Nissan West Europe is lending me a New LEAF for the week end

Contacted by Nissan's Social Media Manager, and their Community Manager on FaceBook or Twitter, first for the opening of the first CHAdeMO fast charging station in Paris, I have laso been offered to test drive the New LEAF two times; I finally accepted and they are lending me the car for the whole week end, which is nice from them


I went from my new customer to Nissan's brand new HQ, few kilometers away, during my lunch break yesterday

My LEAF is going to spend the week end there ...

In the hall, a pretty big model of the LEAF

Nissan West Europe

So, I get to test drive the high end version: Tekna and it includes a Bose Sound System, and you see the boomer in the trunk


All leather seats in this version, and I could smell it when stepping inside

Black ambiance, for European market

New: Locking mechanism of the charge port: excellent idea there, no more padlock needed :-)
Also, remote opening of the charge port lid
Heated wheel, nice confort feature, but this is not new - but I do not have it in mine -

The ECO MODE switch is on the wheel and there is a new BRAKE mode,

along where the EDO mode used to be, on the "shifter", giving additional Regenerative Braking, and this time it can be used in both DRIVE and in ECO modes
ECO only scales down the throttle signal input to the inverter, and thus to the AC motor

Here it is, at my new customer, parked for the afternoon

In the afternoon, I took some time to read about all the improvements Nissan added to this new version



I was invited inside their brand office, was explained quickly the new features of the LEAF, and there are a lot: 100 !

They gave me all kinds of commercial documentation, flyers,

 and especially a new one summarizing all the charging possibilities in Paris and surroundings

Nissan CHAdeMO network, Mairie de Paris, Autolib huge network, IKEA CHAdeMO stations, Vinci pay car parking spread all over Paris and surroundings

Also coming, ther special KiWhi pass to anticipate the fact that some charging stations will not be free: this special pass, offered by Nissan to all previous and new EV customers, will allow authentication and easy payment -, all in one RFid badge :-)  - good idea ! -

I requested one before coming, but they are still being made I was told, and I will get mine later - not that I need one right away -

Meet Tesla’s HQ Supercharging Dashboard, Most Model S “Fills” Between 30 kWh and 40 kWh

Here is something we didn’t expect to see at Tesla’s HQ – a Supercharging dashboard that pretty much tells us everything we always wanted to know about the network…in real time!

The dashboard displays all the current and coming soon location in the US for Tesla Supercharging, as well as lots of other interesting tidbits. And something you can’t find hosted online.

Here are some highlights as of when this picture was shot last week:
Total Energy Delivered: 1,382,822 kWh
Miles Charged: 3,950,921
Gallons of Gas Offset: 158,307
Numer of Charges In Last 7 Days: 1,576

The dashboard also shows the growth rate in the usage of the supercharger system as well as the usage per station. In total, 32 active Supercharging locations are being ranked in real time on the dashboard (Tesla website currently lists only 30).

Overall the best performing stations can be found in Fremont (as one would assume it would be located by the Tesla factory), with Hawthorne nipping at its toes. Worst performing station? Glenwood Springs, CO.




As of interest: The most popular amount of charging done at a station also appears to be between 30kWh and 40 kWh, with 20kWh-30kWh coming in second and 40 kWh- 50 kWh third.



Source: Inside EVs