You can run out of fuel in an IC car ........ though you could carry a fuel can. Driving electric is like driving a conventional car with a small fuel tank.........unless you're in Tesla territory.
To me, this is a good real-world video, which shows what state the charging infrastructure is in currently. It's not the blokes' fault that so many chargers were out of order. There's usually some organisation behind all those chargers which should be held responsible for their keep-up and correct functioning. The exact same scenario could happen to any motorist relying on a single petrol station to complete his journey. Admittedly that's a dumb thing to do but nevertheless proves my point. Take for example cars that are converted to run on LPG or CNG. Especially CNG in my country is not that popular a fuel and few petrol stations offer CNG. CNG tanks in cars are not that big either - due to the pressure under which CNG is stored and transported, the tank becomes very big and heavy. Rarely a car, converted to run on CNG, can do more than 200-250km on a single tank. The situation is almost the same, except most converted cars have the ability to run on petrol too, so for now maybe a range extended EV is the best option. The infrastructure for refueling is there, it's mature enough and reliable. Things are constantly changing though and hopefully EV infrastructure will become more reliable, but for now this video to me is quite a realistic look on things.
LOL, that is sooooo funny! Let me give you guys some hints for next time you take an electric car on the open road. ALWAYS make sure that you have enough power to make it to at least one alternate quick charger. Also the fact that you managed to wake up on day two and not have a full battery speaks volumes about your lack of experience. You could've always run a cable out of the B&B window (I've done that a number of times before) I used to drive a LEAF (now in a Tesla) and I think it is a fantastic car, but the combination of low range and chargers not being reliable means you should plan to charge every 35-40 miles. Due to the fact that quick charging slows down as the battery fills up, your journey time will not be any longer driving this way. To be honest I wonder whether this was one of those planning to fail, because it makes for funnier viewing things? I did 36,000+ in my LEAF in just over two years and never once ran out of power, despite the fact that there was only 10% as many chargers back then. Oh and I drove to Scotland twice from London, and out to Cornwall as well. So clearly it can't be that difficult to get around in a low range electric car.
AdvancedPerson I have not seen TopGear with Nissan leaf but with Tesla they lied, the hole show was scripted before they got the car so when they found that the car actually did made the trip they run in circles more miles and then filmed as if it had died.
hjp11 some NYT reporter did basically the same thing with the Model S, except this time Tesla had a GPS system which showed his numerous laps around the parking lot
AdvancedPerson yeah, quite similar spectacular ignorance. Rather surprising in 2015 and particularly from a supposed tech magazine. The leaf compatible charge infrastructure problem is quite real, and extremely pathetic but that's well known and would not require a road trip, pretending to have discovered something like Laurel and Hardy here. And I gave this video a thumbs up for every time they mentioned Tesla and their infrastructure. Like complete idiots, like top gear, they used the broad term electric car as if they are all the same.
I have a Leaf and much like the other owners in the video, I love the car. The issue is really the infrastructure, some places are worse than others. If there was a level 3 charger at every petrol station we'd have close to no limitation at all. There is rarely more than 100 km between stations.
***** That's something what Ireland has, and because they are funded by a national service, there's no varying standards in price or reliability of competing services. All between 80-55km from each other. It was stupid, hopefully not deliberate of them to go on one route without a vague plan B. There are apps that show what stations are near and if they are online. While not truly exact, but it beats rolling up without any idea of the charger's status. It's quite apparent that the chargers they ran into are of the older, less reliable generation. The only true fix is a replacement to the newer universal units.
I've owned a Leaf for over a year now and live in the Forest of Dean. In fact we now have two electric cars, a Zoe and a Leaf! With a little extra planning it's easy to use them for long distance when needed. I'd highly recommend testing an EV.
Your tiny country has like 750 quick charge points really well distributed geographically. As a southeasterner in the states, I am jealous. 2:55 YOU DON'T QUICK CHARGE TO 100%. QUICK CHARGE TO 80% AND DRIVE ON. That saves you time. Always do that unless you have no options. You are wasting time to QC to 100% unless your next charger is a slow charger or your your next charger is more than 60 miles away. It's like filling up a glass of water to the brim. The higher your charge, the more like a slow charger your quick charger becomes. 6:40 Nissan *does* helpfully give GIANT BLUE LEDS ON THE DASH visible from all angles so you can see when you are actually charging. So, not sure that one was anyone's fault but your own. 9:15 A 60 mile hop between chargers is the longest I do generally. Anything else takes a whole lot of thought. Like, what're the speeds, what're the elevation changes, etc. Also, you only have to charge to 80-90% to do that, like I said. 100% is only for that first leg setting out from your house. About your towing travails...There weren't any free normal outlets anywhere you could plug into just to get a few miles? EVEN GIVEN 60 MILE HOPS, quick chargers still nearly cover your entire small island (can't help the cheekiness, it's quite huge, actually). You guys with your progressive world problems I wish I had. Of course, the 30kwhr LEAF coming out this fall will probably make that 60 mile safe hop distance more like 90 miles. Still not quite the rock solid 100 miles we were promised at the beginning of LEAF, but we're getting there!
Lol....really does remind me of the Top Gear sham episode they did on the Leaf. Good entertainment but far from real life. (Someone with 27,000 miles under their belt in last 1.5 years of ownership....in the Forest of Dean...super rural)
I believe I shared the same sentiment. I wonder if you'd run into complications while searching for a single, solitary gas pump in the Sahara. The dramatic music was a nice touch too.
Is lucky everyone doesn't drive their ICE like that My car does 45 miles to the gallon on paper and has a 10 gallon tank so won't plan to fill up until I've done 450 miles.....
I just realized that the towing method was wrong. You should be able to get the Leaf 'flat towed' so the front wheels are on the road and can gain some charge while moving! ;¬)
1) when the range dissapears from the meater it means you have almostb10miles left of charge. when you have 3-4miles a turtle will apear limiting the power output to 20kW or something. 2) you need to have an extention cord. then you csn always get some charge somewhere from inside a house or anything like that. you were next to a petrol station. they always have some outlets. i think it is you driving the car being the error. you have to know that chargers fail from time to time and check in advance if you want to be sure it works and always have a backup plan. even though the chargers failed, you are the biggest faliure.
Misleading video - the Leaf is a great car but it's not designed for long trips. It has 80 realistic miles which is perfect for most commutes and city driving. If you want an electric car for longer trips, buy the Chevy Volt (electric car platform with small generator for range extension). Or wait and buy the Tesla Model 3, or upcoming Chevy Bolt.
This was purely a product of poor planning. They planned their trip down to the mile? How very stupid of them. You should always have a plan B and always ensure you have enough charge to get to the next charge point.
Peter C Not sure what a Bakkery is. I've had my Leaf for 4 weeks and covered 3600km already. I have much more freedom to travel than I ever did when I had to worry about the price of petrol... and perhaps you're ignorant of the 426km range of the Tesla.
+Peter C go look at the Tesla Supercharger stations, if those were available in large volume, you wouldt have such horrible luck with out of service charge points. My city needs one, there are only 3 plugs in the entire town.
+2LegHumanist It was a very carefully planned trip. They carefully avoided 3 fast chargers and more than 20 slow chargers on their way to the charger that was beyond the published range of the car. They planned to press the emergency stop button to disable the charger. They planned to be towed to the dealer even though the car had enough range left to drive the single mile. They planned for both chargers to be 'broken' but we never saw that. They planned to be towed past several chargers to get to the supermarket without a charge card and they planned to not ask to borrow one (10 pound deposit). Every shot was planned, every ''problem' was planned.
+Reid Simler And the records on Plugshare showed it worked every single day before and after this video was shot. It's almost like someone pressed the emergency stop button just as these poor film makers arrived to charge. What an amazing coincidence.....
Patrick Martz Amazing? This is one of the ugliest cars ive seen! If they want to make ecars "cool" they have to come up with a good design and more then 100 miles of range. Just like tesla but affordable. As long as this things cost so much it wont sell.
jea ev.. im talking about cars in general! And on that perspective ecars dont sell no way near good. Also you noticed that i said this THINGS. I can get a good car with all extras with moore room for most of the time half the prize this things cost. And i also need a car that can drive longer then "100" miles without big stops. I dont need such a car if i would live in the city. why should i buy one? I can use Busses or trains in city travveling. I need a car for longer travels.
Thats one nice thing over in the sunny usa yeahhh.. i live in germany we dont get 1 cent from our goverment if we buy an ev.. The funny thing is that we pay 1.50 euro for one liter of gas here. thats like 6.50 us dollar for a gallon. And you know why? Our goverment has more then 80 % taxes on gas here. Do you wounder why they dont support EVs? :) By the way i would love to have a tesla but its just not affordable for me. You could safe a ton of money on gas here.
Not worth the headache if you ask me, less mileage then my motorcycle, takes forever to charge so the trip is wasted to that, and even if they have a bunch of electric stations you are still going to have to go the them every 70-100 miles and wait a long time. The only reason to own these is if you are only using them in the city.
+TEK Like 95% of the population, you mean? In UK a 10-mile commute is considered long. Thee furthest one can travel from point a to point b in UK is 985 miles! And you'd only do that for charity!
There will always be those who say things don't work, even when they're proved wrong. I say enjoy you petrol while it lasts, because it on't last long.
These problems diminish with the 2016 leaf with 160 miles range and almost disappear completely when you have a 200+ mile range 2018 leaf . I also think the chargers should by law have to take contactless credit card payments , even if they charge extra for that. Much like pay as you got mobile phones.
I have done a few 250+ mile journeys in my life. But yeah it is a fuss. I only done it because it was free! If not I would have taken my partners petrol car.
I have a Nissan leaf and drive from Co. leitrim Ireland, to Sheerness Kent. via holyhead or Liverpool. I have never run out of power and never been towed. I can get 107miles on a charge. but could not watch the whole video as I had far too many questions for the presenters, like how long have you owned a leaf. you can't just pick something up and assume you know how to get the best out of it.
Lame, This is such a hatchet job... not enough charge to reach destination "oh well". then they plug it in but don't turn on the power. They basically drive it without charging it and then are surprised when it runs out.
Can anyone agree that the majority of the problems here are derived from a lack of experience? Do we even know that problem yet? Yeah, there's a stupid thing called range anxiety, and when you only own the car for 2 days, instead of 2 weeks, the fear won't go. For example, those three ''- - -'' on the range would indicate at least 7 miles left. And while a down station is unfortunate (and a down grade from the 24hr service is even worse), there's an app or service that's well known and recommended that shows what charger is active and what charger is inactive. If they looked it up an hour or two prior, they would've known. To add, pump up the tires by 5psi if range is such an issue, but where is the real issue? I know one LEAF owner who drives over 130km (about 80miles) in and out of the Dublin city centre everyday, only needing one rapid charge in the evening. If that saves him upwards of €200 per month, then I think the issue is on something else! I hope we've all learned by now that at least over the 5 years since we saw electric cars on sale, that country road trips once, twice or trice a year is not a clever reason to justify a purchase of a car over another.
I'd bet $1 there's an outlet somewhere in the gas station where they could have plugged in for a few mins to get them going again. These guys weren't even trying.
I have been an owner of a LEAF for 18 months and think it's a great car. It's perfect for my 50 mile daily commute. It is also saving me £2000+ in fuel costs per year. But as the video clearly demonstrates, money needs to be invested in improving the charging infrastructure. I very rarely need to use a rapid charger (maybe once or twice a month) if I need to extend 80 mile range and then I am only charging for 15 mins at most to add 40ish miles. I have even driven the car 250+ miles in one day on a couple of occasions but alot of planning is needed. My opinion is that current generation EV's are perfect for a second car, use the petrol car for long distance drives. But give it 5 years when battery technology improves and 200+ mile EV's are available for a similar price to a petrol/Diesel vehicle. This is when I can see EV's really taking off and there will be no need to keep the petrol car.
A good response and spot on! We use two electric cars for daily driving and take the Prius for longer trips. Lately however we have taken the LEAF on some longer trips though because it is almost a sport trying to get to the destination in Australia as there are no chargers. We charge in hotels, B & B’s, restaurants, libraries, caravan parks, clubs and bars, friends houses, cafes, everywhere!! All using regular 220 volt outlets.
As much as I love the idea of full EVs, we simply don't have the infrastructure to support this system yet. EVs still have short ranges & long charge times (vs. filling up) and Teslas are ludicrously expensive. I think the best solution for now is Plug-in hybrids & Extended-range vehicles a la Prius, Fusion/C-max Energi (sour there's no Mondeo Energi), Volt/Ampera & i3 REX.
A few thoughts I saw while researching on this car. Would it be possible to get a few Battery Packs / Booster Packs into the car and be able to charge off that during extreme emergencies like that. And I saw on a you tube video once about a guy who had another person tow the leaf a few miles giving him up to 75% full battery charge. If there is a proper nation wide charging station around Canada. I would surely consider getting one for the family.
+Bryan Agoncillo "extreme emergency"? They were at a petrol station with dozens of 230V 13A sockets and could have charged at 3000 W just by asking. Within 6 minutes they'd have had enough to get to the Nissan Dealer. In fact, because they didn't have the turtle (low power limp mode) active, they probably had more than 10 miles range remaining. Check out www.plugshare.com/# and see how many chargers there are near you.
I have so far driven my Leaf 70000 miles across Ireland (urban and rural - seamlessly across the border. Have regularly completed 500 miles journeys Yes I have encountered chargers down on occasions but have only been stuck twice in 3.5 years. You are correct in saying that the solution is an improved infrastructure but generally across the EU we are getting there. The car is super and I will never change back to conventional fuels
We've driven our Nissan Leaf for 2.5 years in the Chicago area. We generally don't stray far enough from home to need to use public charging but when we have there have been scattered issues but for the most part it's not been too bad of an experience. In January of 2016 though a new will take effect in IL that prevents gasoline/diesel powered vehicles from parking in EV charging spots which will fix a good chunk of the issues ... Next is for the charging providers to keep their equipment running a bit better. The infrastructure is improving however which is excellent!
The leaf is a lovely little second car for a family with a "proper" main car for longer journeys. its ideal as a shopping car and to transport 2 kids to school, but no one should go into leaf ownership unaware of the real limitations in the real world.
When you got a tow, if you were towed on the road you could charged the battery with the regen. You're not supposed to,.. but it works. Any powe-rpoint would do for charging, albeit slower. To my mind, a generator and fuel makes it a hybrid for those occasional longer journeys. They could put the batteries in there to give you double the range, it would also increase the cost $6k USD which is why they don't. There's a company that does just that. I don't own one.
Maybe you could ask to use the service stations regular plug for an hour or so. Then as long as you need at the Nissan dealership. I understand drama is better than real world solutions, but please give your viewers some credit. We would not have needed to be towed. Neither did you.
Here we are 3 1/2 years later and it is a MUCH improved situation and cars are going further on a charge but many of the same issues exist - not enough and faulty charge points. Its better but not right yet! However I easily did a cambridge to cornwall drive and have been from cambridge up north loads. North south is good but east west still needs work! Good video though!
I tried cross-country drive myself. Can not really drive at speed on highway - going close to 110km/h will drain battery very fast. Quick charging is fast, but will slow down the whole trip. Good is charging stops are near some cafes etc. to spend time but sometimes they are just out in plain countryside. Person can not stay in car while it is being charged. You can charge from any household electric plug really in emergency or overnight, they have connectors with the car. Just get enough power to get to quick charger.
I own a 2012 LEAF and LOVE IT. She gets me everywhere I need to go. As long as I pace myself and keep abreast of available charging points by the Grace of God I have never been stuck.
So sorry you didn't have a Bolt good for 238 Normal driving bit can eke out closer to a possible 300 plus. But there is always a 110 volt for charging. We will during our bikes for little needed exercise.
Did you try free Wheeling when going downhill? That´s done by selecting reverse gear while moving forward and that way you can use 100% of your kinetic energy and also build up a bit of speed to slingshot your way up next hill. Regen is good, but you never get 100% back in to the batteries.
chillout1109 nope they didn't say not to use it but that's my opinion from watching this video. Who in their right mind is going to spend around $35k for this car just to go through all of this trouble?, not me that's for sure. The range is too low, the charging takes too long, and the charging infrastructure is not in place.
Did they forget their factory charge cord? I'll bet there was some sort of plug at the Ecotricity location. It would have taken a long time to charge, even to get juice into the car to make it to the next quick charge, but it beats getting a tow.
Should have used a Renault Zoe, at least the charging lead can be released if the charger locks up. The charging infrastructure definitely needs improving if electric cars are to be practical for long journeys.
This is the only intelligent answer on here,i totally agree with you,i mean what's the point of a planned drive in a 17,000 quid electric car if the charging stations don't work and there is a customer service like a box of cornflakes
Also if companies like Ecotricity charge £6 for a 30 minute charge that will put many people off buying an electric car if they are unable to charge at home or have to make a round trip of more than 100 miles. I cannot see how charging £6 for a 30 minute charge is fair, you should only have to pay for what you use by KWH, not pay for other people's benefit.
It's funny because I live in Oswestry and cycle past this petrol station on most days but I have never noticed that they had one of these electric charging things. The thing is that outside the city the demand for these electric cars just doesn't seem to be there. (hence why this charging station is not maintained properly)
For me, my Nissan leaf is a second car and as such it is excellent. Most of our motoring is in the Leaf and the savings are huge. At the moment you can buy a 2 year old car for about 10K from a Nissan dealer, so for 5 seater luxury motoring for next to nothing running costs it is a no-brainer.
They should have more than one Chademo station on each site for redundancy and to avoid queues. Or at least a seperate type 2 socket as a backup so you're not stranded.
+Halldór Gunnarsson Not really. They drove past 3 chargers fast chargers. If they'd stopped at any of them they'd have arrived with enough spare to get to the next charger (which was only one mile down the road)
How much do these charge stations cost? Is it cheaper than gas? I just did a quick google search here in the North East of USA and there are like hundreds every where. One less than a mile from my house.
+pointlessfailure To put it into terms that you can translate into dollars and cents ... We've had our Leaf for 2.5 years. We average in perfect weather 4.5 miles per kWh. In freezing weather we might go down to 3 miles per kWh (using the heat takes it's toll there but that can be offset by telling the car when you leave so it can pre-warm on household current I generally set it for a few degrees above or below where I'd actually want it to take full advantage of this) our electric provider in Chicago charges $0.06/kWh. At best (and some people get better than we do) 30 miles would use 6.6 kWh which is about $0.40 vs our other car that gets 30 mpg, at best, on the highway and takes premium gas which can cost anywhere between $3.50 and $5.00 per gallon here. Bear in mind, unless you're looking at buying an EV with a no charge to charge program (ie: all public chargers covered by this program are free to use) public charging rates are always going to be higher vs charging at your home. There's a cost that needs to go towards maintaining the chargers. You'll have to look into what providers you're likely to use, what their rates are and if the EV of your choice comes with no charge to charge and where those providers are. Many around here are $2/hour to plug in. For a quick charge (ie: 0%-80% in 30 min) some charge $5 to start a session and then a rate per minute after that but we rarely need to use those stations. One of the providers around here for that also offers a subscription plan which is good for people that rely on those chargers more often.
To charge the car its Free in the UK if you join the various charging networks. Source East costs about £12 to join - in our area in East Anglia there are a lot of slower chargers (3-6hr) type 2 at shopping areas and supermarkets. The Ecotricity fast DC "Chademo" chargers (30 mins) are free currently. Some like the Polar network shown in the video charges a couple of pounds (apparently) - although you can often use a different network card with those (we found the Source East cards worked at Thorpe Park) - whereas we were about to download the PAYG app the guys in the video were using - which was nice. So far we've always charged for free on all our long trips, (the longest journey we've done so far is 275 miles) The Source East network card "roams" to other areas like "Source London" without needing to be activated. For home charging, it costs less than £2 for a full charge of 80-100 miles. If you have economy 7 its almost half that. There was a free domestic 3kw Charger offer a couple of years ago that myself and my girlfriend had installed even before we got our electic cars. Ironically of course I found I had to change the connector on mine once we bought the Leaf. A cheap £20 outdoor plug socket works quite well for slower charging, which we do using our spare solar power from the house roof whenever the sun is shining brightly! So in that situation, you get your motoring for free. (aside from installing solar panels for £6k and buying a £10k second hand leaf of course) But it makes you feel like you're doing your bit reducing emissions. We also have a Reva G-Wiz for shorter journeys locally (which is even more fun to drive) - all in all the Nissan Leaf is a wonderful car to drive - very fast acceleration if you want it, and a smooth quiet ride like a limo if you want to take it easy. The most stress free car I've ever driven. Personally I'd never go back to a petrol or diesel vehicle, as you can't make your own fuel for it. That's the real game changer with this technology, by using solar power you generate yourself you're actively starving the petrochemical industry and its destructive ways!
Well done on a very funny and dramatic movie! This highlights the major lack of real support for your chargers! However at least you have some! Some people have commented on how you can actually charge anywhere- run a lead out the window of the B & B for example. I have done 50,000 miles of electric driving including 25,000 miles in a 24 kilowatt hour Nissan Leaf (and 25,000 miles in a converted four door pick up truck) without ever even seeing a charging station (there are none in regional Australia), we only ever use leads into normal 220 volt outlets. We have also done 180 mile journeys in this way just relying on charging at hotels and restaurants. We charge everywhere!! We love the “sport” of the adventure for longer ev trips but in normal daily life the little car is brilliant as my return trip to work is only 30 miles so the short range doesn’t make any difference anyway and I get to enjoy the benefits of affordable reliable electric driving without any of the additional fuel and maintainence expenses of a petrol car. For longer trips we usually simply take the Prius!
***** well solar isnt that efficient thats the problem, specially in englands weather, it would maybe add a small charge, but fact a charging point takes a hour + to do yeah a panel isnt really gonna do much bar keep the sat nav on, maybe more magnets on the axels to provide passive dynamo power would help (axels turning, magnets spin, power is generated in copper coil near the magnets aka basic generator system)
***** Adding stuff is more weight, embedding them would make more sense. However a small panel alone won't be enough. Tesla car's have one and I think they regen like 5% of the charge if you drive the full 200 miles.
I wish I had seen this before I ordered my leaf as I am due to get it next week and its to late to cancel. I now wish I had gone hybrid instead. Are well live and learn I was looking forward to my new car now I am dreading the thought of it.
there needs to be an option that they can take and plug into the wall outlet anywhere. if they did add it i would keep a honda generator on a rear rack on long trips, which would give about 2000 watts of extra power
+DMAN22yeah There is. It's included with every car. They could have plugged in at the petrol station, charged at 3 kW (the UK household plugs are 230V and 13 Amps) and within 6 minutes they could have driven to the Nissan Dealer that is 1.1 miles away. Or they could have topped up at any of the 3 fast chargers they drove past on the way there and arrived with plenty in hand.
Still some pretty big gaps in the "PlaceToPlug" map in the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, North Pennines etc and with a quoted max regen braking efficiency on the Leaf of 39% these are not the sorts of terrain conducive to getting anything like the book distances out of a charge.
Sounds like a nightmare-- leafs are 50 grand in Australia and are equivalent to a 15 grand car.. You can fill up an ice in 5 mins and stations are everywhere, also big chance the batteries will die after 3 years
Bunch of EV amateurs and EV cynics, understandable from the attitude. There are thousands of EV users who go out of the city all the time with proper planning.
+Kamlesh Mallick At least 1 of those EV users hauls a diesel generator and a couple tanks of diesel in the cargo hold so they can build their own diesel-powered charging station in case they get stranded in the Outback. But at that point you've basically got a diesel Prius.
Makes sense and I mentioned it above. Pull it out for the longer trips. For myself if I owned one, I'd rig up something to charge whilst moving and idle so you have a real hybrid with the option to turn it off or pull it out when not needed. You're limited to about 3000W in a small reliable gen [like a Honda] which gives you about 14 miles every hour. Drive for 2 hrs, get 28 miles extra from the recharging.
Chevy Volt owner here Ampera for you Brits. It's the only full electric car that has a range extender gas engine on board. The only way to go for a one car household or for longer trips.
Thanks for the video, but "opportunity charging" would solve the problem of occasional dedicated charging points being out of order. UK's 240 volt, 13 amp standard wall outlet system will get you some charge, or a 3 phase industrial type 400 volt system. Just carry the appropriate 240 volt household extension cable, or the 400 v industrial, and ask a nearby business/shop/garage/house etc to help you out. I work at a factory making industrial battery chargers and one of our research boffins has a Nissan Leaf (privately imported to NZ from the UK). Some days he suffers "range anxiety" so runs a cord out the window and gives himself a minor top-up. Note that NZ's domestic supply is only 10 amps at 240 v for standard household wall outlets and extension cables. I see it as a serious failing of electric car and charger design, if you cannot just carry an extension cable with you, to allow you to plug into any nearby house/shop whatever, for a bit of charge, even if that is at a slower rate than the maximum rate the batteries can cope with. Also the charger at the "ESSO" that needed re-booting. Would it have been possible to go into the ESSO and "pull the breaker" momentarily, so as to "turn off the charger from the mains, and turn it back on again". It works to re-boot most things !
Range anxiety is why the leaf sucks. Get a Chevy volt if your on a budget. It will do most of its chores in the city without ever burning the gas in its tank, but when you go on the road you have the gas stations to refill at. Now if you want to go the purely electric and can afford it get a Tesla. It has great range and the free super charger stations. If they aren't available they can also be charged at the slower stations found elsewhere albeit at a slower pace than a super charger station.
A few model years later, range had improved dramatically. (:-) Still, that doesn't solve the problem of (multiple) down chargers or workday-only charger support. (:-(
Nice enough but: You used a Leaf instead of a Renault Zoe. Charge to 80-90% not 100% when traveling. You used the Nissan dealership network instead of issuing Ecotricity. Calculate your range yourself, especially when the car has been reset recently. Use a third party app like OpenChargeMap or ZapMap. Avoid using slow chargers for travel, use rapids for transit charging. If you can get hold of one use a Tesla.
I would love to get a electric car, but as you demonstrated, it is still needs to address many basic problems. Maybe they could put solar cells on top of the roof, to charge the batteries at some point so it could recharge the batteries if needed or a micro winding generator in the front so that too recharge the batteries at a certain point or be used when the vehicle is moving? Something to think about.
Best EV video to date in terms of learning about the poor infrastructure on charging stations. I have test driven all there is to test drive on the EV market. Even a Tesla Model S P85D. I have to say the Nissan Leaf is an exceptionally good car for the money. So glad the latest model has an improved range of 155 miles. There's an app called PlugShare that I highly recommend to any EV driver.
You guys didn't realise you can drive slower to squeeze out more mileage. I own a Leaf and use this technique a lot. I noticed on your second day when you ran out of range - I thought it was utter madness driving at 40+mph with zero miles left, if you had slowed the vehicle down and kept an eye on the "spare" mileage, when it got to a critical amount - e.g. the difference between what the car is telling you you have left and the distance on the satnav to the destination, you can judge whether you need to speed up or slow down in your driving style. This is one of the main differences in driving an internal combustion based vehicle vs an electric car, we're all used to just putting our foot down and driving fast everywhere, safe in the knowledge that you can always just fill up somewhere, or walk with a petrol can. e.g. if your destination is 70 miles away, and your car is estimating only 65, use the cruise control and speed limiter and lower your speed to 40 or even 30mph until the estimated distance goes up. As your "spare" then goes positive, you can speed up, the Leaf's cruise control feature is excellent for doing this on a plus or minus 1mph amount. A right pain for other drivers of course driving slowly on single carriageways, but on dual carriageway roads no problem at all. If of course the speed limit is 30, then drop to 27, that extra 3mph will help go further. Remember speed limits are a maxium on A roads, there are no laws against driving slowly - A horse or moped will often go slowly much to the annoyance of car drivers, but as long as you can ignore the odd dickhead honking his horn and have a thick skin - you need to ignore it and concentrate on sticking to your guns so you can get there rather than driving fast constantly. If you get near your destination and have spare, then put your foot down and go faster safe in the knowledge that you'll get to your destination. At higher speeds most of the energy is actually used forcing the car through the "air", so slowing down helps on such long trips. Another thing you could have done was actually stopped in the countryside and knocked on a door, asking to plug in with the 3 pin standard plug socket. There are a hell of a lot more of those around, every pub, restaurant, home, office etc has one. Just say it will cost no more than £2 for an 8 hour charge, and most people will be happy to run an extension cable through a window to help you out if you are nice to them! This is something that most critics of electric vehicles forget when they say there aren't enough charging points around. You might have to wait 2 hours in that scenario, but at least you can go another 20 miles and find a faster charger doing that. Once all electric cars have a battery capacity of 250 miles + this issue will become a thing of the past - it will only be a few years before this happens with the price of the batteries dropping so quickly, after all, the the Leaf's existing battery replacement at the end of its life cost was quoted 2 years ago as being £16,000 - in 2015 its now gone down to something like £6000. The 2016 Leaf now has an option for a 155mile range.
I love my leaf (can't afford a tesla), but charge it at home and use it for commuting and local driving. If I need to go any distance I take my wife's car which has 1.2 supercharged litres of old-fashioned petrol power. No range anxiety at all. Of course the range of the leaf goes down if you cruise at 80 on a motorway, it can do it easily but it's not what it's meant for, but it also goes up if you are doing 8 mph in heavy traffic. Just use it properly and it takes the stress out of jams. Electric cars may not be perfect - yet, but give it 5 years.....
Make sure you use the Plugshare App is great and offer many type 2 charging points in public and private ownership in Wales, when I move I will offer a mobile evrescue service, because I plan to use my home battery bank as a mobile unit in a custom made trailer, just need to call in advance! So keep you eyes open in Guilsfield, Mid Wales.
That is too much stress for a road trip, they should have places for electric charging people to hang out for free, like seating area or something. Good job, light hearted and informative.
Roller sail Yeah but you can expect people to sit in a car for an hour or two just to charge a car. I'm saying they should be located around places where there are things to do, you proved my point by saying supermarkets - people can go shopping or browse while their car charges.
+anttt69 Yes. It takes 10 hours to charge from flat. If they'd just plugged in at the petrol station they'd have had enough juice after 6 minutes to make it to the Nissan dealer a mile down the road.
I am considering purchasing and EV and anticipate these problems. Ideas to be able to do road trips 1. Take a hire car 2. carry a generator (not sure how feasible this is).
It irritates the heck out of me when these so called fair and balanced car shows decide to show how well the EVs are out there and decide to take the car on a long drive with no EV driving experience under their belts. They literally drove the car like teenagers on a joy ride. In the meantime there are plenty of EV owners out there more than willing to share their personal thoughts and experiences owning an EV but these online car shows get the majority of the views. Please, if you have any questions check out Ian Sampson's channel or Bjorn's channel they both give excellent info about owning an EV.
I have a Hyundai Ioniq, has a better range than the nissan, about 125m if you drive carefully, Great car great dealership but i think it was also a great mistake. Now fine if you drive within its range, my first trip outside its range was 111m got there fine topped up at my friends house so i could charge on the way back, unfortunately ecotricity's server when't down and this was sunday so no one to fix it till monday, had to stay at friends house and finish a 14hr charge. Next trip 200m stopped half way ecotricity pump gave error, phoned up (daytime) and got it working. On the way back, same place but southbound, plugged in started charging but stopped half way, phoned up and they fixed it and started again, then got home. I would like to say Ecotricity was very helpful, unlike their pumps. So i conclude an electric car is fine if you only charge at home, or at your destination. (friends house) If you have to charge on route only opening hours, allow enough range to get to the next point along if their is one, so you get two shots at it. But i hate to say this, if you need to drive beyond the range of the car you want, buy an economical diesel. I think its going to be years till we see any improvements in the charging network. I don't think ecotricity is planning any expansion of their charging network in the near future, and they are the only ones on motorways.
This is why you don't take a shopping trolley for cross country trips, people do less then 30 miles on their average drive and yet if you mention electric cars they immediately demand they the range of an oil tanker. That is why Tesla made an insanely expensive car, it is just because the random dumb ass demands they do unreasonable shit, where they could do an averagely priced car for what an average person needs.
I watched to the captions and wished it wouldn't't have ended that way especially with the return trip going uphill and needing probably an extra charge. At least your regen braking seemed to help for most of your travel, My plugin hybrid car has regenerative breaking and at 80% collected at each stop I get no measurable charge to my primary battery ( whatever I'm getting doesn't show toward the ev milage shown on my dash). I still hope if you get into a situation like that a broken station that you could walk in ocuardly and ask to plug in to their plug outlet inside. Thats what another trek had to do from the U.S. East Coast to the west coast to prove the tech could do it.
1/ Higher the speed = higher energy use *squared*! So, if you are running out of juice - simply SLOW DOWN (it's not rocket science!) 2/ Get to the rapid charger with as least range remaining as possible as rapid charging happens much more quickly when the battery is more empty than full. 3/ The range remaining is calculated according to the last 15 mins or so of energy use - If you have been hammering it or going up hill you will get a distorted indication. 4/ Didn't switch it on - OMG!!! And you guys a "technical EXPERTS"?!!! 5/ The rapid charger isn't working ... but you've got a mains charging cable, FCOL - find a normal 3 pin socket (not like there isn't going to be one on the entire motorway service area) and plug it in for 30 minutes - jeesh! 6/ Remember the golden rule of EV driving... If range anxiety sets in, subtract the distance to go from the range remaining and keep doing that every 5 minutes or so. If the difference drops, then SLOW DOWN. If it stays the same, you're OK if it goes up, speed up (if you want). Even if it means coming off the motorway and/or doing 30 mph with your hazards on. On the motorway, a stationary vehicle is much more of a hazard than a slow moving one! Run of of juice and have to call a tow truck (if you lack the balls to knock on someone's door, extension lead plug in hand, for a boost) *or* look like a bit of a prune for a while... It's a tricky one - NOT! 7/ Write to your MP and encourage him/her to harry HMG to stop wasting money on useless street-side low power charge points (including residential ones) - at this point in the EV 'revolution' and spend it instead on a properly organised and maintained, rapid charging infrastructure!
Beyond what everyone else has pointed out, can I just point out they didn't drive across the UK at all. They drove across ENGLAND. One country. Never left any borders. Never went to Wales or Scotland, or Ireland. Just England. Oh, and for every time they moan about how long charging takes, funnily enough they never mentioned that it cost nothing to do so in the first place, compared to filling a tank of petrol?
Anyone else here 5 years late from a Mario golf stream?
Who's here because Luke mentioned it on today's Mario Golf stream?
I didn't expect searching 'luke westaway electric car' would get me to the right place, but RUclips's search bar is a truly magnificent thing.
Look at baby Luke! Definitely not here because of the golf stream 😂
11:20 Big Sotwe intro bit vibes
Same here, just came here to see the boy wonder, I mean normal adult man.
We are here from the golf stream
Let's put two people who have no clue in an EV and make them do a trip that requires running the battery down to zero. Bravo!
You can run out of fuel in an IC car ........ though you could carry a fuel can.
Driving electric is like driving a conventional car with a small fuel tank.........unless you're in Tesla territory.
To me, this is a good real-world video, which shows what state the charging infrastructure is in currently. It's not the blokes' fault that so many chargers were out of order. There's usually some organisation behind all those chargers which should be held responsible for their keep-up and correct functioning. The exact same scenario could happen to any motorist relying on a single petrol station to complete his journey. Admittedly that's a dumb thing to do but nevertheless proves my point. Take for example cars that are converted to run on LPG or CNG. Especially CNG in my country is not that popular a fuel and few petrol stations offer CNG. CNG tanks in cars are not that big either - due to the pressure under which CNG is stored and transported, the tank becomes very big and heavy. Rarely a car, converted to run on CNG, can do more than 200-250km on a single tank. The situation is almost the same, except most converted cars have the ability to run on petrol too, so for now maybe a range extended EV is the best option. The infrastructure for refueling is there, it's mature enough and reliable. Things are constantly changing though and hopefully EV infrastructure will become more reliable, but for now this video to me is quite a realistic look on things.
they had no clue? they knew a lot considering they "have no clue" and told me everything i needed to know
They told me, not directly, not to buy an ev.
These guys seem intelligent and not stupid.
This hasn't put me off. My car is only used to get me too and from work, so the Leaf is a viable option for me.
It's a wild Luke Westaway! Hide your wives and your children! He's dangerously charismatic!
LOL, that is sooooo funny!
Let me give you guys some hints for next time you take an electric car on the open road. ALWAYS make sure that you have enough power to make it to at least one alternate quick charger. Also the fact that you managed to wake up on day two and not have a full battery speaks volumes about your lack of experience. You could've always run a cable out of the B&B window (I've done that a number of times before) I used to drive a LEAF (now in a Tesla) and I think it is a fantastic car, but the combination of low range and chargers not being reliable means you should plan to charge every 35-40 miles. Due to the fact that quick charging slows down as the battery fills up, your journey time will not be any longer driving this way.
To be honest I wonder whether this was one of those planning to fail, because it makes for funnier viewing things?
I did 36,000+ in my LEAF in just over two years and never once ran out of power, despite the fact that there was only 10% as many chargers back then. Oh and I drove to Scotland twice from London, and out to Cornwall as well. So clearly it can't be that difficult to get around in a low range electric car.
Plan to charge every 35/40 miles???? Thats insane, it would take forever to get somewhere.
Kinds of reminds me of TopGear
AdvancedPerson
I have not seen TopGear with Nissan leaf but with Tesla they lied, the hole show was scripted before they got the car so when they found that the car actually did made the trip they run in circles more miles and then filmed as if it had died.
hjp11 some NYT reporter did basically the same thing with the Model S, except this time Tesla had a GPS system which showed his numerous laps around the parking lot
AdvancedPerson yeah, quite similar spectacular ignorance. Rather surprising in 2015 and particularly from a supposed tech magazine.
The leaf compatible charge infrastructure problem is quite real, and extremely pathetic but that's well known and would not require a road trip, pretending to have discovered something like Laurel and Hardy here. And I gave this video a thumbs up for every time they mentioned Tesla and their infrastructure.
Like complete idiots, like top gear, they used the broad term electric car as if they are all the same.
Dan Frederiksen They are all the same cars, Tesla is the only one that separates themselves from the rest
AdvancedPerson abab
I have a Leaf and much like the other owners in the video, I love the car. The issue is really the infrastructure, some places are worse than others. If there was a level 3 charger at every petrol station we'd have close to no limitation at all. There is rarely more than 100 km between stations.
***** That's something what Ireland has, and because they are funded by a national service, there's no varying standards in price or reliability of competing services. All between 80-55km from each other.
It was stupid, hopefully not deliberate of them to go on one route without a vague plan B. There are apps that show what stations are near and if they are online. While not truly exact, but it beats rolling up without any idea of the charger's status.
It's quite apparent that the chargers they ran into are of the older, less reliable generation. The only true fix is a replacement to the newer universal units.
If the system is out of order then shouldn't the dealer be able to fix it if the charging point is at the dealer
The rapid charger is a fairly complex piece of kit and a dedicated team will attend to repair.
+KRYMauL Ecotricity's offices were only open monday-friday. the charging point *should* work 24/7
+aiden bliss Nissan dealers don't give a shit about Leaf owners!! They just show up for free electricity but no service that's why they hate them !!
+aiden bliss
You're an idiot. That's like saying the Nissan dealer's mechanics should be able to fix a leaky roof or cracked foundation.
Sounds like that's not the first time you've asked.
I've owned a Leaf for over a year now and live in the Forest of Dean. In fact we now have two electric cars, a Zoe and a Leaf! With a little extra planning it's easy to use them for long distance when needed. I'd highly recommend testing an EV.
Your tiny country has like 750 quick charge points really well distributed geographically. As a southeasterner in the states, I am jealous.
2:55 YOU DON'T QUICK CHARGE TO 100%. QUICK CHARGE TO 80% AND DRIVE ON. That saves you time. Always do that unless you have no options. You are wasting time to QC to 100% unless your next charger is a slow charger or your your next charger is more than 60 miles away. It's like filling up a glass of water to the brim. The higher your charge, the more like a slow charger your quick charger becomes.
6:40 Nissan *does* helpfully give GIANT BLUE LEDS ON THE DASH visible from all angles so you can see when you are actually charging. So, not sure that one was anyone's fault but your own.
9:15 A 60 mile hop between chargers is the longest I do generally. Anything else takes a whole lot of thought. Like, what're the speeds, what're the elevation changes, etc. Also, you only have to charge to 80-90% to do that, like I said. 100% is only for that first leg setting out from your house.
About your towing travails...There weren't any free normal outlets anywhere you could plug into just to get a few miles?
EVEN GIVEN 60 MILE HOPS, quick chargers still nearly cover your entire small island (can't help the cheekiness, it's quite huge, actually). You guys with your progressive world problems I wish I had.
Of course, the 30kwhr LEAF coming out this fall will probably make that 60 mile safe hop distance more like 90 miles. Still not quite the rock solid 100 miles we were promised at the beginning of LEAF, but we're getting there!
Lol....really does remind me of the Top Gear sham episode they did on the Leaf. Good entertainment but far from real life. (Someone with 27,000 miles under their belt in last 1.5 years of ownership....in the Forest of Dean...super rural)
I believe I shared the same sentiment. I wonder if you'd run into complications while searching for a single, solitary gas pump in the Sahara. The dramatic music was a nice touch too.
Ian Sampson Thank goodness, a real example of a LEAF driver to speak out!
Hey, Ian!
Is lucky everyone doesn't drive their ICE like that
My car does 45 miles to the gallon on paper and has a 10 gallon tank so won't plan to fill up until I've done 450 miles.....
Another thumbs up from the FOD. Been so impressed with the Leaf over the past year that we've now got a Zoe also.
+Ian Sampson Likewise. I live in rural Ireland, and have done 17,000 kms since January. Not one problem regarding running out of juice.
I just realized that the towing method was wrong. You should be able to get the Leaf 'flat towed' so the front wheels are on the road and can gain some charge while moving! ;¬)
clever
or better yet just tow it to the nearest landfill....
Cyber game man X¬D
+wordreet your thinking is really out of the box.. gud job!!
akupehsluarketatAR
That's Tofu Power!! (see MCM)
1) when the range dissapears from the meater it means you have almostb10miles left of charge. when you have 3-4miles a turtle will apear limiting the power output to 20kW or something.
2) you need to have an extention cord. then you csn always get some charge somewhere from inside a house or anything like that. you were next to a petrol station. they always have some outlets.
i think it is you driving the car being the error. you have to know that chargers fail from time to time and check in advance if you want to be sure it works and always have a backup plan. even though the chargers failed, you are the biggest faliure.
Misleading video - the Leaf is a great car but it's not designed for long trips. It has 80 realistic miles which is perfect for most commutes and city driving. If you want an electric car for longer trips, buy the Chevy Volt (electric car platform with small generator for range extension). Or wait and buy the Tesla Model 3, or upcoming Chevy Bolt.
This was purely a product of poor planning. They planned their trip down to the mile? How very stupid of them. You should always have a plan B and always ensure you have enough charge to get to the next charge point.
2LegHumanist so you can go the the bakkery and back home to charge... trust me this isnt the future of cars
Peter C Not sure what a Bakkery is. I've had my Leaf for 4 weeks and covered 3600km already. I have much more freedom to travel than I ever did when I had to worry about the price of petrol... and perhaps you're ignorant of the 426km range of the Tesla.
+Peter C go look at the Tesla Supercharger stations, if those were available in large volume, you wouldt have such horrible luck with out of service charge points. My city needs one, there are only 3 plugs in the entire town.
+2LegHumanist It was a very carefully planned trip. They carefully avoided 3 fast chargers and more than 20 slow chargers on their way to the charger that was beyond the published range of the car. They planned to press the emergency stop button to disable the charger. They planned to be towed to the dealer even though the car had enough range left to drive the single mile. They planned for both chargers to be 'broken' but we never saw that. They planned to be towed past several chargers to get to the supermarket without a charge card and they planned to not ask to borrow one (10 pound deposit). Every shot was planned, every ''problem' was planned.
I can't help but wonder if this video would have ever been posted had that single, solitary charging station been working.
+Reid Simler And the records on Plugshare showed it worked every single day before and after this video was shot. It's almost like someone pressed the emergency stop button just as these poor film makers arrived to charge. What an amazing coincidence.....
These kind of cars look amazing, it's just unfortunate that you have to charge so often and that charge stations are scarce
Patrick Martz Amazing? This is one of the ugliest cars ive seen!
If they want to make ecars "cool" they have to come up with a good design and more then 100 miles of range. Just like tesla but affordable. As long as this things cost so much it wont sell.
zombi111980 Wont sell? The Nissan Leaf was the top selling EV in the U.S. and the world in 2014.
jea ev.. im talking about cars in general! And on that perspective ecars dont sell no way near good. Also you noticed that i said this THINGS. I can get a good car with all extras with moore room for most of the time half the prize this things cost. And i also need a car that can drive longer then "100" miles without big stops. I dont need such a car if i would live in the city. why should i buy one? I can use Busses or trains in city travveling. I need a car for longer travels.
Thats one nice thing over in the sunny usa yeahhh.. i live in germany we dont get 1 cent from our goverment if we buy an ev.. The funny thing is that we pay 1.50 euro for one liter of gas here. thats like 6.50 us dollar for a gallon. And you know why? Our goverment has more then 80 % taxes on gas here. Do you wounder why they dont support EVs? :) By the way i would love to have a tesla but its just not affordable for me. You could safe a ton of money on gas here.
Not worth the headache if you ask me, less mileage then my motorcycle, takes forever to charge so the trip is wasted to that, and even if they have a bunch of electric stations you are still going to have to go the them every 70-100 miles and wait a long time. The only reason to own these is if you are only using them in the city.
+TEK Like 95% of the population, you mean? In UK a 10-mile commute is considered long. Thee furthest one can travel from point a to point b in UK is 985 miles! And you'd only do that for charity!
+DavidSagan101 You don't need to be in the city to use one. Lots of country drivers can use a LEAF happily as is evidenced by the actual owners.
There will always be those who say things don't work, even when they're proved wrong. I say enjoy you petrol while it lasts, because it on't last long.
+Will Davis Can vouch for this, I live in the country and drive a Renault Zoe which has a slower charge, I've never had an issue.
The one thing you must remember when screaming about petrol's qualities. Petrol is finite. Electricity is not.
These problems diminish with the 2016 leaf with 160 miles range and almost disappear completely when you have a 200+ mile range 2018 leaf . I also think the chargers should by law have to take contactless credit card payments , even if they charge extra for that. Much like pay as you got mobile phones.
all new 50kw+ chargers are required to have this. Ecotricity is pretty much the only DC charger without them at this point
I would buy one, but wouldn't plan trips based reliant on the maximum capacity of the battery, the same as I wouldn't with my fossil-fuelled car!
This seemed like a lot of stress for a road trip...
I have done a few 250+ mile journeys in my life. But yeah it is a fuss. I only done it because it was free! If not I would have taken my partners petrol car.
+Dean Hamer in my LEAF not life lol.
I love these people they are funny and explained things well, hope to see them more at CNET RUclips channel
I have a Nissan leaf and drive from Co. leitrim Ireland, to Sheerness Kent. via holyhead or Liverpool. I have never run out of power and never been towed. I can get 107miles on a charge. but could not watch the whole video as I had far too many questions for the presenters, like how long have you owned a leaf. you can't just pick something up and assume you know how to get the best out of it.
Lame, This is such a hatchet job... not enough charge to reach destination "oh well". then they plug it in but don't turn on the power. They basically drive it without charging it and then are surprised when it runs out.
Can anyone agree that the majority of the problems here are derived from a lack of experience? Do we even know that problem yet?
Yeah, there's a stupid thing called range anxiety, and when you only own the car for 2 days, instead of 2 weeks, the fear won't go. For example, those three ''- - -'' on the range would indicate at least 7 miles left. And while a down station is unfortunate (and a down grade from the 24hr service is even worse), there's an app or service that's well known and recommended that shows what charger is active and what charger is inactive. If they looked it up an hour or two prior, they would've known.
To add, pump up the tires by 5psi if range is such an issue, but where is the real issue? I know one LEAF owner who drives over 130km (about 80miles) in and out of the Dublin city centre everyday, only needing one rapid charge in the evening. If that saves him upwards of €200 per month, then I think the issue is on something else!
I hope we've all learned by now that at least over the 5 years since we saw electric cars on sale, that country road trips once, twice or trice a year is not a clever reason to justify a purchase of a car over another.
Love your presentation guys.. After a very long time, this is something I really enjoyed watching..!!
I'd bet $1 there's an outlet somewhere in the gas station where they could have plugged in for a few mins to get them going again. These guys weren't even trying.
By a few mins you mean a few hours to get 20 miles
@@FORZION 120V@20A*60 mins = ~8 miles of charge. Enough to find a working charger. Also, this is 4 years old. This is no longer a problem.
I have been an owner of a LEAF for 18 months and think it's a great car. It's perfect for my 50 mile daily commute. It is also saving me £2000+ in fuel costs per year. But as the video clearly demonstrates, money needs to be invested in improving the charging infrastructure. I very rarely need to use a rapid charger (maybe once or twice a month) if I need to extend 80 mile range and then I am only charging for 15 mins at most to add 40ish miles.
I have even driven the car 250+ miles in one day on a couple of occasions but alot of planning is needed.
My opinion is that current generation EV's are perfect for a second car, use the petrol car for long distance drives.
But give it 5 years when battery technology improves and 200+ mile EV's are available for a similar price to a petrol/Diesel vehicle. This is when I can see EV's really taking off and there will be no need to keep the petrol car.
A good response and spot on! We use two electric cars for daily driving and take the Prius for longer trips. Lately however we have taken the LEAF on some longer trips though because it is almost a sport trying to get to the destination in Australia as there are no chargers. We charge in hotels, B & B’s, restaurants, libraries, caravan parks, clubs and bars, friends houses, cafes, everywhere!! All using regular 220 volt outlets.
As much as I love the idea of full EVs, we simply don't have the infrastructure to support this system yet. EVs still have short ranges & long charge times (vs. filling up) and Teslas are ludicrously expensive.
I think the best solution for now is Plug-in hybrids & Extended-range vehicles a la Prius, Fusion/C-max Energi (sour there's no Mondeo Energi), Volt/Ampera & i3 REX.
I think the terminals should at least be able to indicate to drivers whether it's functional or not via GPS.
A few thoughts I saw while researching on this car. Would it be possible to get a few Battery Packs / Booster Packs into the car and be able to charge off that during extreme emergencies like that. And I saw on a you tube video once about a guy who had another person tow the leaf a few miles giving him up to 75% full battery charge. If there is a proper nation wide charging station around Canada. I would surely consider getting one for the family.
+Bryan Agoncillo "extreme emergency"?
They were at a petrol station with dozens of 230V 13A sockets and could have charged at 3000 W just by asking. Within 6 minutes they'd have had enough to get to the Nissan Dealer. In fact, because they didn't have the turtle (low power limp mode) active, they probably had more than 10 miles range remaining.
Check out www.plugshare.com/# and see how many chargers there are near you.
How times have changed , in two years .
I have so far driven my Leaf 70000 miles across Ireland (urban and rural - seamlessly across the border. Have regularly completed 500 miles journeys Yes I have encountered chargers down on occasions but have only been stuck twice in 3.5 years. You are correct in saying that the solution is an improved infrastructure but generally across the EU we are getting there. The car is super and I will never change back to conventional fuels
We've driven our Nissan Leaf for 2.5 years in the Chicago area. We generally don't stray far enough from home to need to use public charging but when we have there have been scattered issues but for the most part it's not been too bad of an experience. In January of 2016 though a new will take effect in IL that prevents gasoline/diesel powered vehicles from parking in EV charging spots which will fix a good chunk of the issues ... Next is for the charging providers to keep their equipment running a bit better. The infrastructure is improving however which is excellent!
The leaf is a lovely little second car for a family with a "proper" main car for longer journeys. its ideal as a shopping car and to transport 2 kids to school, but no one should go into leaf ownership unaware of the real limitations in the real world.
so how much did it cost for the trip, including the towing fee?
When you got a tow, if you were towed on the road you could charged the battery with the regen. You're not supposed to,.. but it works. Any powe-rpoint would do for charging, albeit slower. To my mind, a generator and fuel makes it a hybrid for those occasional longer journeys. They could put the batteries in there to give you double the range, it would also increase the cost $6k USD which is why they don't. There's a company that does just that. I don't own one.
Maybe you could ask to use the service stations regular plug for an hour or so. Then as long as you need at the Nissan dealership. I understand drama is better than real world solutions, but please give your viewers some credit. We would not have needed to be towed. Neither did you.
Here we are 3 1/2 years later and it is a MUCH improved situation and cars are going further on a charge but many of the same issues exist - not enough and faulty charge points. Its better but not right yet! However I easily did a cambridge to cornwall drive and have been from cambridge up north loads. North south is good but east west still needs work! Good video though!
I tried cross-country drive myself. Can not really drive at speed on highway - going close to 110km/h will drain battery very fast. Quick charging is fast, but will slow down the whole trip. Good is charging stops are near some cafes etc. to spend time but sometimes they are just out in plain countryside. Person can not stay in car while it is being charged. You can charge from any household electric plug really in emergency or overnight, they have connectors with the car. Just get enough power to get to quick charger.
I own a 2012 LEAF and LOVE IT. She gets me everywhere I need to go. As long as I pace myself and keep abreast of available charging points by the Grace of God I have never been stuck.
Take a small generator with you and no worry if you get stuck, probably charge slow but enough to get to other charge point
So sorry you didn't have a Bolt good for 238 Normal driving bit can eke out closer to a possible 300 plus.
But there is always a 110 volt for charging. We will during our bikes for little needed exercise.
Did you try free Wheeling when going downhill? That´s done by selecting reverse gear while moving forward and that way you can use 100% of your kinetic energy and also build up a bit of speed to slingshot your way up next hill. Regen is good, but you never get 100% back in to the batteries.
So you guys are saying we shouldn't use a 80-90 mile range EV for a 500 mile road trip?, tell me something I didn't already know
They didn't say don't use it. They said plan your journey very well to avoid the kind of issues they encountered on this long trip.
chillout1109 nope they didn't say not to use it but that's my opinion from watching this video. Who in their right mind is going to spend around $35k for this car just to go through all of this trouble?, not me that's for sure.
The range is too low, the charging takes too long, and the charging infrastructure is not in place.
Are charging points still a problem nowadays? Interested in an electric as my first car.
Did they forget their factory charge cord? I'll bet there was some sort of plug at the Ecotricity location. It would have taken a long time to charge, even to get juice into the car to make it to the next quick charge, but it beats getting a tow.
Should have used a Renault Zoe, at least the charging lead can be released if the charger locks up. The charging infrastructure definitely needs improving if electric cars are to be practical for long journeys.
This is the only intelligent answer on here,i totally agree with you,i mean what's the point of a planned drive in a 17,000 quid electric car if the charging stations don't work and there is a customer service like a box of cornflakes
Also if companies like Ecotricity charge £6 for a 30 minute charge that will put many people off buying an electric car if they are unable to charge at home or have to make a round trip of more than 100 miles. I cannot see how charging £6 for a 30 minute charge is fair, you should only have to pay for what you use by KWH, not pay for other people's benefit.
It's funny because I live in Oswestry and cycle past this petrol station on most days but I have never noticed that they had one of these electric charging things. The thing is that outside the city the demand for these electric cars just doesn't seem to be there. (hence why this charging station is not maintained properly)
Having a Tesla would have been much easier for them. They have lots of superchargers in the U.K.
There is a charge point at Derby just south of the peaks. Via the A6.
For me, my Nissan leaf is a second car and as such it is excellent. Most of our motoring is in the Leaf and the savings are huge. At the moment you can buy a 2 year old car for about 10K from a Nissan dealer, so for 5 seater luxury motoring for next to nothing running costs it is a no-brainer.
They should have more than one Chademo station on each site for redundancy and to avoid queues. Or at least a seperate type 2 socket as a backup so you're not stranded.
+Halldór Gunnarsson Not really. They drove past 3 chargers fast chargers. If they'd stopped at any of them they'd have arrived with enough spare to get to the next charger (which was only one mile down the road)
How much do these charge stations cost? Is it cheaper than gas? I just did a quick google search here in the North East of USA and there are like hundreds every where. One less than a mile from my house.
An electrical charge station cost only a fraction of a gas station. But people would just end up rich and skinny from not buying hotdogs and soda's 😂
***** Nah, Hotdogs and soda is what Jesus consumed at the last supper. We HAVE to eat it.
pointlessfailure You'd probably be fitter if you drank soft drinks and hotdogs rather than drinking red wine and bread for the rest of your life.
+pointlessfailure To put it into terms that you can translate into dollars and cents ... We've had our Leaf for 2.5 years. We average in perfect weather 4.5 miles per kWh. In freezing weather we might go down to 3 miles per kWh (using the heat takes it's toll there but that can be offset by telling the car when you leave so it can pre-warm on household current I generally set it for a few degrees above or below where I'd actually want it to take full advantage of this) our electric provider in Chicago charges $0.06/kWh. At best (and some people get better than we do) 30 miles would use 6.6 kWh which is about $0.40 vs our other car that gets 30 mpg, at best, on the highway and takes premium gas which can cost anywhere between $3.50 and $5.00 per gallon here.
Bear in mind, unless you're looking at buying an EV with a no charge to charge program (ie: all public chargers covered by this program are free to use) public charging rates are always going to be higher vs charging at your home. There's a cost that needs to go towards maintaining the chargers. You'll have to look into what providers you're likely to use, what their rates are and if the EV of your choice comes with no charge to charge and where those providers are. Many around here are $2/hour to plug in. For a quick charge (ie: 0%-80% in 30 min) some charge $5 to start a session and then a rate per minute after that but we rarely need to use those stations. One of the providers around here for that also offers a subscription plan which is good for people that rely on those chargers more often.
To charge the car its Free in the UK if you join the various charging networks. Source East costs about £12 to join - in our area in East Anglia there are a lot of slower chargers (3-6hr) type 2 at shopping areas and supermarkets. The Ecotricity fast DC "Chademo" chargers (30 mins) are free currently. Some like the Polar network shown in the video charges a couple of pounds (apparently) - although you can often use a different network card with those (we found the Source East cards worked at Thorpe Park) - whereas we were about to download the PAYG app the guys in the video were using - which was nice. So far we've always charged for free on all our long trips, (the longest journey we've done so far is 275 miles) The Source East network card "roams" to other areas like "Source London" without needing to be activated.
For home charging, it costs less than £2 for a full charge of 80-100 miles. If you have economy 7 its almost half that.
There was a free domestic 3kw Charger offer a couple of years ago that myself and my girlfriend had installed even before we got our electic cars. Ironically of course I found I had to change the connector on mine once we bought the Leaf. A cheap £20 outdoor plug socket works quite well for slower charging, which we do using our spare solar power from the house roof whenever the sun is shining brightly!
So in that situation, you get your motoring for free. (aside from installing solar panels for £6k and buying a £10k second hand leaf of course)
But it makes you feel like you're doing your bit reducing emissions. We also have a Reva G-Wiz for shorter journeys locally (which is even more fun to drive) - all in all the Nissan Leaf is a wonderful car to drive - very fast acceleration if you want it, and a smooth quiet ride like a limo if you want to take it easy. The most stress free car I've ever driven.
Personally I'd never go back to a petrol or diesel vehicle, as you can't make your own fuel for it. That's the real game changer with this technology, by using solar power you generate yourself you're actively starving the petrochemical industry and its destructive ways!
how much it costs and how long it takes to charge a car battery from a charge station???
Well done on a very funny and dramatic movie! This highlights the major lack of real support for your chargers! However at least you have some! Some people have commented on how you can actually charge anywhere- run a lead out the window of the B & B for example. I have done 50,000 miles of electric driving including 25,000 miles in a 24 kilowatt hour Nissan Leaf (and 25,000 miles in a converted four door pick up truck) without ever even seeing a charging station (there are none in regional Australia), we only ever use leads into normal 220 volt outlets. We have also done 180 mile journeys in this way just relying on charging at hotels and restaurants. We charge everywhere!! We love the “sport” of the adventure for longer ev trips but in normal daily life the little car is brilliant as my return trip to work is only 30 miles so the short range doesn’t make any difference anyway and I get to enjoy the benefits of affordable reliable electric driving without any of the additional fuel and maintainence expenses of a petrol car. For longer trips we usually simply take the Prius!
They should make some attachment really super compact solar panels so it charges while you drive also do America have Costa?
***** well solar isnt that efficient thats the problem, specially in englands weather, it would maybe add a small charge, but fact a charging point takes a hour + to do yeah a panel isnt really gonna do much bar keep the sat nav on, maybe more magnets on the axels to provide passive dynamo power would help (axels turning, magnets spin, power is generated in copper coil near the magnets aka basic generator system)
***** Adding stuff is more weight, embedding them would make more sense. However a small panel alone won't be enough. Tesla car's have one and I think they regen like 5% of the charge if you drive the full 200 miles.
There is now a longer range leaf, that has a 25% larger battery
+FieryToast
If you are stupid, you can stay out of juice even if you have 1000miles range
I wish I had seen this before I ordered my leaf as I am due to get it next week and its to late to cancel. I now wish I had gone hybrid instead. Are well live and learn I was looking forward to my new car now I am dreading the thought of it.
+Don Hover And how are you going now? Have you actually met any of these made up problems?
there needs to be an option that they can take and plug into the wall outlet anywhere. if they did add it i would keep a honda generator on a rear rack on long trips, which would give about 2000 watts of extra power
+DMAN22yeah There is. It's included with every car. They could have plugged in at the petrol station, charged at 3 kW (the UK household plugs are 230V and 13 Amps) and within 6 minutes they could have driven to the Nissan Dealer that is 1.1 miles away. Or they could have topped up at any of the 3 fast chargers they drove past on the way there and arrived with plenty in hand.
gasdive yeah, they really needed to get some experience with the car before they drove it that far
Still some pretty big gaps in the "PlaceToPlug" map in the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, North Pennines etc and with a quoted max regen braking efficiency on the Leaf of 39% these are not the sorts of terrain conducive to getting anything like the book distances out of a charge.
What was the total cost of the fuel?
Sounds like a nightmare-- leafs are 50 grand in Australia and are equivalent to a 15 grand car.. You can fill up an ice in 5 mins and stations are everywhere, also big chance the batteries will die after 3 years
Bunch of EV amateurs and EV cynics, understandable from the attitude. There are thousands of EV users who go out of the city all the time with proper planning.
+Kamlesh Mallick At least 1 of those EV users hauls a diesel generator and a couple tanks of diesel in the cargo hold so they can build their own diesel-powered charging station in case they get stranded in the Outback. But at that point you've basically got a diesel Prius.
Makes sense and I mentioned it above. Pull it out for the longer trips. For myself if I owned one, I'd rig up something to charge whilst moving and idle so you have a real hybrid with the option to turn it off or pull it out when not needed. You're limited to about 3000W in a small reliable gen [like a Honda] which gives you about 14 miles every hour. Drive for 2 hrs, get 28 miles extra from the recharging.
Chevy Volt owner here Ampera for you Brits. It's the only full electric car that has a range extender gas engine on board. The only way to go for a one car household or for longer trips.
What was the temperature gauge at after all these quick charges?
Thanks for the video, but "opportunity charging" would solve the problem of occasional dedicated charging points being out of order. UK's 240 volt, 13 amp standard wall outlet system will get you some charge, or a 3 phase industrial type 400 volt system. Just carry the appropriate 240 volt household extension cable, or the 400 v industrial, and ask a nearby business/shop/garage/house etc to help you out. I work at a factory making industrial battery chargers and one of our research boffins has a Nissan Leaf (privately imported to NZ from the UK). Some days he suffers "range anxiety" so runs a cord out the window and gives himself a minor top-up. Note that NZ's domestic supply is only 10 amps at 240 v for standard household wall outlets and extension cables. I see it as a serious failing of electric car and charger design, if you cannot just carry an extension cable with you, to allow you to plug into any nearby house/shop whatever, for a bit of charge, even if that is at a slower rate than the maximum rate the batteries can cope with. Also the charger at the "ESSO" that needed re-booting. Would it have been possible to go into the ESSO and "pull the breaker" momentarily, so as to "turn off the charger from the mains, and turn it back on again". It works to re-boot most things !
Range anxiety is why the leaf sucks. Get a Chevy volt if your on a budget. It will do most of its chores in the city without ever burning the gas in its tank, but when you go on the road you have the gas stations to refill at.
Now if you want to go the purely electric and can afford it get a Tesla. It has great range and the free super charger stations. If they aren't available they can also be charged at the slower stations found elsewhere albeit at a slower pace than a super charger station.
this is so stupid, people own cars so they have freedom of travel, not planning every minute to find a charging station
A few model years later, range had improved dramatically. (:-) Still, that doesn't solve the problem of (multiple) down chargers or workday-only charger support. (:-(
Nice enough but:
You used a Leaf instead of a Renault Zoe.
Charge to 80-90% not 100% when traveling.
You used the Nissan dealership network instead of issuing Ecotricity.
Calculate your range yourself, especially when the car has been reset recently.
Use a third party app like OpenChargeMap or ZapMap.
Avoid using slow chargers for travel, use rapids for transit charging.
If you can get hold of one use a Tesla.
It's good to see a real world experience of Nissan leaf which is in contrast to some of the other reviews I have seen.
I would love to get a electric car, but as you demonstrated, it is still needs to address many basic problems. Maybe they could put solar cells on top of the roof, to charge the batteries at some point so it could recharge the batteries if needed or a micro winding generator in the front so that too recharge the batteries at a certain point or be used when the vehicle is moving? Something to think about.
Best EV video to date in terms of learning about the poor infrastructure on charging stations. I have test driven all there is to test drive on the EV market. Even a Tesla Model S P85D. I have to say the Nissan Leaf is an exceptionally good car for the money. So glad the latest model has an improved range of 155 miles.
There's an app called PlugShare that I highly recommend to any EV driver.
You guys didn't realise you can drive slower to squeeze out more mileage. I own a Leaf and use this technique a lot. I noticed on your second day when you ran out of range - I thought it was utter madness driving at 40+mph with zero miles left, if you had slowed the vehicle down and kept an eye on the "spare" mileage, when it got to a critical amount - e.g. the difference between what the car is telling you you have left and the distance on the satnav to the destination, you can judge whether you need to speed up or slow down in your driving style.
This is one of the main differences in driving an internal combustion based vehicle vs an electric car, we're all used to just putting our foot down and driving fast everywhere, safe in the knowledge that you can always just fill up somewhere, or walk with a petrol can.
e.g. if your destination is 70 miles away, and your car is estimating only 65, use the cruise control and speed limiter and lower your speed to 40 or even 30mph until the estimated distance goes up. As your "spare" then goes positive, you can speed up, the Leaf's cruise control feature is excellent for doing this on a plus or minus 1mph amount. A right pain for other drivers of course driving slowly on single carriageways, but on dual carriageway roads no problem at all. If of course the speed limit is 30, then drop to 27, that extra 3mph will help go further. Remember speed limits are a maxium on A roads, there are no laws against driving slowly - A horse or moped will often go slowly much to the annoyance of car drivers, but as long as you can ignore the odd dickhead honking his horn and have a thick skin - you need to ignore it and concentrate on sticking to your guns so you can get there rather than driving fast constantly. If you get near your destination and have spare, then put your foot down and go faster safe in the knowledge that you'll get to your destination. At higher speeds most of the energy is actually used forcing the car through the "air", so slowing down helps on such long trips.
Another thing you could have done was actually stopped in the countryside and knocked on a door, asking to plug in with the 3 pin standard plug socket. There are a hell of a lot more of those around, every pub, restaurant, home, office etc has one. Just say it will cost no more than £2 for an 8 hour charge, and most people will be happy to run an extension cable through a window to help you out if you are nice to them!
This is something that most critics of electric vehicles forget when they say there aren't enough charging points around. You might have to wait 2 hours in that scenario, but at least you can go another 20 miles and find a faster charger doing that.
Once all electric cars have a battery capacity of 250 miles + this issue will become a thing of the past - it will only be a few years before this happens with the price of the batteries dropping so quickly, after all, the the Leaf's existing battery replacement at the end of its life cost was quoted 2 years ago as being £16,000 - in 2015 its now gone down to something like £6000. The 2016 Leaf now has an option for a 155mile range.
+Derek Foley They drove right past 3 fast chargers and 16 lvl 2 chargers. Their intention all along was to run out and call the tow truck.
I love my leaf (can't afford a tesla), but charge it at home and use it for commuting and local driving. If I need to go any distance I take my wife's car which has 1.2 supercharged litres of old-fashioned petrol power. No range anxiety at all.
Of course the range of the leaf goes down if you cruise at 80 on a motorway, it can do it easily but it's not what it's meant for, but it also goes up if you are doing 8 mph in heavy traffic. Just use it properly and it takes the stress out of jams.
Electric cars may not be perfect - yet, but give it 5 years.....
Case in point for the Chevrolet Volt and/or the Tesla Supercharger infrastructure.
Make sure you use the Plugshare App is great and offer many type 2 charging points in public and private ownership in Wales, when I move I will offer a mobile evrescue service, because I plan to use my home battery bank as a mobile unit in a custom made trailer, just need to call in advance! So keep you eyes open in Guilsfield, Mid Wales.
That is too much stress for a road trip, they should have places for electric charging people to hang out for free, like seating area or something. Good job, light hearted and informative.
Tesla usually puts their charging stations at restaurants or malls so you can get something to eat or sit down while your car is charging
***** Oh thats nice, guess the Uk tend to follow US trends so im sure its bound to follow that too.
Roller sail Yeah but you can expect people to sit in a car for an hour or two just to charge a car. I'm saying they should be located around places where there are things to do, you proved my point by saying supermarkets - people can go shopping or browse while their car charges.
That's isn't really fair because the infrastructure build out is going to take some time to get to the level of gas stations.
Is there any way to plug in standard 13amp plug to charge a leaf?
+anttt69 Yes. It takes 10 hours to charge from flat. If they'd just plugged in at the petrol station they'd have had enough juice after 6 minutes to make it to the Nissan dealer a mile down the road.
I am considering purchasing and EV and anticipate these problems. Ideas to be able to do road trips 1. Take a hire car 2. carry a generator (not sure how feasible this is).
You should have either a) turned the plug on or b) waited longer to recharge the battery
It irritates the heck out of me when these so called fair and balanced car shows decide to show how well the EVs are out there and decide to take the car on a long drive with no EV driving experience under their belts. They literally drove the car like teenagers on a joy ride. In the meantime there are plenty of EV owners out there more than willing to share their personal thoughts and experiences owning an EV but these online car shows get the majority of the views. Please, if you have any questions check out Ian Sampson's channel or Bjorn's channel they both give excellent info about owning an EV.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum do have their drivers licences right? Or perhaps they've been sucking on too many exhaust pipes.
A Diesel car is best for a long trip. We get over 70mpg on a long run easy and can drive the length of the uk on 3/4 of a tank. Now that's progress!
is that a 24 kwh leaf version?
This is a great video!
I have a Hyundai Ioniq, has a better range than the nissan, about 125m if you drive carefully, Great car great dealership but i think it was also a great mistake.
Now fine if you drive within its range, my first trip outside its range was 111m got there fine topped up at my friends house so i could charge on the way back, unfortunately ecotricity's server when't down and this was sunday so no one to fix it till monday, had to stay at friends house and finish a 14hr charge.
Next trip 200m stopped half way ecotricity pump gave error, phoned up (daytime) and got it working.
On the way back, same place but southbound, plugged in started charging but stopped half way, phoned up and they fixed it and started again, then got home.
I would like to say Ecotricity was very helpful, unlike their pumps.
So i conclude an electric car is fine if you only charge at home, or at your destination. (friends house)
If you have to charge on route only opening hours, allow enough range to get to the next point along if their is one, so you get two shots at it.
But i hate to say this, if you need to drive beyond the range of the car you want, buy an economical diesel.
I think its going to be years till we see any improvements in the charging network.
I don't think ecotricity is planning any expansion of their charging network in the near future, and they are the only ones on motorways.
This is why you don't take a shopping trolley for cross country trips, people do less then 30 miles on their average drive and yet if you mention electric cars they immediately demand they the range of an oil tanker.
That is why Tesla made an insanely expensive car, it is just because the random dumb ass demands they do unreasonable shit, where they could do an averagely priced car for what an average person needs.
I watched to the captions and wished it wouldn't't have ended that way especially with the return trip going uphill and needing probably an extra charge. At least your regen braking seemed to help for most of your travel, My plugin hybrid car has regenerative breaking and at 80% collected at each stop I get no measurable charge to my primary battery ( whatever I'm getting doesn't show toward the ev milage shown on my dash). I still hope if you get into a situation like that a broken station that you could walk in ocuardly and ask to plug in to their plug outlet inside. Thats what another trek had to do from the U.S. East Coast to the west coast to prove the tech could do it.
Only things this is good for is cushions in back window on a Sunday afternoon doing 45mph on the motorway and 10 miles a week motability
1/ Higher the speed = higher energy use *squared*! So, if you are running out of juice - simply SLOW DOWN (it's not rocket science!)
2/ Get to the rapid charger with as least range remaining as possible as rapid charging happens much more quickly when the battery is more empty than full.
3/ The range remaining is calculated according to the last 15 mins or so of energy use - If you have been hammering it or going up hill you will get a distorted indication.
4/ Didn't switch it on - OMG!!! And you guys a "technical EXPERTS"?!!!
5/ The rapid charger isn't working ... but you've got a mains charging cable, FCOL - find a normal 3 pin socket (not like there isn't going to be one on the entire motorway service area) and plug it in for 30 minutes - jeesh!
6/ Remember the golden rule of EV driving... If range anxiety sets in, subtract the distance to go from the range remaining and keep doing that every 5 minutes or so. If the difference drops, then SLOW DOWN. If it stays the same, you're OK if it goes up, speed up (if you want). Even if it means coming off the motorway and/or doing 30 mph with your hazards on. On the motorway, a stationary vehicle is much more of a hazard than a slow moving one! Run of of juice and have to call a tow truck (if you lack the balls to knock on someone's door, extension lead plug in hand, for a boost) *or* look like a bit of a prune for a while... It's a tricky one - NOT!
7/ Write to your MP and encourage him/her to harry HMG to stop wasting money on useless street-side low power charge points (including residential ones) - at this point in the EV 'revolution' and spend it instead on a properly organised and maintained, rapid charging infrastructure!
Was this the 24kWh version or the 30 kWh version of the Nissan Leaf?
Beyond what everyone else has pointed out, can I just point out they didn't drive across the UK at all. They drove across ENGLAND. One country. Never left any borders. Never went to Wales or Scotland, or Ireland. Just England.
Oh, and for every time they moan about how long charging takes, funnily enough they never mentioned that it cost nothing to do so in the first place, compared to filling a tank of petrol?
I have not seen anyone talk about how wide the doors open
Perhaps if they had charged fully at the B&B they would have been more successful.