Dealership in Quebec Canada selling Spark EVs

I ran across a number of listings for Spark EVs being sold by a dealership in Quebec:
http://www.autotrader.ca/cars/chevrolet/spark/2014/qc/rawdon/

I understood that Spark EVs were only sold to fleets in Canada so I've never really researched them. I live in rural New Brunswick and the drive into town is about 100km/60miles so I've been reluctant to purchase a Leaf as I'm not sure whether I could count on it to get me to town and back in the middle of winter, especially after a few years. We don't have any federal or provincial incentives in New Brunswick so it's a fairly expensive purchase to not be confident it will work for me. And I drive too many miles for a lease to be economical. And I don't think the dealerships here actually sell the leaf, probably because without incentives there won't be enough sales to justify offering servicing. Although I did see one used Leaf listed once (at about $40,000 vs $27,500 for the Spark).

In one of the threads Tony Williams indicated that a Spark had a range of about 98miles at 62mi/100km per hour, compared to 84mi for the Leaf. Since I do 95% of my driving at that speed it is very useful information, thanks Tony! That would give a margin of 36mi or about one third for winter mileage reduction. I'm wondering whether anyone has any experience with winter range reduction? If not, can one calculate/estimate the range reduction due to heater use as a starting point? Out of curiosity, anyone have a theory on why the Spark seems to so far outperform its EPA range rating when the Leaf comes in right on?

Thanks for any experience or insight or advice you can offer!

Lindsay

LindsayNB said:

I'm wondering whether anyone has any experience with winter range reduction? If not, can one calculate/estimate the range reduction due to heater use as a starting point? Out of curiosity, anyone have a theory on why the Spark seems to so far outperform its EPA range rating when the Leaf comes in right on?

Thanks for any experience or insight or advice you can offer!

Lindsay

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I am one of the furthest north Spark EV owners on the west coast; although we have generally mild winters in Portland, I did a fair bit of driving when it had snowed to get an understanding of exactly what you're describing. This year we had a pretty cold winter, so there were many days where we were below freezing. I also have a 2012 Leaf, which is my wife's daily driver, and have experience the drastic range reduction in that car first hand (had to do an unexpected emergency charge at L2 in freezing cold temperatures!).

One of the GREAT benefits to the Spark EV with regards to range in the cold is that the battery has a (liquid) thermally controlled battery. It has a heater in the coolant loop that warms the battery up if you are using it in extreme cold temperatures; the Leaf does not have this feature, and suffers because of it. By leaving the car plugged in when it's cold, then "pre-heating" the car before you go for a drive, it will automatically warm the battery up from wall power before you go for a drive. I seem to recall the battery will heat any time it's below about 25°F. Of course, when you go for a drive you will use more energy for heating the cabin than a warm day, but if you pre-condition the car to be very warm when you start the drive, it's pretty minor.

For a frame of reference, if it was 20°F, I absolutely would NOT trust my Leaf to drive 60 miles at 60 miles per hour, even if I warmed the cabin before starting a drive. In my Spark, I would be absolutely confident to do the same thing if I had heated the interior and the battery before beginning my drive. Pre-heating the car is easy to do with either the key fob or using the OnStar app on your phone.

As far as real world performance versus EPA range, GM is pretty conservative with their ratings (ensuring 100% of cars will meet the requirement) while not all OEMs are. Furthermore, Nissan in particular has changed the range rating for the Leaf almost every single year since the car came out, so they're kind of all over the place.

Bryce

Nashco said:

For a frame of reference, if it was 20°F, I absolutely would NOT trust my Leaf to drive 60 miles at 60 miles per hour, even if I warmed the cabin before starting a drive. In my Spark, I would be absolutely confident to do the same thing if I had heated the interior and the battery before beginning my drive. Pre-heating the car is easy to do with either the key fob or using the OnStar app on your phone.

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Thanks Bryce, that helps my confidence significantly. How confident would you be if you could preheat the Spark while plugged in, drive 30 miles at 60mph but it was then left in the cold unplugged for a few hours before doing the return 30mile trip?

Nashco said:

As far as real world performance versus EPA range, GM is pretty conservative with their ratings (ensuring 100% of cars will meet the requirement) while not all OEMs are. Furthermore, Nissan in particular has changed the range rating for the Leaf almost every single year since the car came out, so they're kind of all over the place.

Bryce

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Just to be clear, the ratings are officially from the US Government's EPA (even though the manufacturers obviously do their own testing, also):

Here the LEAF official government range:

73 miles = EPA-USA 2011-2012 (EPA LA4 "city cycle" @ 19.59mph average, minus 30%)

75 miles = EPA-USA 2013 (EPA "5 cycle", average of 66 EPA miles range for 80% and 84 EPA miles for 100%)

84 miles = EPA-USA 2014 (EPA "5 cycle" test, 100% charge only)


The LEAF's EPA ratings are based on completely different tests that didn't apply to the Spark EV, because it wasn't available then.

So, there are only two US tests done on the LEAF, the "City Cycle" that is no longer used and the "5 Cycle" that has been valid for 2012 model year cars and newer. Because the car received an averaged EPA rating between its two charge settings (80% and 100%) on the 5 cycle test, for 2014 Nissan merely removed the 80% charge setting. No new test was required to get 84 miles for 2014.

The Toyota Rav4 EV is the only other car that uses the 80% - 100% average, and Toyota is not going to change anything on their pure compliance-only car.

Here the LEAF official worldwide range:

124 miles = 200km Japan "EPA" rating for 2011-2012
142 miles = 228km Japan "EPA" for 2013

109 miles = 175km UK / Euro 2011-2012
124 miles = 199km UK / Euro 2013-2014

LindsayNB said:

In one of the threads Tony Williams indicated that a Spark had a range of about 98miles at 62mi/100km per hour, compared to 84mi for the Leaf. Since I do 95% of my driving at that speed it is very useful information, thanks Tony!

Click to expand...

You're welcome.

If you preheat any electric car with battery temperature management system (TMS), you'll always do better than a car without, like the 2011-2015 LEAF. It appears Nissan has put a TMS on their new van, so I expect future LEAF's to have it also (2016 and later).

The Spark EV likely has a simple (and cheap) resistance heater (instead of a more efficient heat pump), so the power consumption for cabin heat will be substantial. Pre-heat that cabin and use the seat and steering wheel heaters (if equipped) as much as possible.

NOTE TO PERPETUAL FORUM HATERS - I don't own a Nissan LEAF, however in the past I have owned two, and driven one of them from Mexico to Canada in 2012.

I have driven purely electric powered cars for almost 80,000 miles.

LindsayNB said:

I live in rural New Brunswick and the drive into town is about 100km/60miles

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LindsayNB said:

Thanks Bryce, that helps my confidence significantly. How confident would you be if you could preheat the Spark while plugged in, drive 30 miles at 60mph but it was then left in the cold unplugged for a few hours before doing the return 30mile trip?

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Lindsay, I thought your drive to town was 60 miles.
In your area, do you have winter heating plugs available, or is that only up in Alaska?

I would worry about leaving the car to sit and chill for a few hours unplugged. It would need to reheat the battery, which would decrease mileage a bit. And you would need some cabin heat, too.

If you had a dependable plug to keep it warmed a little and charge a little, you would be ok.

BTW, charging at 120 V, 8 amps, gives you only a tiny charge -- about a mile for every 15 minutes of charging. But if it also keeps the car warmed and ready, it would be quite beneficial.

TonyWilliams said:

The Spark EV likely has a simple (and cheap) resistance heater (instead of a more efficient heat pump), so the power consumption for cabin heat will be substantial. Pre-heat that cabin and use the seat and steering wheel heaters (if equipped) as much as possible.

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Tony, it doesn't make sense that a heat pump would be more efficient than a resistance heater. In a resistance heater, 100% of the electricity going through it is converted to heat, since there are no moving parts. On the other hand, a heat pump has to compress a gas, run a fan to blow cold air through the cold side in order to get heat from the warm side. How in the world could that be more energy efficient?

Heat pumps are used on home HVAC systems in moderate climates ...like Georgia. But it can get really cold in Georgia, and you can find pictures of frozen heat pumps all over the internet. Reading about the pros and cons, they are economical when the climate and prices of gas vs electricity warrant them. There's no way it would be a good idea on a Spark EV in New Brunswick.

SteveC5088 said:

Tony, it doesn't make sense that a heat pump would be more efficient than a resistance heater. In a resistance heater, 100% of the electricity going through it is converted to heat, since there are no moving parts... There's no way it would be a good idea on a Spark EV in New Brunswick.

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The heat pump is indeed more efficient down to about 30-40F (0-5C). Some are more efficient at even colder temps.

100% of the resistance heat doesn't necessarily end up in the cabin, however, yes, in really cold places, resistance heat is required.

Heat pumps are on Tesla Model S, Kia Soul EV, and optional on Nissan LEAF.

SteveC5088 said:

Lindsay, I thought your drive to town was 60 miles.
In your area, do you have winter heating plugs available, or is that only up in Alaska?

I would worry about leaving the car to sit and chill for a few hours unplugged. It would need to reheat the battery, which would decrease mileage a bit. And you would need some cabin heat, too.

If you had a dependable plug to keep it warmed a little and charge a little, you would be ok.

BTW, charging at 120 V, 8 amps, gives you only a tiny charge -- about a mile for every 15 minutes of charging. But if it also keeps the car warmed and ready, it would be quite beneficial.

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Sorry, I didn't word that clearly, it's 60 miles round-trip, plus any miles running around in town.

Unfortunately we don't have winter heating plugs here, we had them in Calgary, I don't think I can rely on having even a 120V outlet while in town so the car might get cold. Any guesses about how many miles of range would be consumed to pre-warm the car from the battery? There are three public chargers in Moncton, all of them on the far side of my usual destinations. Given the slow charge rate of the Spark (I don't see any realistic chance of a DCQC here anytime soon) if I can't be confident of making it on a charge I think I would need to either arrange to install a charger or at least a 120V plug, or wait for longer range BEVs. That is what I had resigned myself to before finding that a Spark might be a possibility.

I've thought about a Volt, but given the price, with no incentives, I can't bring myself to pay that much to only reduce my gas use.

SteveC5088 said:

Tony, it doesn't make sense that a heat pump would be more efficient than a resistance heater. In a resistance heater, 100% of the electricity going through it is converted to heat, since there are no moving parts. On the other hand, a heat pump has to compress a gas, run a fan to blow cold air through the cold side in order to get heat from the warm side. How in the world could that be more energy efficient?

Click to expand...

Actually, it is possible to get above 100% with a heat pump, but you need to be careful about which definition of efficiency you use.

As a thought experiment, put a heat pump in a closed, insulated box, but with an electrical connetion to the outside. If the heat pump draws 100 watts to do whatever it does, all that will end up as heat and will be as efficient as a 100W resistive heater.

If, instead, the same heat pump has its cooling coils on the outside of the box, it will use some fraction of the 100W to do the work of bringing heat from the outside to the interior of the box. The waste heat of compression, etc. will still get trapped inside, but there will be significantly more than 100W total heat being added. The exact efficiency will depend on the temperature difference of outside and inside, but it should be pretty easy to do better than 100%.

Of course, you don't get free energy from nowhere. The waste heat at the power station/sun used to charge the car more than balances.

LindsayNB said:

Given the slow charge rate of the Spark (I don't see any realistic chance of a DCQC here anytime soon) if I can't be confident of making it on a charge I think I would need to either arrange to install a charger or at least a 120V plug, or wait for longer range BEVs. That is what I had resigned myself to before finding that a Spark might be a possibility.

I've thought about a Volt, but given the price, with no incentives, I can't bring myself to pay that much to only reduce my gas use.

Click to expand...

You might consider the Toyota Rav4 EV. It is actually assembled with Tesla components in Woodstock, Ontario, but you'll have to import it from California. The easiest way to do this is to buy a used one. There currently are two that I know of in the entire country.

The Rav4 EV can VERY easily make this round trip without any public charging, even in the coldest winter with the heater blasting. At a steady 100km/h (62mph), with a level road in 20C (70F) temperature, dry, hard surface road way, no wind and NO HEATER, the Rav4 EV can go 235km (146 miles) at 5.6km (3.5 miles) per kWh from the 41.8kWh usable battery.

Because it uses Tesla parts, it has a very complete battery temperature management system.

Rav4 EV has a 10kW (40 amp) onboard charger and will charge at that speed at camp grounds with "50 amp service" with a JESLA or other appropriate portable charge cord. At the usual public J1772 charge station, it will charge at their maximum 30 amp capacity.

Rav4 EV Miles Gained per Hour Charging @ 87.5% charger efficiency (sorry, you'll have to convert this to metric)

70F Ambient temperature - hotter or colder will decrease miles gained
Amps/Volts -- Where ---- City Drive ----- 65mph
--------------------- 2.7 miles/kWh - 3.4 miles/kWh

12 / 120 ------- Any ------ 2.8 miles ------ 3.5 miles (supplied cable with car)
16 / 120 ------- Any ------ 3.8 miles ------ 4.7 miles (JESLA with NEMA 5-20)
12 / 240 ------ Home ----- 6.8 miles ------ 8.6 miles (EVSEupgrade.com mod)
16 / 208 ------ Public ----- 7.5 miles ------ 9.5 miles (2013 LEAF EVSEupgrade)
16 / 240 ------ Home ----- 8.9 miles ----- 11.2 miles (2013 LEAF EVSEupgrade)
20 / 208 ------ Public ----- 9.4 miles ----- 11.9 miles (2013 LEAF EVSEupgrade)
20 / 240 ------ Home ---- 11.0 miles ----- 13.9 miles (Clipper Creek LCS-25)
24 / 240 ------ Home ---- 13.6 miles ----- 17.7 miles (JESLA w/NEMA 14-30 or 10-30)
30 / 208 ------ Public ---- 14.8 miles ----- 18.7 miles (typical public J1772)
30 / 240 ------ Home ---- 17.1 miles ----- 21.6 miles (rare public J1772)
40 / 208 ------ Public ---- 18.5 miles ----- 23.4 miles (Tesla Roadster/Clipper Creek)
40 / 240 ------ Home ---- 22.7 miles ----- 28.5 miles (JESLA w/NEMA 14-50 or 6-50)

******

LindsayNB said:

Nashco said:

For a frame of reference, if it was 20°F, I absolutely would NOT trust my Leaf to drive 60 miles at 60 miles per hour, even if I warmed the cabin before starting a drive. In my Spark, I would be absolutely confident to do the same thing if I had heated the interior and the battery before beginning my drive. Pre-heating the car is easy to do with either the key fob or using the OnStar app on your phone.

Click to expand...

Thanks Bryce, that helps my confidence significantly. How confident would you be if you could preheat the Spark while plugged in, drive 30 miles at 60mph but it was then left in the cold unplugged for a few hours before doing the return 30mile trip?

Click to expand...

Well, if pre-heated VERY warm before you started driving and then using a much more modest climate control setting for the drive, the first 30 miles would probably take about 40% of the battery charge. That would mean you have about 60% of the battery remaining; if you just hop in and start driving (skip the pre-heat) with a modest heater setting, you would be able to make the drive home without issue. If you preheated the car, then you would probably be pushing your luck in very cold temperatures.

So, I can say with confidence you would be able to make the drive you describe if you're careful about heater control. Sure, you might end up turning the heater off a time or two to finish your drive as you learn the limits of the car, but you sound pretty savvy so you'll figure it out quickly. The seat heaters, a warm jacket, and some driving gloves make a HUGE difference in heating energy needed to be comfortable.

To the discussion about other cars having more efficient heat pumps instead of resistive heaters, this does NOT apply to your extreme cold temperature discussions (as these cars all switch to resistive heat below freezing temperatures). The heat pump efficiency only improves efficiency when it is mildly cold.

Bryce