Long term review

By happy coincidence, the establishment of this Project occurs almost exactly 1 year after I bought my Nissan LEAF. That means that I've had the opportunity to gather data on the driving style, fuel consumption and emissions savings for 12 months prior to starting this website.

When I bought the car it had about 53,500km and it now has 69,500km. So, what has this 16,000km cost me, and what emission savings does it represent?

There is a built-in telemetry computer in the car, which records distance, time driven, fuel consumption, and driving style. You have to agree to this data being collected every time you start a journey, which I did not always do correctly in the early stages, and as a result I do not have data for all 16,000km. But what I do have can be easily extrapolated.

November 2017: 379km, 60.5kWh, 65kg CO2 saving*

December 2017: 300km, 49.7kWh, 52kg CO2 saving

January 2018: 252km, 42.5kWh, 43kg CO2 saving

February 2018: 295km, 49.8kWh, 51kg CO2 saving

March 2018: 1160km, 179.7kWh, 199kg CO2 saving

April 2018: 1235km, 176kWh, 212kg CO2 saving

May 2018: 1367km, 186.8kWh, 235kg CO2 saving

June 2018: 1564km, 206.1kWh, 269kg CO2 saving

July 2018: 1749km, 232kWh, 300kg CO2 saving

August 2018: 788km, 108.3kWh, 135kg CO2 saving

September 2018: 902km, 123.4kWh, 155kg CO2 saving

October 2018: 1039km, 148.6kWh, 179kg CO2 saving

The totals recorded over the 12 month period:

Distance travelled 10,651km

Energy consumption: 1,563.4kWh

CO2 emission savings: 1,895kg

In terms of running costs, 1,563.4kWh would have cost me €196.99 based on the unit rate at my house. However, in reality I would have spent less as some of the charges were top-ups at the (currently free) public charge points. You can also spend less by having a night-rate meter installed in your house. This will add about €50 per year on top of your normal standing charge, but it will mean that you can (approximately) halve the cost of the electricity going into your car.

To work off a unit that's easy to compare with a conventional car, the energy consumption works out at 14.67kWh per 100km. At the current domestic unit rate, this equates to a cost for "fuel" of €1.84 per 100km travelled.

My previous car was a 1.6 petrol, returning a fuel economy of about 6.5l/100km. At current petrol prices (let's work off €1.49 per litre), 100km would cost me €9.69.

However, petrol prices vary and in fact it was €1.37/l at the time I bought my EV. If we take an average of €1.425/l over the year, the cost per 100km is €9.26. Working from that figure, over the 16,000km travelled, the fuel saving is in the region of €1,187. This is a "worst case" saving, based on all charges being done from the domestic supply. With some top-ups obtained from the public network, the actual saving will be higher, and I estimate this to be about €1,240. Add to this the difference in motor tax, and the saving is in the region of €1,640 for the year. The saving will be more if you drive more, and will increase over time as fossil fuel inevitably rises in price.

This saving is offset somewhat by the cost of installing the charging unit at the house. This normally costs in the region of €300 (if you supply the unit, as I did), but because I moved house during the year I effectively had to pay double this as I got two installations in the year. About 6 weeks after I bought my car, the government changed the rules about grants for installing charge points at home. When I bought my car, these grants were only available if purchasing a new car. However, since January 2018, you can now get a grant of €600 towards the cost of installing a charge point at home, even for a second-hand EV. This would cover the cost of a basic unit, but if you can budget to add another €2-300 yourself, you'll get a more future-ready unit. Other outlays were in line with normal car issues, such as €120 for a service and €440 for 4 new tyres (which I expect will last at least 3 years based on my mileage).

*A note on the CO2 savings indicated:

The figures shown come from Nissan's own data generated by the car. The amount is calculated by comparing tailpipe CO2 emissions against a similarly sized petrol car. For this reason, the actual savings will vary for you.....for example if you are currently driving a larger (say 1.8l or higher) petrol engine car, then your savings will be much larger by comparison. Nissan do not clearly say how they work out their figure.

Another way to think about CO2 savings would be to simply compare the distance covered against the stated CO2 emissions of similarly sized cars. Based on emissions figures from the Vehicle Certification Agency in the UK, 10,651km would have produced the following CO2 amounts (petrol engines):

Skoda Rapid 1 litre (at 103g/km): 1,097kg emitted
Ford Focus 1 litre (at 105g/km): 1,118kg CO2 emitted
VW Golf 1 litre (at 108g/km): 1,150kg CO2 emitted
Audi A3 1 litre (at 108g/km): 1,150kg CO2 emitted
Honda Civic 1 litre (at 110g/km): 1,172kg CO2 emitted
Toyota Auris 1.2 litre (at 112g/km): 1,193kg CO2 emitted
Peugeot 308 1.2 litre (at 116g/km): 1,236kg CO2 emitted
Nissan Juke 1.6 litre (at 138g/km): 1,470kg emitted

As you can see, none of these match the 1,895kg calculated by the Nissan app. When the WLTP method of reporting emissions becomes the norm from now on, the figures for each model shown above will almost certainly increase, so watch this space for an update soon.