Nissan Leaf - 100% Electric car
 

Supposedly due out late 2010, looks kinda interesting. Unfortunately, there isn't much technical info at the site: http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index.jsp. But after a little digging around, here are some highlights/comments:

• Uses 90kw/24kwh Lithium Ion batteries.
  
  
• 87mph top speed.
  
  
• 110hp / 210ft-lb torque
  
  
• Can charge via 440v AC (charges to 80% in 30 minutes), 220v AC (4 hour charge), and 110v AC (8 hour charge).
  
  
• 100 mile range in city. Highway mileage in the air right now due to the possible poor aerodynamics for high speeds, and the fact that the motor is more efficient at low speeds. So, I imagine highway mileage will be lower; probably similar to how combustion engine mileage varies, but in reverse.
  
  
• Said to cost ~$3 per charge. So, $3 per 100 miles. Most cars can get around 300 miles on a tank of gas, so that would be $9 per "fillup". Even if that $3 is optimistic, double that value is still pretty decent.
  
  
• Can communicate via cell phone to let the user know charge level. Probably other stuff too, but I don't think I'll enjoy conversing with my car, so this isn't a big deal to me.
  
  
• I don't like the front mounted charge receptacle. Last thing I want to do at the end of a drive is open a little door covered in bug guts when plugging it in. I think they should have put it on one side or the other.
  

Been looking at it since it stated advertising on TV.

Just don't know too many people with 440v connections in the home... :lol:

However, 220v should be a breeze, 4 hours doesn't sound bad at all.

I would plug in at the office while at work, sneaky way of not paying for the "fillerup"

yeah, 440v might be a little tough unless people specifically have their house wired that way. 220v would be much more common; probably 95% more common. Even 110v @ 8 hours isn't bad really.

You could probably get away with charging for "free" at work for now since it won't be very common. If more people get vehicles like this, I can see offices starting to have charging ports outside at parking places; kinda like the old style drive-in movie speakers. Of course, I'm sure they'd find a way to charge you for the convenience.

The naysayers will argue that this isn't really a "green" vehicle since the electricity used to charge it ultimately comes from burning fossil fuels in most cases. But it is more efficient to have one giant "engine" generating the power that to have an engine in each car. Would be easier to control emissions too.

I'm wondering how the cabin will be heated in winter. Electric heat is "expensive" in terms of power requirements, and it HAS to eat into the mileage. Speaking of that, I wonder what the base mileage is for winter vs summer.

Personally, I'd like to see an option for more capacity for people who feel 100 miles is not quite enough. Heck, even a manual bank-switching scheme would work. Even if double the capacity is not feasible (but it does look like there is plenty of room in the trunk), a "reserve" bank would be nice. Kinda like on some larger pickups where you flip a switch to swap between two gas tanks; my old employer had an F-450 (IIRC) box truck that had this.

Neat little car, but the very fact that it has poor aerodynamics, what's with manufacturers and doing this? EV's need every last bit of efficiency gain to make them desirable, and aero's are everything. 110hp and 87mpg top speed just doesn't make any sense, unless it is electronically limited. Also, only 100 miles for 24KWh battery is not that good IMO, unless they gave it a very conservative range, which I can understand, 'you are guaranteed 100 miles in city'. Sorry to be so critical on EV's, but I have so many problems with them, at least the way big manufacturers build them.

Mitsubishi, 5 years ago, came out with an electric Lancer Evo, with 4 wheels motors of 50KW each, and 270hp total. That should get the car moving in a hurry, especially 0-60mph (<4 secs). I haven't seen anything materialize from that though. :neutral:

.......

As far as aerodynamics go, Nissan is probably just trying for something a little sportier to appeal to the younger crowd. Let's face it, 99% of the general market hybrids are not very inspired in the design department. Hatchbacks in general are really bad though; my Mazda 3 hatch can attest to that. You know there are rear vortexes when you see the rear window get spattered instantly with water when the road is just wet (not actively raining). Nissan could probably have squeezed a little better aerodynamics out of the hatchback design by putting some kind of spoiler that channeled at least some air down the back window.

It looks good on paper so far. I do agree that more aerodynamics would help all around tho.

personally, i'd love an electric commuter car. i just despise the design - i wish there could be a compromise between this and the tesla car.

Thoughts this was a relevant but funny article from a Sydney paper...

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/e...0223-p0gr.html

EV's use 15,000v? Hmm, I didn't think a 4000s pack would fit, unless they were all cell phone cells. :smile: They probably meant current, but that's gotta be peak draw on acceleration. The guy sounds like someone who heard just part of a conversation and is trying to sound smart.

On first read I thought he was referring to rpm!

These will be great once they can go 200+ miles before charging

Wondering how high the electric bill would be when it comes in...

hmmm..

Wonder what the cost is?
My Mazda P5 gets ~30mpg, if I assume $2.75/gal, fuel costs for the first 100K mi is ~$8300.

For the Leaf, 1st 100K mi's cost just over $3000, if you assume $3/100mi.

If you never had to replace the batt, and fuel cost stayed same, and repairs were ~ same, it would only save ~$10K over the life of the car. My mazda cost $16K new.
the Leaf needs to come in around Prius prices (mid/low 20's) to have a chance in the market IMO.

You must factor in the cost of the car to get a true bang for the buck! That's where the hybrids fall short and as for "GREEN"

15,000volts.... that's funny, and not. :no:

I am all for high voltage in EV's, and the highest I will implement is ~600 Volts, still enough to easily kill someone, but at least no arcing.... 15,000V LOL

People will be surprised when a well thought EV comes out. I hope the person and/or company will last long enough to open their eyes.

I won't be surprised, I just think people need to get back to the drawing board. Quit trying to push just any electric car to appeal to the environuts and put out a great product. Like the saying goes, build a better mousetrap............

I for one would love a well engineered and executed electric car.

+1 :yes:

Someone is trying :lol:. That someone might have found a legend in the automotive and motor sport industry. If the vehicles that certain someone :whistle: gets to build, it'll sure push other technologies forward. It will definitely open the door for better batteries and better materials to be made.

It's not the electric car that needs to well designed and executed, the root issue is, and always has been the batteries, and the ONLY issue. Every other piece of the EV, as far as motors, controllers, electronics are far advanced and provide plenty of headroom to work with. If battery tech were actually funded and R&D'd with a 'decent' buck for the last 100 some years, we would already have had awesome EV's for probably several decades, since the 70's even. As the tech theory was there on paper, just not near enough funding.

Aside from battery tech, there are 5000+ high tech patents in the USA alone that are labeled top secret and are on a technical 'gag order', as titled by the CIA... all because they tell you that they are a 'threat to national security'. So, use your imagination on what these 5000+ patents consist of, because obviously they are a threat to THEIR security of power.

Funded..by whom? It's just that every time I hear "properly funded" I feel someone tugging at my wallet! If there is a honest demand for an EV it will be developed and sold by private enterprise and as of present that demand doesn't exist. As an example Toyota has mothballed an entire factory that was 99% complete that was set to produce the Prius but after fuel prices dropped there was no longer a demand for the car.

Maybe by leveling the playing field a bit with the massive tax breaks and subsidies the oil industry gets.

Exactly, by the tax payers money. They waste billions upon billions of our money every year on useless nonsense, that never pans out (and they know this), for instance hydrogen fuel cell research, they know it's a dead end as far as storing hydrogen, it leaks straight through the tank wall. The fuel cell system is incredibly complex, and the efficiency from WELL-to-WHEELS is equal to WORSE than that of an ICE car (depending on source).

Billions of you money goes to military, to a war that is a complete farce, which can never be won, and is war being fought for Israel. Billions go to these pharmaceutical companies who produce nothing of value, only drugs which 'may' reduce this, but cause this, this , and this, which need these drugs........on and on, we're living in a drug pill popping society. They make several 100,000 times profit on some products, and where is this going? To rich globalists who produce NOTHING of value, and do not evolve our society.

Whoever the money changers are, control the population.

Some of you think why am I talking about this, but it's very important to see the whole picture to understand what is going on, otherwise, there is confusion.

The "truth" about the OIL CO. tax breaks and subsidies!

Not sure what is meant by that. That talks about offshoring oil profits as a tax dodge, and is from 2 yrs ago admist an election campaign.

What I'm talking about are large tax/subsidy adv oil co's have due tp govt policy, and how it distorts the market and does not let tech fairly compete. This article from the conservative Cato institute discusses the issue. They argue against the $36B odd subsidies, but also criticize the Dems for wanting to end the breaks to just transfer them to Green Tech. Both actions distort free markets at the expensive pf taxpayers. I dont go as far as they do, but they do make the point.
I'm for the elec tech, but they do need to produce marketable vehicles. Between the Leaf and the Tesla, they don't seem to be aiming higher than a niche status. Somebody will eventually figure it out.

lol, once again an innocent thread has turned political. Seems to be a recurring theme. I wonder why this type of thing seems to happening more and more lately?

Anyway, from all the posts, I think we can agree that (in no particular order):

1: We are generally moving in the right direction as far as popularizing EV's
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2: Motor and controller technology is ready and waiting for the ideal power source.

3: Need to expand the EV market to more than just supercars and in-town runners. I honestly think this is because no company wants to jump in with both feet making their whole vehicle line-up electric until they see if it's gonna sell.

4: 100 mile range is simply not good enough. Most want more. Especially since EV's are relatively rare and finding a convenient "fill-up" station during a road trip may be difficult if not impossible at the moment.

5: Battery technology is what is holding us back.

6: Simple is better. No complex fuel cells, or other unnecessarily complicated schemes.

7: Price needs to come down.

I personally think the biggest hurdle right now is battery tech. No matter how nice everything else works, if the batteries can't meet expectations, these ideas are not gonna take off (except maybe for the niche greenie market). Once that is solved, all the other issues will be easily addressed.

Until that happens, I'd like to see an efficient solar technology used. Not to run the car off it, but to charge it between runs and to assist during running. Even if a panel array "only" puts out 1000w, that should at least extend runtime. And if you do run out of juice in the middle of nowhere, just give it several hours in the sun to get you going again.

I hear talk about cheap and flexible solar panels that can be "painted" onto panels. This would be pefect given the surface area of a vehicle's body panels. But so far, nothing is actually being done with it (that I know of anyway).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0719011151.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0320095008.htm

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bo...n/item_59.html

Agreed Brian. On the subject of solar panels, there is so much headroom that is waiting too, with panels being between 10 - 15 % efficient. There is roughly ~1300watts per square meter on the surface of earth, so you do the math on what could be done with 100% efficiency. A couple years ago I read an article that a team of scientists have figured out how to mimic photosynthesis (99.8% efficient). So if the same process is applied to an electrical solar panel, well, wouldn't that be just grand. :smile:


I too find it strange that these unsuspecting threads keep turning political. :whistle:

Election time, Sorry :oops:

Lol no worries everybody. I think all the economic turmoil has just got everyone in the country stressed out and edgy. Hell of a decade we've been thru.

Does anyone know who is suppling the batts? The solar tech is an interesting idea too. You could really disconnect. I always wonder how friendly employers will be to charging @ work. If its $3/day/car, & 500 cars in the lot is doing it, I could see some employers getting pissy about it. Low range elecs really have a hurdle if you only have the night to charge.

Joint venture between Nissan and NEC (NEC Tokin) http://www.eco-aesc.com/en/

zpb, I thought that 10-15% was entry level on panels? hasn't somebody achieved 40%+ recently?

Agree though, if 60-70% efficiency can be cost effectively achieved, the world's going solar

It can easily be solved if every roof top were built with solar cells, a few battery packs in the basement or a shed, a few of other free energy goodies, but they (Money hungry, greedy bastards) wouldn't be happy with empty pockets. No need for power making companies and no need to have gas runing bellow a few cities.

Actually I think 20% is the newer typical efficiency, true, BUT, they need to be a low cost/Kw output, that is why panels efficiency vary so much, because in the end, a low output low cost panel is just as cost effective as a higher output higher cost panel. There is obviously a limit on the low end, as you run into area constraints, and would end up being MORE expensive.

Agreed as well, we need about 60-70% efficiency like you said to really get things moving with solar, and to meat energy use.

According to the info here, 277.8w per square foot of energy is produced by the sun on a sunny day. If we can get even 50% efficiency, it wouldn't take a lot of square footage to get 1000w. Not a lot to be sure, but it's "free".

The Australian Govt is handing out solar lollies (candy) at the moment...not as many since last week but still some

http://www.environment.gov.au/energy...ter/index.html

If you live in the right part of Sydney you get this...

http://www.blacktownsolarcity.com.au/

Huh? That is over 3 Kw/m2.. I have never seen that number been thrown around. Perhaps they are using the 'top of the atmosphere' radiation level, which of course, is alot higher? Even then, that is way too high.


Planet W/meter squared MAX - MIN
Mercury 14,446 – 6,272
Venus 2,647 – 2,576
Earth 1,413 – 1,321
Mars 715 – 492
Jupiter 55.8 – 45.9
Saturn 16.7 – 13.4
Uranus 4.04 – 3.39
Neptune 1.54 – 1.47

I too have seen higher numbers thrown around, and I am unsure of what is the true number, the most common estimate is roughly 1.3 - 1.5Kw/m2. We should get to the bottom of this, as it's kind of important to know... :tongue:

I imagine some of those numbers are simply being calculated for the theoretical power output of the sun, then divided the surface area of a sphere of a radius the distance of a planet's orbit from the sun, then multiplied by the surface area of the planet itself.

What is not specified is the type of radiation they are counting. Even from an Infrared to Ultra Violet range, I'm sure there are only discrete wavelengths that can be captured by solar panel tech. Even in the chlorophyll comparison, chlorophyll only captures a limited range of EM radiation (ie in the red and blue range) but everything else is missed. I wonder what the actual power availability is.

Have to do some more searching to find that out.

Yeah, panels vary in the light absorption effectiveness and spectrum effectiveness, two different but equally important aspects. Chlorophyll is not the only pigment in plant photosynthesis though, there are others as well, which have different absorption curves of light than Chlorophyll.

I wish I could simply plug myself into the car and have it draw calories to power it. Would be an effective and easy way to lose weight...