Leaf

The Nissan Leaf arrived on the back of a low loader on thursday, 3 miles on the clock.

It was eerie as the delivery guy reversed it down the ramp and with only the faint loudspeaker generated whirring sound discernible. Under new Government Regulations any movement by an electric vehicle under 20mph must have an audible warning to pedestrians. It is a high tech version of the mandatory requirement in the pioneering years of motoring of a man walking in front with a red flag.

I had taken the morning to work from home in readiness to receive the car but had a full diary of out of town appointments for the rest of the day which required use of my company car.

Any familiarisation with the Leaf would have to be later on that evening.

Being a typical male I of course tempted not to read the Owners Manual rather preferring to use instinct and trial and error where anything mechanical is involved.

No lessons had been learned from running the replacement washing machine without releasing the holding bolt on the drum, firing up the pressure washer with the wrong fittings for the job in hand and connecting up the incorrect wires of a room dimmer switch.

In this case I stuck to the step by step guide to the car.

I was, after all, a bit frightened and anxious about the whole electric vehicle thing.

A few thoughts flashed past my consciousness as I sat for the first time in the driving position.

Do I need to wear rubber soled shoes during a journey?

Can I take the car out in the rain?

If I take a route under overhead pylons will my hair (what is left of it) stand on end from static?

These were evidently huge misconceptions borne out of ignorance and a lot of misinformation absorbed from the internet during the many hours of questing for guidance and shared knowledge of this type of propulsion.

It took a while to work through the sequence to just start the motor.

In the absence of a turning over noise, prancing rev counter and other combustion engine soundtrack features it is at first difficult to judge if the power-train is on and ready.

Being automatic transmission, of which I have not had much practical experience, it is necessary to re-educate the muscle memory of my left leg and refrain from trying to place my left hand where, in my company car, there is the gear shift lever.

After finally getting the car to move it was a slow and nervous drive through late rush-hour traffic to an industrial estate. In the absence of the likes of an abandoned airfield the empty road network around freshly vacated factories and warehouses was an ideal place to go through the stop-start, stop-start operation and other procedures to give confidence in the new vehicle.

The distant memory now of my very first driving lesson with my Father came back to me in that unique combination of the strangeness of hand, leg and eye co-ordination that confronts a new learner.

After an hour or so everything seemed to make sense and the increase in confidence diminished that early sensation of unease.

I have had a few more excursions under Zero Emissions although not without a lot of monitoring of the range reading on the dashboard display. The home charger has been in intermittent use to top up the kilowatts, This is assisted by a mobile phone App to control the rate of charging and
even to the extent of scheduling a session remotely.

First impressions of the Leaf are excellent in terms of quality of the ride, comfort and level of on board equipment.

For a big and heavy car (it just about shades my VW Passat Estate on dimensions) it has ample power and absorbs distance and road conditions without any apparent effort. It is a good looking car as well which is a massive improvement over the rather bug-eyed appearance of the Mark 1 model which has, amazingly, been around since 2011.

For all of its merits and credentials the Leaf is still a very uncommon sight on the roads but this should change given the intentions of many towards reducing reliance on fossil fuels in everyday life.