OLCV "Wheels & Wine" event in Salem tomorrow

If you live in the Salem area, here's two good reasons to attend a "Wheels and Wine" energy efficient wine tour tomorrow, Thursday September 22. It's sponsored by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, and will feature...drum roll, please...

Our brand new Nissan Leaf! Shown here, getting its first charge in our carport after being driven home from the Jack Scoville Nissan dealership in Corvallis late this afternoon.

So Reason #1 is: Come to the event from 5 - 8:30 pm at the Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem (details here, and below) and you'll get to see my wife and me showing off the Leaf. I'll be semi-prepared to answer semi-geeky questions, and fully prepared to share our first impressions of this fully electric car.

And Reason #2 is: Wine tasting. Energy efficient car browsing -- Volt and Prius, plus the Leaf. and maybe others. Support the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. Wine tasting (worth a second mention).

Here's a preview of the sort of fascinating Electric Vehicle geek'osity that I'll be sharing based on my extensive 24 hours of ownership experience with a Nissan Leaf:

I just went out to the carport to check the "Stats" function on the Blink charging system that was installed a few days ago free of charge by Cherry City Electric, thanks to Oregon's participation in a six state + D.C. stimulus-money-funded grant program.

The Leaf was fully charged when I left the Corvallis dealership. I drove 26 miles to our home in rural south Salem, going through Albany and then taking I-5 the rest of the way, where I drove 65 mph with the automatic climate control on, the day being warm.

It cost 63 cents to "refuel" the Leaf at our PGE electricity rate of 7.5 cents per kWh.

That's 2.4 cents a mile, a bit above the 1.9 cents a mile our car salesman, Russ Goodyear, told me he gets (Russ bought one of the first Leafs sold in this country). This likely is due partly to our home's rather high use of electricity, which kicks us into that higher "marginal" rate of 7.5 cents per kWh. Base rate is 6.7 cents, or thereabouts.

Even so, my trip home was the equivalent of our 2007 Prius being fueled with $1.06/gallon gasoline, since the Prius averages about 44 mpg in mixed rural/city driving. (Note: the Prius is for sale at a great price. Check out my blog ad.)

And the Leaf produces zero emissions. The Blink told me we just saved 6.89 pounds of CO2 emissions from being spewed into the atmosphere. Cool. Which the world needs, given the obvious effects of global warming.

First impression of the Leaf: Great. Come to the OLCV event tomorrow and I'll be glad to expand on that one word Leaf review. (After a glass of wine, I might be abnormally expansive.)

Here's the event details, copied from the OLCV web site:

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The Marion County Chapter of OLCV is rolling out a new and different concept in wine tours! Join us for an evening of wine from local vineyards all over the region all in one easy location. What is the "Wheels" part, you ask? Well, you can stroll on out to the parking lot to take a gander at the most fuel efficient cars on the market in the region to see what is new and exciting in the realm of transportation.

We are holding this exciting new event on September 22, 2011 from 5:00 to 8:30 pm at Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem promoting local wineries and energy efficient cars. Local auto dealers will have some of their most energy efficient cars on display. We will be having a tasting and silent auction of local wines.

When: Thursday, September 22nd, 5-8:30pm pm

Where: Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem

Cost: $20 per person and includes wine tasting

Click here to get tickets or register for this exciting event

 

Comments

[tucson]

My son's friend has a Leaf. Nice car and eerily quiet. As I recall there is a device available to make the car audible to warn animals and humans of the car's approach. Do you have this?

In Oregon, or most places for that matter, you may need it. When we lived there we struck a deer at 60 mph. Major damage to the car and the deer which was quickly tossed by a passing motorist into the bed of his pick-up. No protests from me as I was still a vegetarian. We were lucky the deer didn't go through the windshield and hit us.

Bad enough to hit a deer, but it would really suck to hit some person who didn't hear the car coming.

I'm all for clean burning transportation, but I wonder if everyone had a Leaf if the emissions would be transfered to increased demands and therefore emissions from power plants?

Now, if you could charge the thing with solar or run a charging generator with methane from your composting toilet, then I think you would really have something.

[Blogger Brian]

tucson, every Leaf has the audible sound device (in a wheel well, I believe). It goes off at something like 17 mph. I don't even notice it, though my wife did during a test drive in Corvallis. She has better hearing than me. The youngish Nissan salesman also can hear the sound.

It can be turned off, but you have to do that every time the car is re-started. And if you run over a blind person in a crosswalk, your legal case would be a lot shakier if you've turned off the sound. Many Leaf owners don't like the device, because it seems discriminatory that expensive regular cars which are very quiet at low speeds don't have to have a sound-making device, while electric cars do.

Our electricity comes from PGE, which says on its web site that about half of its power comes from renewable sources -- hydro, wind (lots of wind turbines in Oregon now), a bit of solar, etc. I agree that in some parts of the country, almost all electricity comes from coal-fired plants, which obviously aren't Green.

But here in the northwest we pay less for electricity (our rates are in the 6.5-7.5 cents per kWh range, while I think the average nationwide is about 11 cents), and a higher percentage comes from renewable sources.

I've only driven our Leaf a few times, but I already know that I like it. It's well designed, handles well, and is full of cool electronics.

[Willie R]

The Leaf's battery pack costs $18,000. It is designed to last 10 years, provided the owner abides by the maintenance guidelines. It is cautioned that constant rapid charging of the battery pack will decrease it's capacity by 10% after a number of years.
This is basically irrelevant for most Leaf owners. However, a couple of realities need to be recognized:
The Leaf's range can only decrease - it will never increase. And, trying to sell it when the thrill wears off is going to be difficult.
And hoping that some quantum leap in electric storage capacity will occur in the future, whereby the battery pack can be exchanged for a newer and larger capacity battery pack is pretty much a pipe dream.

[Blogger Brian]

Willie R, our salesman told us that individual cells in the battery pack can be replaced as they go bad, which shouldn't happen for quite a few years.

We're going to charge our Leaf's battery to 80% most of the time, and only rarely use Level 3 fast chargers.

Yes, you probably are right about the pipe dream. We asked the salesman about the prospect of NIssan offering a replacement battery pack, if a cheaper and better one came along in the future. He doubted this would happen, as Nissan would want Leaf owners to buy a whole new model.

But I think Nissan would be smart to keep early adopters of the Leaf happy. If they screw over us early adopters, then word will get around and buyers of the second generation Leaf will wonder if they're going to get screwed when the third generation comes along.