100 mile round trip @ motorway speeds (65) using autopilot

 

I quite regularly do a 110 miles each way trip and just charge once on way back. I've also done 77 miles with 50% charge left a few times on my 2-3 days/week commute. As others do I stick to 65 max except downhill and bit less than 65 up longer drags. Car is now 20k miles but not noticing range degradation yet. Nearly all charging is AC not rapid except those occasional longer trips.

 

how much is left over after 110 miles? we may need a car that can do a 110 mile round trip commute soon, I have zero faith in the leaf 30 being able to do it on the motorway, I'm not even sure I would trust a leaf 40, pretty much 106 miles motorway roughly a 2 miles each end of non motorway driving

 

Can be up to 20% left after 110 miles, especially if mostly motorway and cruise at 65 or bit less on uphills. So doable for you I think.

 

Thanks for the replies guys.

I did a 72 mile round trip from Leeds to Manchester this afternoon, mostly on the M62, with a couple of A roads.

On the way there I took it easy, doing around 50 - 65mph. On the way back, knowing that I had plenty of battery I was doing around 65 - 80mph. I could have conserved the battery a bit more if I needed to.

It was a smooth ride. I got home with 52% of the battery left. I'm impressed with that. It gives me confidence to do around 120 miles on a single charge.

I love this car, I can't think of any other car right now I'd rather use for city driving. If I was doing more motorway driving, a Tesla model S would be better but for the city, the Leaf is ideal.

 

The furthest I have driven on one charge was Croydon to Fareham & back, a round trip of 170 miles. I arrived back with 2% showing. ProPilot on at 55mph, climate on at 18c, external temperature 32-28c. A22/M25/A3/A3M/M27 and back. It’s a fairly hilly route!

 

You are a brave man.

I need to take mine on some longer journeys. I'll carry the 3 pin charger around for a worst case scenario.

 

Great result. Shame the Leaf is so inefficient. Longest I have done is 212km (132 miles), not sure what speeds I was doing. It is the speed on motorways & dual carriageways that kills the range. I would reckon on a maximum of 200km for a long journey assuming max speed of 100km/hr. Its difficult to keep it to that speed sometimes (ok alot of times!)

 

That's an issue people have quoted many times "the leaf is inefficient"
The problem is its a false narrative, I've driven a 30kwh leaf for 2 years and averaged 5m per kwh regularly, I bought the 40kwh (heavier build) and am still averaging 5kw per mile.
On a cold wet hilly journey I did 137 miles with 15% remaining battery.
On mild days with a flat road I was getting 2 miles to the percent lost.
The leaf is as efficient an ev as any on the market a standard range model 3 (50kwh)
Will do 251m at 55mph that drops to 196m at 70mph and 180 M at 75mph.
The leaf is the same kW per mile across the same speeds.
If you want to do 70 mph then honestly an ev isn't for you, 60 is the top speed that will still allow you above 4.5 miles per kilowatt.
If you want to see inefficient check out the audi e tron 90kwh battery real world range about 200 miles even at a steady 60.

 

I find that all the starting and stopping traveling in the city eats into the range. I get the best range when I'm doing a moderate speed on the motorway.

The range has improved now the weather is warmer.

I love the car, I'm so glad that I bought it.

 

Mike, At 5.0miles/kWh with 37.5kwh usable that gives 187.5miles range - would you have got a further 17 miles on 2% ?!!

 

I've never found the miles/kWh figure displayed on dashboard to bear very much relevance to real life.

If 170.4 was 98% of usable battery, the other 2% would probably have been worth another 3.4 miles though even that is questionable. If Mike had been a little bit braver, perhaps he could have done a few circuits around local streets just to see how far he could get before it ground to a halt . But I doubt running a battery completely flat would be very good for it.

 

Never mid this boring longest nonsense, what's the shortest?
Mine was 36 miles from 98% down to 7% in my 24KW
(it used to lose 2% as soon as I reversed out of my drive, so forget 100%).
That was 36 miles of foot to the floor driving, as fast as the thing would go with hard braking into roundabouts etc.
Great fun.

 

Not really possible where I live to drive like that. Not that it stops others from racing around (literally) in the 20 & 30mph speed limits where I live .....

 

Great result. Shame the Leaf is so inefficient. Longest I have done is 212km (132 miles), not sure what speeds I was doing. It is the speed on motorways & dual carriageways that kills the range. I would reckon on a maximum of 200km for a long journey assuming max speed of 100km/hr. Its difficult to keep it to that speed sometimes (ok alot of times!)

I use the speed limit function all the time.

 

Don't you have cruise?
I don't really understand why anyone would use speed limiter instead of cruise.
I use speed limiter in my Polo because it doesn't have cruise and it's quite awful in comparison.

 

Great figures Mike. I got my best yesterday on way home from work 24km @ 2.41kWh (6.22miles/kWh) - sorry no picture but the trip does appear on the myleaf app if anyone need confirmation. Not sure of the ave speed but approx 35-40km/Hr

 

~177 miles, after my first "100%" charge.

I was headed south to San Francisco, and also did my first "100%" range test on my 2019 SL. I drove right by the DC chargers in Red Bluff and Dunnigan, and it looks like I could have gone About 180 level miles miles averaging ~62 mph, with temperature 60-65 F, assuming the Leafspy app was correct about the % charge remaining when I reached the Vacaville DC.

First ~30 miles to Anderson at various speeds below 55 mph with ~1,500 ft descent, but mostly unrecoverable energy due to the steep grade and high SOC.

Thereafter ~62 mph constant right lane I-5 traffic speed. Results from the final miles:

LBW at 9% dash 16.0 miles range , 17.2 % (LeafSpy Light) 153.1 m (odometer), @4.8 m/kWh (dash). Then reduced speed to ~55 mph.

2% dash ...miles range, 12.2% 161.3 m @ 4.8 m/kWh.

0% 8.6% 170.0 miles @ 4.8 m/kWh..

Exited freeway and continued at low speed!

6.5% at 172.1 miles @ 4.8 m/kWh.

My Car's odometer under-reports by a few percent. Google maps (correct AFAIK) indicated ~177 miles total, for this trip .

Google Maps

 

I do a 90mile commute and have anywhere between 20% to 40% .
And I have an absolute ball coming home through back roads surprising quite a few so called quick cars.
Brilliant car

 

This is great to see. I've got to try a 150+ mile journey sometime.

Every none EV owner I speak to about the Leaf goes on about the limited range. For most people in the UK, it wouldn't be a problem.

 

Have never understood why they don’t fit 2 or 3 speed drives - as you say, you wouldn’t pull away in third or cruise on the motorway in it, so it’s daft!

 

In my considered opinion electric motors have quite different characteristics to a traditional ice vehicle.

The ice has a narrow power band and needs the gears to make it useable. They are complex and heavy and wear out

The Electric motor has a large power band and doesn’t need gears. A couple of vehicles have a gearbox, but they will need to be much stronger than a normal gearbox to cope with the torque which means more expensive, plus it’s only really needed for higher top speeds.

A big advantage of no gearbox is simplicity and it should help keep costs down. Most EV’s have a lower top speed which for the general public is way more than enough and is generally higher than the national speed limit.

 

Agree with all of that - but have you ever tried to pull away on a bike in top gear?

The fact is, it must use much more energy to pull away than it would with a “lower gear” and would use less battery up on the motorway in a “higher gear” surely?

Is this the next development we might see. Of course elec motors spin up to 30,000rpm + Whereas ice do 6000 to 7000 rpm in most cars, but even so.... perhaps one option is the two motor cars, to have them geared differently and change from one motor to the other depending on speed?

 

Agree with all of that - but have you ever tried to pull away on a bike in top gear?

The fact is, it must use much more energy to pull away than it would with a “lower gear” and would use less battery up on the motorway in a “higher gear” surely?

Electric motors have very high torque from zero revs. They are generally limited to around 10,000 rpm.

 

I get they have high torque, but to use it you have to gear it properly, fit an infinitely high gear ratio to it and it won’t get going no matter how high the torque.

Similarly, to drive at 70 on a slight downhill stretch, that same motor, with its high torque would only need a tiny amount of power and could run crazy high gearing, so to make out ev’s More efficient, surely even a two speed gearbox would help?

 

But no EV has "an infinitely high gear ratio" ! The power band of an electric motor is so wide that it's extremely unlikely that changing the gear ratio would improve its efficiency. Multiple gears would just mean more expense and more things that could go wrong.

 

The higher top speed EVs have more than one speed but I don't know whether the driver has any choice of high or low.

However, one advantage of high torque from zero rpm is the rapid acceleration so the motor current drops quickly and is only highest when you are moving off.

I can't see there being any advantage in having two ratios on most EVs because at speed, the car requires x watts of energy to maintain speed, so there's probably not much to be gained by simply lowering the motor rpm.

Gears on an ICE vehicle are principally required to multiply the feeble low rpm torque.

 

See the efficiency curve on P. 2 of this free preview:

FlexPaper AdaptiveUI JSP Example

Development of High Response Motor and Inverter System for the Nissan LEAF Electric Vehicle ($33.00)

All electric motors lose very little in efficiency over a vey broad RPM range.

IMO, adding a second gear really only makes sense if you regularly drive at very high rpm (meaning at illegal speeds in most countries) and want to retain higher torque.

As to what this has to do with the thread topic, I have no idea...