Teste drive feito por dono de Tesla

[batalha]

Snowy day Nissan LEAF test drive
@Dpeilow: As requested:

I test drove a LEAF a week ago. For context it snowed that day in the Edinburgh area (unusual for the time of year) and hovered plus/minus one degree C around freezing. It was actually snowing for about half the test drive and there was plenty of slushy snow on the ground.

The test drive was unaccompanied, lasting from about 8:30 am until 11:00 am. I was given special dispensation for a long test drive as I already drive an EV. The car was supposedly fully charged on pick up and it showed 73 miles of estimated range. As others have noted there is no proper state of charge meter so who knows (see later). I would say that the "fuel gauge" seemed to show all segments full. A bit of fiddling found the screen where you can real-time monitor kW draw for driving, AC and other.

A note on AC. I had to use it quite a lot to stay warm (though the car was warm when I got in, possibly due to having been in the dealership's service bay charging overnight, rather than any technical wizardy - the dealers are still learning) and to keep the screen clear. Usage was similar to the Roadster i.e. 1.5 to 3kW.

I was alone to start and drove downhill from the dealership (Alex F. Noble Nissan) via the A720 (dual carriageway city bypass) in free flowing fast traffic (60 ish) in Eco mode. This is a steep downhill where if I balance the Roadster's accelerator at zero kW it glides well, gaining a little speed. I found that I could balance the LEAF at zero kW as well, however to my surprise it didn't glide well, slowing reasonably fast. My expectation was that better aerodynamics would favour the LEAF substantially. Possibly I was misreading the gauges: I had the main gauge at zero which I assumed was traction power only, however the AC and accessories combined would have been 2-3 kW at that point. So if the main gauge is actually traction + AC + accessories it would mean I was doing 2-3 kW of regen braking. Also wet/snowy roads would add some drag. I hope to be able to re-test at some point on a good day.

Off the A720 onto local roads to home the car was a very reasonable substitute for my "other car", a Toyota Prius. In Eco mode it feels quite "wallowy" - like you are pushing against mush to accelerate. But it does keep both acceleration rates and speeds down. In normal mode acceleration is peppy - better than the Prius (but obviously not a contender versus a Roadster). I would be very happy to drive with this level of "go" on a daily basis.

Getting home I quickly picked up my son and dropped him a couple miles to a morning activity at school then back home to pick up my wife. [Aside: This drive is one that we do up to four times a day - it annoys me when I have to do it in the Prius (when I need 3 or 4 seats) because I know that the engine doesn't make it out of the cold start zone and so mpg and emissions are bad. I am much happier when I only need one seat and can take the Tesla - EVs are made for this - no penalty for short trips as there is with ICEs (whether hybrid or not). So I was hoping the LEAF might become a Prius substitute.]

We then drove into the centre of Edinburgh on a mix of 70, 50, 40 and 30 mph speed limit roads through traffic of moderate density. Speeds were never above and often well below speed limits. The car was easy to handle, and took a number of steep grades fluidly.

Crossing Edinburgh we then headed out to Sighthill, up through Wester Hailes and climbed through Colinton back up to the A720 bypass which we rejoined at Dreghorn. At this point we were at our highest elevation, from which a couple of miles of mostly downhill motorway speed driving took us back to the Straiton junction where we turned off and back towards the dealership.

My wife didn't fancy a half hour of EV chat with the dealer so I dropped her off at IKEA. The car park there was very snowy, and in remoter parts pretty much free of cars, so I took the opportunity to see how the LEAF would handle on slushy snow. The results were pretty good - better certainly than a Prius, with minimal wheel slippage under moderate acceleration. Benefits of EVs having such direct drivetrains when traction control is needed.

Before I mention the negative, let me say that LEAF drives like a pleasant EV. There was nothing really dramatic about the test drive - the car managed well in city centre stop-go and on the highway; steering is very light in that Japanese car way, but precise and controlled; acceleration was pleasing; the car remained well controlled on snow.

Back at the dealership I noted the mileage covered and the estimated miles remaining. The results truly disappointed me:

33.7 miles driven

20 estimated miles remaining

4 bars (of 12) on the state of charge "fuel gauge"

[Notes and Analysis - please feel free to skip:

1. Not knowing how the range estimate is made, the 20 estimated miles remaining may all relate to my driving, or may have an element of the driver before; it may include my elevation climb from the school at sea-level to the dealership at around 150 meters; it may reflect a fall from the peak above Colinton at 160.

2. 4 bars remaining could mean anything! Assuming they are linear in state of charge (I don't know that - they could indicate pack voltage rather than kWh for all I know) then 4 bars could mean anything from just below 5 bars (41% SOC, 10 kWh) to just over 3 bars (25% SOC, 6 kWh). This is amazingly imprecise when you compare it to "Ideal Miles" in the Tesla which are out of ~240, and I fret if I feel they are off by 1 or 2 - i.e. My expectation is that SOC will be reported with a granularity of around 1% or better.

3. Of the 4 remaining bars, two are coloured red - naturally, I would be reluctant to use them. I think many others will feel the same, compounded by the lack of certainty what two bars means!

4. Analysing the numbers on face value, we dropped 53 miles of estimated range to drive 33.7 miiles. Extrapolating that, assuming 4 bars remaining means we really were 2/3 through the battery, we could have driven 50 miles total (with 16 miles remaining, not 20). Worse case, if 4 bars means just about to be 3 bars, total range would be just 45 miles, with just 11 left at that point. Best case (we just dropped 5 to 4 bars) it's 58 miles total, of which 24 remaining. This variance is well beyond tolerable if the driver has somewhere to go that is tight on range and needs to estimate whether they can get there.

5. We apparently dropped 2/3 of 24 kWh = 16 kWh to drive 33.7 miles so must have averaged 475 Wh/mile. (I couldn't understand the LEAF screens well enough, nor did the bar graphs seem precise enough, to corroborate this: one screen seemed to suggest the average usage was 125 Wh/mile which is nonsensical against the mileage and battery SOC meter reports.)

If 4 bars means nearly 5, that's 7/12 of 24 kWh = 14 kWh for 33.7 miles = 415 Wh/mile. Now that is by no means impossible - I have seen the Roadster do that kind of performance on cold days when AC had to be on to keep the screen clear.]

Could the dealer make this make sense? He was to be honest quite worried. I know he had been expecting far more range - when I came in he was excited that the EU had updated the LEAF's range officially to 109 miles. I had already cautioned him that this was on a very optimistic drive cycle (NEDC) and that the EPA result of 73 miles was likely more realistic. However and even so both he and I were blown away by how bad the range apparently was from the test drive.

He did offer that perhaps some range impact may have flowed from the following:

- Apparently there is an 80% charge mode on the LEAF like Standard on the Tesla. He didn't know if this was used by default
- Someone did a short drive in the car the night before - had it been charged after?
- Were there really 12 bars when we started? (I am confident that it did say 73 miles estimated)

I would add:

- It was cold and they charged the car in their service bay - did the pack as a result not fully charge?
- The cabin was warm when I got in - was a large fraction of the first bar already spent?

Adding all these factors:

80% charge mode
59% - the drop from just over 11 to just under 5 bars
20kWh - estimate of unknown actual cold capacity in the battery
= 9.44 kWh to go 33.7 miles
= 280 Wh/mile

All plausible. And fundamentally irrelevant. If the driver can't easily know the actual state of charge and Wh/mile they can't estimate range. The car's computer doesn't and can't do it better than the driver as it's not privy to where the driver is going to take it next. Nissan needs to wake up and smell the coffee on this one: accurate numerical values for SOC and Wh/mile are required not optional.

Equally Nissan needs to do a MUCH better job educating it's dealers. Jim at Alex F. Noble is highly motivated, but Nissan has not informed him enough. He can't answer these questions.

I suggested that he use the LEAF as his daily driver for a while to learn what the realistic range is and what affects it. I also said that before I could make a final decision we'd need to have the car for a day to do a full day of normal driving (my wife was very clear - we were well short of what she might need to do in a day). This was when the bombshell dropped:

"Sorry, there is no time for that. Its 12 March. You need to confirm your order by 15 March or the price of £23,995 that you thought you locked in just 13 days ago is going to rise by £2,000."

As I had put in a deposit on Jim's advice just before 1 March to try to hold an option against the announced price rise this was most unwelcome. Also note that the 12th March was the first day that this dealership could offer test drives. For the 15th to be the deadline was thus outrageous. My conclusion is that Nissan has so much demand or so little capacity that they really don't care if they piss off quite a large group of potential customers. They really want the extra £2,000.

To be fair both Jim and David Noble (who owns the dealership) were unhappy that Nissan had forced this price rise and timing. "A bad way to launch a product, with a price rise" was said.

Also it was put to me that locking an order ASAP was necessary to avoid lead times stretching beyond Q3 2011. I pointed out that with the Japan earthquake there were no guarantees that lead times would not be massively more stretched than that.

Anyway given that the UK LEAF is already over priced versus the US one; the £2,000 rise widens that gap; and the poor range and/or information in my test drive, I decided to pass. I think the narrowing gap between delivery time expectations for LEAF and Model S also played a part, as did my certainty that Model S will deliver decent range (at least 100 in real use) and really good driver feedback.

Jim did put in one more phone call to me on the 14th to reassure me that in subsequent test drives consumption had been lower. I believe him. But I also know what happened to me on my snowy test drive. I think it's blown the LEAF as an option for me.


Fonte http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthre ... #post61969