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The Nissan Leaf Tour passed through our friendly local museum of science this weekend, and we were on hand to see the new EV. For the price of admission, we were also treated to Nissan’s bold vision of a future in which convenience stores have handy wind turbines and electric vehicles are consistently able to achieve their stated range.
11 Comments on “Sunday Concours: Nissan Leaf Tour...”
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This new vehicle might be okay in warmer climates, but not here in this part of Canada at -6C! imho!
wind turbines at pedestrian level… sheer fantasy like the Chevy Volt and other pie in the sky EVs
They must’ve made more than one Leaf since all the press pictures I’ve found of the interior show the wheel and everything on the right.
-6°C is a warmer climate. Over here in western Canada, we spent the first week of December barely climbing out of the -30s (in other words, -20°F and below). I wonder how well a Leaf would have worked here…
Actually, I genuinely do wonder. That’s a common theoretical complaint about electric cars, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any conclusive testing done on the effect of temperatures like that on real-world (or at least prototype) electric cars.
I hear you. Living in northern alberta it gets -40C here which is about the same as -40F. We can also get very warm here in the summer. I have an A/C unit at home. Many manufactures claim to test there cars all around the world in all kinds of conditions. The porsche dealer I was speaking to claimed they test there cars as far north as Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.
If EV’s are to take off they will have to survive in all kinds of conditions
That picture kinda makes me excited at the thought of possible inductive charging parking spaces for EVs.
I agree with all of you. It doesn’t get down to -40F here near the IL/Wisconsin border, but it is regularly below 0C (I think the coldest I can remember is -20F real temp) and I really wonder how the results look in this kind of weather. Until I can go my 70 miles or so roundtrip at that temperature, EV’s are pretty useless. If I’m only going to use them in warm weather, I’ll just use my motorcycle.
Edit: According to wikipedia, our coldest temperature ever recorded was -27F (-33c) with a windchill that day of -83F (-64c). I think since that time, the windchill formula has been revised.
A fairly unrealistic view of the future. Our nanny state intends to tax out of existence most of the foodstuff that gets sold in a convenience store. (What we haven’t speculated upon is the range of an electric car when the driver is morbidly obese.) And the environmentals oppose wind turbines because they kill birds.
Somehow I always imagined the future as being more, well… futuristic.
You guys from Canada with the cold weather… ouch. That is why I live in Texas.
Going to get to the maybe the 60s (F) in Dallas.
Hawaii, FTW! People start wearing sweaters when it dips into the mid-70s (F).
Leaf car manual states the following:
“While in reverse and looking out the back window, give yourself an estimated extra car length to ensure that you don’t compact the rear bumper unexpectedly.”