Wednesday, January 9, 2013

2013 Nissan Leaf update, welcome 6.6 charger!


 I like the color! Pictures courtesy of Nissan press kit

Looks the same? Supposedly drag went from .29 to .28

 Looks clean and classy in black! stays cleaner as well..

Here is the 2011/2012 dash slight mods. l kinda like the new black dash... classier?

 Great black color option (not so great in the Florida heat)

Here is the 'I am to lazy to look around before I drive' system. Okay I can see the benefit but if you drive this car for a long time then jump into a car that does not have it you might forget to look before you go. Just my opinion...

Now you don't have to use your cell phone to light up the charging port!

Well, fellow future Leaf owners we now have a good idea what to expect with the new model leaf. So here are the basics:
There will be three trim levels:

1. Leaf S
This will be your base trim level. LED lights will be replaced with projector beams (less expensive, and it will eat up more juice) It will also come with steel wheels and crappy plastic covers (Yeah you guessed it I hate hub caps)
No Nav computer (but who needs one with todays smart phones (insert iMaps joke here) and no remote connectivity so as you are lying in bed you can't turn on the A/C and cool off the car before heading off to work.
We do get the option of a rear view camera (smaller display) but really... after driving a Yukon if I need a rear view camera to park the Leaf I should hand over my drivers license!
And lastly the most important option; the 6.6 charger! Yippee!

2. Leaf SV
Here you get 16 inch alloy wheels plus the 6.6 charger, and offers LED lights and running lights as an option.

3. Leaf SL
You get yummy leather trim new 17 inch wheels and LED standard

Now for the SV and SL you can get the Premium (which means over priced) package options, which include a seven speaker energy efficient Bose audio system, and this nifty AroundView monitor system which personally I think is not necessary. Here is a money saving tip from Uncle Bob.... Turn your head around and look before you go... yep just saved you a bunch of cash!

The above is basic info. For 2013 model you can also expect:

Black upholstery option
Longer sunvisors (the old ones where useless)
Leather wrapped steering wheel
Blue tooth standard
Different battery state-of-charge display in % (I don't know how great this will be but it sure beats that bar they have now)
Charging port now has a light and can be locked
Better aerodynamics = better miles per charge
Two new colors Metallic Slate and Glacier White
And a new hybrid heater (what ever that means) but it does cut energy consumption. Not that I need it down here in Florida, but my readers in the North might want to look into this option.

Battery pack stays the same but energy management and regen breaking tweaks (a new 'B' switch for better regen breaking), plus aerodynamics will add a bit more range. Personally I would have liked a new battery pack with 30KW which would take you over the 100 miles per charge, but you can't have it all... No news on how many more miles but they are talking about a 10% increase or about 8 to 10 additional miles.

Now what I am excited about (it takes very little to excite me lately) is the 6.6 charger. What does this mean? If you run your battery down to 1% it will take 4 hours to charge it instead of 7 that the 3.3 chargers achieve. The big news here is that the percentage of you running the car to 1% charge is very,  very low. Most of the time you will be at around 50 to 60% depletion (40 miles per day average) So when you plug in at night you are looking at a 2 hour full charge for that middle of the night cookie dough run. Or if you are like me, I do the 40 miles during the day plug in when I get home at around 6 or 7 and if its Friday I know it will take us around 2 to 3 hours to get ready to go out for the night and I can be comfortable knowing that my Leaf will have a full charge.


Finally, as for which trim level I would get... good question since price has not been set. But from what you have read above I would like only three things, 6.6 charger, alloy wheels and Leather seats (I might be tempted to get the optional quick charge but I have yet to see a need for it).

Here is the link to Nissan's press kit.

That is it for now! I will update once I hear of pricing....
As always you can find the full article at Green car reports.

Be safe and don't text and drive...

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