I'm glad you are enjoying your new ride, but you're going to have to explain to me...
The most fun is driving beyond your range--needing to get a charge if you want to make it home.
what makes that 'fun'? Driving an ICE on empty is a little nerve racking, better to have plenty of reserve at all times. And assuming you stay close enough to a gas station to pull into, a refill only takes a few minutes, not hours.
-ERD50
This is "living on the edge" for senior citizens.
Actually, it's not terribly risky, because there are lots of charging stations around here. That is, even if a station is offline, we could make it to another.
Last week, we went to Ferndale and the charger was down. No problem, we went to the Bear River Casino and charged at their free station while we had a fancy lunch, and got $20 of free gambling money (and won $1.34. Yay!).
Perhaps it's just fun to drive further than we thought we could.
Lena went out later yesterday, so our mileage total was 135 miles for the day.
>What is the plan if you run out of juice on the road? Flat bed truck or do they have some kind of portable charger? I'm interested in LEAFs so am interested in your post.
Even though we bought it used, we have three years of free roadside assistance. Run out, and they will come tow you.
When I was pushing the limit, my biggest worry was that they'd tow me home, and the neighbors would think, "Told you so!"
Some tow trucks have chargers in them, though not around here.
One thing to keep in mind Al is that the Leaf battery does not have an active cooling system and relies on air passing over it to cool it. You must be very careful in hot weather to make sure your battery life meter has is left with plenty of buffer to get you to a charging station.
From what I have read, battery degradation is is common with the Leaf due to no active thermal management system. This is one of the reasons way these cars hit the used market frequently and are priced low.
I'm glad you like it, but caution you on the battery issue in hot weather.
It's not an issue here. Typical summer highs are sixty degrees here. Even with the current heat dome, it's 56 now, and I have a fire in the fireplace. Also, it never gets cold.
One guy here has 30,000 miles on his battery (2013?), and it is at 11/12ths of capacity.
How about carrying a generator in the back with a gal of gas, so you can plug in anywhere
It's been done, but it isn't practical.
If getting home depends on the availability of a charging station, what happens if they are all occupied when you arrive? It's not like having to wait 2 minutes while the guy in front fills his gas tank, and it's not like there's another charging station on every corner.
So far, that's only happened once, and we just drove a few blocks to another charger.
As long as the charging station frequency increases faster than the cars, we're good.
The bigger problem are the "ice-holes." People who park their ICE vehicle in a charging spot. Haven't seen that yet.
Also, some EV owners, like me, put a sign on their dashboard that says "You may unplug me at ??:??. My phone # is. xxx-xxx-xxxx.
I had someone call me, and I ended my coffee drinking a bit early so that he could charge.