Driving Range Gauge

The driving range indicator in the LEAF, lovingly known in the LEAF community as a ‘guess-o-meter’, is notorious for predicting mileage that is not achievable. The problem is partly the algorithm Nissan provide, however no algorithm can predict how you are about to drive only how you did drive recently.

Factors like speed, hills, ambient temperature, use of cooling or heating, battery charge level all have varying degrees of impact on the vehicles range. Most of the time it doesn’t matter, but if you plan a trip that may push the limits of the vehicles range, it’s nice to know ahead of time if you can truly make the trip.

Click to Download Spreadsheet

I have devised a spreadsheet that accepts input of the temperature, use of cooling/heating, altitude and total vehicle mileage to make adjustments to a range chart devised by Tony Williams. The range chart from Tony is great and I keep a copy in the glove compartment, but making the adjustments as specified by the range chart challenges my mental arithmetic. The spreadsheet I devised makes those adjustments for you and shows the vehicles range at varying speeds and the state of the battery charge.

You know approximately what speeds you will drive at on your trip and the likely temperature, the vehicle doesn’t; so you now  can better predict range rather than depend on the guess-o-meter. One can experiment with climate control on or off to see if it will make a sizable impact or not, why fret, freeze, sweat or drive like a granny if you don’t have to? With better prediction, you can now plan trips with more confidence.

The spreadsheet in excel form can be downloaded here, or for use on mobile devices or computers without Microsoft Office a Google docs version is available here.