This is total BS.
Believe a site called CleanTechnica and I’ve got a bridge to sell ya.
The Leaf will get you an average of 50 miles (On a full overnight charge) before you speed-dial the towing service to hall the damn thing away.
Charging a fully depleted car battery took me two full days.
And that’s with a conventional car.
Nah, it only gets close to that number in absolute worst case scenarios. In the United States, at least, the roundtrip commute of 78% of Americans is less than 40 miles, so it still works great as a commuter car in a two-car household.
I have a LEAF and drive it daily. It’s not crap. It’s great for usage within its parameters, and of course tools suck for doing what they’re not designed for (hammering nails with a screwdriver, or plumbing with a 3/16ths wrench).
Typical full charge is about 85 miles. Prudent practicality applied, don’t plan on driving it more than 60 because you might suddenly need some of that buffer and still want to get to a sensible place to charge. Yeah, you’re always in the “gotta fill up” mindset equivalent to running a car on no more than 1/4 tank of gas. (BTW: the Nissan-supplied towing service will, for free, take you either home or to the nearest Nissan charger.) This isn’t a problem if your daily routine is well within the 60 mile practical range; a large fraction (majority?) of people do under 30 mile round trips to work. I’m fortunate to have a charger at work, so while topping off isn’t usually necessary, it’s available when I have additional running around (like today). With care, you can stretch the range further - I’ve gotten it up to 114 miles.
Recharging can be as simple as plugging in (110v) a specialized extension cord with inline charger. Draws about 1400W, same as a cheap hairdryer. Takes about 21 hours for full from-zero recharge...but you’re not going to run it down that much, you’re going to plug it in when you get home, and you’re going to sleep etc for about half the recharge time, so most of the time it’s at 100% every morning (or good enough for the day’s use). If you’re going to own it more than 2 years, and it’s convenient, install a 220v charger at the parking location for about $1500 or less, and get full charge in 4 hours flat ... fast enough to let you set a timer (on the car) to charge during low-cost electric rates (arrange with your service provider).
We’re getting near the point where installing solar panels devoted to charging your car is in fact viable. Last I SWAGged the numbers, that setup cost about half the price of the car - an interesting option to those self-sufficiency minded.
It’s quiet. It’s peppy. Not _powerful_ per se, but accelerates from 0 faster than most and goes plenty fast on the freeways (though cruising at 85MPH does kinda drain the battery fast). There’s no “shifting” effect. EV issues aside, it’s a fine small car with satisfactory legroom and storage.
Of course I have the SUV (Ford Explorer) in the driveway too. No qualms about using that when a quick consideration of distance dictates its use.
I wouldn’t suggest an EV as your _only_ car, but if it suits your commuting habits it’s a great runabout/2nd car. EVs don’t suck anymore; they’re getting much better fast.