Costs of driving remain extremely low. We have paid nothing so far in maintenance costs for over 13,000 miles of driving and we have had essentially no fuel cost in the more than 13,000 miles that we've driven the LEAF. This is due to our home's solar PV panels that make more power than we usually use for our home, and Time of Use (TOU) rates available from our utility, SCE, for charging our EV at night. As I reported earlier, we ended our solar net metering year this past March 7 with a bill for the entire year of less than seven dollars! Of course, we did spend money to install the solar panels in early 2007, but that was a sunk cost over four years before we got our LEAF. Driving on electric power and eliminating gasoline costs for the LEAF, we are covering the cost of that solar installation much faster. Between savings on our home electric bills of at least $1500 per year and a similar amount on gasoline costs, we're saving at least $3,000 per year due to our solar PV system. The combination of driving an EV with a home solar PV system is an amazingly great fit.
We've just completed month #3 of our solar net metering year 2012/13. Our meter read is actually a few days after the beginning of each month, but I include the monthly billings in the previous month for reporting here. Our May/June bill was a credit of five dollars, so with the summer rate schedule kicking in, we have already started seeing dollars credited back to our account. Our cumulative bill now stands at $61.25 for the three months for all electricity use, including car charging. By the end of September, the last "summer" month on the TOU rate plan, we will have a credit balance of perhaps $300. This credit balance will cover some of the billings for the winter months to follow, so that we should end this net metering year with a bill actually payable of close to zero again. That's for our entire electric usage for our home and for charging an electric car for close to 12,000 miles!
If we didn't have solar power, we would have spent about 3.7 cents per mile this month on charging costs, or about $35 for electricity to drive the car 938 miles. If you compare that to even the most fuel efficient gasoline cars that get 40 mpg combined, at $4 per gallon, you'd spend about $94 to drive that distance, almost three times the cost!
We're Starting to See Reports of Battery Capacity Loss in Arizona and Texas
Since early May, 2012, LEAF owners in Arizona and Texas have begun to report the loss of battery capacity as shown by a reduction from twelve to eleven bars, and even a few down to ten bars, on their dashboard capacity displays. At the time of this writing, about 19 LEAF owners on the MyNissanLEAF forum (Link) have directly reported that the battery capacity reading on their LEAF's dash has shown this reduction in capacity bars, three of them having lost two bars (Link). All of these owners live in Arizona or Texas. Some of these cars have been checked out by Nissan dealers, and the owners have been told that the capacity loss is normal. A Nissan spokesperson told Green Car Reports “In general, all batteries exhibit a higher loss of capacity early in life, but then the curve flattens over time,”. “Our internal results indicate that the battery will have 80 percent of its capacity under normal use after 5 years, and 70 percent after 10 years.” “We can confirm that the state of charge [sic] is depicted as a non-linear scale but are not able to confirm the specific totals that each ‘bar’ represents,” Nissan’s official statement says. “Battery life is contingent upon many variables related to driving habits and conditions. We are confident that if owners care for their vehicles properly, they will experience many years of enjoyable driving!” Link
Battery Capacity Gauge is the 12 bar scale at the far right. This one shows 12 bars, full capacity.
To put this into perspective, there have been no reports of LEAFs losing battery capacity bars in other states than Arizona and Texas. We are certainly in a learning phase about this issue, and much is yet to be understood about it. Until more is known for certain about how these batteries behave, I won't repeat details that are reported elsewhere. I plan to do some driving tests to obtain some clear data on our LEAF's current driving range.
Honda Fit EV
Honda Fit EV Press Introduction and Test Drive
Though I usually save the reporting of events for the blog post about the month when those events took place, I am going to include a recent event from the month of June in this May blog post, because the information is timely and may be useful to some readers.
Honda Fit EV
I was very fortunate to be invited through my MNL friend Mike Walsh to attend the press introduction of the Honda Fit EV this past week. The Honda Fit EV is the first commercially available electric car from Honda, at least it is the first of this current generation of EVs. As I reported a few months ago, Honda has chosen to take a careful approach with the introduction of this car by making a small number of them, only 1,100 cars for the US over the 2013 and 2014 model years, by offering the cars for lease only rather than for sale, and by closely limiting the regional markets where the cars will be available.
Honda Fit EV Interior
The Fit EV is a surprisingly capable car and a well done effort. Rather than contracting the job out to a partner to modify an existing ICE platform with batteries that encroach on the rear luggage space, as one maker has done, Honda has internally designed and built the car and they have fundamentally changed the Fit platform to make it an excellent EV. They have changed the rear suspension from a torsion beam to an independent design to better handle the weight of the batteries and to fit the battery box. And they have revised the body structure so that the heavy lithium ion batteries are placed in an air cooled box located beneath the floor and the rear seats for better weight distribution in a placement similar to the Nissan LEAF's. Honda has also recognized that an advantage of EVs is that they can be fun to drive, so they have made the Fit EV the most fun to drive of the most recent crop of EVs in this price range. They have included a Sport mode that gives the driver more power for acceleration, and they have customized the Fit's already good suspension to create a car with good steering feel and handling.
Honda Fit EV Dashboard in Sport Mode
In making the Fit EV a successful and fun car to drive, Honda has done the seemingly impossible and also made it the most fuel efficient of the new crop of EVs. The Fit EV recently attained an MPG equivalent in the EPA's tests of 118 MPGe, better than the LEAF, Ford Focus EV and the Mitsubishi i (note that this superior energy economy was attained in Normal mode, not in the more aggressive Sport mode, which Honda says drains power ten percent more quickly than Normal mode). And with a smallish battery pack of only 20 kWh capacity, 4 kWh smaller than the LEAF's, the Fit EV attained an EPA driving range of 82 miles as compared with the LEAF's 73 miles. What's more, Honda has equipped the Fit EV with a 6.6 kW on board charger. Connected to a 240 Volt supply with the appropriate Amperage circuit breaker, the Fit EV can put twice as much electrical power into the batteries per hour of charging as the LEAF's 3.3 kW charger can. This 6.6 kW charger is the same size as the one found in the Ford Focus EV and the Coda.
Honda Fit EV
I truly enjoyed driving the Fit EV on closed parking lot courses and on Pasadena's streets and freeways a few days ago. In Normal mode, the car accelerates very similarly to the LEAF, but it handles better with much better steering feel. In Sport mode, the car is much more enjoyable, with really good throttle response and what feels like 0 to 60 mph acceleration that might be in the under 8 second range. We'll have to wait for properly documented acceleration tests from the car magazines to substantiate that feeling.
The Honda Fit EV is a smaller car than the LEAF, with a wheelbase of only 98.4 inches compared with the LEAF's 106.3 inches. But Honda has made the most of interior space, actually providing a bit more rear seat leg room than the larger LEAF. That does steal some space from the luggage area, though, and cargo capacity is smaller than the LEAF's, at least with the rear seats up. The Fit EV is also narrower than the LEAF, with rear seat hip room of five inches less, so three adults or more than two child car seats would probably not fit. What all of this means is that the LEAF is a better family EV with a more open and airy cabin, while the Fit EV is a more sporty and better handling car for a couple or a smaller family. The LEAF also offers a more sophisticated and better looking instrument panel, with displays that are more informative. The Fit EV skimps on instruments by providing only a warning light for battery temperature, and no gauge at all for battery capacity. The Fit EV's mobile phone app, however, is far more capable than the one provided for the LEAF, with the ability to plan and map out trips and send the information to the car. The Fit EV also has a handheld key fob that allows you to start and stop charging and climate control from up to 100 feet away from the car.
Honda Fit EV Drive Mode Selector Buttons
The Numbers:
2011 Nissan LEAF SL Placed in Service: March 30, 2011
All Home Charging Done Using: 240 Volt Aerovironment/Nissan Level 2 EVSE
Home Solar PV System: 24 Sunpower 215W panels totaling 5.16 kW DC mounted on a 20 degree South facing roof.
Total Solar PV Power Generated for Net Metering Year Ended February 2012: 8,568 kWh
Total Miles at Month End: 13,248 miles
Miles Driven in Month: 938 miles
Electric Power Used for Charging in Month: 271.5 kWh (measured at wall power source, includes public charging)
Public Charging in Month, Power Use: 4 kWh
Charging at Home in Month, Power Use: 267.5 kWh
Energy Efficiency, Month of May: 3.45 miles/kWh (wall to wheels)
Energy Efficiency, Month of May: 4.14 miles/kWh (in car main dash display, battery to wheels)
Efficiency Wall to Wheels in Month at 240 Volts: (3.45/4.14) = 83.3%
Total Charging Energy Used, Lifetime: 4,109.5 kWh (Includes public charging)
Energy Efficiency, Lifetime: 3.22 miles/kWh (wall to wheels)Energy Efficiency, Lifetime: 31.06 kWh/100 mi (wall to wheels)
Number of Home Charging Days in Month: 23
Most Electric Energy Used for Charging in a Day in May: 19.8 kWh (5.2 charging hours, includes 9.8 kWh public charging)
Most Electric Energy Used for Charging AT HOME in a Day in May: 19.8 kWh (5.2 charging hours)
Least Electric Energy Used at Home for Charging in a Charging Day in May : 5.2 kWh (1.4 charging hours)
Average Electric Energy Used for Home Charging in a Charging Day in May : 11.6 kWh (3.05 charging hours)
Household Power Used for Month: 730.5 kWh (without car charging)
Total Power Used for Month: 998 kWh (includes car charging)
Solar PV Power Generated for Month: 843 kWh
Net Power Used or Sent to Grid for Month: 155 kWh net used
May Electric Bill, So Cal Edison, Schedule TOU-D-TEV: $-5.01 (A credit in this amount will be added to our net metering total charge for the year.)
Solar Net Metering Year Total Cumulative kWh Used at Month #3: 758 kWh (Total kWh net used for the net metering year. This is total household and EV charging usage minus solar PV generation.)
Solar Net Metering Year Total Cumulative Cost at Month #3: $61.25 (Total energy and delivery costs for all power usage for the net metering year.)
Cost for Charging Car in May: $0.00
Cost per Mile: $0.00
Cost for Charging Car, Lifetime: $0.00
Cost per Mile, Lifetime: $0.00
(If We Didn't Have Solar Power, Est Cost for Charging Car in May: $34.78)
(If We Didn't Have Solar Power, Est Cost per Mile in May: $0.037)
Average (Mean) Miles per Driving Day in May: 36.1 miles
Average (Median) Miles per Driving Day in May: 35 miles
Longest Day's Driving in May: 95 miles (charging mid-trip)
Longest Day's Driving in May Without Mid-Trip Charging: 62 miles
Shortest Day's Driving in May: 7 miles
Number of Times we Took the Prius Instead of the LEAF Due to Low Charge: 0
Unexpected Low Charge and Unable to Reach Destination: Never