Having heard so much about electric cars, I was excited to get the opportunity to go for a longer journey in the 30 kWh version of the Nissan LEAF (range 120 miles):
We started the journey in Tremail, heading for IKEA in Exeter. Once we reached the A30, the car was cruising gently all the way to Exeter. The cruise control was activated at 60 miles per hour, leaving us free to chat during a relaxing journey. Once at IKEA, we headed for the electric vehicle charging point, where we met a fellow electric car fan:
He was enthusiastic about his Nissan LEAF but also told us that he had recently had a test drive in an electric MG (range 200 miles) which he said was a fantastic experience. He was in the process of charging his car and was kind enough to finish his charging session early to allow us to start charging ours, before we headed for IKEA:
The journey home was equally pleasant and I arrived back in Tremail a convert.
The future is electric!
In case you’re confused by the almost “fully charged” reading of only 101 miles in the photo of Lisa’s dashboard after charging at the IKEA in Exeter, let me endeavour to explain.
Firstly the faster you drive an electric vehicle the less range you will achieve on a full battery pack. Cruising along the A30 at 60 mph will deliver less “mileage” than tootling along Cornish country lanes at more sedate speeds.
Secondly for our research and development purposes we deliberately purchased a LEAF that has had a hard life. When we gave her a good home Lisa had travelled nearly 70,000 miles in less than three years. One consequence of which is that she is missing one of the normal 12 bars from her battery capacity indicator, the rightmost section of a LEAF’s dashboard display.