[PaulMorris]

Well, delivery of our LEAF is booked today and we take our trusty X-Trail off the road. We'll be joining the BEV club with no ICE to call our own. That is until our Outlander PHEV turns up towards the end of June

From zero electric vehicles to two in one month should be interesting.

To be honest the pre-delivery excitement is being tempered by initial range anxiety, not helped by the fact we have the 6.6kW LEAF without the 13a brick, we're still waiting on @Thephoenixworks to install our home charge point, and the EVSE kit from @nuWorld Energy still hasn't arrived. To top that, rapid at my local nissan dealer, wessex bristol is broken

On balance it's still going to be a day, we're armed with RFID cards for Sourcewest & Ecotricity so I'm sure we'll survive

 

[Lee Dalton]

Exciting times ! Hope it turns up soon so that you can go and play in it

 

[Paul]

Going from ICE to EV only here (no range extender either) has been much smoother than you'd think given the flack and misadventures we've recently seen. You'll be fine, enjoy it!

 

[dobbers]

We have had a Leaf for just over a month now so I can appreciate the anxiety you must be feeling. Our other car is a Citroen Grand Picasso with a diesel engine which has spent most of May sitting on the driveway as my wife takes the Leaf to and from work. At weekends and evenings we use the Leaf a lot for small journeys running the kids to their various activities and then it spends overnight charging via the homebuilt ZCW EVSE unit to be ready for the next day.

As you can see from the above graph, we spend some days making multiple little trips.

The average distance for each trip is pretty small:

Now your usage is likely to be completely different but I would not worry too much as you get smarter about judging the distance you want/need to drive.

Dave

 

[PaulMorris]

Thanks guys, well the range anxiety has been washed away by big smiles all around.

I really should have test driven one of these before taking a lease, but these are amazing cars! The worst thing was getting use to the gear selector, and remembering how to drive an auto again. 1st trip into work was soooo smooth, on the way back I thought I'd try the Eco button to see what that did. I nearly snapped my neck . Hadn't realised it defaulted to Eco and I'd actually turned it off!- they should have marked it the "turbo" button

Economy went down, but smiles went up from there onwards.

Then had to pop into Bath this evening. First public charging experience went flawlessly at the Source West posts in Charlotte Street car park. Left the car for 3 hours, fully charged. Nice.

Feeling much happier, but I think our household is headed for stormy times. My wife is already calling it her car. Really looking forward to the next 18 months.

To top everything off the EVSE kit has arrived from @nuWorld Energy today, so home charging via commando socket will be up & running tomorrow

 

[dobbers]

The other aspect to consider is the educational one. My kids love the Leaf and think it is a really cool car because it looks like the future to them. They tell their friends and all the stories are positive. They prefer to go out and about in the Leaf with the longer trips for them feel like an adventure. We have visited a fast charger near where we live and again it is all questions about why other families with two cars could not switch over to an electric car as the second run-about car.

I have also had both neighbours want to know more and express a desire to get one. It was the same with solar panels - once someone in the neighbourhood dips their toe into the water and gets them, then others seem to want to know details and suddenly the idea does not feel so strange to them after all.

 

[PaulMorris]

@dobbers - you're right, colleagues at work are very interested and want a go. It's a very slow organic and positive start for EVs - all these 'road trip' adventures really don't help. Nikki's experiences on the Wave trip barely a week after mocking a newbie BBC journo for taking a 'road trip' just emphasise the limitations and inconvenience of such a trip, and ignore the sheer brilliance for most* everyday motoring.

We're already trying to figure out how to explain to our nearly-two year old that it's not a broom broom. Anyone got a good baby name for EVs? Zoom Zoom?

*most - in my unqualified opinion

 

[Lee Dalton]

@dobbers - you're right, colleagues at work are very interested and want a go. It's a very slow organic and positive start for EVs - all these 'road trip' adventures really don't help. Nikki's experiences on the Wave trip barely a week after mocking a newbie BBC journo for taking a 'road trip' just emphasise the limitations and inconvenience of such a trip, and ignore the sheer brilliance for most* everyday motoring.

We're already trying to figure out how to explain to our nearly-two year old that it's not a broom broom. Anyone got a good baby name for EVs? Zoom Zoom?

*most - in my unqualified opinion

Didn't Mazda already steal the 'zoom zoom' line? ....