Nissan Leaf Range Drops To As Low As 50 Miles In Freezing Weather

Just before Nissan officially launched the all-electric Leaf hatchback, it came out with a dizzying list of simulated range predictions based on all kinds of road and weather conditions.

According to Nissan’s own computer-simulated calculations, the car’s 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack could propel the car up to 138 miles in optimum conditions, or under 62 miles in worse-case scenarios.

In the spirit of true investigative journalism, we decided to test winter range for ourselves, with a long evening rush-hour commute on a dreary December day.



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Joe_Limon - 12/23/2011 10:49:11 AM

0 Boost

62 miles at only +14? What about 40 below? I doubt I'll ever see these cars in Canada, which is a good thing, because they are fugly.

veyron1001 - 12/23/2011 12:41:43 PM

+1 Boost

If they are so ugly, then why are they destroying the volt in sales?

Joe_Limon - 12/23/2011 12:57:51 PM

+1 Boost

Bigger initial supply and a small pent up demand. Now that there is inventory, and they have been on the market for a while, the volt destroying the leaf almost 2-1 in sales even though it's much more expensive.

atc98092 - 12/23/2011 1:40:49 PM

+2 Boost

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but yeah I don't think it's a prize either.

Joe_Limon - 12/23/2011 2:41:59 PM

+1 Boost

No, I'm saying the last couple months the volt has sold much more relatively. For example last month Nissan was only capable of 672 units, but the Volt tallied in 1,139.

Joe_Limon - 12/23/2011 10:31:03 PM

+1 Boost

Oh poor angryinch, are yo mad that I proved you wrong? Globally the volt is being sold along side the Opel and Vauxhall Ampera.

Do you want to find the numbers to prove that it's a global sales failure?

atc98092 - 12/23/2011 1:37:44 PM

+2 Boost

And this surprises who? We all knew that cold weather would make a huge difference in range. For me, 50 miles would be too close to the pucker level just for my commute (40 miles round trip). That's only a 5% cushion. 70-80 in normal winter conditions (for Seattle) would be comfortable for me. Tesla S should reach that.

Fijian - 12/23/2011 5:01:20 PM

+2 Boost

As it gets colder it will get more bad news.I stood beside one near the driver door and could not deal with those ugly headlights.Maybe its just me but I cannot live with those lights.