Nissan says its new electric car, the Leaf, gets 367 miles per gallon
By Laura June 
posted Aug 15th 2009 8:02AM
posted Aug 15th 2009 8:02AM
Nissan's gotten into a bit of a bragging contest on Twitter -- possibly fueled by Chevrolet's recent, shaky claim that the Volt will get 230 miles per gallon. The company is now saying that its new electric car, the Leaf, will get an astonishing 367 miles per gallon... even though it's a 100 percent electric car, and runs on absolutely no fuel. So, isn't that zero miles per gallon? Well, yes and no: all these massive numbers are based on both the Department of Energy and the EPA's calculations for estimating equivalencies in electric cars. Why? Well, it seems that car companies are still giving us -- the prospective buying public -- MPG figures because they think that's what we understand best. Tony Posawatz, vehicle line director for Chevy's Volt recently admitted to the New York Times that the miles per gallon matrix is "probably not the best measure of goodness" for a car that uses no gallons at all, but that it's "what people are accustomed to." We agree -- he's got a point -- but people were also accustomed to the hi-fi, the corded landline, and the steam engine. We assure you: people understand that a car that runs on zero gas (and therefore gets an astonishingly low amount of miles per gallon) is really, really awesome. So the MPG matrix is useless when talking about electric cars -- we'll adjust! Read - Nissan claims 367 miles per gallon for electric Leaf
Read - The Chevy Volt: mileage numerology
oh great... another know it all!
@Angry Commenter,
yes, I can see that you are a nub.
Sure you'd rather get the volt, but when this car is around $25000 and the volt is 40g, then maybe you'll reconsider.
I would love every electric vehicle sticker to be required by law to say....
Illegal Operation MPG
Division by zero not allowed
Darkmax,
Laura June is providing us a service in getting us to think about the issue and not just accept another dictum from on high.
I like the miles per gallon moniker so long as it is explained in terms of real cost.
In other words, let’s say the cost to fully charge a car battery is $2.50 of energy from the electrical grid; same price as a gallon of gas. If you get to travel 367 miles on a full charge, then that is the equivalent of buying a car that runs on gasoline that is rated at 367 miles per gallon. The only problem with this that I can think of, is if the car has a maximum range of 185.5 miles (see technical note below) on a full charge, and the car manufacturers advertise the performance of 367 Miles Per Gallon (which is technically correct), then that can be misleading. The unsuspecting public may erroneously think that the car’s maximum range is 367 miles on a full charge.
Technical note:
If the cost of a full charge is only $1.25 and the distance traveled is 183.5 miles, then this is the same as saying $2.50 for a distance of 367 (or better yet, 367 miles per gallon). The point is that one can always tweak the numbers so as to represent the actual mileage for electrical vehicles in terms of miles per gallon. Think about it, are we (for the lay person) not still using English Units for Measurement (e.g. feet and inches) while our scientific community and the Europeans are using the SI Unit (or Metric System) – for example, meters?
We have gotten accustomed to the English Unit, that is the same reasoning why miles per gallon in this case might just work.
@Angry_Commenter
What is your problem? Did they raise the price of your fiber one? Are those kids playing on your lawn again?
FWD drive cars get better traction in the winter and mechanically provide more interior space since the designers
don't need to leave room from the drive shaft to run under the floor boards.
Look we are all sorry that they cancelled the Brady Bunch and that they don't make 8-track tapes anymore but you
need to move on.
I'm tired of this: electric cars are great for the environment. Blah blah blah. Sure they'll (Emphasis on the will) be good for the environment*, but as of right now your going from burning gasoline directly in your cars engine and it putting off moderate-high pollution to electric cars running off of electricity that was generated by coal that is producing horrible, horrible, horrible polution (Did I say it is horrible?)
I think it would be infinite miles per gallon since you could buy a one gallon gas can and put it in your trunk and if the car ran forever the miles per gallon would be off the chart since one drop wouldn't be used (minus spills and evaporation) Remember if you are going to try to cram 5 friends into the trunk of your car to get in cheap to a drive in theater remove the can of gas so you don't all inhale the fumes in a inclosed space.
Actually, the car would get one mile per gallon, because it would be 0 miles / 0 gallons, aka x/x, which equals 1.
Except that the denominator can't be 0.
I wonder what my toaster's EPA rating is.
Over nine thousand MPG.
Toasters don't have wheels, silly.
It may not have wheels, but if my 4 slot monster manages to travel half the kitchen every time it ejects 4 cremated briquettes from itself!
Having driven both for a number of year, I can easily say the Nissan is MUCH more reliable than then GM products for me. And yes, I'm as blue-blood American as the next guy, but truth is, America needs to get back to making more reliable, efficient, vehicles before many folks take them seriously again.
@jaxtechusr
"America needs to get back to making more reliable, efficient, vehicles[....]"
That implies that you did indeed once make such vehicles. I propose that this is a great untruth SIR!
If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon!
Depends on how far you can throw it.
On the flip side, my car gives me one billion, gagillion, fafillion, shabolubalu million illion yillion miles.... per KWH
It's great that it's so
environmentally friendly and all that... Such a shame that its beatings-per-mile rating is over 100 for driving such an ugly car.
they might not have wheels but mine has rims. THEY SPINNIN THEY SPINNIN!!
How about MPV miles per volt? MPW miles per watt?
Wouldn't it be easier to understand dollars per mile?
The problem with this math is the cost of energy is constantly changing. You would have to take the average utility cost per region, and it varies much more than unleaded gasoline. When you buy a car with 50 MPG, its always going to be 50 MPG. But if the price of electricty goes up and the price of gasoline doesn't, how does the EPA take this into their calculation?
What they should be doing is developing a miles per KWH formula. We already understand this unit of energy with our utility bills. Then instead of showing a gas tank with gallons, show a battery with KWH. The EPA's formula serves one purpose and that is a political one.
by going to a miles per KWH rating, this would also bring transparency so average joes would understand the real cost of driving and electric car.
Like all mechnical devices, Cars lose a degree of thier efficiency over time, so technically it won't quite do the same MPG over it's running lifetime.
Not if you live outside of the US!
The cost of the electricity to fully charge the batteries is equivalent to no more than 150 MPG assuming an average national gas price. Anyone claiming better mileage than that is flat out lying about actual economy.
No, because a) that figure is not just dependent on the absolute price of the fuels but on the relative prices versus the mix of fules used, and b) it's not a figure available for any previous vehicle so it's not useful for comparisons.
We're clearly too dumb to understand miles on a single charge and charge times figures.
That doesn't tell us efficiency.
Right?
I really don't see why they can't use MPC (Miles Per Charge). But if they did that the numbers would be very comparable to current MPG specs and people would actually think there is "no benefit".
But this is coming from someone who never really paid attention to the MPG spec of cars, I really could careless. I am getting the vehicle I want regardless of what sort of mileage it gets. It's just another number to help justify the inflated cost of vehicles in my opinion.
All I have to say is thank god for import cars and their reasonable pricing in a world where domestic cars are under built and over priced. And before you suggest that I haven't driven or own a domestic auto, I do.
They couldnt use miles per charge because that simply tells us the range of the vehicle. They need to tell efficiency. Different electric vehicles have different sized batteries. So a miles per charge rating would be ultimately useless. if you really must know nissan says that this gets 100 miles per charge. That doesnt tell me however, how many miles it can go on one KWH (kilowatt hour).
How about efficiency of wH per mile?
The more efficient the car, the less wH per mile it requires to move. Using miles per gallon on electric cars doesn't help because they're completely different sources and gasoline is a hell of a lot more expensive.
The Leaf only has what, 100 miles range? Then you're screwed if you're going on any trip longer than that unless you can find a place to charge it for a long time. Pure-electric cars need to wait a little longer, but the Volt is a good first step (electric-driven, but a gas generator backup to charge-sustain the batteries).
Why do we need to know it's efficiency? We are talking about how many miles per charge or how many miles per gallon a vehicle gets. In order to figure it's efficiency you would also need to know the capacity of the fuel cell (battery/fuel tank).
When you buy a electronic device you don't ask what sort of efficiency it gets, you ask what battery life is i.e. how many hours does the battery last, same with these vehicles, how far will my car go on a charge.
You could include a note on the build sheet of the car that states it uses a certain amount of wattage to fully charge the car, much like a laptop. But as far as consumers are concerned they don't need to know how many watts a car uses, or how many kW it uses, they are only concerned with one thing and thats how far the car will get per charge. Everyone knows electricity is cheaper than gas, and if not they should atleast research the matter before making a purchase that involves 20K+.
Just my opinion though.
@7egend: We do care about efficiency because charging an electric car is going to have a big impact in your electricity bill. Most likely is going to be less than what you spend in gas, but we sure need to know by how much, and a measurement to compare efficiency between cars will do it, just like MPG does for gas cars.
The metric system is the work of the devil... My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I like it!
haha - after thinking for 2 minutes, I remembered that I read this quote from a The Simpsons article on Wikipedia. Quite a long way :P (or was it?)
Really though, it's only the US that are still using USCS and it would be better if you guys are like the rest of the world! I have 5 engineering textbooks all commenting on this in the first chapter. I really have no concept of what 367mpg is! Maybe you guys don't understand 0.64 litres/100km either :P
5 / 0 = infinity
0 * infinity is undefined (though there's a workaround by way of De L'Hôpital)
Dang! replied to the wrong post. This was for Mike, really.
40 rods per hogshead = 0.00198412698 miles per gallon
so it would take 1000 gallons to go a mile? you must have a tank the size of a 747!!
504 not 1000, sorry.
Actually a tank with 504.000001 gallons...
for the x/x thing to work. AnyNumber/0 is infinite.
Except 0. 0/0 is an indetermination.
Well, technically we'd say as gallons tends to zero, MPG tends to infinity. But yeah, you're basically right - an all-electric car does infinite MPG.
A more relevant measure would be energy-dollars/mile, which measures how much it costs (energy only) to make a car travel one mile. With this measure, electric cars would still wi win out.
No, any number divided by 0 is undefined. If 5 / 0 equaled infinity, that would mean 0 * infinity equals 5, which is not true -- it still equals 0. That means electric cars have an undefined miles per gallon ratio.
I'm sure the gas would evaporate eventually.
It's ugly as hell
First - NOT
Second, I take any GM car over a Nissan. Talking about crappy cars - Nissan is leading that department!
It seems a simple MPC (miles per charge) rating would suffice.