Guest Blogger #1 (LEAF 30kWh)

This month, Dr. Iain McLaren has been kind enough to write a guest blog post for EV Galway. Iain describes himself as a "Scot in Ireland/astrophysicist/educator/bluffer". Iain is the Director of the Centre for  Excellence in Learning and Teaching at NUI Galway. You can follow Iain on Twitter.

I've been driving a Nissan Leaf for over two and a half years now, having traded in a Citroen which although I was fond of it, had started to acquire a painful hold on my credit card with repair after repair. At the time we were thinking of making the switch, we had lots of information sent to us on 'full cost of ownership', discount electricity rates versus petrol, 'time to break even' and the like. In truth, though, the underlying reason we decided to make the move was that we were sick of the thought of every day pumping out greenhouse gases, especially in those long traffic jams coming into town. What had put us off before, was the classic 'range anxiety' but when the battery capacity moved up to 30kwh (giving that nice psychological reassurance of distances over 200km on a full charge -even though in practice the Leaf's distance 'guessometer' is somewhat optimistic!), we decided to have a test drive.

From the minute the car was switched on and the accelerator pressed, I was hooked. It's such a pleasure to drive an electric car. Responsive acceleration, no hassle with gears and clutch (the source of a lot of our previous expense) and the added thrill of being able to sneak up behind our annoying little dog whilst in 'stealth mode' and give her a surprise as payback for all the times she barked incessantly at us and our neighbours as we drove off in the mornings.

Once we bought the car, the range worries just faded away. The vast majority of our driving was the daily commute into work and back, 20km each way, so a full charge set us up for days, and with free workplace charge points, a little top up now and again was possible anytime. If we needed a quick charge for a longer journey (say to Knock or Shannon airports) then sitting in the Topaz garage for twenty minutes was usually enough and coincides nicely with the time for a coffee and a muffin!

Of course we still have our occasional long distance drives. Some, we've done in the Leaf, with a bit of planning for charge stops, for others we've made use of our other, older (and now much neglected) wagon that's fuelled by the usual crushed dinosaur juice. Friends of ours, fellow Leaf drivers, just hire a car if they need it for a long haul or a binge shop over in Ikea.

So we've never had a moment's doubt or regret since we made that purchase. Sorry, let me just check with my wife. Oh, she says the only problem is arguing over who gets to drive the nifty little thing in the morning and who's stuck in the passenger seat!