We drove back from King Windward Nissan yesterday in our electric car, a Nissan Leaf, and I was experimenting with the new (to us) features.
The Leaf has a button labeled “ECO.” I pressed it, and it made the car a little less zippy in order to coax additional range out of each charge. Less acceleration, more miles. Makes sense.
Then I tried the switch that said “ePedal.”
I had no real idea what ePedal would do. And I discovered that to use it, you quickly have to jettison all the habits created by the basic physics of being in a regular car.
Remember that little bit of basic Newtonian physics, “A body in motion stays in motion.” Well, of course, the “stays in motion” part is in a perfect world, and otherwise is subject to the fine print of the real world, including all the forces that will slow down a body in motion. If that “body in motion” is a car, and you take your foot off the accelerator, the car will keep moving, but will slow down due wind resistance, friction of the tires on the road, the natural drag of gravity, and the “decelerative forces in the engine.”
So as a driver, I learned long ago to take my foot off the gas pedal, and coast to a gradual stop, or slow down and coast around a corner before accelerating again.
Well, ePedal contradicts your ingrained sense of the world in order to produce single-pedal driving. With ePedal on, the car goes when you step on the accelerator. But when you stop stepping on it, the car doesn’t continue coasting. It stops. Take your foot off slowly, and the car slows down. Remove your foot from the accelerator quickly, and it stops. Abruptly.
Behind the scenes, it is using “regenerative braking” to produce energy that is stored in the car’s battery, adding to the range of the electric car.
You don’t realize how habituated you are to the “normal” physics of driving until you suddenly find yourself in control of a 3,500 pound machine that is acting contrary to all of your previous driving experience.
Imagine that you throw something across the room, but as soon as the object leaves your hand, it stops, and remains in that spot until you take it in hand again and continue moving it across the room.
Surprisingly, I found that my brain didn’t take long to adjust to this new world. I did have a bit of trouble getting the hang of smoothly decelerating at intersections or in stop and go traffic, so I’m not quite ready for prime time driving with ePedal. Luckily, with the flip of a switch, you can return to the world of Newton.
But so far, our impression of the Leaf is very positive.
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Try the driver assist features. What’s really nice is the one that maintains a safe distance between you and the vehicle in front. When you’re stuck in traffic, it handles the “stop and go” for you.
When things come to a complete stop for a while, hit the “Resume” button on the steering wheel to get the Leaf going again.
Because it pretty much eliminates the risk of rear-ending someone, it reduces the workload of driving in heavy traffic, which makes it less fatiguing.
Congrats on the new car!
Any thought to putting PV panels on your roof to charge it up?
I suggest trying to avoid charging during hours of peak electricity demand in the late afternoon through early evening. And try to avoid charging the batteries to 100%, which can reduce the lifetime of your battery as well as limit the amount of energy you can capture regeneratively until you drain the battery a bit.
Does it give you control over the rate at which you charge it? In general, I suggest charging as slowly as practical. The faster you charge, the more damage you can do to your battery.
Yes, we have thought about trying to charge via a PV panels on the roof. But I think our overall use of electricity isn’t big enough to yield large savings.
I’ve also thought about moving the Hawaiian Electric’s Time of Use plan, which offer very low rates during the day when there’s lots of renewable power available. Since we’re mostly retired, we could recharge the car’s battery, and do our laundry, and run dish washer, only during the less expensive daytime hours.
As to slow charging, the Nissan Leaf is delivered with a Level 1 “trickle charge” cable. It charges very slowly, and wouldn’t make sense if you drive a lot, but we don’t put a lot of miles on our car. So we’re going to see if relying on the slow charger will be efficient enough in practice.
Yes, charging during the day, especially on sunny days, makes a lot of sense. You’ll be helping balance demand with generation.
I also agree that it makes sense to use the level 1 cable if that meets your needs. Charging it slowly will minimize the damage to your battery from heat generating by the charging process.
Welcome to the EV community!
We bought our Chevy Bolt more than 3 years ago, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. For the first two years, we just used the 120V charger that came with the car, and it worked just fine. On the Bolt, there is something called “Hilltop Reserve” that limits the charge to 90% max, so that you don’t lose regen braking when you start out if you live on a hill. In the interest of long battery life, I’ve been using that since the beginning. About a year ago there was a program for a free JuiceBox Level 2 charger – had to pay about $90 for shipping – so I got it and plugged it in. The circuit we use has a 30 A breaker, but the JuiceBox will allow you to set charging current, so we charge at 26 A. The real hit to battery life is fast DC charging, which I don’t need on Oahu. Also, many of the 120V chargers that come with cars are capable of operating on 240V to double the charge rate – look online for information about your specific one. If you have a 240V outlet for a dryer or water heater in your garage, that could be an easy option.