Felix Kramer From CalCars.org Describes a Household With Two New OEM Electric Vehicles

From Calcars.org:

Since we got our Volt on Dec. 22 and our Leaf
Jan. 24, I've felt like we've taken a time
machine to the future. Since as the Founder of
CalCars.org I've been doing little else but talk
and evangelize about this for a decade, I thought
I'd be ready for this moment. But now that it's
really here, it's far better than I ever imagined!

Each car is like a 21st century space capsule,
gliding silently through streets clogged with
last-century vehicles. I was never so aware of
the unique and ugly sounds from each gas-guzzler.
At stop lights I even feel their low-frequency
vibrations. As a driver of a Prius since 2004,
which 60,000 miles ago in 2006 was converted to a
plug-in hybrid, and as an occasional driver of a
RAV4 EV or a Tesla Roadster, I've had glimpses of
how this feels. But it's completely different to
drive this way almost all the time!

Each car greets the driver with fun as its first
feature. The instant torque of electric motors
turns each of them into rocketships at low
speeds, and easy lane-changers on the highway.

The driver's seat of the Volt feels like an
airplane cockpit. It's a little intimidating at
first, but reassuring after a few minutes of
studying the controls and displays -- or just
ignoring some for a while. The Leaf has a spare
quality, and the simpler right-side panel is all about audio and climate.

Each car offers subtle clues about its
fundamental character. The Volt puts a whole car
between the front left electric door and the rear
right gasoline door. Inside, the button to flip
open the electric door stands out while I have to
work to reach the gas-door release, giving the
message, "You're not going to be using this very
often." The Leaf's charging ports are under a
giant door right in the center of the car's nose:
"There's nothing going on in here but electricity."

Both cars have slipped up some on what's called
"computer-human interface." We wish they'd
listened to suggestions to put prototypes in the
hands of Silicon Valley's usability experts last
summer. For instance, the charging signals. Plug
in the Volt and the indicator turns yellow
(connected), then steady green (charging).
Finally it flashes green (done). That's exactly
the reverse of a user's expectations. The Leaf,
with a longer charge time, starts out well, with
three indicators that illuminate in succession as
the car reaches its charge. But 15 minutes after
it's full, all the blue lights go off. My first
morning, when I greeted the plugged-in car, I
wondered, "what happened?" Both MyLink and
MyLeaf, the phone apps that enable me to monitor
and control charging and many other activities,
need major overhauls and quicker refresh. (Since
the Nissan app doesn't make Leaf all-caps, I've
got permission to stop doing so….)

Each car's manual is full of important
information -- far more than I got even in the
superb orientations from Novato Chevy's Terry
McCarter and North Bay Nissan's Victor Maldonado.
But each is daunting, and, unsurprisingly,
written defensively and sometimes in legalese. I
downloaded them from
http://www.chevrolet.com/assets/pdf/owners/manuals/2011/2011_chevrolet_volt_owne\
rs.pdf
and
http://www.nissan-techinfo.com/refgh0v/og/Leaf/2011-Nissan-Leaf.pdf
. Alas, for a spare copy, pages designed to fit
in a glove compartment don't print well on
letter-sized paper. And while the Volt's Index
listings are live links; the Leaf's aren't,
though once I got inside its chapters I could
click to navigate. Nissan and GM may be watching
Hyundai, which turned its Equus manual into a
downloadable App -- and included an IPad with the car.

We all know both cars will get better soon. All
carmakers will learn from each other. (The savvy
ones aren't relying on their customer service
operations, but have budgeted for large teams to
track down and analyze the tens of thousands of
comments and suggestions strewn around online.)
The automakers can quickly update some software
features. One reason we leased the Volt instead
of buying it is our expectation for future
hardware improvements in Version 2. The Volt's
big challenge is making the car a five-seater.
Tomorrow, Nissan could promise to supply every
Leaf with rear headrests that lower to the level
of the top of the back seats. That will vastly
improve the half-blocked rear window visibility.
(We remove them and replace them when we have rear passengers.)

Rochelle's first comment was, "Hey, I love these
cars!" (She and our son Josh, both shown at the
CalCars.org "Plug-Ins Arrive" page, have been
stalwart supporters.) She wishes both carmakers
had personalized the mirrors so she doesn't have
to reset them every time she gets in after I've
driven it. Otherwise, she's happy to just be able
to get into each vehicle, push the on-button and
drive it like any other car. She says it was a
bigger adjustment to switch from a 1997 Camry to
a 2007 Camry Hybrid than from that car to the
Volt. She appreciates the rear cameras,
especially important now that most
safety-conscious cars come with thick side pillars.

Finally, the hard numbers. Our Leaf experience
began with a fair test with an EPA-assigned
73-mile range: from the dealer in Petaluma to
Redwood City. Driving at 65 MPH the whole way and
not bothering to detour around the steep hill in
San Francisco between the Golden Gate Bridge and
US 101 (which cost about 4 miles of range), we
finished a 74-mile trip comfortably with 14 miles
to spare. The Leaf is reassuringly predictable:
with 80-100 miles of juice, most of the time, we
don't think about range; we just drive around and
charge it at night. With 163 miles in four days,
it may become our first-to-use car, with the Volt
reserved for times we both drive and for distances.

The Volt is a more dramatic story. In 37 days,
we've driven 2,281.0 miles and used 33.4 gallons.
Does an average of 68.1 MPG sound disappointing?
Not to us -- because it includes two round-trips
to Lake Tahoe. Until now, no one could drive a
plug-in car that route without refueling along
the way: 225 miles including 8,000 feet of Sierra
elevations. (Read about that record-setting first
trip and see photos at http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1955 .)

Here are details on the two Tahoe expeditions:
First: 225.7 miles, 6.31 gallons at 35.8 MPG up,
and 221.5 miles, 4.36 gallons at 50.8 MPG down.
Second: 244.0 miles, 6.37 gallons at 38.1 MPG up,
and 242.9 miles, 4.56 gallons at 53.2MPG down.
(The second time we more than confirmed the
numbers. We don't know why we got better results
even on a longer route with an additional passenger and more cargo.)

We started each of the four drives with a full
battery (boosting our average), then had major
uphill drives (reducing MPG). The combined
43.2MPG is about what a second- or
third-generation Prius gets on that route. (We
expect the Gen2 Volt will improve its
long-distance "charge-depleted" driving
performance, which wasn't the top priority in
GM's four-year push to meet the Volt's promised
delivery date.) This proves a PHEV's best selling
point: this one car can drive all-electric most
of the time at its base location, then go any
distance worry-free with good fuel economy, and
again drive entirely electrically at its destination.

We've reached a sweet moment. Since 2005, CalCars
has been trumpeting that plug-in hybrids (and
extended range electric vehicles) get100+ MPG of
gasoline (plus a penny a mile of electricity). GM
didn't squawk when the Volt sticker said its MPG
when using gasoline and electricity would range
from 69-168 MPG for 30-75 mile trips. Now our
real-world Volt experience confirms both our
experience with conversions and our predictions
for production vehicles. Many of our Bay Area
trips in the Volt have exceeded the car's typical
35-40 mile all-electric range -- and we've used
our portable charging connector at a destination
only once. When we subtract out the two long
trips, our local 1,346.9 miles on 11.8 gallons
were at 114.1 MPG. (And CalCars colleague Ron
Gremban driving his Volt Lynne McAllister showed
205 MPG after their first 468 miles, mostly in
Marin County.) As they say, QED -- point proven!

Stay tuned for more specifics and comparisons in the future.