I'm about to do something I wasn't (TDI content)

Vigo wrote:

Yeah, the pervasive confusion over the relationship of torque and power is bad enough without the manufacturers' marketing departments playing fast and loose in the name of making EVs sexy.

Well, i agree with your point as far as it goes, but you left out gearing. The 400lb ft number is technically true but it's still heavily misleading because by GM's own statements the Spark EV's 3.18:1 gear reduction is 'less than half' of other EVs on the market. So then, by extension you could 'more than double' the ~207 lb ft from a Leaf motor and end up with a bigger number than the Spark has.

In a Leaf (have not driven a Volt or Prius) it feels quick enough at normal surface-road type speeds.

How about we just use empirical numbers?

Leaf

0-30 3.3 0-45 6.0 0-60 9.9

BRZ

0-30 3.2 0-45 5.4 0-60 7.9

95% of my driving takes place in 35 or 45 mph speed limit areas. In those areas, if I'm not being timed, and I am obeying the speed limits, I probably could not tell the difference between the two.

Edit: Whoops, this was just me screwing up. Never you mind..

In reply to Vigo:

Dude, no, I was agreeing with you that it's complete and utter bullE36 M3. I am agreeing that it is a big problem. I have no idea how I managed to phrase anything so badly as to indicate that I was anything other than unhappy with marketeers doing further damage to the public's already pitiful understanding of torque and power...

I was being sarcastic about how crappy it is that they're involving gearing in their torque figures and taking it to the logical conclusion of using the massive torque multiplication of a 4WD transfer case to make big claims in the fullsize-truck world where torque figures are serious hootus-swinging-competition material...

Sorry. I failed to infer your true meaning and read it the wrong way. It happens every once in a while. All apologies!

In reply to Vigo:

No worries. Happens to everyone. And as I hinted, my own choice of words may be just as much to blame...

Anyhow, on our general agreement about the marketeering dumbassery: cheers!

EDIT: AND I figured out where I was screwing up: I got it in my head that they were claiming 400 lb-ft from a 200 lb-ft motor running through a reduction, as if the motor and primary gear were the "motor unit". Which serves to sort of underscore the meaninglessness of the figure. Bryce's point about reduced bearing speed is true, but really, this whole thing really aggravates me; And at 0 RPM, there's no difference in bearing speed Anyhow, that's how I took off on the torque in a truck tangent, because it made sense in the context of including gearing in the engine torque claims, which wasn't happening in the first place. Where's that red-faced emoticon?

Wait, what just happened here. Was there reason and apology on the interwebs? What the hell bizarro world have I entered.

Maybe there's just deeper passive-agressive sarcasm that I didn't pick up.

In reply to Teh E36 M3:

C'mon, you're a Dork, you know by now that GRM's... well... nice! Sure, there's a little ebb and flow, but by and large folks here are reasonable, pleasant, helpful... It's certainly a serious cut above most of the web

Wait, what just happened here. Was there reason and apology on the interwebs? What the hell bizarro world have I entered. Maybe there's just deeper passive-agressive sarcasm that I didn't pick up.

Ironically, just today i found out i'm on probation in the SomethingAwful car forum for acting pretty much the same way i do here. And over there, i've had a couple posts where similar things happened, one person misread something and got snarky, other person clarified good intentions, retractions and apologies and all is well. Unfortunately the guy who moderates the forum is apparently not as adult as the actual users and likes to manifest his thin skin through mod powers.

As a moderator at turbo-mopar.com and a GRM member (both of which give me some pretty high standards for other forums to live up to) i find it both amusing and a little aggravating. I think GRM and T-M are some of the best-moderated car forums on the internet and im not just saying that because i havent been banned yet.

Having double the torque of a typical EV (and more than a super car) IS easy marketing, but power (to weight ratio) is king, of course. The benefit of getting the same power to the wheels with half the gearing is less energy wasted spinning bearings, reduced drivetrain inertia, reduced noise, improved packaging, and it even allows GM to use their well developed planetary set from the parts bin. GM raised the bar for powertrain efficiency with the Spark EV, so they must be doing something right! Even if these are all valid reasons to like the torquey motor, it's easier marketing to say it has more torque than a super car.

/Spark EV threadjack.

Bryce

In reply to Nashco:

Aw hell, now I have to ask; have you poked at a Spark EV in person? How tiny is the 1.8 cubic feet of cargo space with the rear seats in place?

They look so tiny, but the first comparison I found actually listed the Spark EV as having slightly more rear legroom than the Leaf. One of our DD requirements is that we can put four six-footers in it in reasonable comfort.

The overall lengths are considerably different, but he Leaf has so much more schnoz on it, and has that weird wheels-almost-behind-the-rear-window layout, half-wondered whether the actual interior box is similar in size...

Just FYI as I have said before. My friends who got a leaf in San Diego (which is very mild climate) have seen serious battery range loss in less than 2 years of perfect 4 star driving from Nissan's reporting. And it's not something Nissan has identified as an issue or offered to replace.

On the upside I have owned my TDI for a few years now and am considering getting rid of it to get a 4x4 (can take public transport and commuting less now) and I can sell it for almost the same if not more than what I purchased it for in 09

Jaynen wrote: Just FYI as I have said before. My friends who got a leaf in San Diego (which is very mild climate) have seen serious battery range loss in less than 2 years of perfect 4 star driving from Nissan's reporting. And it's not something Nissan has identified as an issue or offered to replace.

Nissan wrote: Lithium-ion Battery Gradual Capacity Loss: In addition to the Lithium-ion Battery Coverage for defects in materials or workmanship (96 months/100,000 miles), the Nissan LEAF® Lithium-ion battery is also warranted against capacity loss below nine bars of capacity as shown on the vehicle’s battery capacity level gauge for a period of 60 months or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. See your Owner's Manual for tips on maximizing battery life and capacity.

http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/charging-range/battery/

At the time the loss was not enough to trigger the free replacement but was still substantial enough that her 50 mile daily commute could not be done without charging during the day

50 miles of what? Freeways? Surface streets? Some of each? What speed limit on the freeway? 50 miles is seriously bad, but if it's at 75mph, that's near-new range...

I guess the question is whether the "battery capacity level gauge" shows anything resembling actual available energy content. Otherwise it can show ten bars all day long and not get you to the coffee shop. I have to admit, basing battery warranty on the car's reporting is a little bit fox-guarding-the-henhouse...

This is going to be interesting, but I think the Leaf is the right call for us, in part because we want to support the adoption of EVs.

The reality is that acquiring a road trip car will torpedo any dollar savings between the Leaf and TDI. Cost is not the primary factor here. Not that I'm not going to have fun finding a nice 9-series Volvo or something, that that's worth a bit

I've been close to a regular spark and it is a very small car. Im pretty sure the car would be more cramped in the width direction for rear seat occupants than in the legroom department.

Even though the basic spark is pretty much the same weight and overall interior volume as a honda fit, it's much smaller behind the front seats. Chevy rates the normal spark (if EV battery intrudes on interior space it will be less) at ~30 cubic feet with the rear seats down compared to the fit's 57. This is just to give you an impression, the hot ticket would be to go check one out and report back.

I'm going to go soak my head.

I just re-ran the numbers (or is this the first time I've penciled them this way?), and it looks like the cost of a Leaf lease in the trim we'd want is actually more expensive than the WRX by enough that we'd have to save about $90/mo in gas to put the Leaf ahead. Which we would, but that's much tighter than expected, and putting together a separate road trip car will make the Leaf plus old Volvo package clearly more expensive than the WRX. The WRX, for crying out loud...

I have half a mind not to post this, because it's both more twitching and flailing on my part, which there's already been too much of, and because it seems like great evidence that I've done some math badly at some point in this process, and likely multiple places.

But I can take a laughing at, so here we go... If I don't get wacky answers after review, I'll post what I'm coming up with...

ransom wrote: it looks like the cost of a Leaf lease in the trim we'd want is actually more expensive than the WRX by enough that we'd have to save about $90/mo in gas to put the Leaf ahead.

That is the weirdest sounding sentence in the history of earth.

My numbers worked out to be about $30 more for the Leaf each month than to buy a used car, buy all parts for repairs (and no labor) and pay for gas and then sell said used car - using actual data from the PT Cruiser, which was an extremely cheap reliable vehicle. Spending more, like we were going to have to, to get a Mazda 5 or something, and the numbers worked in favor of the Leaf, but only slightly. Again, this is on the base model S, $3.25 gasoline (which is higher than it actually is here right now), and SC electricity.

In reply to tuna55:

I have paid, to date, $8673 on the WRX. My payoff on the loan is $20,200. I have an offer from a CU for $21,400, which would allow me to cash in my prorated warranty; Ebay shows identical cars with finished auctions recently for $24k to $26k.

So let's say I get $23k out of the WRX + warranty, pay off the loan, and have $2800 left over. That means my out of pocket has been $8673 minus $2800, or $5873, for the 1.75 years I've had the car. Plus $350 for dealer oil changes, making it $6223. $3356/year.

The Leaf we want would be an SV with QC and Premium package. It's probably closer to the SL, but I'm penciling it as smack between the SV and SL and calling it $2k down and $275/mo. 35*$275 = $9625 + $2k = $11625. $11625 / 3 = $3875/year.

That works out to $43.24/mo more for the Leaf, as I used a more pessimistic resale for the WRX (EDIT: as opposed to my quote in the prior post, I mean). And if I took the CU's offer, the WRX would indeed be slightly more expensive than the Leaf. It's close.

I'm just shocked at how close it is. We would save solidly $100/mo on gas, and someone driving more would save more. We've put 16k miles on this car in 20 months, and it's our DD.

I'm now awaiting someone pointing out the facepalm in my math and/or assumptions.

I give up. It's close as makes no difference in the grand scheme. It looks an awful lot like the actual, including-fuel, monthly cost of either the TDI or the Leaf over three years will be very roughly $50 less than the WRX. The TDI would be giving some of that as resale, with a higher monthly payment and the fuss of selling at the end (as I now get to do with the WRX). The leaf has a not massive but certainly significant payment up front.

I believe we'll probably stick with the Leaf, but there will probably be a small moment of reconsideration, as my girlfriend may have been trying to do me a favor by picking the cheaper option... I think, though, that we both really thought the Leaf was a more exciting option.

In some sense, making it a financial wash kind of frees you to buy purely on subjective factors. Sometimes it's nice to be able to do something 'just because'. Do what you want and feel confident it's budget-neutral.

In reply to Vigo:

It's true, really. I think my only real disappointment was that before working it through, I thought the Leaf was a significant savings, and was salivating over what I'd do. Probably bump up my student loan payment, but I guess I'm boring enough that was exciting

Moreover, that means that I don't have a ready monthly chunk freed up to throw into the "perfect road trip car showed up on CL" fund. But that's something I can work out...

ransom wrote: 50 miles of what? Freeways? Surface streets? Some of each? What speed limit on the freeway? 50 miles is seriously bad, but if it's at 75mph, that's near-new range... I guess the question is whether the "battery capacity level gauge" shows anything resembling actual available energy content. Otherwise it can show ten bars all day long and not get you to the coffee shop. I have to admit, basing battery warranty on the car's reporting is a little bit fox-guarding-the-henhouse... This is going to be interesting, but I think the Leaf is the right call for us, in part because we want to support the adoption of EVs. The reality is that acquiring a road trip car will torpedo any dollar savings between the Leaf and TDI. Cost is not the primary factor here. Not that I'm not going to have fun finding a nice 9-series Volvo or something, that that's worth a bit

Some streets some freeway but she always kept it below 65. It actually quit on her one day so it wasn't just a gauge thing. She works for Qualcomm as an engineer and they were some of the first people to get a leaf and Qualcomm has chargers but they have so many electric cars there now you can't reliably plug in at work. Her husband my friend really likes the car and liked driving it but the loss of range was troubling. They still have it however.

In reply to Jaynen:

Nissan range or VW high pressure fuel pump. Looks like I'm rolling dice no matter what I do.

I would be very disappointed if the range got down to 50 miles under mixed driving conditions, but mercifully, neither of us has any need to do that kind of mileage regularly without going home.

Now this thread degenerates into my had making "snap" and "ping" noises, (as if it hadn't already).

Really, nobody's found a glaring hole in my annual cost calcs?

We've all but imploded. The Leaf and some kind of reasonably reliable wagon for out of town trips is doable, but now we're paying as much to drive an around-town car as for a rather nice fully capable car, and then having to scrounge something together for the other trips.

Multnomah Falls ended up being a particularly vexing example. It's almost exactly 60 miles round trip, which is the low end of the Leaf's range. But it's also 65mph almost the entire trip, suggesting that sometimes a charge will be needed if conditions are "most pessimum".

Hell, when I mentioned the Leaf coming out as much as the TDI, she asked whether we ought to go back to considering the Fit... And if we were considering that, why not the CX-5? It's 1mpg worse than the Fit around town and 2mpg better on the highway... It's nominally $7k cheaper than the TDI, $5k more than the Fit. For what I'd pay for a Leaf lease for three years, I could pay off a Fit outright. We can do any of the other options just fine, but as long as we're baffled and trying to buy an ecologically sound car, why not actually save some money?

Eight hours ago I was quite happily under the impression I'd be driving a Leaf on Saturday.

Aw hell.

The Spark is very small, with dimensions similar to the Fiat 500. I'm expecting it will be a great fit for two+the dog, we rarely have passengers. I accept the size considering the weight advantage compared to other EVs.

I got my Leaf for $100/month less than the numbers you show above on a 24 month lease a year ago, plus a "free" level 2 charger including install. My wife also was averaging 1000 miles/month and apparently her Subaru turbo got worse fuel economy than yours. Plus the maintenance was stacking up, a single set of tires alone hurts the figures. So, these differences add up.

In the end, it boils down to what you WANT to spend money on. If it's a financial wash to have a cutting edge EV instead of buying gas, I'm all in. I'm driving our Leaf to Seattle this weekend. The cost I'm saving on fuel for the trip pays for my Seahawks tickets, it's like half priced adventuring. I'm leveraging the incentives laid out in front of me and we dig our EVs!

Bryce