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Any Nissan Leaf owners in the Chapala Area?


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I'm considering buying a new Nissan Leaf electric car and installing some extra solar panels so that I can drive for free.  I'm wondering if anyone else in the Ajijic/Chapala area owns a Leaf and what their experiences have been.  Please leave your salient comments below.  Thanks.

 

 

 

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Hi!

I do not live in Mexico but I can give you some ideas on my experience with EVs;

I had driven two EVs, Mitsubishi i-Miev, and Nissan Leaf in Tokyo, and after I returned from Guad., Jal. last month I bought a new Nissan Note e-power which is EV assisted by engine.

Have you had any chance to drive EVs before?  They are very powerful, easy to drive, very quiet even though they put sound system to alert pedestrians to get noticed its presence. There are many features which do not offer current engine powered vehicles.

First of all, you will be amazed at its smooth linear acceleration up to certain speed level. And another thing you will be surprised is  braking; in many cases you do not have to apply brake pedals to stop completely, just release accelerator pedal. Easy maintenances, no engine or mission oil changes required. I used to drive high powered vehicles such as Porsche 911 turbo, Nissan Skyline GTR, Mitsubisi Lancer Evolutions, etc. in the past. There were subsidy and tax benefits from Japanese government, approx. US$10,000, that push me to switch to EVs.

Of course, there are cons with EVs, too.

 As you may know it is a must to have ac outlet (more than 234Vac=117v x 2) for your ev at your home. I have been a snowbird for decades but I do not know how many Nissan dealers in Mex have quick charger systems for EVs.

How far do you drive max?  You should count the average mileage for 70% of the nominal value indicated on the catalogue. You may get a little bit better mileage because you live in warm Chapala area ( I would not recommend EV if you live in cold areas such as Chicago or Vanc., BC because of battery nature and insufficiency heating system, air conditioning system works much much better than normal cars)

 Hope this may help a bit.

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Remember UKiyo that the voltage here is a little different than you stated. First unlike up north where each phase is 180 degrees out of phase with each other down here, each phase is 120 degrees out of phase with each other. So hooking up any two of the three phases with the other gives us about 87% of the total of the two phases.

Here any single phase is supposed to be 127 Volts and now listen to this; the voltage may very but by up to 10% of the desired voltage of 127 Volts, which is quite a bit. So if each phase is 120 degrees out of phase with the other (not 180 degrees) then two phases each at 127 volts will give you not twice the voltage but 220 volts.

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