The Nissan Leaf - What's the point?

Recently there's been a lot of adverts for the Nissan Leaf - one today stated it was "the most popular 100% electric car"  So that means theyve sold two then!?

Fair play to the people who thought of, and designed this car - but its too early for anyone to actualy use an all electric car, unless all they do is drive 1 mile a week to the shops, in which case, they should be walking.  There's no infrastructure of electrical charging stations to be able to drive one on a day to day basis. The batteries are also very expesive, and if they are looked after carefully, will last a max of 5 years. Look after the battery in a bad way, it could last you 1 year - and then its about £5k to replace it.  So who are the two people that bought this car?   A tax man, and someone who lives in the woods all year round?

Smart battery charger will save you money!

Thanks to the icy mornings this week my 6 year old car battery decided it had finally had enough,and failed to start the car this morning. (cold weather wreaks havoc with older batteries)

My car flicked the headlights on and off in protest, which is a fabulous way of conserving energy for starting the engine. What did Ford think when they designed the car that way? "i know, when the battery is low, lets make the car turn the headlights on and off, wasting valuable volts that could be used to turn the engine over!"  Thanks Ford!!

A new battery from Halfords is £120, but it might be able to get it cheaper "somewhere else"

A few years ago i bought a RING - Portable power Powerring Smart Battery Charger.  This can not only rapidly charge a battery, but reconditions the battery to provide it longer life,even for deeply discharged batteries! This process can take about 20hrs to complete but it works.  I used it on a car battery a few years ago, and that battery lasted a further 6 months before having to be replaced.

So if you want to save some money and get your car working for a bit longer - check it out.  I bought mine for about £30 a few years ago: http://www.ringautomotive.co.uk/product_list.asp?cat1=7&cat2=31&cat3=167

Electric cars

Topgear did a great section on electric cars last week - in which the outcome was that if you wanted to spend £30k+ on a car that takes you to the corner shop and back, and then needs charging for 13hrs - you should get one.  Also there aren't any charging points on the road network, and the only place you can charge them is off you own home supply.  I would imagine that by the time electric cars are popular, the price of electricity will be double that of petrol and diesel right now - so what is the point?

Today BMW have apparently been doing some research into electric cars.  They provided an electric mini to members of the public for a period of time, and they have been pleased to announce that 93% of the people who took part would buy an electric car, and most of them would this year.  Out of the 5 people, it would seem that 4 people live upstairs from the corner shop then. Why would you buy a car that will only get you around 100 miles, and cost you a bomb in electric bills?

Topgear also found that the engine and battery packs would last a max of 10 years, probably 5. What can you use the car for after 5 years? A secondary battery for your calculator?

The city of Loughborough where Clarkson and May came to halt in due to low batteries have said today that they are installing two free electric outlets so that they can come back and charge their cars.  No offence to this idiot, but do i have to spell out the obvious? Clarkson isn't THAT interested!!

Once the cars can actually do 500miles at least on a charge, the outlets are as common as fight in a Manchester bar, and the price of running the cars are half that of Petrol or Diesel - then please do come and tell us all about it.  In the meantime, don't insult us with your claims that people (probably BMW employees) would buy one now.