 25% more energy than the EV).

Wireless inductive chargers have been built over 90% efficient in labs, but the typical chargers in commercial production are only 75%-80% efficient. That moves the EV's 299 MJ per 100 mile energy consumption up to 374-399 MJ per 100 miles. Meaning the EV consumes more energy than an equivalent ICE vehicle to travel the same distance.

Norway can get away with it because they get almost all their electricity from hydroelectric. But this idea won't work in countries heavily reliant on fossil fuels to generate electricity (most of the world). The EV still gets the advantage of being able to better filter out particulate emissions at the power plant using big effective filters, instead of poor transportable filters at the tailpipe of every car. But it would result in EVs generating more CO2 per mile than ICE vehicles, defeating much of the purpose of switching to EVs.

I drive a Nissan Leaf with the telematics disabled. It's extremely easy to do on any 2011-2017 Nissan leaf. I'm assuming the 2018 is the same, but they did do a redesign. It took 15 minutes of my time and one screwdriver to disable the TCU, and I'm very much a beginner with cars.

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/v...

You still have options, for now.

Oh, they should have more room for cost now in 2016 than they did in 2011. Their battery costs should be much lower, but they haven't redesigned the car yet and they just sold the battery manufacturer[1], so their costs may actually be higher. There's no way to really know, but they did up the replacement pack cost from $5,500 to $8,000[2]. Either way, adding active thermal management requires a redesign of the car and the pack, which hasn't happened yet.

And yes, it appears that the 30 kWh packs are degrading faster than the 24kWh packs[3]. The cause is unknown--there's less metal casing around the cells, so they could be heating more, there appears to be a software issue with the battery capacity calculation[4], and there's a different chemistry. I'm sure Nissan knows how much each of these is the cause, but they're not saying. There's not really enough data on the 40kWh packs (2018) yet to determine how they'll behave.

I too am interested in what Nissan comes up with in 2019, but their poor support of existing models will strongly discourage me from buying a future Leaf unless there's a big reason to do so. That opinion would instantly change if they stop serial code locking batteries (preventing 3rd party replacement) and sell the newer high capacity packs for the existing Leafs.

Sources:
[1] https://insideevs.com/nissan-c...
[2] http://www.mynissanleaf.com/vi...
[3] https://insideevs.com/nissan-l...
[4] http://www.mynissanleaf.com/vi...

Oh, they should have more room for cost now in 2016 than they did in 2011. Their battery costs should be much lower, but they haven't redesigned the car yet and they just sold the battery manufacturer[1], so their costs may actually be higher. There's no way to really know, but they did up the replacement pack cost from $5,500 to $8,000[2]. Either way, adding active thermal management requires a redesign of the car and the pack, which hasn't happened yet.

And yes, it appears that the 30 kWh packs are degrading faster than the 24kWh packs[3]. The cause is unknown--there's less metal casing around the cells, so they could be heating more, there appears to be a software issue with the battery capacity calculation[4], and there's a different chemistry. I'm sure Nissan knows how much each of these is the cause, but they're not saying. There's not really enough data on the 40kWh packs (2018) yet to determine how they'll behave.

I too am interested in what Nissan comes up with in 2019, but their poor support of existing models will strongly discourage me from buying a future Leaf unless there's a big reason to do so. That opinion would instantly change if they stop serial code locking batteries (preventing 3rd party replacement) and sell the newer high capacity packs for the existing Leafs.

Sources:
[1] https://insideevs.com/nissan-c...
[2] http://www.mynissanleaf.com/vi...
[3] https://insideevs.com/nissan-l...
[4] http://www.mynissanleaf.com/vi...

There are people who have already done this. For example: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/vi...

The 12V bus on the vehicle provides ample power to run small electronics, and even some larger ones. Depending on the model, it is possible to get 100A - 200A current thru an inverter, which will give up 20A over 120V, allowing 2kW continuous operation.

Of course there are some caveats. First the battery is not designed for this kind of load, and it will decrease its total lifespan. Also you need to make sure the parts used are high quality, and able to handle the currents mentioned. (i.e.: very thick cabling, with actual copper in them, instead of aluminum mixes). Also you'd want to watch over the contraption, and of course have circuit breakers in case something goes wrong. Everything needs to be connected directly to the internal terminals, and the car should be in "idle" mode (i.e.: main battery is enabled, not just the 12V lead acid one).

But it will allow you to run your fridge and some lights when the power goes out, even for very extended periods (1-2 days is possible). You can also use this when camping.

I don't think there are many LEAFs that "have barely any degradation" after 150k miles. The original battery chemistry in the 2011 and 2012 models (when it was first introduced) have had terrible battery capacity losses, especially in hot climates. It's reported all over at MNL. A typical one: http://mynissanleaf.com/viewto... Many folks with LEAFs that are 4+ years old have been getting warranty replacements of the battery pack.

(In fact, I don't think there are that many LEAFs at 150k miles total yet)

What's the standard for replacing EV batteries?

In the LEAF community, there isn't a standard. You only replace it if the cost of a new pack ($6K) is worth what it adds to the range of your vehicle. Alternately, if it hasn't lived up to the guarantees under the warranty, and you can get a replacement for free. Nissan's warranty is it will hold more than 8 of 12 capacity bars (as shown on the dash); that's not 66%, since the as people have discovered over time the bars are not completely linear. Hence the subject of the above linked post: the owner wants to know when he'll lose the 4th bar in order to qualify for a warranty replacement.

Not all older LEAFs are fairing so badly. My LEAF is down to 94% capacity after 2 years and 20K miles in New England weather. This is with the 2013 battery pack which has (overall) held up better than the 2011/2012s.

That said, a used LEAF with 30% capacity loss is still a car that can travel 50+ miles one-way, which is more than enough for many commutes. This is why used LEAFs selling for $9K are a bargain.

Oh, really? It may not be the Almighty Tesla but we are far from the EV utopia that you're talking about.
 
Not to mention my closest Tesla service center is over 250 miles from where I am, in a state that allows direct sales. But keep cawing on about Tesla even though most households couldn't afford to own one even with their entire post-tax pay saved up for a couple years.
 
In all reality, acting like Tesla is the norm for an EV is insulting to EV owners. And until you realize what Tesla's service agreements look like you really shouldn't be talking out your butt about them.
 
It's a shame that fanboys like you are jumping through hoops to defend Tesla when you're too lazy to go and read what's on their site let alone the experience of other users. It's even a bigger shame that you got modded up for conjecture when the plain facts are out there for anyone to read with a simple Google search. I guess people just don't give a damn about the facts as long as whatever nonsense there is out there supports their view point.

Nah, we just lock our chargers up.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:Lock_j1772_w_padlock_img1090ex.jpg

First, yes, you can go well over 100 miles in a Leaf on a single charge, although it depends greatly on the sort of driving you intend to do.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293

If you drive like an old lady, you can get 132 miles on a full charge. If you drive like I do, freeway+city mix, some "normal" speeding, you get about 80. I get 3.9 miles per kWh with a 21 kWh capacity battery. Plenty of mileage crazy Leaf owners get more. Plenty of lead-footed drivers get less.

...but here's how it works: I start the day with 82 miles of range. When I go out for lunch, I sometimes pick a location with a free charger in the parking lot; I get a solid 30-40 charge on a Level 2 EVSE charger -- not a "fast" or "supercharger," but the sort of charger we have 500+ of in my city - which gets my range to 90+ without doing anything except driving my car where I want to go. Going to to the movies? I'll not only park in the front row, but I'll use the free charger there and most likely have a full charge 2 hours later. Grocery store? Same thing as lunch.

From a financial standpoint not everything is free. There's plenty of pay chargers too, and they end up costing somewhere around 8 cents a mile for the electricity from them, which is about the same cost of gas as a car that gets 45mpg.

Nit picking:

The Leaf's charger is in the car. The thing people call the "charger" is just a smart switching EVSE cable.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Charging_System

As the owner of a Leaf, with a ~90 mile range (my range is about 90 anyway, YMWV), I can say that a Tesla is a bit more than a "runabout vehicle." We thought we'd have to make SERIOUS adjustments driving a Leaf in the far suburbs of Phoenix (we're 3+ miles to a gas station, and 10 miles from the nearest Freeway), but a few MINOR tweaks and we're golden -- and that's on half of the Tesla's range.

Ouch. You must be a new Leaf owner. While I'm fairly happy with mine after 1.5 years, I would NEVER recommend it to anyone living in Arizona (I'm in CA). Your range won't be 90 miles for very long at all. In the extreme heat there, it will drop like a rock as the battery, which has no active cooling, degrades far more quickly than normal due to the high temperatures.

Hopefully your case isn't as extreme as many that have already been documented, but prepare for the worst. The silver lining is that in AZ, you're pretty much guaranteed to go below the level that triggers the new capacity warranty (>3 bars lost, or 30%) within the warranty timeframe. So you should be able to get your battery replaced (possibly more than once) at no cost. As for me, I'm afraid I'll hit the 60k mile limit of the warranty just before I hit that capacity. I've already lost my first bar, or 15%.

Early Capacity Losses (652-page forum thread)
Real World Battery Capacity Losses

As the owner of a Leaf, with a ~90 mile range (my range is about 90 anyway, YMWV), I can say that a Tesla is a bit more than a "runabout vehicle." We thought we'd have to make SERIOUS adjustments driving a Leaf in the far suburbs of Phoenix (we're 3+ miles to a gas station, and 10 miles from the nearest Freeway), but a few MINOR tweaks and we're golden -- and that's on half of the Tesla's range.

Ouch. You must be a new Leaf owner. While I'm fairly happy with mine after 1.5 years, I would NEVER recommend it to anyone living in Arizona (I'm in CA). Your range won't be 90 miles for very long at all. In the extreme heat there, it will drop like a rock as the battery, which has no active cooling, degrades far more quickly than normal due to the high temperatures.

Hopefully your case isn't as extreme as many that have already been documented, but prepare for the worst. The silver lining is that in AZ, you're pretty much guaranteed to go below the level that triggers the new capacity warranty (>3 bars lost, or 30%) within the warranty timeframe. So you should be able to get your battery replaced (possibly more than once) at no cost. As for me, I'm afraid I'll hit the 60k mile limit of the warranty just before I hit that capacity. I've already lost my first bar, or 15%.

Early Capacity Losses (652-page forum thread)
Real World Battery Capacity Losses

Top-ups are nearly as hard on lithiums as run-downs. Ideally you should only completely top-up (and run down) the laptop battery once every couple months for a battery calibration. Failure to do that is what killed Li-ion battery longevity in the old days. The laptop would charge the battery to 100%, it would self-discharge to 99%, and the laptop would charge it right back to 100%. Several times a day. Within a year the battery's longevity was down to an hour, and after 2 years it would last 5 minutes. This is why removing the battery from the laptop worked - it prevented the laptop from immediately recharging it the moment it self-discharged below 100%.

Most new laptops have features to prevent this (so removing the battery is unnecessary). They prevent full charges or full discharges, either in hardware or in software. If it's done at the hardware (firmware) level, the capacity written on the battery or in the specs will be about 20% higher than the capacity reported by the OS. If it's done in software, there should be a setting which limits the max charge you can give the battery, and/or how much the battery can self-discharge before it will be recharged. e.g. On Thinkpads you can set the battery to charge to (say) 90% max, and prevent recharge until the battery drops to (say) 80% charge (both % can be set by the user). My daily use laptop for nearly 3 years has been a Sony which I immediately limited to 80% max charge after buying it. Its battery life has dropped only slightly over those 3 years (from about 2h45m on 80% charge to about 2h30m) despite daily use on and off AC.

All EV manufacturers adopt the same strategy of preventing a full charge or full discharge. The Volt only uses 10.3 kWh of its 16 kWh capacity. The Leaf only uses about 21 kWh of its 24 kWh capacity, and there are still complaints about losing bars of capacity. Numbers for the Tesla S are a bit hard to come by as they're pretty tight-lipped about the specs, but the mix of numbers I've seen suggest they're limiting the operating range to about 90% of the battery's real capacity.

So ignoring that a sample of one sucks and assuming this guy's finding is legit, it's possible Apple tweaked the max charge point and when the battery would recharge. They might have raised the max charge % to try to squeeze more life out of the battery, and the cost is that the max capacity is dropping more quickly.

While I agree with your overall point, I think your range numbers are misleading. And unfortunately that's usually the biggest sticking for people, even when the car's range could work perfectly for them.

I've had my LEAF for over a year (and I love it). With fairly careful driving on a mix of freeways and surface streets, I get 4.9 mi/kwh which gets me a bit over 70 miles before low battery warning comes up. Based on this, I tell people it gets 70-80 miles, but I actually feel a bit guilty telling them that. Because I know most people drive much less carefully, and many would be lucky to eek out 60 miles past very low battery warning. I don't know what the average efficiency is across all drivers, but I'm sure it's under 4 mi/kwh, and may be closer to 3 than 4.

I've gotten 100 miles on a charge once (barely), when my LEAF was still pretty new, basically to prove that I could do it. I don't really want to try that again, because that level of careful driving (no freeways, coasting well below the speed limit on surface streets whenever possible) would not be fun on a regular basis. I'm sure I have slightly less capacity now, so it'd be even harder.

Your claim of 70 miles at 90 mph is laughable. This range chart claims 62 miles for a brand new battery at 75 mph on a flat road. It doesn't even bother going above that speed; and since wind resistance scales with the square of velocity, 90 mph would require 44% more energy to overcome that component. For older batteries with degradation, it only gets worse.

I'd rather win people over by convincing them that a 60-mile range will work for their situation (it will for millions who commute less than that and have more than one car in their household), than giving misleadingly optimistic range numbers - which will only lead to strong dissatisfaction when they find out that's far from reality. I've read several stories of dealers claiming 100-mile range, trying to make a sale. Anyone who got suckered in by such claims would be in for a very rude awakening, ultimately setting back the EV movement.

Also, accelerator, not gas pedal. ;)

I'm not n8r0n, but I've owned a LEAF for about 2 months now. In one sentence, it's the best car I've ever owned (at least through the first 2 months; anything could happen in the years to come, of course).

For the most part, it does drive "just like a car." I've actually gotten comments like that from friends or coworkers who rode in it ("wow, it drives just like a regular car"). As if it would be significantly different.

One of the advantages of an electric drivetrain is that you get instant torque to the wheels. This is especially apparent at the low end, when starting from a dead stop. I would say that the LEAF could probably beat most regular (non-performance) cars from 0 to 40 mph - it really pushes you back in your seat when you floor the accelerator. Above that speed, not so much; acceleration declines as the electric motor doesn't have a huge amount of power (80 kW / 107 hp). Even then it's plenty for maneuvering at highway speeds.

Everything KozmoStevnNaut said is correct. Acceleration is very smooth, and cruising is as smooth as the road allows.

The LEAF has 2 different driving modes, sort of like different "gears" in an automatic (regular/low/etc) but the only real difference is the mapping of accelerator pedal position to motor output in software. "D" is the "normal" mode, with pedal position mapped to torque, and light regeneration when you take your foot off. "Eco" mode adds heavier regen and more fine control at the low end - so you generally have to push the pedal farther down to get the same response as in D. Users have figured out that pedal position in Eco maps to power instead of torque. Some would like an even heavier regen option, like the Teslas and the BMW Active-E, where single-pedal driving is possible because regen literally almost brings the car to a complete stop.

If you're truly interested, head over to mynissanleaf.com where you'll find tons and tons of great information / discussions by enthusiasts.

Just a couple of random comments here.

At most he is costing the company $20/day. Not insignificant, mind you, but it's not ripping the company off for thousands of dollars a year like this line of argument typically makes it sound like.

The last large place where I worked at had about 2,000 employees working in about 5 buildings on the campus. $20 x 2000 = $40K per day, or $10.4 million per year (5 days per week.) That's not a chump change, it's a serious accounting matter.

On that subject, the corporate beancounters will point out, instantly, that they can't write this off as overhead because this is a direct benefit to the employee. This will have to be counted as salary even if the CEO is crazy about green and is willing to spread the dough. He can't. If he does, some VP with a career interest will make it known, since the CEO can't run the company from prison. Solar doesn't help either, unless it's employees who pony the cash up and rent the land that the panels are sitting on. (That large company has installed solar panels at another site, actually.)

The main criticism of the charger network is it takes a good amount of time to recharge: the current "quick" charge gets you from 0 to 80% in about 45 minutes.

EVSE stations (or whatever does a quick charge) at a mall of any size will take care of that. 45 minutes is barely enough to order and carefully eat a sandwich or a pizza, or to browse a couple of stores, or to buy some groceries.

I can agree that it shouldn't be your daily routine to charge there - it will be more expensive in all aspects. However this could alleviate the range problem because that problem is a sure deal killer. As I was commenting on Leaf I went to the Nissan Web site and used their Google Maps thingy to plot a couple of my typical routes. One was about 30 miles, but with a climb of 2,000' at the end. I was unable to ascertain the effect of elevation on the range. One Leaf owner says this:

I have observed that climbing 0.5 miles up (and 10 miles forward) is about equivalent to 50 flat miles.

I need to go 0.37 miles up and about 3 miles horizontally - so let's say I'll waste 20 miles of range on that. Then my combined trip will be at least 50 miles, with minimum range specified as 68 miles. This is cutting close. A charger somewhere might be a requirement. (Not that I'm considering Leaf seriously, I sometimes travel a couple hundred miles per day.)

My other trip was 58 miles, with elevation of 1,000' at the other end. This makes it closer to 90 miles - basically at the far end of the range with all other factors being favorable (weather, daytime, no detours.)

Assuming you own a fairly typical midsize type car, imagine you wake up every morning with a quarter tank of gas. If stopping at a gas station is not on your "absolutely must do today" list...

It is. It means that there is about 2.5 gallons of gas in the tank. Within 50 miles the last fuel bar will start blinking. I may travel 50 miles today. I don't want to find myself in need of refueling when I can't easily afford that. It makes sense to fuel the car up when it is easy to do.

Running low on gas also means that the fuel pump is not getting proper cooling. It also means that the tilt of the car (as you go up or down some ramp) may affect the gas pickup - and you don't want any air in that pump.

A 1/4 of a tank in most cars amounts to 80-100 miles of range. This is enough for vast majority of the population (modulo my habits of sleeping, eating and fueling whenever you can because you may not get the chance later.) The Leaf does about the same; but the comparison is not accurate because a gas car can be fueled under 3 minutes nearly anywhere, with no fuss. Charging of an EV is a far bigger deal. As I said, if you must then you wait 45 minutes; but of course it's preferrable to not wait at all.

To be p

The Leaf has over a 70 mile range. This has been proven "everywhere" and I'll actually provide owner testimony to prove it.

There's even a user-formed "100 mile club" for people who've driven the Leaf over 100 miles on a single charge.
=Smidge=

The Leaf has over a 70 mile range. This has been proven "everywhere" and I'll actually provide owner testimony to prove it.

There's even a user-formed "100 mile club" for people who've driven the Leaf over 100 miles on a single charge.
=Smidge=

There already is a DC quick charge standard that is used on the Nissan LEAF and other EVs. It's called CHAdeMO. There are some stations already installed that use this standard.

This standard is widely adopted in Japan and the UK but the US auto makers don't want it. They are working on a single plug monstrosity. It is believed by many, myself included, that the people fighting the adoption of the existing standard would like to delay or kill the adoption EVs.

We estimated that a car driven 100 km uses about 80 kWh of energy.

Your cited website is entirely bogus for this discussion since it applies only to gasoline powered vehicles.

80 kWh/100km translates to 0.75 mi/kWh. This is absurd for electric vehicles - if a modern EV gets less than 3.0 mi/kWh it's either a pile of shitty engineering or you're driving it on a drag strip. Hell, even on a drag strip you'd probably get better than that.

In reality you're looking at about 20kWh/100km, which is consistent with real-world driving experiences as reported by Nissan Leaf owners. ~120-240kW. That's still way too much power for untrained personnel to be handling, and certainly more than any typical household service could provide... but still, your numbers are way off.
=Smidge=