KyLeaf

We just rolled over 10,000 on the Leaf. Over the winter, we did find ourselves short on range once. It was a day that had ice drizzle all day, and the Leaf iced up at Meg’s work. She took it to a Dr. Appt at lunch, and had to keep the defrost on high in order to see. There was a concern that she would not make it back to the office, school, and home, so she called me and we traded vehicles. I took the Leaf to my work and plugged it in. Problem solved. Problem could have also been solved if Meg plugged in at her work when she arrived that morning, but she parks outside, and there was this ice drizzle thing going on. We agree that the next time the weather is like that, and she doesn’t want to plug in at work, she just takes the ICE.

This leaves us hoping that Nissan releases an Infinity with a BEVx before the end of our lease. We would really like to run on electric most of the time, but it would also be nice to have a car to take on longer trips, and reserve the 4Runner for towing the camper and for when we need the extra space. An Infinity BEVx with the Leaf’s all electric range, with the added ability to use gasoline to warm up the interior during an ice drizzle day, or make that trip to Tennessee and their QC network. I understand we are getting close to a “Volt” here, and if Nissan doesn’t come up with a workable BEVx solution, a Volt could be in our future. If the Volt had the Leaf’s range, we would have been all over it from the get go.

I’m not saying we don’t love the Leaf, we do. There is a real problem with the Leaf’s battery life, and replacement cost. A BEVx would allow us to continue to charge at 80% in the winter instead of 100%, and we would fully discharge less often. This would greatly increase battery life. This would be a car we could purchase instead of lease. This is a car we could own for 10 or 15 years. That is what we whish for.

We were in Frankfort on Friday April 26th, and we picked up a charge at Glenn Nissan. It is an easy walk to several places to eat, we walked to the Waffle House. When we came back, a salesman met us, as well as one of the managers. They were both pleasant, asking questions about how we liked the Leaf. Now we can make it to Frankfort and back in the summer (about 90 miles) without charging, but since it is on the edge of range, a little charging in Frankfort makes us more comfortable. On Saturday my wife went back to Frankfort to drop off our grandson, and then she went to school in Lexington. She plugged in at school for a couple hours (just normal 120v outlet) and came home with range to spare. We would still love to see a quick charger at the Nissan dealerships in Lexington and Frankfort, as well as one in Louisville. That would let us make a Louisville trip in the Leaf, which would be pretty awesome.

Every spring we wait for the sun to arrive in force, providing us with endless hot water and many kilowatt hours of power. The days are getting longer, and our solar production is increasing daily. Our 900 watt system we installed last September is producing over 5kWh on a clear day now that Spring has arrived. You can see our system live at this link:

Kollar Solar

If you want to know how much power your devices use, a kill-a watt meter will help. You can find them here:

Please support our site by visiting the Amazon links. Thanks!

I found a “green forum” that I’m loving!

GreenForum.com

Please visit them and look around!

I’ve been tinkering with photography for 30 years, so we might blog about it here from time to time. I found a really neat flash controller for the Nikon D800, and it doubles as a shutter release. Since is it really inexpensive, I want everyone to know how cool this is!

Interesting video available at Amazon regarding Peak Oil. Free to watch if you have Amazon Prime.

Kruser reported the faked New Your Times story about a Tesla that came up short in the winter. Kruser gleefully reported that the Tesla EV operated below the reporter’s expectations in the winter time. As it turns out, the NYT reporter rigged his test drive.

Tesla responds:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive

Please e-mail Kruser ans ask that he interview a real EV owner, and ask them what they think about their car.