Evo’s Richard Porter loves his Leaf!
Discussion
Glad to see I’m in good company - I saw this in the mag a couple of months ago but now it’s online:
http://www.evo.co.uk/opinion/20539/for-the-modern-...
http://www.evo.co.uk/opinion/20539/for-the-modern-...
Good article, our Leaf does the job well and (whisper) I enjoy driving it, with great acceleration and fairly decent handling thanks to the low CoG. I also like the way it is preheated and frost free each winter morning, and that now depreciation has levelled out it costs buttons to run, which then meant (using man maths) I could justify buying an old Porsche 968 sport for fun.
As a sole car the Leaf would be a compromise due to the range limitations, but even this is I believe about to change when the next generation comes out, then I think we are talking a car with much more mass market appeal.
As a sole car the Leaf would be a compromise due to the range limitations, but even this is I believe about to change when the next generation comes out, then I think we are talking a car with much more mass market appeal.
Biggles111 said:
Good article, our Leaf does the job well and (whisper) I enjoy driving it, with great acceleration and fairly decent handling thanks to the low CoG. I also like the way it is preheated and frost free each winter morning, and that now depreciation has levelled out it costs buttons to run, which then meant (using man maths) I could justify buying an old Porsche 968 sport for fun.
As a sole car the Leaf would be a compromise due to the range limitations, but even this is I believe about to change when the next generation comes out, then I think we are talking a car with much more mass market appeal.
Absolutely, the new 40kWh one should be 150-200 miles real world which would mean we didn’t need ICE - and then 60kWh in the next year or two.As a sole car the Leaf would be a compromise due to the range limitations, but even this is I believe about to change when the next generation comes out, then I think we are talking a car with much more mass market appeal.
I’d still have something fun in the garage tho’!
He doesn't articulate the benefits of Electric at all.
Namely:
Not knocking ev, they are the future. He would have been better off articulating benefits such as turning heating on remotely in winter to de-ice and the like.
Namely:
Evo said:
It has no gears so it’s zero aggro in coagulated stop-start traffic. And it’s incredibly smooth and quiet, which in turn makes it extremely soothing. In fact, there’s nothing short of a Rolls Royce Phantom that can touch it for calm in the face of the urban crawl. Plus, like a Phantom, it has the greatest easy-going quality a car can possess: lashings of torque. In the Leaf it’s all delivered from zero rpm, which makes it relaxing, yet also capable of absolutely smoking other motorists away from the lights.
My audi diesel is an Auto (DSG) so "zero aggro in coagulated stop-start", quiet enough for around town, remarkably smooth considering its age and mileage, has enough torque, and whilst not electric level of acceleration, has no trouble 'smoking' majority of other motorists from the lights when needed, often as most people don't care about competing!Not knocking ev, they are the future. He would have been better off articulating benefits such as turning heating on remotely in winter to de-ice and the like.
Edited by hyphen on Friday 22 December 13:36
hyphen said:
My audi diesel is an Auto (DSG) so "zero aggro in coagulated stop-start", quiet enough for around town, remarkably smooth considering its age and mileage,
er, not in the same league as even a basic EV for low speed controlability and smoothness. And without a bi-directional powertrain you have to use the brake pedal, which for most people means moving your feet. And at idle, even a modern "NVH optimised" derv is hugely more intrusive than a, pretty much completely silent EV. And with stop start, transitional cabin shake (often obvious through the steering column) is generally poor, again, not something an EV has to worry about. It goes from a true zero mph, to even a true 0.1mph without any noise, and shake what-so-everYou say your Derv is decent off the lights, and i'm sure it is, but there is a huge difference in NVH between a 0-60 in 25 secs launch and a 0-60 in 5 sec one! With an EV, with no gears, no clutch, and a silent "engine" fixed geared to the road, you can trundle off on a (utterly silent) granny launch, and then, if you hear the derv next to you reving up and jerking into a lower gear, just floor the throttle and seamlessly your rate of accel is maxed with effectively no extra noise or NVH. In fact, on my i3, it's so quiet during hard accel that you can actually hear the tread blocks of the rear tyres shuffling against the road if you tip in hard!
A second benefit not many people realise is that because there are not horrible firing order spike torques with an EV, and no reciprocating out-of-balance forces, the powertrain is installed into the chassis with much lower compliance mounting. Hence on an ICE powertain, and especially on a high BMEP, low cyl count one (ie a 4cyl tdi) the driveability calibration always includes a massive amount of torque rate limiting and damping across the zero torque threshold. Often (esp on fwd cars) lift off the throttle hard and you can feel the mass if the powertrain shunt across from drive to overrun. In an EV, it goes from fully +ve torque to full -ve torque pretty much completely invisibly.
(trust me, i spent over 10 years of my life doing powertrain calibration and driveability for major OEMs, and i have an i3, and a 335d. The 335d is i would suggest pretty much the pinnacle of a modern high performance compression ignition powertrain developments (very low lag and boost threshold coupled to a perfectly optimised mutilispeed auto transmission) and yet, drive the i3 for a day, get back in the 335d and it feels like driving a dumper truck by comparison ! )
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 22 December 13:53
I took my Nissan GTR for a service a couple of years back and instead of the usual 370z loan car I asked for a Leaf for the day.
I was VERY impressed with the whole experience. Great fun to drive. Felt very quick.
The only drawback was ....... on my way back to collect the GTR I was a bit early so called at the local Porsche dealership for a look around. I could see the sales guys smiling as I drove in and parked..... they all completely ignored me!
Um.... maybe the usual Porsche customer doesn’t arrive in a Leaf!
I was VERY impressed with the whole experience. Great fun to drive. Felt very quick.
The only drawback was ....... on my way back to collect the GTR I was a bit early so called at the local Porsche dealership for a look around. I could see the sales guys smiling as I drove in and parked..... they all completely ignored me!
Um.... maybe the usual Porsche customer doesn’t arrive in a Leaf!
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