I bought a used Nissan Leaf two weeks ago. This is the first time I buy an EV. I thought, I share the experience.

Silicon Valley is a great place for designers. It is home to companies such as Apple or Tesla. The attached image is a decades old Ford truck in the neighborhood. It might have been the inspiration to the design of the Tesla cybertrucks.

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The first experience is the torque. The Leaf can keep up with a Tesla. Electric engines are super powerful, and they do not need gear shifting making driving very smooth. Acceleration requires more power. Expect a smaller range, if you push the car a lot.

The ePedal is a specialty. It breaks, when not pressed making the pedal setting the speed instead of acceleration. I rather switched back to the classic method. It drives like any other gas vehicle.

Power comes with batteries. This is the usual weakness. This car is equipped with a 40 kWh battery compared to the 100 kWh of the Teslas. The smaller, the shorter range, but the better experience due to the lighter vehicle. I was able to drive lightly reaching a 175 mi range compared to the factory 150 mi.

The car usually comes with a factory charger. Charging it on a wall plug will take half a day or more. However, I managed to install a 7 kW industrial plug into the garage last year. It is 240V and it helps a lot. I never had to charge it outside my home since then.

A daily spending on gas used to be 10-12 dollars. I need to charge 10%-30% of the battery a day, about 10 kWh on average. The electricity cost of home price is about 40 cents per kWh. That is $4 a day. It is a much better experience.

Bigger trips deplete 60% of the battery. The recharge cost is less than $10 even with California prices.

I tried to drive up to Mount Umunhum to see how it handles slopes. The experience is seamless. Driving up depleted the battery from 87% to 63%. It was fun to see how it charges back downwards but only up to 67%. Break charging is fun, but it is a myth. The efficiency is not so great. I even managed to pick up a freezing biker during the blizzard. I was 36 F cold.The entire bike did fit in folding the back seats. Emergency use: check.

It takes about 2-4 hours to charge my daily use depending on the battery level. It is not bad but the charging time and schedule is the most annoying of an EV indeed.

Still do not expect big cost savings. First of all scarcity of components make it difficult to repair anything in case of an accident. My insurance cost went up hundreds of dollars on a six months contract.

The battery has a good warranty. It eventually needs to be replaced. Some usage patterns like fast charging make the lifetime of some batteries shorter. Changing a battery pack in an EV may cost $10k-$15k. The industrial charger in the garage required a 20 amp fuse box replacement and a cable in the attic. It costs about $7k in California, and it has to be repeated, if you move.

The best is the silent powerful experience. Now I feel I would start to grumble every time a gas guzzler drives in front of me.