It does not suit everybody. Thankfully.

I would get a Tesla, with s range of upto 300 miles, but at the moment they are a little out of my price range. (4-5 times what I paid for my Leaf)
 
It does not suit everybody. Thankfully.

I would get a Tesla, with s range of upto 300 miles, but at the moment they are a little out of my price range. (4-5 times what I paid for my Leaf)

What's a leaf 16k?
 
What's a leaf 16k?


A new basic one after subsidies, yes.

I have the mid range one with faster charger fitted.

I have seen them from £9k second hand for a Gen 1. I have the Gen 2 with a few improvements like a heater than only costs me 5 miles out of the theoretical 124 miles. The Gen 1 had a theoretical range of 109 miles and as soon as you use the heater, lose 20 miles range.

In this bad weather I expect 70-75 miles on a full charge, but in good weather would expect over 100 miles.

It really makes you realise how much power is lost in bad weather even with an ice vehicle.
 
It's nice to see people taking up electric cars.

Personally I don't have a need for one as I do a lot of motorway and country roads but I do like the idea of quiet motoring.

The Leaf is much cheaper than I realised - I bet if (like yourself) you do a lot of city driving - particularly London, it's probably a very viable form of transport with electric charging points popping up everywhere. Also these faster chargers (rather than 8 hours) seem to make it much more doable.


Has anyone seen the acceleration on a Tesla Model S?! It's phenomenal!Love that car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndb_4L-6ZP0

The footage from about 36 seconds is great - the scenery just goes backwards!
 
It's nice to see people taking up electric cars.

Personally I don't have a need for one as I do a lot of motorway and country roads but I do like the idea of quiet motoring.

The Leaf is much cheaper than I realised - I bet if (like yourself) you do a lot of city driving - particularly London, it's probably a very viable form of transport with electric charging points popping up everywhere. Also these faster chargers (rather than 8 hours) seem to make it much more doable.


Has anyone seen the acceleration on a Tesla Model S?! It's phenomenal!Love that car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndb_4L-6ZP0
I too, love to see cars running on dammed rivers, coal, natural gas and nuclear energy on the road. It makes me feel clean.
 
I saw a drag race between a BMW M5 and a Tesla. The Tesla won..... and it was over a good distance.
 
A new basic one after subsidies, yes.

I have the mid range one with faster charger fitted.

I have seen them from £9k second hand for a Gen 1. I have the Gen 2 with a few improvements like a heater than only costs me 5 miles out of the theoretical 124 miles. The Gen 1 had a theoretical range of 109 miles and as soon as you use the heater, lose 20 miles range.

In this bad weather I expect 70-75 miles on a full charge, but in good weather would expect over 100 miles.

It really makes you realise how much power is lost in bad weather even with an ice vehicle.

So it loses how much in first year and service costs?

My daily banger costs max £1500 parts,service,fuel,road tax
 
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Over here, the Leaf (I'm pretty sure it was the Leaf) has a battery rental charge of €135 a month on top of the purchase cost.
It would barely take me to the supermarket and back on one charge and they are certainly not green on a dust to dust basis when you look at the cost of battery production and disposal plus pollution from the generation of electricity which overall is pretty inefficient.
OK for city centre use but useless for anything else IMO.
 
I drove it to visit my ageing parents this weekend. 75 mile in the rain. Outside temp was 4c. Standing water. Arrived with 13% left. Inside temp 21c with air con on to stop the inevitable foggy of windows on a wet day.

Very impressed. Nice quiet peaceful trip. Yes I drove slower than I would have in the Freelander but it still only took 1 3/4 hours which is the ball park for this journey.
 
Battery rental is an option starting at £70/month.

Or you can buy the whole car outright, which the previous owner did. I own the battery.

It is the Renault's that you can only rent the battery-no option to buy.
 
Well a year on

I have covered almost 12,000 miles. It has cost me 2.7p/mile in electricity. Still very happy. In fact so much so that I sold the Freelander last June. Yes I miss driving it off-road, but I couldn't justify spending at least £1000 per year just to keep it on the road for a few hundred miles a year, so it had to go.

My first service cost me £100 at a main dealer. No other expense throughout the year. The Freelander was costing a fortune to keep on the road.

Yes long journeys take longer, but as I have had a bad back, stopping every 1 to 1/2 hours is much better for it and I arrive refreshed.

At the moment I cannot see me going back to a fossil fuelled car any time soon.

The future is definitely electric, but until the range increases to around 200 miles or more for the average battery EV, then they will stay as a niche vehicle. But more and more manufacturers are producing EV's now, with almost every one making some sort of plug in or committed to. Even Jaguar/Land Rover.
 
Well done, seriously!

We looked at one for Juliet, not totally seriously 'cos we need a towing vehicle, but were quite pleased with what we saw. One of the office managers at school has one and for her 20 mile commute it's ace. Her shopping and general use is all in and around Sheffield/Doncaster and she rarely goes further than 40 miles in a round trip, so it's been very cost-effective for her .. She did exactly the same as you, bought 2nd hand the later version with fast charger. She knows nothing about cars and this suits her to a tee ... she's had nothing to do to it other than standard services. She often re-charges from the school boiler house when it's cold 'just in case' .. ;)

Gotta say, despite me being an ex-miner shovelling coal, I'm all for the newer technologies and I reckon we need more people like you to buy and use them! OK, electricity production still isn't totally clean, but the costs/benefits for the consumer seem pretty obvious.
 
Horses for courses and all that. If you only have a requirement for a mile muncher once or twice a year [holidays etc] then it makes sense to run electric year round and rent a car for the periods you need something bigger.
 
Ridiculous things. 6 - 7 years if your lucky and the battery is wrecked, which you will have to replaced and cost about £5k. Not to mention due to the manufacturing methods of the batteries they are about as green as an old Disco. So by the time that comes around it will have probably cost a very similar amount to your Freelander.

The only system that makes any kind of sense is hybrid tech, using a petrol/diesel engine to charge a battery is actually useful. Like the Hammerhead Eagle I Thrust :D
 
The battery's on the Gen 2 which I have seem to be lasting well over 100,000 miles before they are losing their first capacity bar, at around 85% state of health. They are lasting much better than anybody, including Nissan originally thought. The latest Leaf's battery's are under warranty for 8 years to retain 75% sate of health. Mine has warranty for 6 years. The manufacturing process is much greener than you are implying it is. I personally use an electricity supplier that uses 100% renewable energy, and when out on the road using the Electric Highway, they are also using renewable energy.

Nobody seems to mention how much energy is used to generate dino juice etc. But that has been done to death elsewhere.

Go test drive one for a week before you say they are ridiculous.
 
I'd never buy a car that needs work every hour or so to keep it going......



Oh hang on i've forgot about me landy.. :)
 
would be useless round here, even petrol stations are few and far between

I like the technology though but would never swap my old series 3 for an "economical" vehicle
 

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