Electric cars have their fair share of proponents and detractors. Questions regarding the longevity of a batteries charge, the practicality of owning an electric vehicle in the mountains and whether the benefits an electric car offers environmentally and financially loom large, even as automakers roll out more advanced and efficient models each year.
Local green energy advocate and blogger Boone Guyton recently wrote about his experiences with a completely electric car in an online post on the WNC Green Building Council’s website, seeking to offer insight into some of these questions.
Entitled “A month with an Electric Car,” Guyton documents purchasing a used Nissan Leaf for $10,500 dollars. He describes being anxious during the first few trips:
“We live 12 miles outside of Asheville with some elevation changes on our route to town and most drives in the area.” While a new Nissan Leaf is advertised at getting up to 84 miles on a single charge, Guyton notes that those estimates are based off completely new cars driving in flat terrain. In his slightly used model, the “charges only up to an average 75 miles of range as the battery loses some of its power with use.”
Despite these inconveniences, he says that his overall experiences with the car have been positive: “The seats and the steering wheel are heated and don’t reduce the range noticeably which allows for a comfortable enough ride without the cabin heater on or on all the time for most trips.” He reports that the car reliably gives the driver feedback on the amount of battery power left at any given time and notes the perks of not having to gas up or change the oil as well.
All in all, Guyton seems to have been left with a positive impression of his Nissan Leaf. “It is a nice car to drive with lots of pick up and good balance for our curvy roads,” he says. “We drove about 1000 miles over the month of December and our bill from Duke shows that we used 36 kilowatt hours more than we did last year in December,” which he expects to be largely offset by the energy produced by his home solar panels during the warmer months.
He also notes that future generations of electric vehicles are expected to expand battery life up to 200 miles, making “a trip to Knoxville Tn or Charlotte NC doable.”
To read the entire blog post on Guyton’s experiences with his Nissan Leaf, visit wncgbc.org.
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