2023 Nissan Leaf + Review – Bi-Directional Quick Charging Facts

Nissan launched the leaf with the customary wine and cheese night, getting journalists sloshed in hopes of a good review. With some cars that is a must, for they’re little more than chronic little boxes of boredom that wheeze and whine. They’re certainly not fun, and are barely useful let-alone worth their asking price. Leaf was not such a car.

It was cheeky, a trifle slow, but a bunch of fun. The battery was a little small, but ample for a city car. By far, its biggest plus is the fact that it can be used as a battery on wheels, not just for driving those wheels, but to power everything around it.

Before we come to the bi-directional charging, we must first mention Nissan’s Leaf +, which carries and even bigger battery on wheels. Leaf + increases the 40kWh battery to 62kWh, and the power from 110kw/320Nm to 160kw/340Nm. Maximum charging rate is up from 50kw to 100kw, but only the top model, with range now between 300 and 400km, or thereabouts.

Although other brands are all boasty-pants about being able to power a laptop, BBQ or a campsite at no more than a tickle of 3kw, the Nissan Leaf can power your whole house for 4 or 5 days at a stretch. Now that is definitely something worth boasting about.

Video Review: 2023 Nissan Leaf + and Bi Directional Charging – Full Review #gaycarboys

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Charging:

Charging is the (relatively) easy part. Doing it at home takes advantage of solar if you have it. If not, stuff it full of lovely cheap electricity at super off peak rates. Make sure you buy non-dinosaur power please. If you’re going to the trouble and expense of buying an EV, don’t do it half-cocked.

You can charge it out and about too, and some of it is free. Many hotels and shopping centres have free slow charging, but do check the apps like Plugshare and Chargefox to see what’s what. The Leaf’s fastest public feast can be gulped down at a rate of 100kw (on the Leaf+ only). That will likely set you back 60c p/kWh.

Bi-Directional Charging:

This should make anyone with a brain excited, very excited indeed.

The Canberra trial has completed, now South Australia is the only place in the country where sensibly-minded folk can get their fill, bi-directionally speaking.

Our latest video review sheds a little light on the mysteries of all the free-flowing techy frivolity. As long as the correct infrastructure can be had, plug and socket meet, and an app allows the user to remain fully in control of the way energy flows.

Not only could you power your own home, but should things go horribly wrong, other’s homes as well. In fact, if every garage homed a bi-friendly EV, all that green energy can be harvested and stored. Local community batteries do much the same thing without the advantage of being able to convey owners to the shops.

Sure, we’ve oversimplified something that is incredibly complex, but the point is that all the hard work has been done for us. All buyers need to do is get solar on the roof, and home batteries, preferably a combination of mobile and fixed home batteries. In the right circumstances, owner’s power bills would be negligible.

In short, the power flows both ways, but differs from Hyundai, Kia and Genesis. While those brands take advantage of having onboard domestic power sockets, Leaf + does not. Although the Leaf powered the launch event, it required the fettling of secret gubbins of which no photos were allowed.

Conclusions:

We are a very long way off a solution to a climate woes, but using EVs as power storage is a great start.

Stay tuned for our story about Solid State Batteries which should be part of a revolution over the next decade. They have none of the poison contained within Lithium-Ion batteries. The solid medium promises to be more energy dense, cheaper, and more long-lived.

Exciting times indeed.

Nissan Leaf +