Nissan has partnered with the telemetry firm Carwings for years, but with the electric-drive Nissan Leaf, what was once a way to suggest efficient navigation routes and driving techniques has become a game. Yes, Carwings allows you to track every trip in your Leaf down to the last nauseating detail and helps prevent the creep of “range anxiety,” but it also ranks you against all other Leaf drivers in your region. In short, the Leaf isn’t just a car, it’s a competition for the “Platinum” Leaf Cup. The fanboys at MyNissanLeaf.com are all abuzz over the competitive feature, which Nissan hasn’t done much to publicize otherwise. But do the early adopters who buy Leafs need a competition to encourage efficient driving, or is this just going to turn the Leaf into a posterboy for antisocial hypermiling? Sometimes getting where you need to go on time is competition enough.
Still, based on the forum chatter, telemetry data is hugely popular among alt-fuel adherents and hypermilers alike. Carwings-style telemetry reporting will definitely be a significant trend in future automobiles… even if the Leaf’s competition aspect gets left by the roadside.
Governments will love this too. Imagine the data mining, taxes, regulations and tracking this will provide.
So this is like GT5 license test trophies? OK this could be fun. I mean if you WANT to save fuel why not turn it into a game.
Oddly, getting good mileage is often at odds with using less fuel.
If you extend your trip by coasting around the block a few times instead of just pulling into your driveway and hitting the breaks, you are using more fuel, but pulling up your MPGs.
(“I want the one with the bigger MPGs.”)
So now when I see a Leaf in the left lane going 42 MPH in a 60 zone I can relax knowing they are an Olympic competitor with others.
Read Edmunds Inside Line review of the Leaf yesterday; 21 hour charging time on good ol’ 110VAC. TWENTY-ONE HOURS! Add the real world range of 73 miles and this car seems pretty darn useless beyond inner-city urban cores.
You mean an electric battery over twice as big as a Volt’s using the basic charging method takes a long time? SHOCKER!
For people who know their units, the time to charge a 24KWh pack using 15 amps at 110 volts was known a long time ago.
True, but you won’t find that information in the sales literature at your Nissan dealer. ;-)
This is akin to the hypermiler bragging rights/nerd prize in the hybrid community over the last few years.
(If anyone’s counting, 62mpg/750 miles out of a single ~12 gallon tank in an ’06 Civic Hybrid I used to own… my area is full of hicks driving full size pickup trucks at or under the posted speed limit and drafting is an easy way to boost your gas mileage…)
I would finish last on a daily basis.
I hope these come with a front mount trailer hitch or built in pull strap.