Hacker News Reader

Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

I think people can take what they want from Top Gear, it's entertainment, not factual TV.

That episode made me wish I could afford a Leaf, it seemed really well engineered and I knew they were being silly about electric cars on purpose because they are "neanderthal" car dinosaurs that refuse to adapt.

They were trying really hard to find ways to insult the Leaf but fell far short - "range" was all they could come up with. Sad to learn they actually had to fake it though, it's pathetic on their part. I'd still buy it with their demonstrated range - if it was twice that, even better.

But 60mpg+ gas/diesel cars are common in the UK anyway, so the Leaf is less dramatic there. I'd love this one too but they will never let Americans have it:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b40990604...

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/02/ford-will-give/

View on HN

I think people can take what they want from Top Gear, it's entertainment, not factual TV.

Part of the entertainment is that it's presented as though it is factual TV. Sure if you look at a lot of their antics you can tell they're staged but a large portion of the viewing public doesn't realize this and their impressions of the car will be tainted by what is essentially a misrepresentation of the facts.

When you watch Leno on the Tonight Show and he demonstrates a product, do you use that as your factual news source? Do you let his silliness bias you? Or do you realize the type of personality that Leno is and filter everything he says/does?

Top Gear to me is like the Tonight Show of cars. It's entertainment.

Top Gear shows like two practical cars per season among all their other silliness (which is what I actually watch it for, the silliness because it's entertaining).

Ironically isn't the fastest car around their track an electric car? The electric version of the Ariel Atom?

Interestingly, if Leno were to talk about cars I think I would take him seriously...

@burgerbrain what's funny though is Leno is NOT anti-electric.

I think he also owns a 100 year old electric car, where the motor and battery technology today is really not that far evolved from it, sadly.

(oh here it is http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/vintage/421594... )

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.

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).

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.

This is being reversioned for the US as a Scion IQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_iQ

Reply on news.ycombinator.com