My LEAF is 2 Years Old Today

[ruimegas]

My LEAF is 2 Years Old Today

"Time sure flies by...

Two years ago today, Malcolm, Victor and I picked up our LEAFs at Fontana Nissan from Danny and Joanna. They told us we were #9, 10, and 11 in the US and had NBC4 on-site to interview us about the car and our motivations for being among the first to purchase...Malcolm turned to me, shook my hand, and said "Nice to meet you, #11" We had placed our $99 reservations on 4/20/10 within 1 or 2 minutes of the emails being sent out from Nissan, and then "ordered" our cars on 8/31/10 early in the morning just before the Nissan emails went out to notify that the system was ready. We had our deals pre-arranged with Joanna, and she was waiting to "push the button" with us and get us into the system. We didn't realize that hours or days of delayed ordering meant months of delay with the car delivery (since they didn't have that many cars to go around in the early days).

Danny had sent us a digital photo the day before that showed a delivery truck arriving at the dealership with several LEAFs. Without thinking, I promptly called it the "Truck-o-LEAFs" and excitedly posted it on this forum. The name stuck...In fact, at the end of the "Revenge" movie, I believe that same Truck-o-LEAFs is shown driving on the freeway for a second or two going to our dealership. I recognize the arrangement of the cars as compared to Danny's photo...Anyways, we agreed to come up and get the cars the next day and made all the arrangements...

On delivery day, Danny arranged for a Fontana driver to come down to San Diego and pick up Malcolm and I. Victor had decided to have his car trucked back home, but Malcolm and I wanted to drive the 110 miles or so back to San Diego on I-15. The driver got us up to Fontana promptly, and then we took a test drive in Malcolm's car and drooled over our new babies. We handled all the paperwork with the Fontana folks, and Danny trained us in LEAF 101 operation.

Even at that early date, Danny at Fontana said to rely more on the bar display than the GOM, and he was right...

We left the dealership about 3pm for the drive back home. We had decided to try 50mph in the right lane with no heater/AC. There were some spots where that was too slow, and we had to speed up, but the average speed for the trip was probably between 50 and 55 mph. Many times we were able to get behind a truck or other slow vehicle...It was working!!

We stopped for a 90 minute charge at the Nissan dealer in Temecula, courtesy of a phone call made by Tom Miller of Nissan corporate. We bought LEAF license plate frames at the dealership to thank them for their help with charging, and they all crowded around the cars to check them out. We thought it was funny that they installed our new LEAF plate frames and put the "Quality Nissan" insert in (removing the Fontana frames)...Sorry, Fontana, we needed a charge...

That first ride was fun, exhiliarating, and a once-in-a-lifetime feeling, especially going south on I-15 up the hill leaving Temecula and watching the GOM drop like a rock. At one point, it got down to 31 miles, and I was getting nervous. But Malcolm calmed me down on the phone, and we were hoping the coming down hill portion would help us out (and it did).

We both had the big EV grins the entire way, and had our Blue tooth connections going so we could chat on the way home...The GOM said I had 19 miles left when I pulled into the driveway, and I was hooked. I used L1 to charge up in the garage, as my Blink was a few days away from being installed.

Overall, the drive home as well as the subsequent ownership experience has been nothing but top-notch! I love my LEAF more than that first day and have been able to "convert" a few people to also take the plunge with an EV.

I have just over 15,000 miles on the car now, and have not yet lost a capacity bar. The colder weather over the last couple of months has increased 100% charge GID readings from a low of 250 in the summer back up to 270 or so now...I do what I can to baby the battery, and hope to keep the car for a long long time...

Now I'm focused on working with EVSPs and helping to implement public charging stations in my job, as well as many other things "EV" and am having a great time. We now have 35 EV owners at work (S D G & E), with 25 of those being LEAFs.

Here's hoping that my next several years of LEAF operation are as trouble-free as my first two...Thanks, Nissan, for all of your efforts with the LEAF. This is one of the greatest cars I've ever purchased, and I still get that "EV Grin" when I get behind the wheel...

It's hard to believe that it has been two years, but the time has flown by and the LEAF has been a blast to drive...

Photos:

When we got up to Fontana Nissan, they rolled out the "Welcome mat" for us:

[IMG]http://www.belardolights.com/img/leaf/welcome1.jpg[/IMG]

Malcolm and Danny of Fontana Nissan in front of our cars:

[IMG]http://www.belardolights.com/img/leaf/danny.jpg[/IMG]

Charging up our LEAFs at Quality Nissan in Temecula:

[IMG]http://www.belardolights.com/img/leaf/temecula1.jpg[/IMG]

Here I am "operating" the J1772 connector on my LEAF:

[IMG]http://www.belardolights.com/img/leaf/temecula2.jpg[/IMG]

Em: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=11135