Whats this?

So whats a car guy doing with that, that, thing?

The new truck search continues and our plan originally was to try a Toyota FJ. Turns out the dealership is closed on Sundays in the summer time so we headed back to the Nissan dealer. We tried an Xterra which I was surprised that I really liked. Considering the Xterra is a Frontier in different trim I expected not to fit right in it. Turns out either I was in a better mood or the Xterra has different seats. We both liked the Xterra a lot which means I've got some thinking to do.

The star of the day was the leaf though. The Jetta broke again on me on Wednesday so I'm a little unhappy with it. If I could get my employer to install a charging station the Leaf could just handle my commute. So seeing that the dealership had one out front we opted to give it a shot.

I'm pleased to say its an impressive little car. Okay actually its not that little, its bigger than a Versa which is Nissan's cheap car. Its got leg room similar to my Jetta and has a nice little storage area behind the back seat. The car makes a happy little computer chime, the "shifter" is more like a computer joystick and it really doesn't shift anything since there aren't "gears" to shift through anyway. The car gets right up and moves when you put your foot on the go pedal and makes almost no sound at all. The most fun we have was watching the battery recharge as we went down hills.

Would I buy one? Maybe. At $30,000 they're pricey but considering a full recharge on the battery is going to run around $3 the price gets offset. There is some state money and even some from the power company too. Unfortunately my 59 mile one way commute doesn't really fit the Leaf's 100 mile capacity without a recharge at the work end. Angie's 20 mile round trip commute would make way more sense. Unlike everything else this is probably a car I'd lease, think about how far electric cars have come in the last 3 years (like started existing completely pretty much) then think about how far they might go in the next 3 years. This is one where trading up makes sense...