Assimilated by the Leaf People

Yep. Uphill = lots of battery use. Coming back down = regen

Also remember that battery state of charge is an inexact science.

Both of the above comments are true, but I still think it's pretty striking that the difference in distance, uphill/downhill, and style of driving resulted in a difference of over an order of magnitude in indicated energy usage. ~35% vs ~3%.

The range-guesser is pretty much useless, but while the percentage battery level may not be precise by any means, I imagine its sloppiness in this case is lost in the scale of what was observed. I mean, the larger value could be adjusted by more than the entire smaller value and the observation would stand... There's room to see something interesting here even if both values are significantly out of whack.

Without a doubt, it takes a shift in mindset to get used to driving this car. You'd see mpg differences in a gas engine car on the drive you just described, but it wouldn't be as dramatic as in the Leaf. When you're going uphill in the Leaf, you're using a lot of battery. But going down, you're using essentially zero, and in fact can be recharging the battery...almost is if in a gas engine you shut it off and were trickling fuel back into the tank.

Yes, the range guesser, aka "Guess O Meter (GOM)" is not good at all. It makes calculated guesses based on past driving history. It's a vague ballpark, but I don't count on it.

In reply to Klayfish:

Exactly!

On the way up, I was driving it like that just to see if there were giggles to be had driving it like that. And, kinda. But really not the tool for that job. So I dumped a bunch of energy. I'm kinda curious to go back and drive that route in a manner more in keeping with the Leaf's character and see how much juice it takes.

The coolest thing was seeing how little juice it used on the way back, and yes, to watch the nominal percentage charge come back up a couple of points on the way down the hill.

It's out of its element on the freeway (not that it drives badly, just not playing to its strengths) or on a twisty road, but around town it's just an amazingly efficient device.

But going down, you're using essentially zero, and in fact can be recharging the battery...almost is if in a gas engine you shut it off and were trickling fuel back into the tank.

Or in the case of boring half-measures like my Prius, shut down the gas engine and charge the batteries. I've recently discovered there's a ~2 mile (not all downhill) road on the way home that i can manage to be under electric propulsion with the gas engine off the whole way if i try. Seems impossible to sustain higher than 39mph without the gas engine but that's still speeding there anyway.

Im definitely jealous of y'alls option to be fully electrically propelled at higher speeds and throttle.