I got to drive the Nissan Leaf electric car - RC-Monster Forums

snellemin · **I got to drive the Nissan Leaf electric car -** 01.10.2011, 12:08 PM

I got an email to test drive the Nissan Leaf car. Well I finally got to do it yesterday and I must say I'm impressed with the little bugger. I test drove it with 3 other man dudes in the car. That is nearly 700LBS of man gutts to pull around. So you can see that I really tested the sucker out under load

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It's roomy for it's size. Has a nice deep trunk space, but I would rather have had more batteries in there. Talking about batteries, those packs where small and used a small gauge wire. No big stuff needed as it runs on 400V. Brakes were good too, which was mostly motor braking. Stomped on the Accel. and it moved quickly. So to me it's a carpooling vehicle. The heater worked great too. Didn't get to play with the AC, as it was cold out. My buddy that drove it has well, liked that it was smoother then his Mercedes.
I just could not get over the ugly finned headlights. But they are there to reduce wind noise coming from your sideview mirrors.
Offcourse I asked when the battery packs would become available to the public and got a ?? response. EST street price per battery module is 500 bucks.
So for 25k I can get a great commuter. But for the same price I can build a 400hp V8 powered Mazda Miata. Now which one sounds like more fun

doo540 · 01.10.2011, 12:56 PM

25,000? That must be after the gov rebat?
I would like a electric car that ran like our BL cars, wheelstands and all.

Mazda would be more fun to drive, are you going to run a Chevy LS1 (family) for power?

snellemin · 01.10.2011, 12:57 PM

The Mazda would be my wifes project car in the future. Wifes want Ford engine, but might change later.

lincpimp · 01.10.2011, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snellemin

The Mazda would be my wifes project car in the future. Wifes want Ford engine, but might change later.

347 stroker SBF all the way... Apparently you married a good woman. Can you tell I like Ford?

I have seen quite a few miatas and rx7s done up with v8s. The lighter and smaller SBF fits alot better than the chevy motor, and if you are building one they cost the same. LS1 makes good power but has a few weird points that I do not care for. I will say they are more compact than the modular ohc for motors, but those run forever...

snellemin · 01.10.2011, 02:57 PM

Yea, I married a good woman. I can't afford 1000HP Ford GT or Ferrari. So I'll do it the Shelby way. Cheap Girly chassis, stuffed with big motor.

In the mid 90's, I first saw the conversion done in a Miata. It had the 5.0 Ford motor stuffed in it and my jaw dropped. Monster Miata has conversion kits now, so it's doable in my small garage at home.

Or Castle or Tekin can come up with new ESC for the Electric cars and I could have some serious fun tweaking. Have 5 Throttle profiles in the Nissan Leaf would be cool. It has the Eco mode which gains you some miles, but just sucks with 4 adults in the car. It takes 30 minutes to fully charge at the high power stations. 10 minute charge gains you about 30 miles of range. It does have a single 12V lead acide battery in the front that is used for the 12V accesories. A small solar panel also charges the 12V battery on sunny days.