 The idea of having an Electric Vehicle (EV) as a second car came when my wife started talking about getting a small "green" second car as a run-a-round, with good MPG for school and station runs. With ever increasing fuel costs, this seemed a good idea but we also needed it to be able to cope with our weekly animal feed runs of corn, pellets, goat mix, hay and straw bails! So we looked at what our average mileage would be in the second car and calculated that during term time this would be between 40-50 miles a day. It then occurred to us that if we were going to get a "green" second car, why not go for one with the lowest emission possible? That meant looking at Electric cars. As we live in the middle of the Kent countryside, the thought of a EV vehicle had not even crossed our minds as we are far from being the typical type customer.  We first looked at the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the rest of the family thought I was joking when I suggested when one day when in Eastbourne, of booking a test drive.
We took the car out two of us at a time with the salesman, and I was pleased to see the big smile on my wife's face as she and our daughter climbed out after the first test drive. After my son I returned from our drive we all agreed how fun, quite and enjoyable it was to drive and realized that an electric car would work for us. Having now driven our first electric car, we thought we better take a look at another model to compare and started to see what else there was on the market, closer to home. Whilst the i-MiEV is a great little car, the Nissan Leaf has far more room for our animal feeds, and is better equipped, including rear parking camera, so the decision on which to go for was an easy one to make. So having driven nearly 1,100 miles in our first month we are so far very pleased with the Leaf which has performed as well as we had expected. Also pleased to see the Nissan Leaf in the new Apple iPhone 4s siri video - see it here.
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 Well we finally got there, and took delivery of our first all Electric Vehicle (EV) on Tuesday the 13th this week with our fingers crossed! It was only a couple of weeks ago we took the plunge and placed our order, and before we knew it, we were driving our new Nissan Leaf away from the dealers forecourt off into the real world. Having lived with the car for a few days now, I thought it a good idea to write a few lines about our first experiences with it. We had researched the the Nissan Leaf fairly well and are pleased to say that, so far we have had no surprises. We just drive it during the day, shuttling from home, to work, to school, to the station, plug it in at night into a standard 13amp domestic socket, and by the morning it is fully charged, ready for use again at the cost of approximately £1.50 - It will even email you to remind you to plug it in should you forget! The 90 miles fully charged range works well for us as our daily mileage is roughly 40 miles, and needless to say, the zero emissions and zero rated Road Fund licence are a real plus.  Fully charged with 98 miles and ready to go!  In addition to that, it's very comfortable, and very quiet, almost silent inside. This all helps to make it the most relaxing car we have ever driven and somehow it always makes you feel very happy driving it.
We were surprised that people seem to know very little generally about EV's, and one of our friends was even surprised to find that it not only had a heater, but also full climate control! The reaction from most people when seeing it is usually amazement, that it is powered only by batteries, and not some kind of hybrid. Also, just how like a "normal" car it is and when taking them for a drive, how unlike a milk float it is! So, the only time we stop at a petrol station now with the Leaf is to grab a paper, or pick up a sandwich for lunch! To be continued... |
AuthorThis is the Blog of David Knight with updates on EnigmaSounds & also some hopefully amusing, informed comments with the occasional rant and rave about this crazy world we all live on. My old archived blog can still be found at - http/david2knight.wordpress.com Categories
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