If anyone was on the fence about purchasing one, this info probably won't help. The entry level model is over $36K.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/2012-nissa ... ilability/

The car is expensive that is for sure. I just picked up a 2011 Ocean Blue SL for my wife and acted quickly since I hadn't reserved one (this one was an orphan'ed one) and I wanted to take advantage of the tax savings and rebates and get a 2011 versus the 2012 which is $2,500 more than 2011.

The good news is you get $7,500 in rebates with the car, so if you make say more than 60k a year this will help you out alot. I had a big tax obligation for some stock I sold so I liked this. Also, if you live in California you can still get a cash $2,500 rebate for buying the car. I was also expecting a free charger install, but the dealer that introduced me to the car forgot to mention that only certain zip codes will get it.

So for most people reduce the cost of the car by $7,500....but they made the cold weather package standard on all models and also included the rapid charger as part of the SL Package. Thus the car outfitted in SL form is now nearly 40k and accounts for most of the $2,500 price increase. If I had not found this 2011 SL I think it would have made the car just too expensive.

I'd be interested in some real world data after she has driven it for a while. How far can she REALLY drive on a full charge? Do environmental factors significantly affect it? What's the increase to your electric bill? Things like that.

I'd like more real-world data like that too, in particular in cold weather areas like where I live (Alberta, Canada).

In my opinion electric cars are ideally suited to cold climates and are superior to combustion engines, contrary to what most people perceive. One reason being you don't have the terrible cold weather starts which are hard on a combustion engine, and produce excessive pollutants as the engine runs inefficiently when cold. The other thing many people forget is that regular combustion engine vehicles need to be plugged in during cold winter months too!! So in addition to the fossil fuels that are inefficiently burned, they also consume electricity for block heaters.

Electric cars require no time to warm up, no hard cold starts, no idling and waiting for it to warm up. The electric car is ready to go immediately, and you get instant heat as the source is electric! This is ideal for cold climates, while everyone is waiting for their cars to warm up and listening to the sickening groaning and rattling at extreme cold startup, an electric Leaf owner could jump in and drive away immediately with the heater ready to go within seconds. Yes the batteries will have reduced efficiency and reduced range when cold, but all combustion engines have the same problem!! In winter combustion engines are much less efficient and you get significantly less range on a tank of gas compared to summer time, so it's really not fair to critisize electric cars for a limitation that all cars are guilty of.

Another great benefit for me would be the ability to warm up the car in my attached garage without filling it and my house with fumes, and not having to run my two kids through the gauntlet of polluted air as they make their way to the car. In the morning, with the car still plugged in, I could turn on the heater to warm up the interior slightly, then walk out to the garage and breath FRESH AIR as I get both kids into their seats while the heater continues to run. Then I walk over and unplug the car, the cabin is heated with power from the wall outlet and the battery should be close to or at 100% at this point, and the air quality is still great. My kids will not have breathed any exhaust from a cold idling car, and we're ready to take off anytime without wondering if the engine has warmed up yet.

Electric cars in my opinion would be ideal for the Canadian winter that I live through each year, and my kids lungs and overall health would benefit.

The best thing about the Leaf with regards to the cold is you can fire up the heater from your smartphone or the internet without going outside while it is still plugged in. The bad part about heat is that with a gas car it is producing residual heat from the combustion motor that you essentially get for free, while the Leaf requires you to use electricity to produce heat.

How is your wife liking hers so far?

Sorry I didn't see you post on this question. She doesn't like it, she loves it. She loves getting into a warm car every day (I set the heat to go off 10 minutes before she gets in) and also the way it drives. Replacing a 99' Sentra she loves the power, the way it handles, and the overall feel of the car.

That's awesome. Has she had any scary moments on range? Does the heat affect it drastically?

Nope, not yet. She's got a handle on the power usage and right now has a job in South San Francisco that has a free power port. She's figured out where she can and cannot go...had to go to Berkely over the weekend which is too far to safely drive over and not have a power station, so she drove to the Bart Station and took the train over....of course she could have used one of my 3 gas Nissans but wanted to do it that way.

I think as the charging stations start to pop up even more we'll be able to get the car ovef to places where we know the roundtrip would be a stretch...We're at 1,800 and counting.