Nissan's Leaf Claims 367 MPG - Is It Better Than The Chevy Volt? (VIDEO)

Yesterday, General Motors claimed that the much-anticipated Chevy Volt would get a whopping 230 miles per gallon. As some critics have pointed out, the calculation is a bit misleading -- for one, the Volt's gas engine only kicks in after 40 miles of battery driving. But GM is certainly counting on the Volt to serve as evidence that it has reconnected with consumer tastes, and the vehicle is believed to be a direct attack against the popular Toyota Prius.

As the Christian Science Monitor points out, Nissan is laughing at GM's entry into the space. Using the same formula as GM, Nissan claims 367 miles per gallon for its all-electric Leaf. In fact, yesterday Nissan took at shot at the Volt on its Twitter feed:

"Nissan Leaf = 367 mpg, no tailpipe, and no gas required. Oh yeah, and it'll be affordable too"

Like the Chevy Volt, the Leaf isn't due to hit the market until 2011 . Wired suggests that the Leaf will cost about $25,000, compared to the Volt's estimated $40,000 sticker price. Nissan also claims the Leaf will get 100 miles per battery charge, while the Volt gets just 40.

Despite Nissan's claims, the Chevy Volt offers a serious, if hard to calculate, savings over old-fashioned driving costs. Here's U.S. News & World Report's Rick Newman:

"GM says a 40-mile charge will cost about 40 cents at current electricity rates, which means you'd spend $1.20 to drive 100 miles. In a gas-powered car averaging a healthy 30 MPG, by comparison, you'd spend $10 in gas to go 100 miles, if gas cost $3 per gallon. That's 8 times more costly than driving on the Volt's battery power alone, but the real cost to drivers will depend on how much driving is powered by each type of fuel."

WATCH this review of Nissan's Leaf from IDG:

What do you think? Which car is better positioned to dominate the future of the automobile industry? Which would you buy?

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Comments

[taniacaa]

Size of Volt is better for my family and I believe the Volt looks safer.

[lne937s]

Only if you want a smaller interior. Looking at the specs, the LEAF is approximately the same width but has an inch longer wheelbase and is 5 inches taller. In addition, the 4 seat Volt has squeezed the batteries between and behind the seats, rather than under the seats like in the 5 seat LEAF. And the rear cargo floor in the Volt is raised approximately even with the top of the wheelwells due to the batteries and fuel tank, impinging on cargo space.

As the Volt is an adaptation of the existing Daewoo-engineered Cruze platform, rather than a new platform, all of the gasoline and electric components have to squeeze into a traditional gasoline car platform, rather than engineering a platform around them. You have to pay a price for carrying 2 powertrains in the same car in terms of weight and space. It is like carrying around a horse in your car, just in-case you run out of gas.

[Chip W]

If the leaf doesn't use gas, what does 367 mpg mean?

[JA01]

They are using the same fuzzy math GM used.
http://www.greencoolhip.com/electric-hybrid/202/230-miles-per-gallon-vehicle/

[Chip W]

Well, no. That article looks at GM's math, but my question is still there.
The Leaf doesn't use gas at all - no gasoline engine.
If you drive 500 miles in a Leaf, you've used zero gasoline.
So, the Leaf gets Infinity miles per gallon of gas.
367 mpg is totally meaningless, isn't it?

[carl99e]

GM spent a Billion Dollars producing this Volt. Sounds like it came out the spare parts bin. They invented nothing. Now the $40,000.00 price tag. Sounds like they want it to fail.

[lvogt]

IF my family had one car and it had to be the Volt or the Leaf it would be the Volt because with only one car you want some range. 300 miles vs 100 miles but... as a second car I would only buy the Leaf for around town and save the gasmobile for the long trips. I had been considering a Think! City but they are way behind the Nissan Leaf. As a matter of fact I am anxious to get a new electric. I just replaced my gas lawn mower with a battery powered. A bit more expensive but no gas thank you.

[KillTheMessenger]

So it's not the Lithium. Let's see, what else is in there. It could be Cobalt, Manganese, Iron in the cathodes.

Cobalt has an atomic weight of 59, Manganese one of 55 (bit it takes two atoms per Lithium atom, if I am not mistaken) and iron 56. So these elements are almost an order of magnitude heavier than the Li.

We would need some 20kg of either Cobalt or Iron and 40kg of Manganese to make the Cathode materials.

Cobalt seems to trade around $40/kg right now, so that's about $800. And Manganese is probably no more than $3/kg. Not worth mentioning.

You can look up iron, but I bet it's pennies.

Tons of air there, at least for the basic cost for the elements. I don't know what is involved in making the actual materials. But I am beginning to believe that within a decade these things can become competitive... for people who are willing to drive what they need... instead of racing what they want.

[KillTheMessenger]

Science question: how much Lithium is in the battery?

Let's see if I can get this right. I think the battery is a 24kWh battery. Since W = C*U, we get C = W/U or

24kWh *3600s/h/3.6V = 24e6 As = 24 million Coulomb of charge.

Faraday's constant gives us the number of Coulombs per mole of electrons:

9.64853e4 coulombs / mole of electrons

So if we divide the total charge in the battery by Faraday's constant, we get the moles of electrons that it can move through a wire, and since Li is an element from the first group of the periodic table, it can release one electron per atom. So the moles of electrons from our battery are also the moles of Li needed to store them. So that's 24e6C/9.64­853e4C/mol­e = 248.7 moles.

Make that 250. Li has an atomic weight of almost 7, so that's approx. 7g/mole of metal. That makes 1750g of Lithium in this battery. OK... it's got to be a little bit more for technical reasons. Make that 2500g. Maybe.

The whole thing contains no more than 2.5kg of Lithium. Five pounds. Wow. Lithium seems to trade around $10/kg right now. So the price of the Lithium in this battery would be... $25.

No problemo.

[DRaymond]

Gee, then a replacement battery for my laptop computer should cost about a quarter instead of nearly a hundred dollars?

[KillTheMessenger]

Based on Lithium cost? Sounds about right unless I made an order of magnitude mistake somewhere.

Now, with laptop batteries I always wonder how much of it is insurance of the manufacturer against catastrophic failure of the product...

:-)

[XME]

I've made a vow to buy American cars as long as I can affords something they make, and they are not rated are inferior. At this point, I really couldn't afford either of these. Unfortunately, unlike houses, cars only go down in value every day, so $25K for a car that could be completely destroyed in a matter of seconds just isn't realistic to me considering the small amount insurance gives you if they are destroyed.

[Bub]

The GM option is probably the best. They engineered the car to be able to drive it long distances, if you need to do that. It's also engineered for extreme climates - much of the engineering has gone into how to keep the battery at an ideal temperature - that means heating in the cold and cooling in the heat. The car can actually go more than 40 miles on a charge, but for the life time of the battery, it will function better if recharging never goes below 20% of capacity and the gasoline engine on the Volt insures that that wont ever happen. However, the engine has to kick on well before that so that the drain on the battery doesn't exceed that 20% capacity.

If Nissan is merely throwing a battery and a motor in an electric car, it won't work as well overall.

However, the Nissan appears to use the Versa body, which is excellent choice because it has massive amounts of interior room.

[KillTheMessenger]

So far GM hasn't been able to show a video of their well engineered car climbing even a small hill.

I would wait with praise until you can buy the final result.

:-)

Nissan's problem will be to control the cost of the battery. They have already said that they expect five years of lifetime at 80% remaining charge. This means that the average user will need at least the original and one replacement battery pack over the lifetime of the car. If they can work that out economically for both them and the owner, Nissan has a product. If they can't, they have a problem.

[EinChicago]

"If they can work that out economically for both them and the owner, Nissan has a product. If they can't, they have a problem."

Reports so far ar ethet thier "solution" is to require an open ended battery lease of around the 100-150 euros/$150-225 per month in perpetuity. The good part is you can switch the battery out. The bad part is you will have a never ending car payment for so long as you own the car. Also, I assume Nissan would have credit requirements before it would sign a lease which means when you go to resell your Leaf 6 years down the line, any buyer would not only have to pay you your asking price but also get credit approval from Nissan for their new battery lease. That sounds like a nightmare in the making.

[dorzic]

i'll wait for hydrogen

[KillTheMessenger]

Grab a beer, a bag of chips and the 817 (and counting) DVDs of your favorite daytime soap. It's gonna be a looooong wait.

:-)

[sloreader]

In most areas the electricity used to recharge the batteries on these cars will be derived from fossil fuel burning power plants. That said, does anyone know whether or not these cars will be better for the environment for the forseeable future?

[StephBr]

Electric motor are far more efficient (much less waste). Even if all cars were using coal plant generated power, the benefits over fuel engines would be phenomenal

[FHTB]

the benefits over fuel engines would be phenomenal

I am NOT an alternative car engine source skeptic, but I think phenomenal might be a bit of a stretch.

[Advent128]

The Carbon Dioxide from generating the electricity for the EV is around 1/3 of the Carbon Dioxide that a gasoline car would generate to travel the same distance. This can be lessened by acquiring the electricity from other sources, such as wind-power, solar power, or water.

[nm guy]

NOBODY ever considers that these (mostly) electric vehicles are only practical in moderate climates. Where would a Volt get passenger compartment heat from? Definitely not from an electric heater, that would suck down the battery in 5 minutes. You turn on the heat, the gas engine comes on. You turn on the AC, the gas engine comes on. As long as you live where it is 72 degrees year-round, you'll get their astronomical mpg figures. And if you live where it is REALLY cold, you will never be getting a 100% electric vehicle... no way to heat that puppy. Even in a Prius, your mpg is directly related to your climate control settings.

[ReedYoung]

Oh, for Christ's sake! If you live where it's that cold you know how to plumb a propane tank to some copper tubing and ignite it under control. Or, you effing should.

[KillTheMessenger]

Nobody forces you to live in the cold. And nobody says that every technical solution is suitable for every place, either.

:-)

[cygnus workstation]

at the end of the day it's the middle class that gets scr3wed through inflation' loss of jobs/job security and stagnant wages- a trend that has persisted for decades with the advent of so called 'reagan0mics'

hat tip to http://www.iamned.com ..

[MurCal]

Since in America most families have two cars, the Nissan makes sense to me. In the course of everyday commuting to work, I never drive more than 100 miles, usually half of that. My wife works farther away, plus her work requires driving during the day, etc. I would definitely buy or lease the Nissan for every day commuting for my job. If we have a trip that requires more, we can always use the her car.

However, for those who need to spend even less on their transportation, trade in that clunker for a Chevy Aveo that get's 35 -- 40 mpg. You can pick up a brand new one for around $7,000 after the clunker rebate.

[Bub]

The Avao is so cramped that it's not practical for most people. Nissan Versa is the best option for a small gasoline car.

[Saidas]

Note to Nissan marketing department: ditch the name!

Local community college marketing 101 students could come up with a better name.

[tallyho1]

Yea it might blow away in a strong wind!

[EinChicago]

Or "Leaf-You-­Stranded-W­aiting-For­-The-Tow-T­ruck"

[Harrier]

This is wonderful news