Nissan Leaf long-term test
What's an electric car like when you live with it every day? We're running a Nissan Leaf for six months to find out...
15 October 2018 – I can't see clearly now
The indicated range of the Nissan Leaf with a fully charged battery has begun to drop as the weather has cooled down, as is the case with most electric cars. During the summer, I’d normally expect to see between 160 and 170 miles showing on the instrument display, but recently it’s been down around 145 miles.
That still leaves me able to cover plenty of miles between recharges, so I’m not at all worried, as long as the indicated figure doesn’t drop much more. However, I’ve found myself looking enviously at the claimed and real-world ranges of the new Hyundai Kona Electric 64kWh (300 and 259 miles respectively) and thinking how much more convenient that would be…
Meanwhile, I’ve discovered that the Leaf’s side windows take forever to clear on cold mornings. In many cars, you can open and close the windows once and use the seals to scrape off condensation, but not the Nissan Leaf. The front and rear screens can have demisted completely but the side windows will still be almost impossible to see through. Time to start using the Leaf’s climate control timer; that should have the car warm and all the windows clear by the time I’m ready to head off to work.
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