Nissan Leaf wins World Car of the Year

27-04-11 16:13

I think the true measure of any cars success can only be calculated from the amount of units sold over a period of a few years and it's reliability after the first couple or years or so.

I don't predict the sales of the Nissan Leaf to be that great, I've yet to talk to someone who would buy one.

Luckily for car manufacturers some people buy the junk they produce.

27-04-11 17:16

Sorry MrDanno, but I can't help thinking that your comments are uncharacteristically harsh. The Nissan Leaf looks like the type of car necessary to bring the electric car market into a practical concept. Fossil fuels will become extinct one day. Initially, until mass production and sales become sufficient, price will be a stumbling block for many.
Being a caravanner, I cannot envisage an electric car with the torque and range to pull a 'van in practical terms. But, if it meant that I could only afford my diesel car for limited mileage, yet also afford a small electric car for general use, I would go down that route.
Also, if we don't come up with an alternative to oil, at some future point we will be at the mercy of middle-eastern demands. The oil barons will want to keep their extravagant lifestyles and, as oil production diminishes, this will only be achievable by ever-rising prices of crude.

smudger

27-04-11 20:33

Aye! we saw an electric car in the showroom that day we went for that test drive. It was Â£29.000! The salesman said it would pay for itself within 6 years!

You have to be driving it 24/7 for all that time, to make it pay for itself?

Mind you, I'm not against them, if, and when they come up with a practical one at a reasonable price, I would get one;)

27-04-11 21:00

Aye! we saw an electric car in the showroom that day we went for that test drive. It was Â£29.000! The salesman said it would pay for itself within 6 years!

But, He failed to say that you would have to spend thousands on a replacement battery ?

Mind you, I'm not against them, if, and when they come up with a practical one at a reasonable price, I would get one

I agree, When they can make one that can be recharged as a quick as filling with petrol or diesel and with a sensible range between recharges they may be worth considering.

28-04-11 09:18

Originally Posted by smudger

Aye! we saw an electric car in the showroom that day we went for that test drive. It was Â£29.000! The salesman said it would pay for itself within 6 years!

;)

Â£29,0000 for an electric car! Well, only the relatively few, well-heeled "I have to be first with a gadget" will be buying at that price.
Typical of industry, isn't it? They come up with something new and slam on an eye-watering price in order to get back their investment as quickly as possible. We are expected to put our trust and money into their ideas, but they don't return the favour by puting some long term trust in the buying public.

Example: In the early days of personal computers, the Texas TI99 came into the UK at about Â£700. When I bought mine, the price had dropped to Â£200. By the time it fell victim to later generation machines, the last I saw of it was Â£49 at Rumbelows Electrical Stores. The "Extended Basic" cartridge was actually worth more than the machine itself.

Guess us ordinary bods will have to wait for our electric cars until something even better pops up!

28-04-11 09:44

Originally Posted by Snowball

Â£29,0000 for an electric car! Well, only the relatively few, well-heeled "I have to be first with a gadget" will be buying at that price.
Typical of industry, isn't it?

Now maybe you can see I wasn't being so harsh on them. Like with all technology, Those who buy it first pay a huge amount towards the development costs and they are also the people who have all the teething problems of a new technology that is put out to the public for testing. You know yourself, All the testing in the factory will never find the problem that will occur during normal everyday use in the hands of the owners or operators.

Example: In the early days of personal computers, the Texas TI99 came into the UK at about Â£700. When I bought mine, the price had dropped to Â£200. By the time it fell victim to later generation machines, the last I saw of it was Â£49 at Rumbelows Electrical Stores. The "Extended Basic" cartridge was actually worth more than the machine itself.

Computers and computer technology are one of the worst, When DVD writers came out they were in excess of Â£200, Now less than 10 years later you can get one for less than Â£15 and it is better than the early ones by far.

The answer is, Never buy cutting edge. Go for yesterdays technology because todays super CPU for Â£500 will be Â£30 in 2 years.

28-04-11 10:07

MrDanno, from that aspect I have to amend my opinion to concur with you.

Guest

wagolynn

28-04-11 11:46

I think the Leaf is about Â£25000; it looks to be a Micra with an electric motor and battery. The battery will have cost about as much as the engine and transmission of a new car, the electric motor should not be particularly expensive, leaving the electronics. All these components are fairly well known and understood, why the high price, I would say because people will pay for novelty value.
As to torque snowball, max torque with an electric motors is at zero revs.
Whilst most cars probably spend their time in town they still get used for long journeys from time to time, so far batteries cannot get anywhere near 200 - 400 miles at a realistic speed between re-chargers hence they are nothing more than toys at the moment.

28-04-11 12:09

The problem with most electric cars is weight. Most manufacturers solve this by using carbon fibre, kevlar and titanium body/chassis components, which is why they cost so much to build. I remember in the '70s you could buy a Bedford CF van that had a floorpan full of ordinary car batteries, with a range of 50 miles. (Prince Philip famously bought one for trogging around his garden.) That was fourty years ago, and battery and motor technology has certainly moved on since then, so there is no realistic reason why a car could not be built with a decent range at a more sensible cost, with a more useable range.

28-04-11 12:31

Battery technology is still nowhere near as good as it needs to be to allow a good range and fast charging along with a long battery life.

The only way forward currently for electric cars has to be a standard battery to be used by all car manufacturers which is held in a quick release bay on the car and have battery stations where you can exchange your dead battery for a charged one by having it swapped. This would no doubt mean renting the batteries and paying a recharge fee. A similar system to what we already have for welding gases.

We still do not have the technology to make an electric car with equal flexibility of a petrol or diesel.

I did look at the Nissan Leaf website and it doesn't seem to list any figures for possible ranges, There is some spill on there about how to maximise the range. It seems it will take 12 hours to charge from a standard mains outlet. There is information there about it charging in 30minutes using a special DC charger but, I would bet that it would reduce the overall service life of the battery charging it that fast.

What we really need is better battery technology. Lithium-Ion units are good but, I doubt there will be enough Lithium available if everyone wanted an electric car.

28-04-11 18:09

I've just read as much as I could on the 'leaf' website, It is even worse than I thought.

The Video on the website says it will be Â£23,350 in the UK and the price on the website is written as Â£30,990. If you want it in another colour other than black it is another Â£440. There is a Â£5000 government incentive but, It still does not bring it down to their original quoted price on the video.

The worst part of course is it has a range of 109miles but, Is this during the day or at night using the headlamps and windscreen wipers?

The other thing which I can't find any mention of is does it have a heater? and I'm pretty certain that it won't have air con either.

I think the choice is a' no brainer' when you can buy a Nissan Micra for under Â£10,000. Sure it is not an Eco car but, I could do a 200mile round trip without having to wait hours to re fuel and it is Â£20,000 cheaper.

smudger

28-04-11 19:38

Aye! no doubt the price will fall with time, like all technology does, as already mentioned. The battery technology will move on as well, remember the first battery digital watches;)

tommytwotanks

04-05-11 09:25

in a recent appraisal test on channel 5 program fifthgear, they said it was ugly, awful and slow, and i didnt like the previous model when it first came out either, but ive grown to except it, but the new one is ugly

31-07-11 22:18

Well, They had the Nissan Leaf on top gear tonight. Interesting that Nissan would not give a price for a replacement battery! It appears from Clarkson's comment that it does have air-con (I'm assuming).

TC1474

01-08-11 08:59

Originally Posted by MrDanno

Well, They had the Nissan Leaf on top gear tonight. Interesting that Nissan would not give a price for a replacement battery! It appears from Clarkson's comment that it does have air-con (I'm assuming).

And it also costs in excess of Â£30,000 for a car that can only do 100 miles between top ups and takes 13 hours if the batteries are fully discharged???

And the Peugeot that James May was driving was even dearer at Â£34,000 (IIRC) and it had a lower spec than the Nissan.

I can understand buying such a car if you live in and don't drive much further than the City boundaries, but for those of us who have to use our cars for work and to do our job, totally impractical and far too expensive.

01-08-11 11:12

I was appalled to find that the nearest charging station was 74 miles away. This was according to the satnav which was fitted in the Leaf. Suddenly my 250 mile round trip to visit my sister could be thousands of miles and days due to having to zigzag from one charging station to the next!
Bring back the stagecoach and horses!!!

01-08-11 11:18

I was appalled to find that the nearest charging station was 74 miles away. This was according to the satnav which was fitted in the Leaf.

Wasn't that the nearest 'fast-charge' station? Which as I had predicted in our previous threads on this was confirmed last night to reduce the life of the battery.

01-08-11 11:45

Originally Posted by TC1474

And it also costs in excess of Â£30,000 for a car that can only do 100 miles between top ups and takes 13 hours if the batteries are fully discharged???

I did mention the price in Post #12 when we discussed it around the time of it's launch.

I take it you won't be buying one either then? I'd be interested to know how many units they have sold in the UK so far.

01-08-11 12:05

There's a story in today's Times quoting the cost of replacement batteries - Â£19,000!

The life of the batteries will depend on how they're used, and in particular the use of the fast-charge system will seriously shorten battery life.

smudger

01-08-11 20:32

Quote.."And it also costs in excess of Â£30,000 for a car that can only do 100 miles between top ups and takes 13 hours if the batteries are fully discharged???"

Somehow I don't think they will be selling a lot of them, in fact, those figures would put a lot of potential buyers of electric cars right off the whole idea??:confused:

02-08-11 07:31

Â£19,000 for new batteries? You can buy a couple of new, small cars for that! technology hasn't come to the end of the road yet, by any means. I'm betting that, when the oil runs out, a different system to electric cars will fill the gap. Cars have still got to be economically repairable/replaceable, to satisfy society's movements AND manufacturers' business viability.

02-08-11 10:39

I know some manufacturers are now using different parameters for charging on their hybrids. They stop charging at 80% 'full' and start to charge at 20%. This is an effort to make them to last longer. It would be intersting to know what type of battery they use in electric cars, as we know that some batteries are more prone to failure from 'fast charging' than others.

02-08-11 12:13

Originally Posted by Snowball

Â£19,000 for new batteries? You can buy a couple of new, small cars for that! technology hasn't come to the end of the road yet, by any means. I'm betting that, when the oil runs out, a different system to electric cars will fill the gap. Cars have still got to be economically repairable/replaceable, to satisfy society's movements AND manufacturers' business viability.

According to Topgear they said about Â£7000 and I'd be more inclined to believe them than a newspaper but, Even at Â£7000 you could buy a Nissan Pixo and have change.

Originally Posted by Rolebama

I know some manufacturers are now using different parameters for charging on their hybrids. They stop charging at 80% 'full' and start to charge at 20%. This is an effort to make them to last longer. It would be intersting to know what type of battery they use in electric cars, as we know that some batteries are more prone to failure from 'fast charging' than others.

Almost all batteries chargers now use a form of intelligent charging, Where they use different charge parameters depending on the state of the battery all the way through the charging cycle.

They use 'Lithium Ion Polymer' batteries as far as I know.

02-08-11 15:08

I have got into the science of Li-Poly batteries as part of my interest in remote control aircraft. I am not sure if they are useful in the motor trade, as the charge rate is relatively low, (compared to discharge rates), and if exceeded, can cause batteries to explode. (Lots of videos on Youtube of people deliberatley exploding them.)
A friend told me that he broke into a hybrid battery and found hundreds of rechargeable C cells connected in series and parallel to give 150V.

04-08-11 07:10

Originally Posted by MrDanno

According to Topgear they said about Â£7000 and I'd be more inclined to believe them than a newspaper but, Even at Â£7000 you could buy a Nissan Pixo and have change.

Why would you rather believe Top Gear? They've now admitted they lied about the Leaf's range (the batteries had only been partly recharged).

04-08-11 10:29

One of the comments made on Top Gear was that the Govt give a 'rebate' of Â£500 on an electric car. Is this true? If so, who gets it? I would hate to think that our Govt is giving money to the Japanese motor industry. Or is it a VAT thing?

04-08-11 11:05

Originally Posted by Rolebama

One of the comments made on Top Gear was that the Govt give a 'rebate' of Â£500 on an electric car. Is this true? If so, who gets it? I would hate to think that our Govt is giving money to the Japanese motor industry. Or is it a VAT thing?

It's a grant of 25% of the price, up to a maximum of Â£5,000 (not Â£500!).

So if the car costs Â£30,000 you pay Â£25,000 and the government (or to be more accurate the taxpayer) pays Â£5,000. By a strange coincidence, that's exactly how much the government will then take in VAT!

Some of the remaining money at the moment will go to the Japanese car industry, because that's where the car's being made, but from 2013 the Leaf will be made in the UK.

04-08-11 11:46

Originally Posted by Beelzebub

Why would you rather believe Top Gear?

Because they did actually do proper research on the price of the battery (Even though according to them Nissan would not give a price for a battery)

They've now admitted they lied about the Leaf's range (the batteries had only been partly recharged).

I can't see where they 'lied' about its range, What he said was he had 'x' amount of miles left (as did May about that Ion he was driving).

I don't recall him saying the cars range was 'x' amount of miles.

And anyone who watches Top Gear enough knows they fool around alot. What they were doing was demonstrating the difficulties a person could face with an electric car. They certainly did not give the Ion any better a review!

Originally Posted by Beelzebub

It's a grant of 25% of the price, up to a maximum of Â£5,000 (not Â£500!).

So if the car costs Â£30,000 you pay Â£25,000 and the government (or to be more accurate the taxpayer) pays Â£5,000. By a strange coincidence, that's exactly how much the government will then take in VAT!

They don't give anything. It's probably already been added to the price in the first place! So some gullible tree hugger will think the government have a Green policy.

Some of the remaining money at the moment will go to the Japanese car industry, because that's where the car's being made, but from 2013 the Leaf will be made in the UK.

Even when they are made in the UK, The profit still goes to a Japanese company. I would agree it does keep some of the British workforce in work though.