The Nissan Leaf

It was a Wednesday night and I was driving home when I looked at my fuel gauge to see that I was running low. I had 13 kilometres left, according to the trip computer, and the dashboard had lit up to tell me to fill up. It was late, 10pm, and I had to find a place to fill up quickly.

To the average motorist, this has happened many times. You simply pull in to the nearest service station and ask the attendant to fill up your car with petrol. But this was no ordinary car, this was the ALL ELECTRIC NISSAN LEAF EV.

Pretty, isn't it? 

It's bigger than it looks in the picture. The Leaf will easily take 5 adults and their luggage in a massive boot. The handling is amazing with the centre of gravity really low due to the batteries underneath the chassis.

See that cable running from the little tower into the car? That's the quick charger. It will charge your car from 3% to 90% in about 40 minutes. That is what I needed at 10pm on that fateful Wednesday night. 

Currently, there are a limited number of quick charging stations in South Africa. Luckily for me, there are two within 10km of my home and I was able to charge at another on that Wednesday night. But let me start from the beginning.....

I was lucky enough to drive the amazing Leaf for three days last week. The car is all electric. There is no backup engine to charge the batteries. While driving, when you coast to a stop and apply the brakes, there is a charging action that extends the life of the batteries. The drive is eerily quiet with no engine noise whats so ever. This does mean that you have to keep a careful eye on the spedometre aas the car tends to get up to speed very quickly with 80Kw under the bonnet and what feels like unlimited torque. There are no gears so the car just keeps on going and going until you look down at the split dash and see that you have easily reached 100km/h.

Inside, the car has all the mod cons one would expect. Heated seats and steering wheel. (The streering was a first for me). Climate control, touch screen panel, rear facing camera as well as a beeper so that pedestrians can hear your car coming at low speed because it is so quiet. (You can switch the beeper off if you want.)

Outside, the car is a sleek and aerodynamic. I am not a fan of the lights in font, but they must be there for a reason.

Now the charging.....

Nissan claim a range of 190km on a single charge. I can say that that might me so under perfect conditions and very gentle driving. The temperature must be right, the traffic must be flowing and you must have managed your batteries very well. 

When one buys a Leaf, you are given a charging cable that can plug into a regular South African plug as well as a charging station installed at home. One dealer I spoke to says that the installation of the charging station is included in the hefty price of the vehicle. I asked what happens should you move house and he didn't have an answer for me.

The Leaf will charge overnight, just like a cell-phone and be ready to go the next morning. Should you experience load-shedding, then the handy travel charger can be plugged in anywhere to slowly charge your car. It might actually be a better idea to find a plug at your office and charge the car while it is sitting idle during the day.

The Leaf is not your ONLY car. With the short range, you will not be driving to Cape Town in it. Highway driving sucks the juice out of the batteries too quickly and you will be charging every 50km or so. This is a city car, designed VERY well for the city.

Sadly at almost R500,000 it is a very expensive city car. 

I hope that Nissan make a smaller version of the Leaf that is more affordable.