We bought a 2012 Nissan Leaf this summer so that I could commute to school from our new house (no longer in walking distance). We went for an old one because it was inexpensive and we wanted to experiment with it to see if an electric vehicle would be a good fit for us.
It’s turned out to be great. Although it has a weak battery (only 60 miles at best on a full charge, and I wouldn’t trust it for more than 40), it works perfectly as a commuter car. My typical round-trip from school is about 20 miles. Thus I have plenty of padding to allow for a few errands or taking Griffin to after school sports and other activities. Other than that, it handles great on the road, with impressive acceleration.
We’ve had it for long enough now to have some numbers to compare with the energy costs for our Mazda CX9 (traditional gasoline engine). In September we installed a 240 volt dedicated charging station in the garage as part of an incentive from Xcel Energy. We are charged a very low rate for power as long as we only use it between 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM. It’s on a timer so that it won’t kick in early if we plug the car when we park it. We can override the timer if we need to, but the rates go up significantly. (There are two additional tiers, with the peak rate being about 10ⅹ the overnight rate.)
In October we spent $15 on electricity for the car, translating to 239 kWh and about 717 miles of driving. Similarly, in November we spent $16 for 245 kWh and 735 miles. That translates to about $0.02 per mile. Gasoline over that time period has averaged around $3.12 per gallon. The Mazda gets around 23 miles per gallon in town (better on the highway), so we’re spending about $0.14 per mile on gas. That’s 6–7 times more expensive than the equivalent for the Leaf.
Of course, we can store a lot more energy in the gas tank and we can fill it up more easily, so there are tradeoffs. We’re still not in a position where we could try driving the Leaf to the cabin, for instance. It takes about 3 hours for the car to charge up fully on our special charger. It would take a lot longer on a 110 outlet (more than twice as long). I’ve used a fast charging station a few times (just as an experiment); they take 20–30 minutes.
Even with plentiful fast-charging stations along the route, it wouldn’t really work to take the 2012 Leaf. We’d still have to stop at least three times to recharge, adding another 90 minutes to the trip. But, if we upgrade some day to a more recent model, we’d be in great shape. The current crop of Leafs get 150–200 miles on a charge, so we might be able to make it in one go and then plug it in at the cabin to trickle-charge until we were ready to go. Barring that, we could easily recharge once at a fast charging station.
It’s exciting technology. I’m glad we’re exploring it.