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Run on Sun Test Drives a Nissan Leaf
10/04/10
10:38:29 pm, by Jim Jenal - Founder & CEO 
, 543 words 
Categories: Solar Economics, Electric Cars that Run on Sun, Climate Change
Run on Sun Test Drives a Nissan Leaf
Link: https://www.drivenissanleaf.com/Win/Vote.aspx?b=PH2HRWG829WB
This past Sunday, my Chief Electrician, Velvet, and I had the chance to test drive the new, all-electric Nissan Leaf. This was the very start of a semi-nationwide test drive event that Nissan is holding over the next six months. (I say semi-nationwide because the test drive event corresponds to those states in which the Leaf is being rolled out in the initial phase. Sadly, that excludes almost all of the middle portion of the country, focusing instead on California, the rest of the West coast, Texas, Florida, the Carolinas (Steph - don't miss out!) and then the East coast.) This past weekend in Santa Monica was the first opportunity for "regular" people to drive the much talked about Leaf. (About half of the folks in our driving group had reservations down on the Leaf.)
I have to say, I was not disappointed. The car has plenty of pep, has been intelligently designed and the appointments are acceptable, if not luxurious. (I presently drive an Acura TL six-speed, so I am accustomed to both performance and luxury. While the Leaf cannot equal the TL in either category, my TL averages under 20 MPG in my day-to-day driving. My Leaf will let me do all of my routine driving fueled by solar power - literally letting me Run on Sun - and I can fit a Little Giant ladder in the hatchback with the rear seats down so I can do solar site evaluations from the Leaf!) I will be writing a more elaborate review for our friends over at Solar Charged Driving and I encourage you to look for that article there in the next few days.
Above you see the charging port for the Leaf, concealed behind a tilt-up panel in the hood. On the right is the conventional charge connector where the standard 240VAC charger will be connected. For most Leaf owners, this is how they will charge their Leaf most of the time. On the left side is the rapid-charge connector and as you can see, the main charge connections are pretty beefy. They had better be. According to Nissan, the rapid charger will give you an 80% charge in 30 minutes. Let's do the math - the Leaf has a 24kWh battery pack - if you are charging 80% of that you will be pushing 19.2 kWh onto the Leaf in 0.5 hours. That means that the charger must be delivering 38.4 kW for those 30 minutes. At a nominal 240VAC, that means that the current will be equal to 38,400W/240V = 160 Amps! Big sparks!
At the end of the test drive, Velvet and I taped a short video as part of Nissan's win a free Leaf contest. Give their marketing folks credit, this is a great PR stunt - get folks to record videos describing why they should win a free car and encourage them to get their friends to vote for them. I am guessing that folks will get very elaborate in their prep for this as the word gets out (ah, such is the life of an early adopter!) Anyway, we like free as well as the next guy so please, check out the video we made - and vote for Run on Sun to get a free Leaf! (But don't give me grief for doing all the talking - Velvet is shy!)
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