2011 Nissan Leaf: Our First U.S. Test Drive Reveals an EV With Street Cred
By John O'Dell July 8, 2010
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
It was a long time coming, but we finally got to get behind the wheel of a real Nissan Leaf and take it for a drive on real streets.
It was an experience that left little to be desired.
We were invited down to Nissan's North American design center in La Jolla, California, on Wednesday to be one of the first U.S. journalists to take the only preproduction Leaf in the States for a spin as the company begins a media roadshow to expose automotive writers - many of whom have only seen the car in photos - to its upcoming battery-electric hatchback.
Between Green Car Advisor and Inside Line, Edmunds has brought you several test-drive reviews of the hatchback EV since it was unveiled 11 months ago - two of them in preproduction prototypes on a test track in Japan last month and two earlier runs in test mules - Nissan Versa outfitted with the Leaf powertrain.
This was to be the first time anyone outside of Nissan had driven the Leaf on real streets, though, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Nissan says that about 15,000 people in the U.S. have plunked down refundable $99 deposits to be among the first to buy Leafs when they go on sale in December and that the company's goal is to have 25,000 deposits by then.
All 25,000 won't get a car right away. Nissan is limiting the the initial U.S. rollout to a few markets where there has been considerable effort to install charging infrastructure (Tennessee; Oregon; California.; Seattle, Wash., and the Tucson-Phoenix area) and expects, as do we, that even many in those areas who are on the reservation list will opt out and get their deposits back after deciding that the Leaf just isn't the car for them.
But we are pretty sure after our brief test drive Wednesday that those who do buy will not be disappointed.
Let's tackle the negatives first.
1) The interior left something to be desired - that something being a bit of color and contrast. It's all a sort of grayish taupe. The vast expanses of monochrome fabric (made of recycled material) and plastic were relieved a bit by the infotainment and climate control panel in the center of the dash, the black glass and brightly lighted digital readouts in the double-deck instrument panel and the small black inserts in the armrests on the doors. But it was very little relief and the Leaf's interior cries out for a little more color.
That's it.
All else was pleasing - even the pedestrian noise warning system some EV advocates fear will ruin the silent nature of the battery-powered car.
The backup tones can be heard easily but are barely there compared to the shrill beeps of the neighborhood trash truck, and the noise at the front of the car can hardly be heard. Neither noise is audible from inside the cabin when the windows are up.
I was able to put the Leaf through its paces on several surface streets and a stretch of freeway around La Jolla, an upscale beach community at the northern edge of San Diego. While the bright-blue hatchback was a prototype, it was about 99.9 percent of what we'll see in the showroom, said Nissan North American product planning and advanced technology director Mark Perry.
What I found on the road is about what we've reported in the other test drives (a list of links follows this article): the Leaf's 80-kilowatt electric motor and 24-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery combine to provide a lot of low-end torque and smooth-but-not-spectacular acceleration to an electronically limited top speed of 90 mph.
I didn't get to test the upper speed limit, but I did get to just past 82 mph on the freeway before my turnoff arrived, and the go-pedal still had some room to travel.
(Perry said Nissan staffers call it the "A" pedal, for accelerator, because - of course - there's no gas for a gas pedal.)
Accelerator and brake pedal feel was about the same as on any of the last half-dozen conventional cars I've driven - nothing odd or loose or sloppy feeling about either until I shifted into Eco mode (more about that in a moment), which dials down the power considerably and makes that "A" pedal feel fairly unresponsive for the first inch or so of travel.
The regenerative-braking system has two modes: normal, in which the car feels like any other when you let up on the accelerator (just a gradual slowing as if from normal engine braking); and slightly aggressive, in the Eco mode, when there's a noticeable drag - although nothing like the neck-jarring sudden deceleration of the Mini E or Tesla Roadster.
Perry said Nissan engineered the car to feel as much like a conventional gasser as possible in order to minimize fear of the different among potential buyers.
In normal driving mode - you get there by pulling the Leaf's mouse-like "shifter" to the left and back, into Drive, with a short stroke of your right hand - the Leaf is just what they aimed for. It's got all the good things an electric car brings to the table, including a stunningly quiet and smooth ride, yet doesn't really seem all that different.
In Eco (for either Economy or Ecology, take your pick), the Leaf is slower unless you floor it, and regenerative braking is more pronounced, but nothing else changes.
You get to Eco by shifting into "D" a second time. The only other "gear" is Reverse, as the parking gear is set with a button on top of the shift knob.
At takeoff, acceleration is strong but not overpowering - it isn't a Tesla. As is typical with most EVs, power flattens a bit at about 50 mph, although there's still plenty of oomph for passing, hill climbing or just scooting on up to a nice freeway cruising speed.
Perry said engineers programmed the electronics to add a bit of power at the very end of the accelerator pedal's travel, and when you floor the Leaf you do feel a little extra surge - not quite like having a passing gear, but enough to let you know the powertrain is responding to the signal your right foot is sending.
To help you keep track of what's going on, the Leaf has a (dare we say it) Honda-like split instrument panel.
The top level, visible just above the upper rim of the tilting and telescoping steering wheel, has digital readouts for speed, time and temperature.
There's also an eco-driving monitor that "grows" a small pine-tree icon on the left side of the panel if you are minding your manners and driving in what the car thinks is a sensible, electron-conserving mode.
The larger bottom panel (above) is just under the rim of the wheel and has a battery temperature bar-gauge on the left, a state-of-charge gauge and estimated range readout on the right and a power meter at top center that shows how much juice you are feeding the motor.
A rectangular info center window below the power meter redundantly shows estimated range remaining and helps you keep track of how far you've gone - and still can go before the battery is depleted - by displaying the amount of time you've been driving and the distance you've traveled since pressing the "start" button (right). There's no key; the locks and ignition respond to an electronic fob you keep in a pocket or purse.
In the center of the otherwise rather plain dash is the shiny black plastic block that contains the automatic climate control and stereo buttons, center vents and, if you buy the SL model or acquire it as an option on the base SV model, the screen for the navigation and information system.
Windows and door locks are power operated, as are the side mirrors.
Although the Leaf is a small compact, it is a roomy one, thanks to an electric powertrain that doesn't take up nearly as much room as would a conventional ICE system.
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Composite photo from Nissan shows underfloor battery pack (top), power control unit (bottom left) and electric motor.
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The battery pack is under the floor in a center-mounted unit that increases structural rigidity (40 percent more than a comparably sized conventional car, says Perry) and gives the Leaf a nice, low center of gravity.
At 3,600 pounds, the Leaf weighs 800 pounds more than the Versa and 600 of those pounds are in the battery pack. The car hugs the road as though it had a magnetic attraction to asphalt and concrete.
Adding to the smooth ride and impressive handling are 16-inch Bridgestone Ecopia low-rolling-resistance tires that don't feel as though they are skimping on either traction or sidewall compliance. 
Inside, the Leaf feels much roomier than its compact designation suggests.
Ingress and egress are made easy by the wide-opening doors.
And it is a tall car, so there's plenty of headroom; the back seat was comfortable for my 230-pound, 6' 1" frame.
There's even a decent bit of cargo space behind the rear seats (and lots more when they are folded flat). Sorry, I didn't measure and Nissan hasn't provided official numbers yet on cargo area.
Nissan says the Leaf has a "normal" range of 100 miles on a single charge, but EV range is driving-condition dependent - like miles per gallon in a conventional car, only more so.
While driving style and road and traffic conditions can add or subtract a few percentage points from your gas or diesel vehicle's fuel economy, they can easily slash an EV's range to 60-70 percent, or add 20-30 percent if all is favorable.
Nissan recently published a set of range scenarios that its engineers developed by driving in various conditions and at various speeds.
The worst scenario is very low-speed, stop-and-go driving in cold weather on crowded city streets, or in a highway traffic-jam with the heater running. Those perfect storms of lousy conditions can drop the Leaf's range to a mere 47 miles or so between charges.
At the upper end, engineers averaged 138 miles cruising at 38 mph with the air conditioning off and the outside temperature at a cool 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
A steady 55 mph on the freeway with the AC blasting on a 95-degree day was good for 70 miles before the battery charge was drained.
The Leaf comes with a 110-volt charging cord for slow charging from regular U.S. household outlets, and most owners will be able to install a 240-volt "Level II" charger in their garages or parking areas. Many cities and private bus nests also are providing public Level II chargers in parking lots and on key streets, and there's a move afoot to install high-voltage rapid chargers on various highway corridors.
Charging a depleted battery with a 110-volt cord can take close to 18 hours; a Level II charger cuts that time to 6-7 hours (an overnight charge) and a rapid charger can bring a depleted battery to an 80 percent charge in 30 minutes. (Battery charging creates heat and the last 20 percent of a charge is done slowly to minimize thermal stress that shortens battery life. To add the remaining 20 percent of charge via a rapid-charger would take an additional 90 minutes.)
To help eke out as much range as possible, Nissan designers made the Leaf as slippery as possible.
It boasts a .29 coefficient of drag, one of the best among hatchbacks, and sports aerodynamic tricks such as a flat, sealed bottom pan that smoothly funnels the undercarriage air stream to a set of race-car derived air diffusion fins. The specially designed headlamp housings deflect air around the side mirrors (this also cuts interior noise) and the top-mounted antenna was designed and mounted at a specific tilt to allow it to slice through the air.
On the green side of things, the car - like all battery-electric vehicles - has no tailpipe emissions and is made almost entirely of reusable parts.
Perry says it is 99-percent recyclable, including the batteries, although Nissan has plans for them that goes well beyond tearing them apart and reusing the material to make new batteries.
The company has formed a joint venture with Sumitomo Corp. to explore markets for EV batteries to be used for stationary power storage when their useful automotive life (estimated at a minimum of 10 years) is over - a stage at which the batteries still offer 70-80 percent of their original storage capacity.
Potential customers include utility companies, hospitals, food processing plants and other businesses that need to store power in order to guarantee a steady supply. Racks of "spent" lithium-ion automotive batteries also could be used by renewable energy companies to store power generated from wind turbines or solar cells, Nissan says.
Creating such a market could help lower the price of batteries, which account for 25 percent or more of an EV's price, and make cars such as the Leaf more affordable.
Cost, of course, is an issue, especially in a car that has limited range, requires hours to recharge and can't find easily accessible fuel on almost every street corner.
The Leaf lists at $32,780 for the base SV model and $33,720 for the slightly more upscale SL model.
That's steep for a compact, even a well-equipped compact that doesn't require oil changes or engine tune-ups.
To make the Leaf more attractive - and accessible - to the first generation of buyers, Nissan is relying on subsidies from governments that want to promote use of clean, green vehicles in order to reduce their national carbon emissions and cut dependence on oil.
In the U.S. those subsidies include a $7,500 federal income tax credit to Leaf buyers, as well as a credit up to $2,000 for purchase of a home charging unit. Many states and some cities and counties also offer tax credits or other incentives. California, one of the most generous states and home to one in 10 Americans, offers a simple rebate of $5,000 state income tax credit on top of the federal credit.
Individual consumers will have to do the math to figure out whether the Leaf's benefits outweigh the drawback of limited range - it probably isn't the best car for a traveling salesman - but Perry and other Nissan executives believe there's a strong and growing demand for cars that don't pollute and that help free motorists from their petroleum habits.
How much do they believe? Enough to schedule annual production of 50,000 of the cars for 2011, jumping to 150,000 a year for global sales after the company's Smyrna, Tenn., plant begins producing the EV in 2012.
The Leaf's interior is well-laid out, with easily accessible controls. But oh! All that gray!
The shift lever looks - and feels - a lot like a computer "mouse." There's only one forward gear.
The information center has screens devoted to energy use, range and charging as well as for setting timers to begin late-night charging (when energy rates are lowest) and to pre-heat, or cool, the interior.
This multi-tasking screen shows remaining range; number of miles that will be drained away if the climate control system is turned on; kilowatts of power being fed to the electric motor, and power usage of the climate control system and other accessories and devices such as the turn signals and stereo.
This screen shows where the car can travel on a single battery charge.
Need to find a charging station along your route? That's taken care of as well.
The SL model has a small rooftop solar panel to provide power for interior cooling fans. The color-coordinated antenna is specially designed - including its slant - to minimize air turbulence.
Finned diffuser at rear minimizes disruptive turbulence from undercarriage air flow.
Curved rear deck is part of the aerodynamic design that helped Leaf achieve a low drag coefficient.
LEAVE A COMMENT
Click here to comment on this entry.Congratulations on getting behind the wheel of the real car on a real road at last!
Informative and knowledgeable as usual, many thanks.
I would like to respectfully differ on one point though - some of us really like understated interiors - the grey looks handsome to me!
I find it sets off the bejewelled blonde in the red dress beside me- do you not find that?
Thanks for the more in-depth and on-site update for those of us waiting for our own Leaf-at-home.
However, this was the absolutely worst example of typos and text mistakes that I have ever read on a "respected" blog site. Does anybody there proofread? Yikes !
Professor George (CSU, Sacramento)
I must agree that interior is pretty ugly, however, I completely agree with Nissan's approach here. They are making the car as generic as possible and focusing on functionality. This is what will sell the car to the masses. They get it. Look no further than the Prius for a perfect role-model. I can't wait to see these cars on the road. I really believe it will spark a revolution (no pun intended).
Once they get EV range consistently above 200 miles, I'd consider one. Maybe by then the relative cost will have come down too.
What the heck, I'll throw in my two cents on the interior too. It looks very Japanese, bright and almost "happy". That it is different from the dark, Teutonic interios of some other cars is what makes it appealing.
Nice coverage. You did an especially good job with the photos. However, I do need to correct a glaring error - navigation system is standard with both trim levels.
Did you happen to notice what all the switches were for on the left side of the dash - 4 gray'ish ones in a square configuration under the air vent and the stacked black ones below that?
Thank, John, for the details about the dash display and monitor read out. The photos showed a lot of info about the information display. Sounds like I will like my LEAF when it arrives in December or early 2011.
I agree with you about the interior color. I'm going to have to think of some easy ways to add some red and black to the design.
Azrich
Tucson (not Tuscon)
azrich, mwalsh, geo et al..
Terribly sorry about the blunders and typos in Leaf story. I know how to spell Tucson (although often wondered why it wasn't pronounced TUKson with the C before the S like that) and I also know - although apparently forgot and failed to fact-check myself - that navi is standard on both trim levels. It's the backup camera that's extra on the SV and standard on the SL. As for the myriad typos - since corrected - I can only blame bleary eyes that missed 'em when i re-read the piece at 3 a.m before hitting the "post" button.
One thing that seems to be omitted from most LEAF coverage is that the CA tax rebate is extremely limited. Only $4.1M of CA Air Resources Board funding was appropriated for the rebates, which at $5K/ea. equates to 820 program participants. Because of the narrowly targeted rollout of the LEAF - first 1,000 to San Diego - only those residents of San Diego County who have already reserved the car are likely to benefit at this point. The habit that Nissan and the automotive press has made of touting the "generous" rebates absent this obvious limitation is problematic at best. It gives readers a false impression that most early adopters will receive the benefit when in all likelihood they will not.
"The backup tones can be heard easily but are barely there compared to the shrill beeps of the neighborhood trash truck,"
Saying it's better than a trash truck isn't saying very much. I wonder if it's annoying while backing up in a parking garage.
"20 percent of charge via a rapid-charger would take an additional 90 minutes."
Finally! If this has been posted before, I missed it. I've been constantly wondering how long the last 20% would take.
"While driving style and road and traffic conditions can add or subtract a few percentage points from your gas or diesel vehicle's fuel economy, they can easily slash an EV's range to 60-70 percent, or add 20-30 percent if all is favorable"
I find this interesting. I would have thought that a vehicle with regenerative braking would be less prone to driving style and terrain variances.
Hopefully you guys will get one of these for your long term fleet. I'm not convinced yet, but it sounds more interesting than the Mini-E.
As Kim Hunter says to Heston in Planet of the Apes: "I want to kiss you, but you're so damned ugly!"
A Prius, which is now ubiquitous, is much better looking than the Leaf, and the Volt is even better looking than the Prius (Yes, I know the Prius is a hybrid, but many people will buy the Leaf thinking it is "like a Prius".)
And the Prius is so much less money to buy. After the early adopters of the Leaf and Volt get their cars and all the incentives are gone-- what then?
brn: bad comparison on my part..the back up tone really is barely there, don' think would be a problem at all in a garage (and can be turned off by driver if it is). As for regen braking, it helps but when you are on open road going 50 or 60 or 70 you aren't on the brakes very much, thus you don't get the benefit of regen (unless you wanna drive everyone else on the highway crazy by constantly hitting the brakes!). And re that last 20%. It the same story for all rechargeable batteries, the rate of charge slows down as they get "fuller." AS I understand it, this Is both a characteristic of battery chemistry and of how the chargers are set up, to reduce heat degradation and minimize charging-related thermal "incidents." This is first time, though, that I've gotten a straight answer to my question re how long that last 20% takes on a rapid charger.
It's great to finally read about someone driving a real LEAF on real roads. It sounds like the driving experience is actually a pretty good one.
Style is subjective. Everyone has their own idea of what looks good - whether it is a car or a person being evaluated. Thankfully, you provided a wealth of photographs so the reader can come to their own conclusions.
For anyone looking for more indepth info on the LEAF from a consumer's perspective, please check out http://livingleaf.info. Updated daily, this San Diego based site is providing the info for you to determine if this is the right vehicle for you.
As a southern California driver who regularly makes a 16 mile drive that ascends 5000 feet in elevation (at the speed limit of 55), I would be very interested in knowing how quickly the LEAF's batteries are depleted during serious hillclimbing. Many Californians live close to sizable mountains, or like myself reside in the mountains. We'd really appreciate the inclusion of hillclimbing as a component of EV range testing.
asbasile - As would we! For this particular test we were at the mercy of Nissan and its tight timetable, but when we can get one for an extended period climbing hills will be on of our goals. I'm not quite so high up as you, but I do live atop a pretty steep hill and past experience with EVs is that climbing does drain the batteries faster. And you never quite make up going down with regenerative braking on what you lose coming up - especially since you're usually going down with a full battery after charging up at home.
If you guys do get a Leaf as a LT vehicle, I'd like to see it spend the winter in your Detroit offices. I'm very interested to see how it does in the cold (not that Detroit is all that cold, but colder than California).
I can't speak for the Mini E, but there's nothing inherently "neck-jerking" about the Roadster's regen, any more than the brake pedal on every car on the planet is. Sure, if you yank your right foot off of the accelerator, it's going to slow you down, about like lifting off the accelerator with a manual transmission. I can't remember if that caught me by surprise once or twice before I learned not to do that as soon as I see a light turn red in front of me.
Once you've driven a car that lets you smoothly control both acceleration and deceleration with the right pedal, going back to a car hobbled by the limitations of a gas engine you'll wonder why we put up with that for so long. The more regen you have, the more smooth control you have.
The Mini E has over twice the regen of the Tesla Roadster (85 kW vs 35 kW) and I've heard that Mini E drivers want even more.
If Nissan is making the regen so weak, they are missing a great opportunity to introduce Leaf drivers to a more controlled driving experience that's compatible with our gas driving experience and a comfortable transition for new drivers.
John,
I think you have it backwards. The neck snapping in the Tesla Roadster is in the other direction!
Best Leaf article to date! Thanks!!
I was wondering if anyone knew if the $7,500 Fed EV tax incentive carries over into 2011? Also, there was a question about elevation from Asbasille and I do have a link that may help to answer his question although John did a good job already on that. Here's a very good site where I found the mountain question answered.
http://livingleaf.info./
Don
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