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I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#111

Post by mschuster91 »

padjo wrote: post #46
mschuster91 wrote: post #32

> And charging stations are run by multiple vendors with multiple apps and payment methods. It's not like gas stations, like with Shell, BP, Buckee's, etc. where you just drive up, stick the gas nozzle in your tank, and squeeze. The "how to juice your car" question is pretty much solved on the electrical and communications side... but the "how do you pay for the juice" question is indeed absurd. I understand that pro…

Fixing the payments thing has been addressed by the EU as far as I know: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...

Unfortunately, only partially [1]:

- card acceptance is only required for 50 kW+ chargers. All the relatively low power chargers at supermarkets, shopping malls and other public venues? They can get by with offering QR codes that are all too often abused for phishing campaigns [2][3] and still have the issue with requiring some sort of app.

- the "card acceptance" may also be fulfilled by PSD2 compliant mobile banking apps, so if you got a rooted phone (where Google Pay is a cat-and-mouse game), a phone whose vendor is under sanctions and thus doesn't get the Google ecosystem or don't want to involve Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal or the likes in your daily life, you're screwed just as well at these charger points

On top of that, the standard to publish pricing information to the public coordination exchange is a hot XML/SOAP mess [4].

[1] https://nationale-leitstelle.de/ladeinfrastruktur-im-eu-kont...

[2] https://www.adac.de/news/verkehr-quishing-parkautomaten/

[3] https://www.adac.de/news/auto-quishing-betrug-ladesaeule/

[4] https://nationale-leitstelle.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/M...

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#112

Post by arpinum »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #30
mort96 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DRM thing unfortunately has nothing to do with EVs and everything to do with the computerization of cars. All cars have gotten more and more computerized and harder to repair with more DRM. EVs arguably fundamentally require heavy computerization more than ICE cars, but you're not gonna avoid it in a brand new diesel car either.

That's why I said repair regulations are needed for all cars not just EVs.

The EU did put in regulations, but they did the opposite and essentially mandated DRM. They want to prevent owners from turning off nanny devices or overriding pollution controls.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#113

Post by dzhiurgis »

guepe wrote: post #13
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #4

* Limiting the number of QCs (Quick Charges / DC Fast Charge), as this heats up the uncooled Leaf battery, degrading it slightly each time, especially on hotter days * Keeping the charge between 50-80% when manageable * Charging up to 100% at least once a month, and letting it 'top off' to rebalance the pack for at least a few hours afterwards * Not driving like a maniac, despite having more torque in this car than I…

This is completely avoided and not my experience. This is only because the leaf is not actively cooled. Most ev do not suffer from such difficult management of battery and have a computer dedicated to cool / heat and keep battery in healthy temps. They do degrade over time but very, very slowly. Absolutely not like phones. Mine has 25k miles and zero degradation yet.

> Mine has 25k miles and zero degradation yet.

Let me guess - Hyundai? They are notoriously lying about degradation.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#114

Post by mschuster91 »

bluGill wrote: post #86
mschuster91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limiting QC events is easy enough. A daily commuter vehicle can easily trickle charge over night, and even the measly 40 kWh old used Leaf can get you 200km a charge - assuming an average commute of 20 km for Germany, that's a whole work week worth of battery life. The only time you as an average person actually "need" QC is for the yearly vacation road trip, but as the author writes, renting an ICE or chungus electr…

Renting a car for vacations / road trips is expensive. sure you can but expect to pay $100 per day. Also expect to arrive and be told they can't fill your reservation as they are out of cars.

> Renting a car for vacations / road trips is expensive. sure you can but expect to pay $100 per day.

Indeed... but now, think of the price difference between a small-ish commute EV and a chungus EV or ICE. Easily tens of thousands of dollars, that's a lot of days worth of rent.

> Also expect to arrive and be told they can't fill your reservation as they are out of cars.

That's extremely fucking rare to happen. In the eventuality your reservation can't be filled, you'll usually get upgraded for free. Personally, got upgraded from a small VW Golf class to a VW Phaeton once, plus a day for free. And automatic, no stick shift like the Golf.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#115

Post by dzhiurgis »

formerly_proven wrote: post #80
guepe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely avoided and not my experience. This is only because the leaf is not actively cooled. Most ev do not suffer from such difficult management of battery and have a computer dedicated to cool / heat and keep battery in healthy temps. They do degrade over time but very, very slowly. Absolutely not like phones. Mine has 25k miles and zero degradation yet.

Even then the Leaf stands out with seemingly unusually high battery degradation compared to the uncooled battery competitors from 2014.

Not a battery expert, but I did recently look at using old leaf battery cells to build home battery. Their modules are 2s2p which make them impossible to balance.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#117

Post by guepe »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #113
guepe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely avoided and not my experience. This is only because the leaf is not actively cooled. Most ev do not suffer from such difficult management of battery and have a computer dedicated to cool / heat and keep battery in healthy temps. They do degrade over time but very, very slowly. Absolutely not like phones. Mine has 25k miles and zero degradation yet.

> Mine has 25k miles and zero degradation yet. Let me guess - Hyundai? They are notoriously lying about degradation.

Rivian I think it’s eating the extra buffer but that also means that the worse degradation that happens in first year is « free ». Then stats are a few percents per 100k miles…. There are articles about stats on long term degradation - it’s a non issue. Buy used if you can in USA - people perceive them as degraded so price is cheap but they don’t degrade fast

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#118

Post by pjc50 »

potato3732842 wrote: post #79
blitzar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> recharge after roughly 170 miles ... these cars won't be dead weight or dirt cheap The average car journey is 8 miles. Being an average with a finite lower limit of 0 it is skewed higher by the people who for various reasons drive long distances. You don't need a 1,000 mile range to get to the shops at the end of the street. It helps, but not that much.

You can screech about averages and means all you want but the fact of the matter is that if you're exceeding your vehicle's capabilities on a weekly or monthly basis the inconvenience of ownership goes up exponentially. I do 100mi/day but I all but need the ability to make that 200 on a weekly basis and am doing a 300 on a monthly basis. With charging at work and home those numbers become 50, 150 and 250 between char…

Meanwhile in Korea: https://driving.ca/auto-news/crashes/hyundai-ioniq-5-666000-...

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#119

Post by PaulKeeble »

Bairfhionn wrote: post #24

My Problem was always the Range Anxiety. Until I got an EV and realized it's not really an issue. There is always an App for that (and even on my car the software gets improved in that regard). Infrastructure is getting better, even companies starting to see it as a benefit to have cheap/free chargers at their offices to get people back. I see more and more electric trucks on the roads. It feels good.

I think until you have one you don't realise quite what having a range of 200+ miles means in practice. You don't actually drive for 500 miles without a break, that is 8-10 hours of constant motorway speed driving and its not safe to drive that long. So when you take 30 - 60 minutes for lunch on a long drive like that and charge the vehicle you are going another 200 miles before again really taking a break. As it stands the breaks will have to be a bit longer than you might like and it could add 30 minutes to your journey but that is about it for most people.

The other part that not a lot of people realise is if your journey is 300 miles and your car does 200 you don't charge another 200 miles into the battery, you charge 100 and then charge at the destination instead. With ICE vehicles if your going to get fuel typically you fuel it to the top but you don't do that with battery cars you want to charge them as little as possible while mid travelling and charge them while they are sat still at home or destination.

Its charging at home that really changes the experience too. The weekly trip to the fuel station disappears, depending on how often you exceed the range of the car you only really get exposed to the charging network and times when doing those journeys, you spend a lot less of your life in fuel stations!

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#120

Post by marcusb »

sillyfluke wrote: post #66
jillesvangurp wrote: post #21

Electric Vehicle Man on Youtube did a review of a 2000 pound second hand Renault Zoe that he picked up a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEvwtxGeVpQ The second hand market for EVs is getting pretty interesting. There are lots of EV owners that are replacing their EVs every few years and because of all the growth over the last 10 years, there are now quite a few fairly nice EVs on the second hand market…

Don't really follow the secondhand EV market, but it seems to me firsthand buyers are still taking on considerable risk due to the range situation. People who have bought them abroad are sometimes advised to keep the battery between 20%-80-90% full. Following this advice, one person I know told me if they drive like they did their old car they have to recharge after roughly 170 miles, which is super annoying for them…

I've driven an EV on 500 mile trips. Getting out and stretching your legs for 20-25 minutes once every three hours isn't "super annoying." If all I did was drive around all day, every day for 500 miles at a stretch, it might be, but not nearly as annoying as routinely driving for 500 miles.

For most people, the vast majority of their driving takes place well within the range of the typical BEV and range anxiety is a total non-issue. The fact is, even accounting for the occasional long trip, I spend less time at charging stations than I did at gas stations when I owned an ICE car, because the vast majority of the time, I just plug the car in at my house and let it do its thing.

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