Tempo para fazer uma viagem longa com o Leaf
Enviado: 15 abr 2011, 17:41
Tempo para fazer uma viagem longa com o Leaf. (Time for a long trip....). Bastante interessante esta experiência
"Okay! Here we go. Time for my mammoth report.
On Monday my kids wanted to do some things in the morning and I was being slow to head off, so didn't get on the road until around 11am.
The car was doing great. I picked the shortest route between Bristol and Oxford and ended up arriving at Westway Oxford with 67.5 miles travelled and a predicted range of 37 miles to go according to the car.
I'd been driving sensibly, with speed varying between 30 and 50 mph depending on road. A little 60 mph stuff, but not too much. Next time I may do more.
I met the Oxford EVRM and charged the Leaf to 90%. It was so quick the car was finished before I was finished with my Coffee! 3 bars down, but predicted 108 miles range.
Onwards and upwards (or should that be east?) I got into a bit of a muddle around the A41 and missed a turn (I was listening to a very interesting podcast) and ended up reaching Waltham Abbey via the M25. That was *ahem* fun, with some roadworks helping to keep my speed down to around 55 most of the time.
I arrived with 35 miles remaining on the charge meter, and the car recharged to 90% again. This time the range prediction was lower after a charge, at 86 miles, due in part to my motorway section.
I then drove through London, along the A10 and then into the West End. It was rush-hour by then so I got caught up in traffic.
Allthough I didn't need to, I stopped in Hyde park and charged there while I found some food. I'd planned to visit Tesla but missed them by an hour, so my car made some friends in Hyde Park instead.
Fed and watered, I headed west again, this time hammering the Leaf on the M4/M25 and overtaking with the rest of them. Arrived at the hotel with 26 predicted miles remaining, and 181.4 miles easily travelled in the day. I'd also seen the odometer roll over to 1,000 miles after just 13 days of ownership!
The hotel had parking reserved near a power point, but it turned out to be a little trek (always pack extra leads) and I left the car charging while I retired for the night.
The hotel kindly let me leave the car there during the day. Funnily enough I flew over the hotel after taking off in the morning and while in Germany got a message from the car to say it had stopped charging. A workman had unplugged it!
A quick call to the hotel and all was fixed. When I got back that evening the car was fully charged, but only estimating 91 miles charge based on the previous day's motorway madness.
So, I put it into gear and drove it very carefully west, aiming for home some 102 miles away.
At this point I should note that it was getting late at night. I had no access to dealer fast chargers and as easy as the trip was down, the trip back would be hard.
Every mile was a mental struggle, playing the game in my head to keep miles predicted remaining and distance to home in the same area. But I'd started the trip with a predicted 10 miles less than the car needed to do!
I headed west, following the sat nav waypoints I'd created to force Carwings to give me the shortest route (The Carwings software had a bug, displaying the shortest route to my home inaccurately at 122 miles not 102, so I wanted to make sure the car really did follow the shortest route)
Stopping at Green Park Reading (Free 16A sockets there) I had my supper and got the car 20 minutes (or maybe 5 miles) of charge.
...and headed on.
Pushing into the night, I realised that the hills around swindon were going to cause some issues. Also the temperature, dropping like a stone from 14 degrees down to 1 degree was playing havoc with the estimated range.
I can say this: The Leaf hates cold weather. No matter what I did, the car didn't want to be optimistic any more. By this point, my buffer between actual distance to go and predicted distance was positive by 20 miles, but the cold had really started to draing that down.
So I stopped again, this time in Newbury at a hotel where I had a warm coffee and got about 40 minutes of charge. My car's SOC was about half by this point and the predicted remaining range was 70 miles.
Pushing onwards, I managed to keep the remaining distance to home about 10-20 less than the estimated range remaining. But I was driving slowly by this point, trying to be as smooth as possible and covering ground at around 30 mph.
On the A4 there are some monster hills. The Leaf managed them all, although there were some scary moments when the predicted range started to drop further still.
At 11 miles remaining, my car said 19 miles of charge remained in eco. But I hadn't had the low battery light, and still had three bars remaining.
For the entire trip I was averaging around 10 miles per bar, so I was aware I could get home if I carried on the same way, but I also knew I had a huge hill.
The A46 and A420 meet in a very high point in Wiltshire. As I crossed the border into South Gloucstershire, the road drops away for a good few miles. By this point it was close to 1:15am and I was able to let the car rule the road.
Downhill, I recoperated a bar and upped the predicted range to 30 miles.
It wasn't until I was only 7 miles from home that I got the first low battery warning light. And I'd started to speed up.
The penultimate section was on the Bristol ring-road. Trying to be smooth but not be too slow I headed home, safe in the knowledge that I'd been that low before and been further away from home.
I pulled into my village with 20 miles remaining, and floored it a little, celebrating being so close to home. By the time I'd got back to the house I'd had the heating on full blast for a few miles, been driving quite aggresively and had stopped hypermiling.
Final verdict?
I got home at 1:40 ish, and had an estimated 12 miles to go. I was down to one bar.
I did it, but my verdict is this:
The difference between the trip in the daytime with fast charging available and nighttime with not so much as a plug anywhere is vast. The former makes driving a Leaf wonderful, the latter an exercise in Buddhist zen.
In reality, you need fast charging stations en-route to realistically do longer trips. For me, a Level 3 charging station at Swindon and at Reading would have enabled me to do the whole trip on the motorway at 70.
As it was, I had to detour to get to London using fast chargers, putting time on my day. Going home, I had to rely on my own road knowledge (and google) to get me back home in one piece. Following Nissan/Carwings/Navteq's "shortest" route would have stranded me.
Sorry if this is a bit disjointed, but I've slept very little in the last four days - something I'm just about to rectify!
Nikki.
Would I do it again? Sure, but on a warmer day!
Nikki."
Em: http://www.leaftalk.co.uk/showthread.ph ... g-trip....
"Okay! Here we go. Time for my mammoth report.
On Monday my kids wanted to do some things in the morning and I was being slow to head off, so didn't get on the road until around 11am.
The car was doing great. I picked the shortest route between Bristol and Oxford and ended up arriving at Westway Oxford with 67.5 miles travelled and a predicted range of 37 miles to go according to the car.
I'd been driving sensibly, with speed varying between 30 and 50 mph depending on road. A little 60 mph stuff, but not too much. Next time I may do more.
I met the Oxford EVRM and charged the Leaf to 90%. It was so quick the car was finished before I was finished with my Coffee! 3 bars down, but predicted 108 miles range.
Onwards and upwards (or should that be east?) I got into a bit of a muddle around the A41 and missed a turn (I was listening to a very interesting podcast) and ended up reaching Waltham Abbey via the M25. That was *ahem* fun, with some roadworks helping to keep my speed down to around 55 most of the time.
I arrived with 35 miles remaining on the charge meter, and the car recharged to 90% again. This time the range prediction was lower after a charge, at 86 miles, due in part to my motorway section.
I then drove through London, along the A10 and then into the West End. It was rush-hour by then so I got caught up in traffic.
Allthough I didn't need to, I stopped in Hyde park and charged there while I found some food. I'd planned to visit Tesla but missed them by an hour, so my car made some friends in Hyde Park instead.
Fed and watered, I headed west again, this time hammering the Leaf on the M4/M25 and overtaking with the rest of them. Arrived at the hotel with 26 predicted miles remaining, and 181.4 miles easily travelled in the day. I'd also seen the odometer roll over to 1,000 miles after just 13 days of ownership!
The hotel had parking reserved near a power point, but it turned out to be a little trek (always pack extra leads) and I left the car charging while I retired for the night.
The hotel kindly let me leave the car there during the day. Funnily enough I flew over the hotel after taking off in the morning and while in Germany got a message from the car to say it had stopped charging. A workman had unplugged it!
A quick call to the hotel and all was fixed. When I got back that evening the car was fully charged, but only estimating 91 miles charge based on the previous day's motorway madness.
So, I put it into gear and drove it very carefully west, aiming for home some 102 miles away.
At this point I should note that it was getting late at night. I had no access to dealer fast chargers and as easy as the trip was down, the trip back would be hard.
Every mile was a mental struggle, playing the game in my head to keep miles predicted remaining and distance to home in the same area. But I'd started the trip with a predicted 10 miles less than the car needed to do!
I headed west, following the sat nav waypoints I'd created to force Carwings to give me the shortest route (The Carwings software had a bug, displaying the shortest route to my home inaccurately at 122 miles not 102, so I wanted to make sure the car really did follow the shortest route)
Stopping at Green Park Reading (Free 16A sockets there) I had my supper and got the car 20 minutes (or maybe 5 miles) of charge.
...and headed on.
Pushing into the night, I realised that the hills around swindon were going to cause some issues. Also the temperature, dropping like a stone from 14 degrees down to 1 degree was playing havoc with the estimated range.
I can say this: The Leaf hates cold weather. No matter what I did, the car didn't want to be optimistic any more. By this point, my buffer between actual distance to go and predicted distance was positive by 20 miles, but the cold had really started to draing that down.
So I stopped again, this time in Newbury at a hotel where I had a warm coffee and got about 40 minutes of charge. My car's SOC was about half by this point and the predicted remaining range was 70 miles.
Pushing onwards, I managed to keep the remaining distance to home about 10-20 less than the estimated range remaining. But I was driving slowly by this point, trying to be as smooth as possible and covering ground at around 30 mph.
On the A4 there are some monster hills. The Leaf managed them all, although there were some scary moments when the predicted range started to drop further still.
At 11 miles remaining, my car said 19 miles of charge remained in eco. But I hadn't had the low battery light, and still had three bars remaining.
For the entire trip I was averaging around 10 miles per bar, so I was aware I could get home if I carried on the same way, but I also knew I had a huge hill.
The A46 and A420 meet in a very high point in Wiltshire. As I crossed the border into South Gloucstershire, the road drops away for a good few miles. By this point it was close to 1:15am and I was able to let the car rule the road.
Downhill, I recoperated a bar and upped the predicted range to 30 miles.
It wasn't until I was only 7 miles from home that I got the first low battery warning light. And I'd started to speed up.
The penultimate section was on the Bristol ring-road. Trying to be smooth but not be too slow I headed home, safe in the knowledge that I'd been that low before and been further away from home.
I pulled into my village with 20 miles remaining, and floored it a little, celebrating being so close to home. By the time I'd got back to the house I'd had the heating on full blast for a few miles, been driving quite aggresively and had stopped hypermiling.
Final verdict?
I got home at 1:40 ish, and had an estimated 12 miles to go. I was down to one bar.
I did it, but my verdict is this:
The difference between the trip in the daytime with fast charging available and nighttime with not so much as a plug anywhere is vast. The former makes driving a Leaf wonderful, the latter an exercise in Buddhist zen.
In reality, you need fast charging stations en-route to realistically do longer trips. For me, a Level 3 charging station at Swindon and at Reading would have enabled me to do the whole trip on the motorway at 70.
As it was, I had to detour to get to London using fast chargers, putting time on my day. Going home, I had to rely on my own road knowledge (and google) to get me back home in one piece. Following Nissan/Carwings/Navteq's "shortest" route would have stranded me.
Sorry if this is a bit disjointed, but I've slept very little in the last four days - something I'm just about to rectify!
Nikki.
Would I do it again? Sure, but on a warmer day!
Nikki."
Em: http://www.leaftalk.co.uk/showthread.ph ... g-trip....