[iigs]

Sad to learn they actually had to fake it though, it's pathetic on their part.

I don't feel like they faked it at all. The entire world is ganging up against Top Gear on this topic but here is a list of conditions that need to be met in order to get the maximum range:

The batteries must be new. The car must be fully charged. The car must be driven between normal and gently. The weather must not be excessively cold. To the extent the batteries aren't new, they should not be rapid-charged.

So fast forward half way through your car loan, the car's 2.5 years old, it's had a 70/30 mix of normal/rapid charges, the driver has a heavy-ish foot, and you've got to leave work at noon to pick your sick kid up from school. Oops. Sure, it's a contrived example, but it's really a concern and really truly is a reason that a car like this doesn't make sense today.

All that aside, I agree with you. Their review of the Leaf was glowing. Good for Nissan to play hardball -- they're just multiplying the publicity value of their review. They'll come out looking even better because of it.

[ck2]

Are the leaf's batteries lithium based? Or some kind of nicd variation?

Because lithium won't matter if they are new or 4 years old, you'll get practically the same capacity from them.

After 5 years they will drop to 80% capacity and then get worse from there. Lithium is good until suddenly it's not good anymore. I have LiFePo4 on my bicycle and I have to be careful because lithium will happily destroy itself to give you the range you push out of it.

I suspect the leaf is not lithium based though, would be too expensive of a pack. We really need to solve that pricepoint, would change everything if cars could use LiFePo4

Ah, wikipedia to the rescue - it is indeed Lithium based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Battery Well then you will definitely get 5 years out of that unless you drive like a maniac to the end of it's capacity. I'd still feel safer if it was LiFePo4 vs Lithium ion though - LiFePo4 won't explode or burn (but it does take up more space).

[dalke]

LiFePO4 - I was confused for a moment wondering if there was polonium in the battery. One kg of 210Po would produce 140kW, and you would only need to refuel every few months.