Gadgetory

the Nissan Leaf its alt green it's weird-looking just like a Prius but Toyota sells as many pre I in a day as these guys sell in a month what gives let's drive the 2012 Nissan Leaf SL and check the tech now a leaf looks like a leaf for several reasons one is packaging they wanted this car to feel roomy inside and it definitely does so it's kind of big in proportions secondly aerodynamics define a lot of what you see here and then you've got this very unusual headlight setup in the front that's quite signature very high on the fenders and these are LED lights standard by the way they use a lot less of the electric energy that's so precious in this car LED headlights are still a real rarity in the industry let's get inside now Nissan Leafs don't come strips they're positioning this car as a premium not just alternative vehicle as a result they've all got this seven-inch very nicely done color LCD and what's interesting about it is it's kind of unique to the leaf this is not really much at all your media sources are am/fm satellite radio no HD radio interestingly enough under the CD aux button you're going to find bluetooth streaming auxilary Jack USB ipod there's also a disc slot for CDs and did you see this goofy looking thing car wings what the hell is that well that is the connected services platform between your smartphone and this vehicle with the app you can check the cars charge status tell it when and how to charge like in terms of peak and off-peak and also set the climate control system to get going before you get in the car on hot and cold days never there's no engine to start so it can just start heating your cooling cabin only the shifter control down here is an oddball of course it's an oddball powertrain so it should be different you kind of slide and roll it over for reverse you get your camera right there which is pretty conventional you've got trajectory but nothing too unusual under the maps you do have traffic and weather provided by your satellite radio hookup and this is very much Nissan stuff on this particular screen kind of crunchy not too attractive now see this little button down here what does that say zero emissions with a little leaf logo on it when you hit that you get a bunch of screens that are unique to this vehicle this kind of vehicle getting navigation energy consumption battery status all kind of woven into one this is kind of your sac bomber map where you can see how far you can go on a charge how far you might go on a charge and where the nearest charging stations are to where you are now now the fun continues over here on the may instrument panel which is a bizarre looking thing full of brightly colored peacock feathers of LCD video on the left is your charge on your right is your range across the top looks like an Audi logo gone nuts tons of rings and that gives you an idea of your green driving mode and this eyebrow display on the top gives you basics like time and speedometer but also shows you another little eco gauge on the left we'll check out later I think grows trees or something if you drive gently all right in the front of a leaf there's no engine there's a motor you don't even see the motor the motor is down low at the front wheel area what you're seeing primarily are control modules and inverters that take the battery power and send them to the motor here are the numbers that motor is an 80 kilowatt unit powered by 48 separate lithium-ion batteries like what's in your laptop with a total of 24 kilowatt hours of storage capacity 107 horsepower 207 foot-pounds of torque these EVs are torquing machines it's a 3,400 pound car to 60 in about seven seconds while delivering 106 92 mpge who cares about that all you want to know is how long will it take to charge and at what point will it strand me it'll take you seven hours for a full charge from nearly dead if you have a 240 volt circuit double that time for your standard household outlet or if you can find what they call a level 3 charger 480 volts you can do that charge in about 30 minutes but that charger connection on the car is optional by the way now range is a funny word click on that on the Nissan Leaf site and you don't get a number you get this convoluted looking thing this graphic that makes no sense let's get poked at it for a minute it tells you you'll get 68 to 132 miles of range on a full charge depending on terrain conditions how you drive even the weather now much is made about the solar panels in this and some other electric cars but this little guy by the way which is optional doesn't do a whole hell of a lot it helps trickle charge the accessory battery you know the brick like you have in your car it doesn't charge the propulsion batteries but by helping out on the little battery it lets the car focus on recharging its own big batteries with regeneration but made no mistake about it driving the Nissan Leaf is fun it's torquey it's totally responsive it's an electric car this one's particularly well dialed in I've always thought that very smooth the ride quality is nice it's not sloppy and it's also not uptight or tense top speed on this car by the way is 90 miles an hour it's actually very low for cars today not that you care but if you're in Texas driving on that 85 mile or freeway I guess you kind of might peter out run it up a top-end but a car like this is so smooth and quiet you'd hardly know how fast you're going there's no commotion that's attendant with a given speed you have to get used to that finally there's this idea of cost to drive like I'm doing right now this car is estimated by the EPA to cost I think $600 a year in energy charges compare that with a Prius at about a thousand a little more than a grand I think and a Honda Civic at 1,700 a year so there are real savings to be earned by driving one of these it's one of the factors you take into account when you consider its price which we'll get to in a moment and decide if it's really a good deal or not now pricing Alif is it one simple and treacherous it starts off a tick above 36 for the base car then add about 2,000 to go to this SL trim level which is tech ear that's more CNET style so now we're a little bit over 38 but then come the various tax questions then they're almost tax credits the feds are currently doing seventy five hundred bucks for one of these here in California another 2500 is available but your state could be wildly different from that or have no incentive at all and those by the way are tax credits they're not cheques anybody sends you so you've got to make sure they apply on your particular tax status in all when you price out a car like this it's different you've got to look at the price of the car the way the rebates and credits factored in and look at the way you're going to be able to recoup the cost of its challenges in the way you drive and the cost of energy