1000km service
After 1 month and a little over 1000km it’s a good time to go over my impressions of the Leaf while I wait for the service to be completed.
The good
e-Pedal - I love the e-Pedal and I am surprised how quickly I became accustomed to it to the point that I am a little surprised when I drive my wife’s City that it doesn’t start braking when I take my foot off the accelerator. I haven’t driven the Leaf without the e-pedal since getting it.
Size - it’s a surprisingly roomy car, larger than it looks. While you don’t sit as high as in the Renegade, it has good all around visibility. Even with no glass between the rear passenger door and the hatch I’ve not had an issue seeing the traffic around me.
Recharging - The contingency cable has been more than adequate to keep the car charged and, apart from the trip to Sydney which was supposed to be a trip to Canberra, I have had no thoughts about running out of power. The COVID19 lockdown has probably helped since I haven’t done as much driving as usual.
The not-so-good
Highway range - As I described in a previous post, the highway range is not very good and you can’t go much further than 150km without doing a fair bit of planning. My trip to Wyong this morning, which was mostly on the M1 averaged about 16kWh/100km whereas around town I’m generally doing less than 15. (The round trip ended up being 15.2, but the climate control was off on the way home.)
Cruise control/braking/e-pedal transition - there were some occasions where the cruise control was on and I’d press the brake and it felt like we were coasting and it took a while to start slowing down. I think there was a software update applied during the service that fixed it because that odd transition didn’t happen on the way home.
Seat comfort - the driver’s seat is quite flat and not very comfortable for longer drives.
Infotainment system - It can be a bit of a lottery as to whether my phone will automatically connect to Android Auto but I think it is more of a problem with my Note 9 than the car. Getting information about state of charge when the car is off appears to be impossible. It would be nice to see some info about charging rate when the car is plugged in.
On the way home I noticed that the trip computer stops at 999.9km which seems odd. I can’t see any reason it shouldn’t go over 1000km except that the car isn’t really designed for longer trips.
Summary
I don’t regret buying the Leaf at all. I might have to look into OMVS if I want some of the monitoring information I’d like. It’s been better than my wife’s City during lockdown which needs a jump start if it hasn’t been driven for a few days. (It’s probably the dashcam, which I’ve now unplugged, but something we’ll get them to check at it’s 10000km service this week.)