I've been driving my Nissan Leaf for about a month now, and I love it.
- Better for the environment (yes, absolutely, in spite of some bodgy reports floating around)
- Much MUCH cheaper than petrol.
- Truly amazing performance... huge torque, no delay shifting gears... really fun to drive.
- And MUCH lower maintenance cost ...
- no sump means no oil or oil filters,
- no radiator,
- no transmission,
- most braking is done electrically so you brake pads hardly get used.
- Just tyres and windscreen washing fluid.
But, yes, range. The current generation of EV does not go as far on a refill as an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle.
For city driving (at which EVs do REALLY well and are really efficient, if only because you aren't burning fuel sitting in traffic) you just plug into a normal wall socket overnight.
For longer trips, there are charging stations.... in Australia there's a decent enough network already if you stick to the coast, and more coming every day.
When you use a fast charger, you need to look at the plug type. My 2018 Leaf has a CHAdeMO fand a type 2. The type 2 (sometimes referred to as a J1772 or Mennekes) is generally used for charging at home or from smaller charging stations (ie, Ikea).
The CHAdeMO is used for fast charging.
The key (apart from plug type) is to look at charging rates.
EV batteries are surprisingly efficient. So, if a charger says it will do 50KW (which is the max my leaf can take) it will put 50kwh worth of charge into you battery per hour, at least up to about 80% charge ... you get rapidly diminishing returns after 80%, but on my 40kwh Leaf I only need about 20-30 mins for a useful top-up. (I have yet to finish my coffee before wanting to disconnect).
Common sizes are 50, 25, 22, 7. A 7kwh charger is nice for a top up, and will get you perhaps 43km range per hour, but while that is better than nothing, I would not rely on it for long trips.
General wisdom to top up to 80% unless you know you've got a lot of travelling to do. If you really want to charge to 100%, you are better off trickle charging at home.
As a rough rule of thumb, 1kwh = 6km, depending on driving conditions.
Actually Charging
Plugging is not complicated, but there are a few traps for young players. Instructions below are for my Leaf, I can't speak to others.
- Turn car OFF before attempting to charge (my Leaf won't even let you pop the charge port if the car is still on)
- Make sure you haven't left any timers set, OR you hit the timer override button.
- You can set your Type 2 port to unlocked, locked, or auto, from the car.
- IMPORTANT: The Type 2 locking is controlled entirely from the car. The CHAdeMO is NOT. It is not unheard of for charging plugs to get stuck, and for the charging station support to have to cycle the charger to get it to unlock. MAKE SURE THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT PLUG YOU ARE USING)
- The CHAdeMO port will lock once it has started charging, and will unlock when done.
- All the CHAdeMO plugs I have used have a red light at the base of the handle to tell you it is charging. That has to be off before you try to unplug.
- On all versions of that plug I have used, you press a thumb button to get it to release.
- How you start and stop the charge session depends on the provider. NRMA stations just need you to press the start and stop button. All others you have to stuff about with phone apps.
- Make sure the red light is off before attempting to unplug... while not common, I've had the experience of the thumb-switch sticking. In the end, NRMA knew of the problem and a couple of sharp taps freed it up, but it took a while to resolve
Handy hint: you can sit at a fast charger and run the air conditioner while charging (once you've got the session started, anyway). At full whack it will consume about 3KW, so not worth doing on a hot day on a 7kw charger, but quite a pleasant option on larger ones.
Australia and EVs
We have 240v electricity, which means plugging in at home is entirely viable. Places with 120v generally need to break down and install special charging stations, or at least a special plug.
In theory, batteries perform less well in cold temperatures, but the cold temps they are talking about are significantly below freezing. There aren't a lot of places in Australia that happens on a regular basis.
The biggest issues I have noticed (apart from a noticeable range hit by using the air conditioner on hot days) is that long climbs at highway speeds can have a significant impact on range. For example, on a recent trip from Sydney to Canberra, the estimated range was tracking pretty closely to actual range covered (and in fact, slightly better) until we got to the hills approaching Mittagong, which it started dropping sharply. So perhaps lost 20km from the estimated total range in the last half hour of the trip. Still had plenty left when I got to my planned charging stop.
Charging Networks
There are a number of Charging networks popping up in Australia. Here are the ones I've used:
- NRMA - has set up a network of 50x 50kw charges around NSW. These are currently free to use and by far the easiest to operate. (Eventually they will only be free for NRMA members... this I feel is still good value)
- Chargefox - good sized network. with a fairly good app and decent enough price (typically 40c/kwh, with a 20% discount for NRMA members). Support did let me down badly the one time I had issues, though.
- Evie - does not offer the same NRMA discount, otherwise the one I used was also 40c/kwh. App is not as nice as the Chargefox one, but it worked OK.
- Jolt - some 25kw chargers scattered around Sydney. Setting up the app was a bit of a pain, and then I had to ring support. Having said that, support was helpful and got me going. Cost is also 40c/kwh, but you get the first 7kwh of the day for free. I got a free charge anyway because of having to ring support.
- EO: generally smaller chargers. They manage Ikea chargers. I found the app to be fiddly, but at least the Ikea chargers were free. I was very much just trying them out, so really did not do serious charging from them.
