I signed up for the test drive deal where a Nissan rep drives to your house so you can test drive the car wherever you want for an hour or two. Did the drive yesterday. At first I thought that it was going to be someone from a local dealer but it's actually a Nissan rep so there is ZERO sales tactics or pushing.
I think the best way to describe the new Leaf is basically a Prius with much nicer interior and fully electric. Even the gear shifter works exactly like the Prius. It has cameras and sensors all around the car that are used to work with the Propilot autonomous level 2 software and also for the e-pedal.
E-pedal was quite interesting. It's where you drive the car with just the accelerator and when you let go it will brake automatically for you using it's front sensors. The regen brakes get pretty aggressive in this mode so it takes some getting used to. The mode is basically perfect for stop and go traffic as it will make the car go to a complete stop.
Propilot also worked as advertised. Basically when on the highway you turn it on, uses the sensors all around the car and you set a distance you want to be away from the car in front of you and your desired cruise speed. After that it gives you a beep telling you that it's mapped the road I guess with the sensor and then it takes over. On curves it will totally drive by itself and keeps an eye on cars surrounding you and worked pretty well. If the car in front of you brakes it will do so as well keeping the preset distance and it just doesn't slam on brakes but modulates it.
The car comes with a level 2 charger so all you need is a 220V dryer connection. According to rep it will charge from 0% to full in 7 hours at level 2. Charging is free for first two years on public chargers. It will support all level 3 chargers except the Tesla supercharger ones.
As a family car for doing stuff around town it's basically perfect. My wife can easily go to her office and back without needing to charge at work. We also have solar at our house so wouldn't be spending much in electricity to charge. I live in San Diego so most shopping centers all have at least a couple charging taps. I drove the car for around an hour and a half on the highway and also some stop and go traffic and the range on it only went down 10 miles from when I started at my house to when I arrived home so the regen brakes must've been doing a pretty decent job. Range is supposedly 150 miles.
The infotainment system supports Apple and Android auto. Android auto worked with no issues on my phone. The seats are much more supportive than our Prius. Ohh and it also has a 360 camera that gives you a top down view of the car which comes in handy when parallel parking.
In CA, I quality for the $7500 federal and $2500 state and I know that it depends on your income but we would easily qualify for it which would make the SV we are looking at come down to $22.5K or so based on paying full MSRP. Plus the HOV sticker would be icing on the cake.
I think the best way to describe the new Leaf is basically a Prius with much nicer interior and fully electric. Even the gear shifter works exactly like the Prius. It has cameras and sensors all around the car that are used to work with the Propilot autonomous level 2 software and also for the e-pedal.
E-pedal was quite interesting. It's where you drive the car with just the accelerator and when you let go it will brake automatically for you using it's front sensors. The regen brakes get pretty aggressive in this mode so it takes some getting used to. The mode is basically perfect for stop and go traffic as it will make the car go to a complete stop.
Propilot also worked as advertised. Basically when on the highway you turn it on, uses the sensors all around the car and you set a distance you want to be away from the car in front of you and your desired cruise speed. After that it gives you a beep telling you that it's mapped the road I guess with the sensor and then it takes over. On curves it will totally drive by itself and keeps an eye on cars surrounding you and worked pretty well. If the car in front of you brakes it will do so as well keeping the preset distance and it just doesn't slam on brakes but modulates it.
The car comes with a level 2 charger so all you need is a 220V dryer connection. According to rep it will charge from 0% to full in 7 hours at level 2. Charging is free for first two years on public chargers. It will support all level 3 chargers except the Tesla supercharger ones.
As a family car for doing stuff around town it's basically perfect. My wife can easily go to her office and back without needing to charge at work. We also have solar at our house so wouldn't be spending much in electricity to charge. I live in San Diego so most shopping centers all have at least a couple charging taps. I drove the car for around an hour and a half on the highway and also some stop and go traffic and the range on it only went down 10 miles from when I started at my house to when I arrived home so the regen brakes must've been doing a pretty decent job. Range is supposedly 150 miles.
The infotainment system supports Apple and Android auto. Android auto worked with no issues on my phone. The seats are much more supportive than our Prius. Ohh and it also has a 360 camera that gives you a top down view of the car which comes in handy when parallel parking.
In CA, I quality for the $7500 federal and $2500 state and I know that it depends on your income but we would easily qualify for it which would make the SV we are looking at come down to $22.5K or so based on paying full MSRP. Plus the HOV sticker would be icing on the cake.