I’ve owned an 2012 Nissan Leaf and I currently drive a 2017 Kia Soul EV. I will never go back. Those Chinese cars are awesome, though (too bad can’t get them in US). I live in Hawai’i, on O’ahu, where longer range is not needed. My Kia still gets about 125 miles to a charge (if I finesse how I drive and don’t run the A/C) and I can go from one side of the island and back on that. But I had the Leaf when I lived in Florida and it got maybe 50 miles to a charge and that was… well, I learned about “range anxiety” with that one.
What I really dislike about the newer US EVs is that they are, increasingly, enormous. My Kia Soul is perfect. But the US is obsessed with every vehicle being the size of a studio apartment for some reason.
Did the Leaf come from the factory with a 50mi range? That’s whack, I remember seeing an eGolf with like 75mi while I was car shopping last year and couldn’t believe that would work for anyone who drives any appreciable amount of time or distance.
The car I ended up with (2021 Polestar 2) has a nominal ~230mi range and that still feels pretty low compared to newer vehicles with 300+mi ranges.
No. I think it might have had around 100 miles when new (it was a 2012 model, one of the first EVs on the market after the Saturn fiasco covered in Who Killed the Electric Car?), but I bought it when I was at the dealership to look at a used vehicle (Nissan Frontier) and there was a Leaf there for $4000. My entire equation was: I’d like an EV+Here’s a used EV+It’s way cheaper than the truck I was test-driving=I’m buying the used EV. I did no research on battery capacity, etc. going entirely into the purchase cold. Apparently like 40% of the cells were spent. But I really only needed the car to get me around town, so it was perfect for that. It also taught me how to effectively drive an EV for maximum battery usage (which works great for my current car).
What they’ve done with battery capacity in the last five years is incredible. My 2017 Kia was ~125 when new (but purchased in 2020 and battery was down to about 95 miles). I had some manufacturer related issues, so I wound up getting a brand new electric motor and battery in the car, significantly jumping up the range of the vehicle (but they never reset the calculator, so it’s a bit of a guessing game. When fully charged it says I have between 96-100 miles, but I’ve got it to 126 with a bit to spare, never once going into “turtle mode” or anything like that). But, again, since I live on a not-very-big island, I don’t need more range than this. What would be nice is if there was better EV charging infrastructure (and not needing twelve different apps). More chargers would make range-anxiety on older EVs nonexistent, but I’m sure that since Big Oil is now investing in chargers they want to try and pull an Apple/Samsung and steer everyone toward having to buy newer cars more often.
I’ve owned an 2012 Nissan Leaf and I currently drive a 2017 Kia Soul EV. I will never go back. Those Chinese cars are awesome, though (too bad can’t get them in US). I live in Hawai’i, on O’ahu, where longer range is not needed. My Kia still gets about 125 miles to a charge (if I finesse how I drive and don’t run the A/C) and I can go from one side of the island and back on that. But I had the Leaf when I lived in Florida and it got maybe 50 miles to a charge and that was… well, I learned about “range anxiety” with that one.
What I really dislike about the newer US EVs is that they are, increasingly, enormous. My Kia Soul is perfect. But the US is obsessed with every vehicle being the size of a studio apartment for some reason.
Did the Leaf come from the factory with a 50mi range? That’s whack, I remember seeing an eGolf with like 75mi while I was car shopping last year and couldn’t believe that would work for anyone who drives any appreciable amount of time or distance.
The car I ended up with (2021 Polestar 2) has a nominal ~230mi range and that still feels pretty low compared to newer vehicles with 300+mi ranges.
No. I think it might have had around 100 miles when new (it was a 2012 model, one of the first EVs on the market after the Saturn fiasco covered in Who Killed the Electric Car?), but I bought it when I was at the dealership to look at a used vehicle (Nissan Frontier) and there was a Leaf there for $4000. My entire equation was: I’d like an EV+Here’s a used EV+It’s way cheaper than the truck I was test-driving=I’m buying the used EV. I did no research on battery capacity, etc. going entirely into the purchase cold. Apparently like 40% of the cells were spent. But I really only needed the car to get me around town, so it was perfect for that. It also taught me how to effectively drive an EV for maximum battery usage (which works great for my current car).
What they’ve done with battery capacity in the last five years is incredible. My 2017 Kia was ~125 when new (but purchased in 2020 and battery was down to about 95 miles). I had some manufacturer related issues, so I wound up getting a brand new electric motor and battery in the car, significantly jumping up the range of the vehicle (but they never reset the calculator, so it’s a bit of a guessing game. When fully charged it says I have between 96-100 miles, but I’ve got it to 126 with a bit to spare, never once going into “turtle mode” or anything like that). But, again, since I live on a not-very-big island, I don’t need more range than this. What would be nice is if there was better EV charging infrastructure (and not needing twelve different apps). More chargers would make range-anxiety on older EVs nonexistent, but I’m sure that since Big Oil is now investing in chargers they want to try and pull an Apple/Samsung and steer everyone toward having to buy newer cars more often.