The Nissan Leaf is a fantastic car.
It's sleek, ergonomic, even iconic in appearance. Since there's no
gas engine, it's quiet, only making noise when it needs to: for
example when backing up, or when using the turn signal. It's all-electric, so it's eco-friendli(er) than most
other cars on the market. Plus, no trips to the gas station. It
charges right in the comfort of home.
But the Leaf has one major design flaw.
The car's charge-point is located at
the front of the car, where the gas engine would normally be. The
driver just flips a switch on the lower-left-hand side of the
steering wheel to open the charging hatch, attaches the plug, and
voila, the car battery charges like a laptop.
But what happens when the driver comes
home from a long day of school, work, or perhaps partying, and it's
dark outside, and her garage has poor lighting? (Really poor
lighting?) She flips the switch and the hatch opens, she grabs the
plug, and then... There's just this void of darkness. Where's the
connector? Plugging this thing in never takes more than a second,
she thinks. It's always been that way when she could see. So
after she has been made to feel stupid for standing over the hatch,
fruitlessly jamming the plug into the void for ten seconds, she
realizes she needs to grab a flashlight to find the plug. Or, she
could use her phone. First world problems.
This takes less time and money than
going to the gas station, obviously. But it's hard to believe the
designers didn't take something this simple into account. Just a tiny
night-light in there would do the trick.
Image from http://www.motortrend.com/
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