The Tesla Roadster made me aware of what electric vehicles are capable of; the Nissan Leaf made me realize that they are practical.
I test drove a Leaf recently when the "Drive Electric Tour" stopped in Raleigh. Based on the Nissan Versa, the Leaf is a fairly conventional looking car, with plenty of room inside. It is pretty zippy off the line, and very easy to drive. Like the Tesla, there is only one gear and it is virtually silent. That is about where the similarities end, though.
The Leaf takes two and a half times longer to get to 60 miles per hour (about 10 seconds), has less than half the range (about 100 miles), a top speed less than 75% the upper limit (about 90 mph, so I hear), two and a half times MORE seating capacity (five full sized adults), and an infinite amount more cargo capacity (in other words, it has some). It also has a roof as standard equipment.
My group (about 20 people) listened to the Leaf story from some of the people conducting the tour. There were some cutaway views of the battery, which a sign said that its capacity was 24 kWh (kilowatt-hours). Even though I've got an electrical engineering degree, I didn't know what that translated to. So I looked it up when I got home.
A gallon of gas contains about 36 kWh of energy. OK, so what? Well, this means that the Leaf can go 100 miles on the energy equivalent of two-thirds of a gallon of gas. While running the heat or air conditioning. That's pretty impressive. Oh, and it costs about $2.50 to fully charge the battery. The only fluid to worry about is windshield washer fluid. There is virtually no routine maintenance. Unlike a hybrid electric vehicle (which has 30% more components than a conventional car), plug-in electric vehicles (PIEV), like the Tesla and the Leaf, have 85% fewer parts.
I asked our postal carrier (she drives one of those little jeep-like vehicles) how far she drove each day. She said, "about 30 miles." And the type of driving she does (a LOT of stop-and-start) is ideal for an electric vehicle, because when an EV's brakes are on, the battery charges (this is called "regenerative braking"). Even without this, the USPS vehicles are ideal for conversion to electric. Since the USPS has the largest vehicle fleet in the country, converting it would be a significant impact.
The biggest worry about these PIEVs is how far they can go on a single charge. This psychological affliction even has a name: "Range Anxiety". This is natural. As I wrote in an earlier piece on the Chevy Volt, a 40 mile range isn't inspiring.
However, a 100 mile range is OK. It is true that you can't drive coast-to-coast in a PIEV, but you can get around town very well. Nissan says that 95% of the population drives less than 100 miles a day -- I certainly fit in that. A PIEV would be a great second or commuter car.
Another consideration is that the energy acquisition process is fundamentally different between conventional (gasoline-power internal combustion engine) cars, and PIEVs. Gas stations are all over the place, and you use the car until the energy supply is low, and fill it up on demand.
With a PIEV, you fill it up at home. It is like having a gas pump in your garage that fills you up with five to ten gallons of gas every night. If you had something like that, how often would you need to stop at a gas station? Very rarely.
An alternative model can be found in the Blue Rhino gas grill LP cylinder business model. What if there were a little trailer that held a 25 - 50 kWh battery that plugged into the car to supply the juice for 100 - 200 miles. When it was discharged, you pull into a service station and swap it out for a fully charged one, and hit the road again. The service station simply recharges it, and swaps it for an empty one for another traveller. Voila! Range Anxiety cured!
I am even more of a convert to the EV cause than I was after the Tesla experience. If 10% or 20% of the cars on the road became electric, it is reasonable to think that the value and strategic importance of foreign sources of oil would diminish. We could generate the electricity needed to charge these vehicles domestically -- perhaps even at our homes or businesses with sources like the distributed generation Energy Server from BloomEnergy.
