First LEAF trip to Manhattan!

What a great way to end 2012, a family outing into Manhattan for lunch at Serendipity 3 and a visit to the Park Avenue Armory to swing on a swing (BTW - a great exhibit).

My day started having already driven in and out of Manhattan for a half-day of work with a "Smog-mobile".    With work over, I returned home to pick up the family for our outing.  Now for the decision; smog-mobile or LEAF - hands down LEAF was the choice ride for the afternoon (my idea).

With my past experience of driving a 1998 Toyota eRav into Manhattan on a cold winter day I knew the 50 mile round trip would consume most of the battery charge leaving very little leftover if we wanted to take a detour while in the city or on our way home.  Thinking we might want to get a quick charge while we were wandering around the city, I Googled Manhattan charging stations and found an Icon Parking Systems garage on East 63rd Street near where we were going and it had a Beam charger.

Alright!  We have a plan.  Wait............................ how much? Ouch!  $33.00 just to park and have the privilege of plugging into a 220 volt $2.50 an hour car charger?  That's more than $40 for three hours and not in my budget.

So much for Plan A.  But Plan B did work out.  I parked at a facility the company I work for owns and plugged my LEAF in with the Nissan OEM 110 volt plug.  Three hours later we were full, happy, and tired, and the LEAF had just about (a little less) range we had when we left the house earlier in the day.

We enjoyed a worry free, fast, heated seat (all 4), heated steering wheel, and 75 degree warm car ride home!

[LEAF Summary: Left the house with ~75 mile range.  Drove highway speeds  25 miles into Manhattan and arrived with a 48 mile range remaining.  Three hours on the 110 volt plug resulted in a 64 mile range for the trip home.  We arrived 25 miles later with an ~37 mile range remaining.  We could have made the trip on a single charge, but being able to plug in helped (literally) give us a warm feeling on our adventure.]