Test Drive: 2012 Nissan Leaf SL

2012 Nissan Leaf SL. Click image to enlarge

More Nissan Leaf reviews at Autos.ca Manufacturer’s web site Nissan Canada

Review and photos by Jil McIntosh

Second opinion, by Peter Bleakney

Photo Gallery:
2012 Nissan Leaf

There are few things more liberating than sailing past a gas station in the all-electric Nissan Leaf, watching emissions spew out of tailpipes while drivers line up, waiting to pump buck-and-change fossil fuel into their tanks. And there are few things less liberating than watching a “Low Battery” warning flashing on your dash as you try to figure out the shortest way home and hope you can make it.

In a nutshell, that’s basically everything that’s really good and really bad about Nissan’s little electric hatchback. It’s a very nice car to drive – if you’re thinking it’s a glorified golf cart, forget that right now – but it definitely requires that you schedule your driving around the Leaf, rather than the other way around. It’s a niche car for a niche market.

2012 Nissan Leaf SL. Click image to enlarge

I had the loan of a Leaf for three days, and I specifically scheduled it for December to see how winter would affect it. It turned out to be unseasonably warm weather in my corner of Ontario, but it was still cold enough to notice a range that was significantly lower than that promised in the specifications.

The Leaf runs solely on an 80-kW electric motor, fed by a 192-cell lithium-ion battery that is recharged by plugging into a wall socket. It also feeds a bit of power back into the battery while you’re driving through regenerative braking. On my top-line SL tester, a small solar panel on the rear roof provided a trickle charge to the 12-volt battery that runs the peripherals. It’s one of a small number of battery-only vehicles currently available or coming soon, such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Smart Fortwo Electric and Ford Focus EV. Other plug-in vehicles have other power sources, such as the Chevrolet Volt, which fires up a small gasoline engine to work as a generator to produce electricity when the battery is depleted, and the Toyota Prius Plug-In, which runs on its stored charge and then reverts to conventional hybrid operation.

2012 Nissan Leaf SL. Click image to enlarge

The Leaf isn’t cheap. The base SV model is $38,395, while my SL was $39,995. So far, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia offer “green” rebates against the purchase price, ranging from $5,000 to $8,500. Leaf buyers also have to install a dedicated 240-volt home charger, which adds another $2,200 or so, offset in Quebec by a further incentive. In one of those bizarre twists that we’ve come to expect from the federal government, the Leaf is also hit by a $100 air conditioning tax, which was originally brought in as an environmental levy due to the extra gasoline that A/C consumes. Go figure.

Since my house doesn’t have the 240-volt charger, I had to use a regular 120-volt outlet, which more than doubled the charging time (a display in the instrument cluster monitors how much battery is left and provides a constantly-updated readout of how long it will take to go back up to full charge using either voltage). A cord is provided, but there’s a warning not to use an extension cord with it, so banish any thoughts of running one out of your second-story apartment window to charge it up.

Nissan says the Leaf will go up to 160 kilometres on a charge, but my car never gave me an estimated range of more than 125 kilometres after it was fully charged and the outside temperature was 3C. Part of the car’s “Carwings” telematics service includes a map that showed my current location and how far I could expect to go on the current battery charge.

2012 Nissan Leaf SL. Click image to enlarge

Given how difficult it can be to figure out the information and navigation systems on many new vehicles, I expected the tech-heavy Leaf to have an equally tech-heavy interface. To my surprise, everything was extremely intuitive, and even though I didn’t have a full owner’s manual, I quickly figured out everything within the touch-screen, which includes energy information, charging and climate control timers, driving history and the closest public charging stations (of which there are very few right now, of course).

Get in, push the starter button and the Leaf comes to life, accompanied by a little electronic tune. The gearshift lever is an odd little saucer-shaped knob on the centre console, which you push up for Reverse, sideways for Neutral, and down for Drive or into Eco mode, which sharply restricts the throttle response. A button in the centre puts the single-speed transmission into Park. Once you’re in Drive or Eco, you simply press your foot down and away you go.

It’s a compliment to say that the Leaf doesn’t feel much different than driving pretty much any other compact hatch. It’s rated for 107 horsepower and 207 lb.-ft. of torque, and since electric motors make their power right from the start – unlike a gasoline engine, which has to rev up – it’s right there when you need it. The steering is light but feels quite good, the heavy battery plants it firmly, and it’s actually a lot of fun to drive. About the only thing that feels unconventional are the brakes, which can be grabby, and which have that odd-pedal feel that was common on the early hybrid models. The seats are very comfortable, which was appreciated but almost seems strange, given that many gasoline cars that’ll go 600-plus kilometres on a tank have cushions that get unpleasantly hard after the first fifty kliks. Visibility is good and everything is easy to reach and use, except for cupholders set below the centre stack that don’t easily accommodate taller travel mugs, and an instrument panel that’s almost impossible to read if you’re at the right time of day and direction for the sun to shine through the driver’s window onto it. The rear seats fold down, but due to the battery pack, there’s a tall divider between the cargo area and the seats, so larger items can only be accommodated if they can rest on the divider.

2012 Nissan Leaf SL. Click image to enlarge

The Leaf obviously has no gasoline-engine growl, but since much of the sound you hear inside any car is from the tires and road noise, it’s about the same as driving any other compact once you’re cruising. Only when crawling through parking lots is it whisper-quiet, and so there’s a special noisemaker that alerts pedestrians to your presence when you turn it on. If you have the type of spousal relationship that involves sneaking home in the wee small hours of the morning, this is definitely your vehicle.

Naturally, the Leaf uses an electric climate control system, and it heated up very quickly, although it never got much below minus 1 degree Celsius when I had the car. The seats are heated, as is the steering wheel. That might sound odd, given that these systems require a lot of power, but it turns out there’s a method to the madness. The automakers have discovered that if your butt and hands are warm, you tend to keep the cabin temperature lower, and it requires less power to heat a seat than it does to heat the entire cabin, especially if there are only one or two people using the hot chairs. The Leaf also has a timer that will let you set it to charge during off-peak hours and to pre-set the heater or air conditioning. I did this one morning and, right on time, the heater came on to take the chill off the interior. This meant that since the car warmed up on the electricity from my house outlet, it wasn’t eating into the battery’s range as it would have if the heater had started up from cold once the car was unplugged.

2012 Nissan Leaf SL. Click image to enlarge

The first time out, I found myself watching the battery gauge almost obsessively. The first couple of bars that indicate the charge drop quickly, but then it stays in the mid-range for a while. The second time out I was more familiar with the car and so didn’t look at the screen as often, but these were short trips of about 30 kilometres each. On the third day, I took it out for a longer drive. The vehicle gives plenty of warning, but even though the gauge still showed 25 kilometres left, it was a bit disconcerting to see the flashing “Low Battery” and turtle icon come on, and the battery level was dropping fairly quickly as I drove. A screen on the car’s computer estimates how many kilometres can be added to the total remaining if electrical draws such as the climate system are turned off. I got home with about 12 kilometres left. General Motors coined the term “range anxiety,” and it’s an apt one, since the only way to get the car home when it runs down is via a tow truck, and I was indeed getting anxious. (Some road assist companies in various global cities are experimenting with quick-charge units that could come to your aid, the equivalent of bringing a gas can to an empty conventional vehicle, but that’s not an option here yet.)

There’s no getting around it: if you’re going to buy a Leaf, you will have to schedule your driving. Once I got back into my driveway, I was home for the night, at least as far as that car was concerned. You have to plan your trips and schedule your charging (there’s at least one smartphone application under development that, when it’s released, will coordinate your electronic datebook and the car’s information to let you know what errands you can run or when they could best be scheduled). It’s almost like public transit in a way, where you have to know the schedules and routes, and be at the bus stop or train station on time. At the moment, the ideal Leaf customer would most likely be an urban dweller who drives a limited amount each day, and has access to a second car or to public transit or car-sharing for longer trips or when the Leaf is charging.

2012 Nissan Leaf SL. Click image to enlarge

As for the cost of fuel, I wasn’t able to determine my electricity costs during the short time I drove the Leaf, but it’s going to be part of the puzzle. (I spoke to a couple of people who described the Leaf as being “free” to drive, since I wasn’t paying at the pumps; for many, the electric car still remains a mystery.) My power is also hydroelectric or nuclear, but in many areas, the Leaf’s lack of tailpipe emissions is offset by those of the coal-fired generating plants that supply its fuel. You can go for “greener” transportation, but short of walking barefoot, nothing is absolutely “green.”

The Leaf is a very decent machine as far as the driving experience goes, but overall, when it comes to electric cars, I think the extended-range units – ones that switch over to gasoline when the battery’s depleted – are going to be the most popular. Certainly there will be buyers who want to get away from gas entirely, and for them, this is a great car to drive. As long as most people want personal mobility that’s available whenever they want to use it, though, the pure battery-electric car is going to remain a low-volume option, and one that’s going to stay expensive for while.