780 Miles in a 2011 Nissan Leaf in One Day?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

2011 Nissan Leaf at Quick Charging Station

By Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield

Contributing Writer, All Cars Electric

We love hearing about the weird and whacky things some electric vehicle enthusiasts and early adopters are doing with their cars, but the latest in a long-line of Nissan Leaf-based tests has left us feeling a little perplexed.

24 hours, one car

In a recent YouTube video, a team of intrepid Dutch electric vehicle enthusiasts set themselves the task of driving a 2011 Nissan Leaf for 24 hours straight, traveling from rapid charging point to rapid charging point on the country's network of freeways.

The reason? To see how reliable the car is and examine how convenient the rapid charging stations are.

Or in one of the words of one of the team, "We're doing this basically out of curiosity."

Science, practical application or stunt?

While we've done our own road trip of 520 miles over two days in a 2011 Nissan Leaf, the Dutch 24 hour endurance test took things to a whole new level, covering 779.19 miles (1254km) in a continuous cycle of driving and rapid charging. Traveling at freeway speeds, we'd expect the car to have been rapid charged at least 12 times, pushing both battery pack and cooling system to the absolute limit.

A test that extreme only proves one thing - that Nissan made a car technically capable of surviving life as a taxicab. Given that Nissan would have carried out its own continuous drive and recharge tests over distances far greater than 780 miles, we're hardly surprised the Dutch team didn't break anything.

We get it, electric cars can go the distance

But on the face of it the trip is just another long-distance trip in an electric car. Granted, this one is slightly more zany than many we've seen, but any long-distance or endurance trip like this reminds consumers of the very Achilles heel of electric cars: limited range.

Some electric car advocates argue that successful long distance electric car trips make the ultimate point that electric cars are more than capable of practically any trip you want to make in them, provided of course that suitable charging infrastructure exists, but we're not convinced consumers are yet ready to entertain long-distance trips that require more than one quick stop for recharging.

Despite our misgivings we have to admit that long distance trips do attract the attention of the media and potential consumers who have never heard of an electric car. The trick of course is to make sure that attention is given to the car, not the distance it has travelled.

At the moment, that is extremely difficult to achieve.

It's good to know that cars like the 2011 Nissan Leaf are technically capable of rapid recharging multiple times every day, but as we've said before, Nissan warns that over-use of rapid charging could shorten the battery pack's life.

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/780-miles-in-a-2011-nissan-leaf-in-one-day-yes-but-video.php?ref=fpc

[Ban Hammer 13,491]

now for the first time someone pulls out, forgetting they are still hooked up to the charger...

[Ban Hammer 13,491]

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Chuck, the math isn't your side. An all electric car costs about 3.5 cents a mile in fuel while a good mpg rated gas powered car (say 35mpg) costs about 10 cents per mile in fuel cost (@3.50/gallon). That said, an all electric that you have to charge every couple of hours on a long range drive really isn't all that convincing.

[Ban Hammer 13,491]

Chuck, the math isn't your side. An all electric car costs about 3.5 cents a mile in fuel while a good mpg rated gas powered car (say 35mpg) costs about 10 cents per mile in fuel cost (@3.50/gallon). That said, an all electric that you have to charge every couple of hours on a long range drive really isn't all that convincing.

until the hippies get rid of coal power plants, we shift to natural gas only, and then guess what - yup, higher electric rates...

nevermind the added 5-10k for an electric...

[luckytxn 2,265]

until the hippies get rid of coal power plants, we shift to natural gas only, and then guess what - yup, higher electric rates...

nevermind the added 5-10k for an electric...

Not to mention the hazardous waste to dispose of the batteries and the huge mark up for new batteries every few years.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

electric cars have been around for almost 100 years, and there's a good reason why each and every one of them has failed.

No one wants a half-arsed vehicle and no one wants to have to worry about stopping every 50 miles to recharge the damn things when they can go 300+ miles every fillup in a regular car.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Chuck, the math isn't your side. An all electric car costs about 3.5 cents a mile in fuel while a good mpg rated gas powered car (say 35mpg) costs about 10 cents per mile in fuel cost (@3.50/gallon). That said, an all electric that you have to charge every couple of hours on a long range drive really isn't all that convincing.

Compare operation costs, not "fuel costs" Will owners of electric cars agree to a lower "mileage rate" for reimbursement? I thought not.

Fuel is a small portion of the cost per mile of operation. How much does it cost to replace the batteries? How often? How much does the vehicle cost up front? Our 32 mpg Yaris was $14,000 brand new. How much for a Leaf? How far will it go when the heat is turned on? The headlights?

The fact is that electric cars and hybrids do not yet justify themselves in cost savings. When gas is about $5 per gallon they will begin to.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Compare operation costs, not "fuel costs" Will owners of electric cars agree to a lower "mileage rate" for reimbursement? I thought not.

Fuel is a small portion of the cost per mile of operation. How much does it cost to replace the batteries? How often? How much does the vehicle cost up front? Our 32 mpg Yaris was $14,000 brand new. How much for a Leaf? How far will it go when the heat is turned on? The headlights?

The fact is that electric cars and hybrids do not yet justify themselves in cost savings. When gas is about $5 per gallon they will begin to.

Look, just having to stop every two hours on a long haul drive would keep me from considering an electric car. The technology isn't mature yet. From an efficiency perspective, however, electric beats gas powered hands-down. That's because your average gas engine has a 25% or thereabout efficiency - i.e. you only use about 25% of the energy to move. The rest goes to waste.

[SMR 368]

Compare operation costs, not "fuel costs" Will owners of electric cars agree to a lower "mileage rate" for reimbursement? I thought not.

Fuel is a small portion of the cost per mile of operation. How much does it cost to replace the batteries? How often? How much does the vehicle cost up front? Our 32 mpg Yaris was $14,000 brand new. How much for a Leaf? How far will it go when the heat is turned on? The headlights?

The fact is that electric cars and hybrids do not yet justify themselves in cost savings. When gas is about $5 per gallon they will begin to.

Until the up front cost of an electric car goes down significantly, gas will have to be quite a bit more than $5 a gallon to make them a better deal. The price discrepancy isn't $5-10k as someone said. It's more like $15-20k. The government has some programs to help out, but it's still a lot more. And that only gets worse if you have to finance the extra cost (since most people don't have $40k in cash to spend on a car.

780 miles sounds like a good distance but if I have multiple drivers and am travelling around the clock I should hope to cover twice that distance on the interstate in 24 hours. 70 miles an hour for 24 hours is 1680 miles. Sure, you have to stop for gas, and such, but the electric vehicle just isn't close. The study is playing with people's perceptions that 780 miles is a good day on the interstate, which it is if you take time to eat, stretch your legs, and spend the night in a hotel. If you're going around the clock like the drivers in the study, 780 miles is lousy.

[Ban Hammer 13,491]

The price discrepancy isn't $5-10k as someone said. It's more like $15-20k.

i was being conservative with that figure