AN online game of global greenery awaits drivers who make the switch to electric motoring with the Nissan Leaf.
Smart technology fitted to all versions of the world’s first mass production electric car relays energy saving information to a Nissan website where users can see just how eco-friendly they have been.
The Carwings site displays an individual’s performance in the Leaf gauging the average economy achieved over a day’s driving, representing that by tree symbols.
The more trees you ‘grow’ the greener your driving style and you can compare how you fare with other Leaf drivers.
You can see where you are ranked on a regional basis, what the ‘champion’ is scoring and know the size of the global Leaf forest – the number of trees which have been generated by Leaf drivers across the world.
Good game? Well as with so many aspects of driving an electric car the science is rather imprecise.
According to Nissan there is no set value for a tree – they accumulate if you are driving in an economical fashion but drive hard and you won’t see any appearing in the dashboard eco display.
So apart from the satisfaction of being in with the E crowd and using less energy to get from A to B than fossil-fuel drivers, the virtual forest you are creating is just that – virtual. There are no prizes for being the greenest.
Nevertheless there is a serious aspect to the Carwings site which allows you to control certain aspects of the Leaf from your home computer – or smart phone via an App.
The telemetry fitted to the Leaf enables drivers to see the battery state of their car, its theoretical range and if it’s hooked up to the mains you can switch it to charge.
You can also control the air conditioning remotely to warm or cool the car before you get in while the sat nav can also be pre-programmed from your PC.
Clever stuff which makes the Leaf one of the first cars to be part and parcel of the Internet age.
Indeed, the Leaf is a remarkable car in many ways – reflected by it being named Car of the Year for 2011.
It’s also a very important car for Britain, not just because it is at the vanguard of the ‘electric revolution’ but also because it represents a multi-million pound investment from Nissan and its alliance partner Renault.
By next year the lithium-ion batteries which power the Leaf will be produced in the north east of England while the car itself will be built at Nissan’s Sunderland factory from 2013.
At the moment the cars which are now on sale in the UK are made in Japan.
Deliveries began only a few days ago with the car on sale from 26 Nissan dealerships close to designated ‘Switched On’ cities which include Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham and Coventry.
Including the £5,000 Government incentive for electric vehicles the Leaf is priced at £24,000 but most will be leased at £365 a month after a £5,000 deposit.
Nissan makes no bones about the Leaf not being suitable for all. With a range of around 110 miles under ideal conditions it’s very much an everyday car for use around town.
An overnight charge takes up to 12 hours from a normal domestic supply. Have a special power point fitted at your home – which costs around £1,000 – and a full recharge can be done in eight hours.
The battery pack is guaranteed for five years and 60,000 miles. The warranty on the car itself is three years and 60,000 miles.
It costs less than £2 to ‘refuel’ with Nissan saying the Leaf’s running costs equate to 72.6 miles for a pound. For that amount of money you would travel just 11 miles in a diesel Ford Focus.
Thinking of the Leaf as a 300-plus mpg vehicle is quite appealing and its zero emission status makes it tax free for all, at least until 2015. For a company car driver using a similar sized car that could stack up to a saving of some £5,000 a year in tax alone.
On top of that it’s excellent to drive, fully kitted and very smart inside. It’s about the same size as a Focus and a five-door, five seater with boot space ranging from 330 litres to a maximum of 680.
The instrumentation is high tech, there are just two gears (forwards and reverse with speed limited in reverse) and everything including sat nav is standard.
With its 48 batteries slung under the floor it has a low centre of gravity which helps handling and the torque from the electric motor gives it acceleration akin to that of a Porsche Boxster, even though the actual power equates to only 108bhp.
On the road the Leaf is as quiet as a limousine – so quiet that the likes of the wiper motor have had to be re-engineered by Nissan so it does not make too much noise.
It will handle motorway work with ease but the faster you go the less the range. Air conditioning too takes its toll on how many miles you can cover, as we just discovered when we took the Leaf for a drive in and around Milton Keynes.
At the start of our journey the Leaf was showing a range of 86 miles. After an 18 mile gentle drive with the eco setting engaged (it reduces throttle response) and the air con off, the car had 64 miles left.
On the return, we tried some enthusiastic driving with the air conditioning on. While the handling was top class, the available range had shrunk to just 25 miles in just 10 miles of driving – and that’s the greatest quirk of driving an electric vehicle at the moment.
The range can fluctuate wildly depending on how you drive, the weather and what's switched on in the car. You have to keep an eagle eye on instruments which tell you have far you have to travel.
To guarantee getting home, we reverted to gentle driving back in eco mode which worked effectively for the car still to have 15 miles to go by the time we arrived.
Mind you, we managed to ‘grow’ two trees on the way back as opposed only to one on the way out – so perhaps it’s OK to let your hair down occasionally even in these days of eco-motoring.
As a further aid, the sat nav shows just how far the car can travel and also displays information about the nearest charging points - data which is updated 'live' from the telemetry.
All in all the Leaf is a super car – so good that you really do want to drive it for more than 100 miles.
The problem is that until a workable network of roadside charging points is in place that’s just not going to be possible – but then 15 years ago, how big were mobile phones and who had one?