Six years on solar

On 18 May, my 3.5kW-peak solar panel installation passed its sixth anniversary so I'm taking the opportunity to get a blog post out. The installation is going strong with a fairly stable output over the long piece. First, some totals:

2010-2011 - 2612.9 kWh

2011-2012 - 2403.2 kWh

2012-2013 - 2414.2 kWh

2013-2014 - 2433.4 kWh

2014-2015 - 2573.9 kWh

2015-2016 - 2514.8 kWh

That's pretty consistent with no obvious sign of any overall fall-off in performance, either due to aging or accumulated dirt. In the first couple of years, the panels were cleaned on two occasions but never since then. Yet both the best and the worst years were the first two. I suspect the regular Scottish rain is sufficient to them reasonably clean. As far as aging is concerned, the inherent variation in sunshine is too great to show up any trends.

I can see from watching a meter in front of me that, just like when they were new, the very maximum power output I ever see is between 3.5 and 3.6kW. It gives me a good sense that they are not deteriorating to any worrying extent. It bodes well for the lifetime of the feed-in tariff (FiT) arrangement I have which extends over 25 years.

Here are the graphs that illustrate generation.

Six years worth of daily generation measurements, along with a line that represents an average taken across 30 days. This average smooths out the curve somewhat.

The maximum, minimum and average generation that was seen for each calendar day across the six years, beginning 18 May.

The cumulative power generation across each of the six years, beginning 18 May.

Financial position

A question of interest to folk is whether the financial aspect is working out. The original cost to me for the system was £14,300. (I'm led to believe that a similar system nowadays would be less than £5,000.) I got a 10-year £4,000 interest-free loan from the government and the rest was funded from our own resources. My expectation was that the payback time would be 10 years and we've had 60% of that time pass already.

The feed-in tariff pays me an amount for every unit of electricity the panels generate. It doesn't matter whether I use that electricity or if it goes into the grid for others to use. Currently this is 48.84 pence. (I'm led to believe that new installations attract about 15 pence per unit.) Additionally, it is deemed that half of my units go into the grid and I receive an additional small payment for them, currently 3.44 pence. (Apparently it is about 1.5 pence for new installations.) These are index-linked to RPI and are tax-free. Over the six years, I have received £6,856 in FiT payments, which represents 48% of the original cost. That doesn't look as good as I had hoped. However, there is another aspect to this; I don't have to buy as much power as I would otherwise.

We're a relatively power-hungry household. Various set-top boxes stay on 24/7, we're fond of our tumble dryer and the kettle tends to be over-filled for the cuppas being made. Plus there is rather a lot of computer kit that is powered, much of it 24/7. So while the average UK household uses 9 units a day, we're a profigate bunch at 19 units a day! Happily, while light is shining on the panels, some of the house's power is being supplied by the Sun and I don't have to buy that power. If the available solar power is less that the house's consumption, then all of its output goes to the house. It is only when the house's needs are exceeded by the panels' output that power goes to the grid. Indeed, for much of the summer, the house spends hours totally powered by the Sun. Therefore, a substantial amount of our daytime consumption is free; we don't have to buy in that power. Unfortunately, I have no direct way to measure how much that is.

But as regular readers will know, I'm the type that keeps track of these things and I have enough data to take a decent stab at this. Across the last year before the panels were installed, our average daily consumption was 24 units. I know I can't account for how our pattern of consumption might have changed but it seems fair to suggest that, thanks to the panels, we are not having to purchase an average of 5 units a day.

Ignoring the standing daily charge, which we have to pay regardless, our current price per unit of electricity (one of the cheapest available - I've checked) is 11.76 pence. That makes 58.8 pence saving per day or £215 over a year. If that figure were valid for all six years, it would represent a total saving of £1,288 which, when added to the FiT payments so far, gives a total benefit from the panels of £8,144. This represents 57% of the initial outlay. That seems to be reasonably near to the 60% that would have matched expectation. Not bad for a set of panels that are far from being aligned due south. (Actually west-southwest.)

Solar Motion

Eight months ago, I leased an electric car which somewhat changes things. I figured that rather than sending power into the grid, I could use spare power to charge the car. Therefore, if I know the car could do with a top-up and I see that a sunny afternoon is generating lots of excess power, I'll run outside and get the car plugged in to mop it up. This not only saves me from having to buy that electricity had I plugged the car in at night, it also saves the cost of petrol that I would have had to buy to run my car for the miles that the car will do.

5,000 miles and an adventure

Eight months and 5,000 miles on and the electric adventure continues. I’m enjoying the ride even more than I expected. But let me state up front (and I'm probably repeating myself here) that given my circumstances, there is really only one significant drawback to the ownership of my particular electric car; range. Long distance travel is perfectly doable but requires thought and planning – more about that later. In other aspects, it's the perfect city runabout.

Running costs

A common question is how much is it costing to run? By that, people are asking what I am paying for the electricity that goes into it, and that's an impossible question to answer with any accuracy. There are a few ways for me to approach an answer and they all have reasons for being wrong. But by relating them all, I can probably give folk a handle on the money that goes through the charging port.

First is total consumption. Two weeks after I got the car, I signed up to Nissan's Carwings system. Through telematics, Nissan keep a log of the car's daily use and that information is available to me through their website. I harvest this data and keep it on a spreadsheet. According to their figures, they have totted up 4,241.8 miles using a total of 1,103.2 kilowatt-hours (or units) of electricity. This gives an average of 3.84 miles per unit, which isn't bad given that it covers the winter period.

Of more interest here is cost. Ignoring my daily standing charge, I pay £0.1176 per unit which implies a cost of £129.74. Had I done the same miles in my last, very frugal petrol car which averaged 10 pence per mile, the same distance would have cost me £424, a big win!

But wait, I didn't pay for all the electricity that went into the car. For example, we recently made a 600-mile round trip foray to Shropshire and the majority of the power used for that trip (about 170 units) was free from Ecotricity's Electric Highway network. Add to this the other times that I've taken advantage of other public chargers.

Additionally, except for deep winter, a fraction of the power that goes into the car comes from the solar panels on my house. In fact, if I know the car requires a top up and I see from my display in front of me that there is significant spare power available from the panels, then I'm outside in a flash, connecting car to house.

Is there another way for me to see how much more I've had to pay for electricity? Yes, because I'm a sad git who happily notes my electricity consumption each day, and have done for years. Therefore, I can compare the same 8-month period across 2014/2015 and 2015/2016.

As of writing, I've had to buy 469 more units of electricity (at 11.76 pence each) since I got the car compared to the same period a year before. That equates to £55.15. Unfortunately, that cannot be an accurate measure of the electric car's costs because it takes no account of other possible influences on our electricity consumption. Still, I'm not complaining. The truth lies somewhere between the two and I suspect it is a lot nearer the lower figure. Nearly 5,000 miles for the price of a largish tank of fossil fuel.

How poor is that car?

When I first got the car and was writing about it, I was aware that I might be seen to be overly biased in its favour. I tried to compensate by writing about those things I could find that could be criticised. Anything. It wasn’t easy, but I’ll try again.

First, a word about my expectations of a car. I have tended to eschew luxury motors and it is not my intention, even unconsciously, to use my car as a symbol of power and status. I know that to some extent, I’ve failed because by having two, albeit small cars in our driveway is, I’ve made a statement. Nevertheless, until I got my hybrid Yaris, the previous four Yaris cars I had were small vehicles with 1-litre 3-cylinder engines and entry-level equipment. I was perfectly happy with that. I'm not a connoisseur and my expectations are probably low. But when I stepped into the Nissan Leaf, it felt like an order of magnitude improvement in the levels of equipment and comfort that I was used to. I got another point of view from a BMW-driving friend who had a shot in the Leaf. He opined that it felt at least as smooth as his car. I feel it is an extremely pleasant, smooth, quiet, unfussy, responsive, calming driving experience and I’m very fond of it.

So what don’t I like? I don’t like the wipers. From new, they tended to streak and I’ve read that it is a good idea to replace them with some Bosch blades.

I don’t like the windscreen washers. Toyota had implemented great systems to minimise glass scratching by spraying screenwash in a powerful fan or delivering copious quantities direct to the blade. The Leaf’s skooshers are pathetic squirts in comparison, delivered from a relatively small screenwash tank. Nissan could learn a lot from Toyota.

I still haven’t quite got used to the relatively large pressure I have to apply to the indicator stalk if I want to give a flick indication. I like that even with a short operation of the stalk, the car continues to flash a few times. However, the force required to make it happen is nearly as large as the force needed to engage the indicator properly.

What else don’t I like. I don’t like that the music player doesn’t give a visual indication of the length of a track and its playing position. However, I have become used to the different sound quality of the system which bothered me at first. I had compared it unfavourably to the Yaris sound system.

I positively hate that every so often, and often at inappropriate times, a voice comes on and begins to tell me what my average energy consumption has been in miles per kilowatt-hour, what my ranking has been for efficiency in my region and to give me a tip for more efficient driving. I neither know how I turned it on in the first place nor how I can stop it from ever coming on again. It is very annoying, especially when it interrupts a good radio programme, causing me to miss a crucial section.

When there are three folk sitting in the back, they often complain about a large raised structure that gets in the way of the person seated centrally.

What else? Oh yes, the previously mentioned range. It would be nice if it had a few more miles, say, double? And I don’t particularly like the shape of the car. :-)

But in all honesty, I think it is a great car. It’s very well equipped. Far more knobs and whistles than I need or really want. Auto headlamps, auto wipers, rear camera, tyre pressure monitoring system, cruise control... drone on and on and on.

The bald truth is that I have to be really picky to find anything to moan about the car. I love its silence, its smoothness and its power. It is a good advertisement for what an electric vehicle can be and I really didn’t understand the car reviewer on a BBC Alba programme who took one for a review and didn’t like it. His frame of reference for what makes a car good is obviously radically different to mine. Maybe he misses the noise of a powerful engine massaging the seat of his pants or the whiff of hydrocarbon when it’s going in at the filling station, or coming out of an exhaust pipe. Maybe he had the car stuck on Eco mode the whole time.

Eco mode

When I first took delivery of the car, I was enthralled at the remarkable power it expressed when pulling away from a standing start. Whatever boy-racer tendencies I had as a twenty-something are long gone but for a while, now in my mid-fifties, I found the power, responsiveness and overall eager feel of the car quite exhilarating. On one occasion, I tried the eco mode and, ugh! Wet blanket. Back to the powerful ‘normal’ mode. And so it continued for a month or two until a conversation with somebody made me try it again.

Eco mode is now my usual mode of driving. It gives the car longer range around town because the acceleration is more muted. It lets me return to my more measured, typical-me-behind-the-wheel ecomiser personality. Now it is rather pleasurable when occasion demand that I be quick off the mark. I put a stop to the eco mode, hit the pedal and take off, whether it’s at lights that have caught me in the wrong lane or on a slip road onto the motorway, effortlessly syncing the car with left-lane traffic, something I had to do rather a lot recently during our trip south.

The Great Spring Electric Adventure

My better half was aware that I wanted to stretch the Leaf’s legs a bit so she suggested that we take it down to England to visit my sister in Shropshire, who is also interested in electric cars. And so it began; 296 miles – each way. The trip south would be split after 124 miles by a stay in Penrith, thanks to a late afternoon departure. With the planning precision of a military general, I plotted all the Ecotricity charging points along the way, noting the miles between each and drawing up separate lists for the southbound and northbound legs to take account of those sites that are only available in one direction.

With the spring weather getting warmer, I had been getting used to the range being around 90 miles and I harboured the idea that we might make Annandale (70 miles) but knew that Abington was available (46 miles) should we need it – and we did!

First, a little about range calculation. If I charge the car to 100%, I note its estimated range and zero the trip meter. Then as I drive, I watch the distance travelled increase while the remaining range decreases and I add the two. (I ignore the first mile of travel to give the estimate time to settle.)

If conditions are heavy or I’m pushing hard, the total drops. In good conditions or light driving, the total goes up. This way, not only do I see the available range, I monitor the total range to gauge overall performance.

As we climbed out of Glasgow into the Southern Uplands, a stiff headwind and heavy rain combined with the hills to dramatically reduce the total range down from 95 to only about 65. I set the cruise control to 60 mph and plugged away in the lorry lane. No way was I going to risk trying to reach Annandale. Abington would be our first stop and by the time we reached it, we had just 20 miles remaining – 69 total. It is possible that the subsequent downhills might have extended the range enough to reach Annandale 25 miles further on but I wasn’t here to exercise range anxiety.

A few miles short of Abington, still cruising at 60, we caught up with another Leaf whose driver was obviously eking out their power. Maybe they had their cruise control set at 57 or so. I thought to myself, if he’s just come through what I have, he’s probably short of power and has the same plan as me. I gingerly overtook him, still at 60, half expecting a race to commence to Abington Services.

Having pulled into Abington, we parked at the two pumps, both free, and as we gathered our things ready to plug in in the rain, the other Leaf pulled up. We settled down for a coffee and snack when the woman from the other Leaf approached us. Could I help them get the pump working?

Their story was that they own a Renault Zoe but were test driving the Leaf and were giving it a proper workout. They had come all the way from Inverness so had already dome 200 miles. Althought they had probably recharged twice if not three times in their trip, they were struggling with the CHAdeMO connector. They seemed to have got the sequence wrong and when I tried it, all came good. We would pass them again later.

At Abington we got back up to 92% charge but the range said 65 miles; not enough for Southwaite, the last stop before Penrith. I had expected 60 or 70-mile hops between charges but with the effects of the foul weather fresh in my mind, I chose to stop at Annandale for a top-up. And anyway, my better half wanted to get something from the shop there.

After another two dozen wet, windy miles, with our power still being hammered, we called into Annandale. There is only one ‘pump’ and two huge Mitsubishi SUVs were sat in both spaces next to it. I waited while the better half hit the shops. Happily, after only eight minutes, a space at the pump was free. It was getting dark and we knew this was going to take longer than planned. We were having to make more stops and I was reluctant to go faster. We elected to grab some fast food and let the car top up.

I decided to stop again at Southwaite, 40 miles later. Our hotel was 15 miles further but I wanted next day to start with a decent charge. On this occasion, I got a chance to learn the characteristics of rapid charging now that the rain was backing off a bit.

When first plugged in, a rapid charger delivers in excess of 100 amps, but as the battery heads past 90%, the current goes down to about 10A. This led me to think that it might be better to charge for a short time and do so more often. I could then go faster between stops rather than trying to make my power last.

Friends on Facebook laughed at how long it was taking us to get to Penrith. In the event, it was 4 hours to go 124 miles but it had been a stiff test. The heavy rain and high winds had cut my miles/kWh significantly.

Often when going up and down the M6, I’ve seen the signs for the Rheged Discovery Centre in Cumberland and wondered what it was. Since it was only a mile or two from the hotel and, more importantly, it has a rapid charger, we decided to start our day with a top up of leccy and a decent coffee. The centre turned out to be a lovely place. Fine coffee and great shops much admired by my better half.

Though we could have made Lancaster Forton Services (55 miles), and the weather was getting better, we were still affected by yesterday’s experience and had a top off at Killington Lakes (29 miles) and then headed on. We’d only stay at one place for 15-25 minutes then head off, setting the cruise control for 75 mph.

At Lancaster Forton Services, the better half headed to M&S to get sandwiches. Rather than eating mine now, my plan was to continue down to Charnock Richard Services and munch them during the next charge. This electric adventure was panning out reasonably well. The 'charge short and often' approach was working. I got to drive faster as I was less prone to wanting to eke out my charge. It was still wet but not as wild as before. At Charnock Richard Services, I went inside to get a takeaway latte and noted a bunch of old boys gathered around the charger inspecting its display.

Next stop was Knutsford, 29 miles beyond and a diversion from our original plan. Based on Google Maps’ suggestion, we had planned to take a westerly route past Chester and through Oswestry and around Shrewsbury. But just before our journey began, Ecotricity’s website had showed that two charger sites on that route were offline (Oswestry and Shrewsbury). Plan B was to stay on the M6 where there are lots of charging options and then past Telford on the M54.

The weather had cleared, there was about 65 miles indicated to our destination and the car was being bullish by suggesting a 90-plus mile range. We decided just to keep going to the end and see how the range would pan out. I mostly sat around 70 mph and was amazed to see how positively good weather affects the car's range. We made our destination without issue, taking a short cut suggested by the car’s satnav via Market Drayton.

This had been a slow but fun way to go 300 miles sans petrol. We felt that it was actually enjoyable to take more breaks in a trip. The car proved to be a pleasure to drive distance and I think that the cruise control is a real boon because it takes a level of mental activity away. I certainly felt more rested at the end of the journey than I would have expected had I been hammering down in long stretches. I think there is a cost for getting to a destination faster.

The trip south had given me insight to the charging characteristics and logistics of long journeys, and taught me to be aware of the effects that the weather or the topography could have on the journey. It was good to think about speed of driving versus charging time and how all these variables interact. Of course, when the 200-plus-mile cars become affordable, all this will become less of a consideration.

Heading home

First stop on the way up was Knutsford. Having fully charged at my sister’s place, we took a 70-mile cross-country route and had 22% remaining, a good result. With a good recharge, we could bypass Charnock Richard and so we pushed onto Lancaster Forton Services, about 54 miles distant, and we cruised at around 73mph. (I love cruise control.) There were 14 miles remaining when we got there.

At Lancaster, we had to decide; Do we stop at Tebay at 38 miles or head onto Southwaite, 65 miles distant? I was aware that Shap summit was ahead and took the sensible option, Tebay, which let me keep the speed up. Anyway, we were enjoying the relatively frequent breaks, even if they were less frequent than on the way south.

Tebay was reached in the blink of an eye. There were roadworks for the few miles leading to it and then I had one of those horrible moments when I thought I had screwed up. A slip road preceded the services and for a sinking moment, among the roadworks, I thought I had missed the turn off. Because I had kept my speed up, there were only 16 miles remaining in the battery and Southwaite was another 30 miles further on. It was an unpleasant, if short-lived thought and the services were a short distance beyond.

It’s a drag

Just as with conventional cars, a car’s speed affects its consumption in a way that has a nasty ‘square’ in the mathematics. But with a short-range car, you have to be more aware of it.

The drag felt by the car can be thought of as being due to all the little air molecules hitting the car and requiring a certain amount of energy to be pushed out of the way. That energy is the kinetic energy of the collision and a famous little equation lets us understand how it works:

Kinetic Energy = ½ mass times velocity squared

By this equation, if a certain amount of energy is required to push the air aside at 30 mph, then at 60 mph, the energy doesn’t just double, it quadruples! By hammering up the motorway at 75 to 80 mph to Tebay, I had shortened the range by quite a way.

At Tebay, we decided it was a good time to stop for a cuppa and give the car time to charge. It was hard to find the chargers as they were poorly signposted and tucked away at the far end of the complex up to the left. As we crawled around the car park looking for them, I had another 'oh no' moment. When we located them, we found charger to be off. Happily, the other one was good.

Out of the way charging at Tebay.

We returned to the car after 45 minutes to find the charge had stopped. Had it stopped prematurely? I was glad to see the car report a 93% charged battery and I don’t know if there was a time limit set on the charger. At any rate, it had charged well. Annandale was my target at 69 miles (with Southwaite and Gretna as alternatives). It should be the last stop before home.

When travelling southbound on the Spring Electric Adventure three days ago, our initial reticence combined with the heavy weather made us top up the battery every 30ish miles. The return journey was proving to be very different.

After Tebay, there was a little concern as the road kept climbing up to Shap summit and the range promptly shortened. Then as we descended, it lengthened again as we sailed past Southwaite and Gretna. The numbers indicated that we should make Annandale with about 10 miles remaining after 68 miles. The actual number remaining was nine miles, a bit close for my better half’s comfort.

Having just done 68 miles, the 69 miles to home seemed readily achievable. The only obstacle would be Beattock summit. Yet I knew that if getting up there took too much out of the battery, we would have Abington and Hamilton as alternates.

As we headed to climb to Beattock summit, I thought, sod it, I'll keep the speed up and do a quick 10-minute top-up at Abington. Rather than going slow, I can sit at 75 (indicated - about 70 true) for the downhill to Glasgow. Then I note that the driving and charging has caused the temperature of the battery to rise to the highest I've seen it.

Battery temperature

The left side of my main display has a large fan-shaped temperature display. The top two segments (10 and 11) are indicated in red and the car was indicating the ninth segment. I normally see it at 4 or 5. This is unexpected and I wasn’t sure whether it would be a problem.

The Leaf is unique among battery EVs by not having an active thermal management system for the battery, relying instead on forced airflow. This saves weight and complexity (and cost) but Leaf owners in hot countries and states have reported problems. It seems that as long as the gauge doesn't go into the red, I can continue what I'm doing. If it does go into the red, I'm not supposed to rapid charge the battery.

I assume the temperature shot up because of the rapid charge/discharge that I was doing by going 300 miles in a day and cruising at 75mph. Outside temperature was only 10°C. It bothered me when I first saw it, not knowing if it was a trend that would put the trip's progress into the slow lane. In the event, it sat one notch below red for the final charge and the last 100+ miles.

At Abington, my intended 10 minute stop stretched a bit as a couple of older guys from Wales quizzed me about electric driving. It is fun to see preconceptions fall away as they learn a little about it all. They looked at the car and found it to be larger than they had imagined. They realise it's just a car. They ask about the cost of the electricity I'm pumping in from the Ecotricity charger. Their eyes widen when I say zero. Folk really dig it.

We get home about 9.5 hours after leaving. It wasn’t the fastest way to go the distance but it was relaxed and enjoyable. I would happily do it again, wiser, and perhaps with a Tesla.

Tesla Model 3

An early impression of the Tesla Model 3.

Just before we headed south, Elon Musk announced the Tesla Model 3. I’ve been anticipating this for a long time, having had the pleasure of driving a Tesla Model S in 2014. I completely buy into what Tesla is trying to do. I think they are a necessary disruptive force on an motor industry that was finding it difficult to work outside accepted norms.

I therefore became one of the 400,000 folk who have put our money down with a refundable deposit for one of the new cars. It is a worthwhile statement of my intentions and it helps indicate to the company that they should push forward with mass sales of (relatively) affordable electric cars.

If I do eventually decide to turn my reservation into a car sale, it won’t happen for at least two years. Model 3 production is set to begin late 2017 (if all goes well). West coast USA will be served first and it will be a while beyond that before right-hand-drive cars. But the car looks amazing and, although a bit of a swish car for me, will probably be a worthwhile long-term purchase.

Exciting times.

Gimme back my Leaf!

Today, 8 January, was as cold as you would expect Glasgow to be this time of year. However, for this winter, it was uncharacteristically cold as we've had exceptionally mild temperatures thus far. Consequently, there have not been too many days when I can get to grips with charging the Leaf in cold weather. Today was one that tested the system.

The Leaf had been left plugged in for a couple of days as I hadn't got around to unplugging it. During that time, there had been some rain. When I looked out this morning, there was a picturesque coating of frost on everything. It wasn't deeply cold but skies had evidently cleared and the temperature had headed below freezing point.

By lunchtime, we had decided to go out for food so it was suggested I get the car warmed up. I prodded the app on my phone to switch on the climate control from within the house. Within 20 seconds the blue light in the car was flashing to show it was heating up. Within 4 minutes, the frost on the windscreen had liquefied and a dry patch was forming. By 10 minutes, the warm air on the inside had heated the windows sufficiently to defrost all of them.

We headed out of the house and locked up. "Hop in quick," I suggested to my wife, wanting to keep as much of the warm air in the car as I could. Meanwhile I went to the car's nose to remove the charging cable. The normal sequence is to press a button on the top which is one end of a plastic lever, the other end of which is a latch to hold the plug firmly in its socket. I then pull it out. The button also tells the car that it is being unplugged which stops any charging that might be happening. If the remotely-switched heating is on, the button also causes it to stop.

I pressed the button and immediately felt a resistance to its movement. The plug would not unlatch and repeated attempts were to no avail. I figured the rain over the last couple of days had got into the plastic lever mechanism and had iced up. The Leaf was going nowhere.

We made our journey in my wife's car and returned an hour later. Being the middle of the afternoon, most of the frost on the cars had melted so I had another go. I felt a slight crunchiness as the button depressed. I had crushed what remained of the ice inside the lever mechanism and I was rewarded with the plug coming cleanly away in my hand. I wouldn't have to phone the Nissan breakdown service after all.

My lesson is to try and avoid leaving the car plugged in for long periods where rain might ingress the plug's latch mechanism and then ice up. On the other hand, I can easily imagine a situation where the car gets plugged in overnight, then there is a rain shower followed by clear skies before dawn which freeze everything solid. Were I able to park the car under a overhang or in a car port, this wouldn't be a problem as it would be kept dry. But I can't and so the plug and socket are exposed to the elements.

Strictly speaking, the flaw is in the design of the plug and is nothing to do with the car itself. It's just something I'll have to be aware of.

The cost of power

A few days ago, a friend asked me if I knew how much I had spent on electricity to run the car. Interesting question and quite hard to answer. The Nissan website tells me how many units of electricity I have used each day and I cold add that up. Also, I believe that Chargemaster, who installed my outdoors charger, could tell me how many units have passed through that unit, but I have yet to subscribe to that service. The problem with either of these is that while there is significant sunshine, a decent fraction of the car's power comes from my solar panels and thus, I don't pay for that. But there's nothing to tell me what fraction came from the panels.

I do, however, have an interesting graph. Because I keep a note of my retail electricity meter, I can compare last year's purchase with this year's. Here's a graph that shows the cumulative difference between the two.

For the first 40-odd days, we were purchasing no more electricity than we did last year. Then for the next 20 days, we were actually purchasing substantially less electricity than last year, which I conclude was due to the very sunny October we had. The little upward tick around day 77 to 79 was when I was getting charge from a Glasgow car park every day and around that time, I made a trip to England with a diesel car loaned to me by Nissan. What this shows is that for the first 80 days of ownership, despite running the car, we bought no more electricity than we had a year ago.

As we plunged into a very dark, wet November and December, the situation changed and the graph takes a nosedive. What's then interesting to see is that for the past 20 days, it has levelled out again.

As of today, over the time I've had the car, we have bought 279 units more than we had last year. That's all the graph says. I can't define exactly what part of that was caused by the car. Ignoring the daily standing charge (which I would have had to spend anyway), my cost per kilowatt-hour is 11.76 pence. Having had the car for nearly 5 months and done over 2,500 miles, I've had to buy £32.81 more electricity this year than I did last year. If I had made more of an effort to get power at public chargers (most of which are free), it would have been even better. Fascinating!

Coming up on 2,000 miles

It is three and a half months since I took delivery of my Nissan Leaf and I'm heading towards 2,000 miles on the odometer. It is about time I wrote down my impressions based on months rather than days of use. So here goes.

For me, there has been one, and only one drawback to owning an electric car. You guessed it. Range. Let's get that out of the way for starters. I'm in the lucky position that we have two cars in the household and if necessary, I can use my wife's Aygo for long trips. If we didn't have that, it would be a significant problem. So what is the useful range turning out to be? I'd say that if a destination is more than 35 miles away, then I would need to think carefully about my options.

I wrote in an earlier post about driving to Bathgate (33 miles) and being left with about 16 miles indicated range by the time I got home. That was in summery weather. I did another trip in roughly the same direction when asked to give a talk at Forth, a village 33.5 miles away high up on the moors between Glasgow and Edinburgh. 

Before the trip out, I topped the battery to 100 per cent and we left well wrapped up, choosing not to use the heater heavily - just enough to keep the windscreen clear. It was a wild night. Mild temperatures but heavy rain blowing in from the south. As we climbed from the M8 motorway into the Lanarkshire hills, we were driving into the wind and I watched the instruments as the battery's charge smartly headed towards 50 per cent. There was nowhere at the destination to easily get a charge and there wasn't time to set anything up, even from a domestic socket. We were busy enough trying to get props and books in through the rain and gales.

The one thought that told me it would be nothing to worry about was that, having come uphill, we would be going downhill on the way home. Additionally, having driven into the wind, we would have the gales behind us on the return journey. So it turned out. We took the battery to 54 per cent on the way there. The journey home took us to 15 percent and by the time we were hitting the Glasgow outskirts, I knew we were home and dry so chose to luxuriate in a bit of heat. I'd used the climate control for most of the journey because the humidity demanded a flow of air over the windscreen but I had kept the temperature at 20C and set a slow fan speed. Now, with energy to spare, we could raise the temperature and enjoy the last ten miles in warmth. A great night and an enjoyable drive in hard weather. But I wouldn't have liked to have had to travel much further.

There were contingencies. There is a rapid charger at Hamilton Services on the M74 that we could have diverted to and another at Whitburn, further out from Glasgow. Twenty minutes on either would have given us a buffer, should I have found myself short of charge, but it illustrated a continuing infrastructure shortcomings.

Despite Ecotricity having the Electric Highway rapid chargers along nearly all of Britain's motorways, an important service station they have yet to cover is the Harthill Services between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Another invitation for a talk illustrated this when I was asked to go through to the capital. At 48 miles distant, Edinburgh is firmly outside the radius I could do on a single charge. Plugging in along the way is a necessity if I am to use the Leaf for such a trip. Had there been a rapid charger at Harthill, it would have been straightforward. As it was, my wife kindly lent me her car for the trip.

I was also surprised to note that Edinburgh is very poorly served by chargers, especially when compared to Glasgow. A week spent working in Glasgow city centre illustrated how good Scotland's largest city has become for electric car drivers. Parking in Glasgow centre is expensive, like most big cities, and I took the train in for the first of five days. I knew there were charge points in the big multistorey carparks but I didn't know how the system worked.

It so happened that my wife came in that first evening to meet me and she parked in the Cambridge Street Carpark, only a few hundred metres away from where I was working. After dinner and before we returned to her car, we asked in the carpark office how parking worked for electric cars. Simple. Drive in and get a ticket as normal. Park at one of eight chargers and get plugged in. They use the 'Charge Your Car' network for which I have a smartcard and the power is free. I should then go to the office and sign in (name, date, car registration, time in, time out) and they would give me a second card. This second card would clear the parking cost indicated by the first card.

The next day, I drove in, plugged in, signed in and went off to work clutching two cards for the carpark. Over ten hours later, having put in a solid, busy shift, I returned to the carpark and put my main ticket into the pay machine: £24.50. Ouch! I put the second card in: £0.00. I must admit there was a bit of a grin on my face as I got to my car and unplugged. Thirty minutes earlier, I had used my phone to switch on the climate control so the car was not only dry but also cosy and warm, as well as having a topped-off battery. This went on for the rest of the week and there was never any problem getting a space.

I know I'm a bit of an evangelist about electric cars so I try to only talk about them when people actually ask. However, it is a distinct pleasure taking someone for a spin and watch their preconceptions about electric cars get left behind as the vehicle smartly takes off out of a junction. This is especially so because of people's expectations of me as a driver. I'm seen as a slow, cautious ecomiser with a light right foot, constantly trying to stretch my miles per gallon figure. Therefore the last thing they expect is when I take off like a thoroughbred fighter jet on afterburner and no gear shifting. In these scenarios, the only things shifting are paradigms in people's minds.

I had another long distance journey to make in the last few weeks as I wanted to travel to Pontefract to see a lecture by the great Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13. As a purchaser of a new Nissan Leaf, I had read that Nissan will offer a loan of a long-range car for up to two weeks once each year. It was time to test this. Nissan customer services referred me to the dealer who could not have been nicer. They offered me a Nissan Pulsar demonstrator; diesel-powered and with even more fancy knobs and whistles than the Leaf (and that's saying something). I returned the Pulsar three days later with only two complaints about it: it had a gearstick and it had an internal combustion engine.

The driving experience in the Leaf is still enjoyable. The unfussy, easy but powerful acceleration doesn't get old. All four of us were returning from a restaurant and I took us up the nearby Boclair Hill, a 12 per cent gradient coming from a set of traffic lights that normally has all but the largest ICE powerplants roaring to provide the power to get up from the standing start. I floored the Leaf's accelerator and as we quietly reached the top close on an indicated speed of 50mph, my son commented, "So, what's a hill?" It was like it wasn't there. I wonder what it will be like if I ever get a Tesla.

Running costs are paltry. Our electricity bill will doubtless rise as I'm starting to see the effect of the occasional charging on the house's consumption. But as best as I can tell, and ignoring any electricity acquired for free out and about, fuel costs are roughly one quarter of what I would expect for an efficient ICE car. I've really stopped worrying about it. In addition, with only one moving part to the motor, servicing costs are likely to be minimal with brakes, tyres, wipers being the chief concern at the one-year service. I'll report on that when it happens.

Given our increasing awareness as a civilisation of the damage we do by putting carbon into the atmosphere, it is incumbent upon us to remove ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuel. My Leaf not only allows me to do my bit towards that goal, I'd argue that it has raised my standard of living in the process. Watching gases come out of the tailpipes of other vehicles seems just so anachronistic, so last century, and we're expected to breathe that stuff along with our life-giving oxygen.

I accept that a fraction of the electricity I use was derived from the burning of fossil fuel, but here in Scotland, that is a fast-declining method of generation as well as being a more efficient means of converting carbon to energy. Nuclear, wind, hydro and solar, all near-zero carbon sources, dominate the electricity industry here. If the Sun is shining, my own solar panels can put photon-derived energy into my car. This is a cleaner, quieter, more civilised means of personal transportation and I thoroughly recommend it.

"How's the car?"

It's a question I'm getting used to. Folk ask it regularly and I guess it's to see how, on a simple curiosity level, I'm getting on with the car. It's perfectly possible they are hoping to discover that it has been a disastrous decision in the first place. But I know that some genuinely see me as a pioneer in a new motoring paradigm that has a way to go before becoming mainstream, and that they are keen to see how it is progressing before taking the plunge themselves.

Driving experience

A modern electric car like the Leaf is no slouch. When asked to shift, it does so with split-second reaction, cranking up to the desired speed with smooth, quiet, almost ruthless efficiency. Take-off torque is instant; an unfamiliar response for anyone used to a conventional engine trying to get up past its inefficient low revs. Moreover, that quick, slick acceleration comes from merely a dab on the right pedal. There's no messing about trying to "stir a bucket of nuts" (manual gearstick).

I expect that such performance is normally the province of drivers of BMW, Porsche or Mercedes automatics. But I predict that when such sporty capability spreads into the hands of the wider driving population, especially the more impatient among us, we'll start to see more instances of people darting into tiny gaps in the traffic to gain those few seconds lead on their fellow road user during the rush-hour race. Me? I just like to tootle along with gentle acceleration, only gunning the pedal when the conditions require it. Honest!

Having said that, the Leaf is changing my own driving habits. For years, I drove to minimise petrol consumption. It was a game aided by the consumption meters included in modern cars. I wanted that MPG number as high as I could get it without being dangerous or annoying to other drivers. When I bought the hybrid Yaris, its characteristics made me modify my techniques whereby I could force the car into EV mode and keep it running on its meagre battery for a bit when it suited me.

Suddenly, having gone to pure electric power, there seems much less need to strive for such efficiency. More and more, I drive as feels appropriate for the surrounding conditions without much thought as to how much electricity I'm using. Compared to petrol, my 'fuel' is very cheap and often free. I'm still a relatively slow driver and tend to keep to the speed limit far more than other drivers so I am used to the whoosh-whoosh of cars on the dual carriageways overtaking me.

For the first time in my life, I engaged cruise control. It's a bit scary at first and a heightened sense of awareness was needed to think how I would transition to normal driving should the need arise. It's so weird taking the foot off the pedal while the car is still motoring forward. I could get used to it, however. Yet, having an electric car with limited range, I'm not likely to be doing much long-distance motorway driving, when cruise control makes particular sense. It's inclusion in the Leaf feels like a manufacturer throwing in lots of bells and whistles to justify the car's high list price.

Where the Leaf is most comfortable is city driving; fast or slow. The set-up of the accelerator pedal allows deft control throughout the speed range and that includes slowing down. I always drive in 'B' mode, which is the same as 'D' (Drive) but with added regenerative braking when backing the foot off the pedal. The car is particularly relaxing to drive in traffic jams.

Ecology

My Yaris Hybrid had an 'Eco' button. When enabled, it limited the car's acceleration somewhat. I tried it for a while and then decided to forego it. I felt that as I tended to accelerate slowly anyway, it was only forcing me to do on all occasions what I did on most occasions anyway.

Today I pressed the 'Eco' button on the Leaf.

Wet blanket or what! The Leaf suddenly becomes a granny's car. All at once, this lively, keen and instant panther transforms itself into a sloth. Slow and lugubrious, it feels unwilling to go anywhere. Engaging 'Eco' did add a few miles to the range prediction so I guess it could be seen as a range extender if the occasion required it.

Long distance Voyager

Bathgate is a former mining town that sits nearer to Edinburgh than to Glasgow. It is home to a well-known heavy rock venue, the Dreadnought. As my son and brother-in-law were playing there with their band StillMarillion, I decided, at 33.5 miles distance, attending this concert would be a fun test of the car's range and what it was like to use most of its capability in a single journey.

It was a lovely evening, early September with the Sun out so we could get away without climate control. The battery was topped up to 100% and the range prediction said 95 miles. If it was accurate, I would be using 67 of those, leaving 28 in the battery. We set off on the M8 motorway and climbed to the its high section where the main Central Scotland transmitters are, altitude about 900 feet.

Throughout the climb, I watched with only the mildest concern as the battery percentage dropped and the predicted range dropped even faster. It was then with a little relief that we started down the other side of the country to Bathgate. As soon as we did, the range figure just stopped changing. By the time we parked, we had used 41% in order to go our 33.5 miles.

Since Bathgate is a couple of hundred feet higher than home, I figured my return would be more frugal. It wasn't. For a start, I had headlights on as it was dark. Additionally, part of the motorway had been closed, taking us off on a diversion. I also think the higher density of the colder air increases the drag on the vehicle, and I did use the heater for a short while. These influences more than cancelled out any gains that would have been made by going downhill. A mile or two from home, the battery hit 19% and the range prediction began to flash. The battery status display was then replaced by a warning notice telling me that its charge was low.

As we pulled into the driveway, the stated range was 16 miles, a good bit less than my original guess. Our diversion had added a mile or two and it's clear that in colder weather or with unexpected diversions, it would have been easy to find ourselves short. A good lesson on what expectations should be, especially as we go into winter.

Here comes the Sun

With the battery low, I elected to leave it on charge overnight and figured it would take about 18 units of electricity to top it off. Here's how I figure that. Although the battery has a capacity of 24kWh (24 units), I read somewhere that only about 21.5 of those are useful. If the battery was at 18%, then 21.5 x 0.18 = 3.9 units remaining. I'd have to buy 17.6 units at a cost of £2.10.

It turns out that had I decided to charge the car during the afternoon of the next day, I could have saved myself a bit of money. These past few days have been unusually sunny here in Scotland. Today I wanted to top the car off by putting 4.5 units in it. I started the charge once the Sun had come around to face our solar panels and I was getting over 2kW from them.

Normally what happens when there is lots of power from the panels is that the house takes what it needs and the rest of the power goes into the grid. Since the quiescent consumption of the house is about 500W, there is a substantial amount of power available at these times and my feed-in tariff from the energy company will pay me whether I use it or the grid does. By plugging in the car, all that spare power goes into its battery. By the time the charge was over, my retail meter (the one that tells me how many units I'm buying) had only clocked up a single unit, plus or minus a unit. (It doesn't have a decimal point so is inherently lacking precision.) In other words, most of the electricity that went into the car came from the Sun.

Of course, it will be different in winter when the low Sun and the Scottish clouds will cause my solar generation to head down to barely a unit a day. Still, the lesson is to charge when the afternoon Sun is shining.

I love spreadsheets

I have a mug sitting in front of me here that says "I [heart] spreadsheets". I get a real kick out of using spreadsheets to log data of interest to me and I use them to understand and analyse its trends. Among the list of parameters I track (a list too long and embarrassing to mention here) is the house's electricity purchase, measured in units called kilowatt-hours (kWh).

When the Leaf arrived, I began a comparison of last year's consumption with this year's. It turns out that we are generally using less electricity now than we did a year ago. Therefore, in my mind, if I can charge my car without buying any more units than I did last year, then effectively, those units are free because I will not have increased my electricity bill. To help this, I've finally convinced my son to put his computer off at night and at any time that he's away. Computers are quite stiff power sinks, especially when left on 24/7.

Thus, 24 days after acquiring my new car, and even despite charging it overnight after the Bathgate trip, I have one unit in surplus compared to last year. In other words, over these 24 days, I've had to buy one unit of electricity less than I did over the same period last year.

Noises off

The mystery of the missing noise has been slayed.

I was led to believe that the car was designed to make a sound at slow speeds to warn pedestrians of its proximity. I was damned if I could find it. There is a switch to the right of the steering wheel that suggests its purpose is to allow the sound to be turned off but it seemed to have no effect. What sound was I expecting? A Spitfire Merlin engine? A Ferrari V12? A petrol-powered Nissan Note? Some folk I spoke to laughingly imagined that it might be possible to hack the car's electronics and install custom sounds. I'll have a Saturn V lifting off, if you don't mind!

Then a friend who was standing outside the car mentioned that as I manoeuvred into a parking space, the car was making a faint high-pitched whining noise. This I put down to being as a result of the power switching to the motor. Today, as I drove around a car park looking for a space with the window down, I thought to press the switch. Silence! At slow speeds, the car really is silent. The quiet whine is purely artificial and can be switched on and off. It is known as "Vehicle Sound for Pedestrians" or VSP. To my ears, it is at an incredibly low volume.

Six days of Leccy!

When I wrote my last entry, I had a thought in my mind that said I ought not to be too glowing about the Nissan Leaf. Rather, I should be unbiased and critical where I needed to be. Otherwise I'd be seen as one of those people who, having bought into an idea, then determined within themselves that they must have made a good decision and therefore could not bring themselves to admit that there could be a negative side to their selected path.

So, in fear of being seen as an unquestioning evangelical electric car proponent, I decided to mention anything negative I could see about being the owner of this new electric car. In this posting, I'm throwing away any such double-think and just say it as I see it, good or bad.

Truth is, I struggle to find much that is truly bad about the experience. Most of what I wrote last time consisted of inconsequential minor niggles. Some of them have been addressed. What is easier to write about is how much I am loving the experience.

Having got me to work, my Leaf is safely parked in its place, wing mirrors tucked in.

Believe me, this IS the future of motoring and the intermittent combustion engine (ICE) will fade into the realm of old-fashioned curiosity in much the same way as black Bakelite telephones, Instamatic cameras and long-playing records have. These item can still operate, but few people can be bothered with them in this age of the smartphone. I'm sure there will be a strong subculture of die-hard lovers for the crankshaft, the camshaft and reciprocating pistons. I, myself, have a fondness for cathode-ray tube televisions, especially the Philips G8 chassis and I recently put a couple of rolls of 120 film through a Hasselblad 500C of 1966 vintage, just for that genuine vintage photo feel.

But if what you want is something simple, quiet, smooth and powerful; something to get you to work, to the shops or to your loved ones without noise or hassle, a modern electrically-powered car has an awful lot to offer.

As a friend pointed out, it's just a car and it feels like a car, a normal well-appointed family car. Yet the acceleration at the low end is surprisingly good. Without having to play clutch against accelerator pedal and without waiting for a growling engine to rev up to speed, you just drop the accelerator pedal for the Leaf to firmly push you back in your seat and take you off from the lights smartly, cleanly and quietly.

The first time I entered the Clyde Tunnel from the tight slip-road bend on the Govan side of the river, I found myself having to quickly get in sync with traffic occupying the left lane, traffic you don't get to see until the last moment due to the layout of the approach. A dab on the pedal and, whoof! I was where I wanted to be in the traffic flow without effort or so much as a whimper from the car.

Braking new ground

In my last blog, I voiced some discomfort with the brakes of the car. My view is changing, partly through increased experience as my muscle coordination is rewired for the different response; but that's not the whole story. The way an electric car works and the way I drive it have much to do with this plot.

Cars that don't require the driver to manually change gears are normally called automatics. This is fast becoming a misnomer. Truly automatic cars have a mechanism to change the gears on the driver's behalf. These gears are required because an intermittent combustion engine has a very narrow power bandwidth. It's not good at working when turning slowly, nor when turning fast, so we change the gearing between the engine and the road in steps to keep the engine turning at speeds where it is most comfortable and most capable at converting fuel to energy. We either do this manually or have the car do it automatically for us. In an automatic, to go forward, you select 'D' for 'Drive'.

A very small number of cars, while still changing the gearing between the engine and wheels, do so on a continuous basis rather than in discrete steps. Cars with these types of continuously variable transmission (CVT) are still automatics because the car decides what ratio to use at any moment, not the driver. Hybrid cars use various technical tricks to do what they do, but they are essentially CVTs.

At first glance, electric cars seem to be like conventional automatics. They do not require the driver to change gear and there are only two pedals; a brake and an accelerator, just like in an automatic. But unlike the automatic car, the electric car does not need to change gear on the driver's behalf. This is simply because there is only one gear. That's all! A simple, step-down, reduction gear.

Unlike the intermittent combustion engine, the electric motor has a very wide power bandwidth. It's happy to provide the lashings of torque called for when pulling away from the lights and it's equally as happy providing the power required to keep a car breaking the speed limit down the motorway. The interesting part comes when you take your foot off the accelerator.

Like a conventionally-powered car, the electric car will slow down, and it will do so faster than if it were merely coasting, a familiar concept from conventional motoring. The ICE car slows down because an engine starved of fuel acts as a brake on the car. It's full of sources of friction and it is constantly compressing litres of air for no particular reason. We've all become used to this 'engine braking' effect.

The reason that an electric car slows down when you back off your foot on the accelerator pedal is entirely different. It's based on what happens when the way an electric motor works is reversed. Using principles demonstrated by Michael Faraday almost two centuries ago, if you mechanically rotate the rotor of an electric motor, it can act as an electricity generator. Electric cars utilise this fact by using the car's momentum to turn the motor and in doing so, generate significant amounts of electricity. This power can be used to recharge the battery. Moreover, the engineers can set the degree to which this regenerative braking occurs.

In an electric car or hybrid, there may be an alternative to the 'D' setting - the B setting. In Drive, when you lift your foot off the accelerator, the car slows a little more than if it were coasting, and a small amount of electricity is generated. Further slowing is achieved by use of the brake pedal which increases the regenerative braking and/or uses the brake pads and discs. This was how I drove the Toyota Yaris Hybrid. The balance between the small braking effect from taking the foot off the accelerator and the braking effect by putting it on the brake pedal was well judged. I never used the Yaris B mode because I found it to be too aggressive for my liking.

In the Nissan Leaf, the braking in Drive mode is very similar to the Yaris but the footbrake is too light at the start of its travel. I didn't like the feel of this. Then I tried driving the Leaf in the B mode. This is very similar to the Tesla. In both cars, although the regenerative braking is aggressive to make lots of power for the battery, the degree is well judged. Essentially, the accelerator pedal becomes a speed control pedal because most of the deceleration is also handled by this pedal.

It's like the right pedal has a continuum from high acceleration when fully depressed to mild braking when the foot is taken off. Somewhere in this travel is a point where power is neither been added or taken away from the wheels and you're essentially coasting. The foot brake is then only needed when a large braking effort is required or to bring the car to a complete stop. If I anticipate properly while I drive, I'll do almost all my speed control without having to touch the brake pedal. The brake pads are going to last a long time.

It seems to me that this is where the Leaf is getting it right. The light initial braking on the foot pedal makes sense if the car is already applying a high degree of regenerative braking in B mode. In fact, I've quickly settled into preferring B mode over the Drive mode at all times.

Other pleasantries of the car include its automatic wipers for which I've found the sensitivity setting I'm happiest with. The automatic headlights are also great. I've discovered that it brings them on and dims the displays when I enter the Clyde Tunnel. Neat. I found the button on the door that pulls in the wing mirrors when I park.

I've still to find out how to bring on the sound effects that the car uses when moving slowly, though I'm not sure it can actually do that. I did find out how to change the sound effects it makes inside the car when you switch it on or off. I've put them off as I can't stand the song and dance it makes when you just want to go somewhere. I've yet to try out cruise control; partly because I've still to take the car onto a motorway, but mostly because I've never used cruise control before and I want to read up about it in the very thick instruction manual.

Charge point blues

Meanwhile, a chap from Chargemaster has just been to the house and installed a 32-amp charger just in front of where the car sits. And this has hit me with a negative moment in my electric experience,

The UK government has subsidised my charge point for about 75% of its cost. I was told by Chargemaster that I can claim the remaining cost, £290, from the Scottish government via the Energy Savings Trust Scotland. However, I've just discovered that I missed the boat. You have to claim before the point is installed. Chargemaster had told me they would provide the quote that was required for me to send to the EST. I was waiting for that quote, not realising that time was running out. Having spoken to Chargemaster and the Energy Savings Trust, it seems they might make an exception. I'll let you all know.

Meanwhile, I'm biased and I'm loving the car.

Life with the Leaf

There was huge excitement around the house as I finally got to go to the car dealer and pick up a new Nissan Leaf. Two days previously, I had taken my old car, a Toyota Yaris Hybrid, to a petrol station to fill it up - a gesture to the next owner. With a bit of luck, it may be the last time I fill one of my own cars with hydrocarbon fuel extracted from the ground.

The Yaris Hybrid has been a great introduction to electric driving, even though all its power came from the petrol that was hosed into it. Its great advantage was that those parts of the driving experience that the internal combustion engine was poor at were handled by an electric motor and a small battery. The way Toyota had blended electric drive with petrol drive was very well controlled so acceleration was smooth and relatively quiet.

The Yaris is up for sale and I have the Leaf Acenta Flex which is a delightful drive. Very smooth, quiet and effortless, not just because it has electric traction but also because Nissan have given its style and build an effort that suits its £20K-plus price tag. There's inbuilt satnav, bluetooth, Carwings Telematics, daft things like auto wipers and auto headlamps. In fact, the depth and range of the car's electronic presentation to the driver is such that I keep feeling they ought to offer a course for buyers.

Having put the effort into getting this car, I am bound to say to folk that I really like it. That's a natural stance for people who have decided to buy into an idea. In order to counter this expectation of my unsullied adoration for the car, let me try to say what I don't like about it. First, having driven various generations of Yaris for twelve years, the Leaf feels bigger than I'd have liked. I expect this is because Nissan might struggle to justify such an expensive car as a small car. I feel higher up too and the car has a sense of lolling about from side to side when people are getting in and out of it.

As far as the driving experience is concerned, the one thing that doesn't feel right is the braking system. In an electric car (and is was the same for the Yaris Hybrid), the engineers go to lengths to gather the energy that is normally lost when a car slows down and turn it back into electricity to top up the battery; it's known as regenerative braking.

Great care has to be taken to blend the effect of regenerative braking with the braking that comes from the brake pads and discs. The former is most useful at speed. The latter is necessary to actually stop the vehicle and to mop up excess kinetic energy that the regenerative system cannot handle when hard braking is required. The driver mustn't feel the change between the two. Moreover, they must have a natural sense of slowing that matches the pressure they are applying.

In the Yaris Hybrid, Toyota have this perfectly handled and I never thought about it. It was just right. In the Leaf, the 'law' that determines how much foot force leads to how much braking does not feel right. The initial pressure on the footbrake seems to yield far too little effect, but then as more pressure is applied, the braking effect increases more sharply than it should. The feel of the Leaf brakes has been a topic on the internet forums and I can see why. While my system isn't bad and I know that Nissan have looked into this in the past, I think there's more work to do there. Knowing that the feel of these systems is essentially programmed into them and controlled electronically, I feel they can do better.

Other concerns include charging the car in wet weather. Two charging sockets lie behind a door at the front that sports a blue-tinted Nissan badge. (Blue is design shorthand for electric, don't you know. My Yaris had blue trim and stitching for this very reason.) Though it's dry just now, this is Scotland and it will be pouring soon enough. Rain can be ubiquitous here and the moment will soon arise when I just have to give the car a charge while it's teeming down. I'll need to read up.

Tiny little user interface issues are beginning to creep up. There's a nice display through the steering wheel (where normal cars have a speedometer) that, as well as two great fan-like meters for battery charge and temperature, has a little screen for feeding you useful data as you drive, like percentage charge, miles/kWh, average speed. But you can only have one of these at a time. Well, I'd have liked more than one as a permanent display.

Final gripe, for now. I don't think the sound system is quite as nice as the Yaris's. Maybe as I tweak its controls, I'll find a setting I like.

Running the car for the first two days has been fine, apart from one bumpy patch. When I picked it up, it had about an 86% charge. This was down to about 70% by the time we visited relatives north of Glasgow who kindly allowed me to plug into their kitchen's 13A outlet using the cable that is supplied with the car. We took a note of their electricity meter, not because I was going to be charged for my charge. Rather, it was just to see how much it took. Off we went in another car for a long lunch and by the time we returned 2.5 hours later, the Leaf was back up to about 90%. If the battery is 24kWh and 21.5 of those are considered useful, then 20% of that is between 4 or 5kWh. The meter had only clocked three units but we realised that the solar panels on the house would have been contributing as well. Good news for me as I also have panels.

After some driving around Glasgow, I plugged into a 13A supply in our house for a few hours, then drove a friend home. Next day, I drove into work and decided to make use of the Electric Highway charging network on the way home. This is a network by Ecotricity that covers all the motorway service stations and all the Ikea stores. At these sites they have rapid charger 'pumps' that supply high-amperage AC for cars like the Renault Zoe and DC for cars like the Leaf. The latter is via a 'CHAdeMO' socket on the car. I drove into the Ikea car park and found both bays empty. They had both been occupied a few days earlier. This pump was out in the open yet its instructions talked about not using it with wet hands. Time for a cover, Ikea?

I plugged in no bother, used my smart card and started charging from 64%. Ikea profited from my visit as I decided to buy a clothes horse that I know will be so useful! By the time I got back 18 minutes later, the car was at 86%. This charger had achieved more in 18 minutes than a 13A supply had in 2.5 hours. I stopped the charge and tried to get the connector off the car. Could I hell!

The connector had a trigger like a petrol dispenser and a button at the top. I could not work out where I had gone wrong. Had I maybe failed to follow a correct sequence? I restarted the charge and went for a five minute walk. It was 90% full when I returned, so I followed the instructions on the pump's screen carefully, but still the damn thing wouldn't release.

I'm an introvert and ached at the thought of Ikea shoppers laughing at me struggling to 'cast off' before driving away. Of course, they weren't. They just walked by getting on with their business. My salvation came in the form of a phonecall to Ecotricity where a very helpful woman talked me through the proper way to release the lock mechanism on a CHAdeMO plug.

Drove home and plugged back into the kitchen socket, with the wire dangling from the window. Now at 100% with 101 miles range indicated. Lovely, and hopefully, a bit of afternoon sunshine halped out with that. Next week, I should be getting a proper charger installed.