the average car driver does 7000 miles a year. Efficient cars like teslas can do 4 miles per kwh. That works out 2000kwh per driver per annum, mostly at cheaper hours. It's doable.
I've continued to do my annual checks on the range of my Nissan Leaf, easy to do without anywhere near emptying the battery since tests have shown the dashboard indicated range has been very accurate. That odometer initially shows a loss of 4 or 5 miles after charging to full, then maintains accuracy for the whole capacity until the end when it recovers a little extra bringing the range to precisely the initial indication.
Now well into its eighth year, the new WLTP range of 168 miles of its 40 kWh battery it lived up to. In the second and third years summers that often increased to indicate a little over 170 miles. It then settled to the 160s in subsequent years and this year two checks without using the air-con have indicated 164 and 165 miles, effectively meaning I've lost nothing meaningful. Even by the standard of the Leafs that is remarkable.
It never had any service or garage attention until this year, but since it had a recall notice which I'd ignored for years since it was for an aspect of cruise control which I never used, I finally booked a service. This uncovered that it had also missed six, not compulsory, recall battery checks, a total of four hours work needed, all the recall work being no charge to me. A benefit was that this confirmed how good the condition of the battery is.
I put the battery performance down to the charging routines I established from the outset:
Virtually total avoidance of Rapid and Ultra Rapid chargers, easy since I bought a car with sufficient range to cover all my intended journeys. In fact its only been connecte to a rapid charger twice with just one of them a full 80% charge to check how these performed, that in the car's second year.
Charging in the warmer half of the year, when dropped below 40% charge, alternating between the normal 6.6kW charger and 2.1 kW slow charger (13amp socket) every other charge, both ready for use at all times in my garage.
Charging in the colder half of the year when temperatures below 10 degrees C and battery dropped below 50% charge, being only with the slow charger. This only takes 10 hours so easily done overnight.
Clearly my charging regime has paid off handsomely, this battery will last me for life, given that I'm within days of my 89th birthday.
Turning now to the service and recall, I booked that with my South London Nissan dealer. At 9 am on the appointed day a driver turned up and left a Nissan Micra at my home when he drove my car away. At 4 pm the dealer rang me to check if I would be in to bring the car back and the same driver brought it back. It had all the work done and had been washed, leathered and valeted internally, Accompanying it was a beautifully itemised list of all the work done, including the measured wear proportions of front and rear brake disc pads, and of course the MOT pass certificate.
The total charge a very reasonable £246, not bad being the only service cost in seven and a half years motoring!
On learning this a friend with a Honda Civic looked unhappy. He'd had to take that in for service and the bill when he collected it was almost £700.
No doubting the benefit of electric car ownership when due care is taken to buy the right EV for the job in the first place!
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