2 DCQC's now live at Irvine Spectrum Marriott Courtyard

[DaveEV]

I saw nothing about parking rates when I charged there briefly about a week ago.
These 4 charging spots (two QC units) are just to the right of the front entrance.

I used both stations last weekend here (and the SJC station, too). It appears that you only need validated parking if parking there overnight ($15) from what I overheard while waiting to buy some snacks from the market.

First time on Sat around 11am used the 2nd station (the one on the right). Went from 34% SOC - 83% in 26 minutes drawing 10.1 kWh according to Chargepoint. It shut off and I restarted it going up to 88% SOC in another 8 minutes delivering 1 more kWh (really wanted that extra few miles of range, though ended up not needing it. Would be nice if the '11-12 LEAFs didn't automatically shut off at 80%. No other cars there potentially blocking the QCs.

Second time on Sun around 4pm I used the 1st station (the one on the left). Found the handle a bit finicky - took some playing around before I could get it to engage (the gun-style plug at SJC is so easy in comparison!). Went from 41% - 83% SOC in 26 minutes drawing 9.1 kWh according to Chargepoint. There was one ICE in one of the spots reachable by the left QC when I arrived. Shortly after I started my QC session, one of the spots for the other QC was blocked by an ICE, but both QCs were still accessible.

While I waited, I used the restrooms and bought some snacks from the market. The coffee/snake area by the bar was closed. Food was about 20-25% more expensive than you might expect and had to wait a while for the help desk to help other customers before they could ring me up.

Overall a very good experience - need more locations like this. Would recommend some sort of signage to discourage ICEing. Perhaps 30 minute only parking signage (on the curb?). I imagine that at night this could be an issue has it has been down the road at SJC. At least here you have twice as many spots available for charging.

BTW - noticed that the intake fans on both stations seemed pretty dusty and seemed to run constantly regardless of whether or not the station was in use.

 

[TonyWilliams]

BTW - noticed that the intake fans on both stations seemed pretty dusty and seemed to run constantly regardless of whether or not the station was in use.

These are a big problem. There is a paid-for service that is supposed to come by regularly to clean / replace the air filters.

 

[DaveEV]

BTW - noticed that the intake fans on both stations seemed pretty dusty and seemed to run constantly regardless of whether or not the station was in use.

These are a big problem. There is a paid-for service that is supposed to come by regularly to clean / replace the air filters.

How often do you find that maintenance is required on these filters? Does the Fuji station at SJC require similar maintenance?

Seems like there should be an easier way to cool the unit which requires less maintenance. The filters appear to be metal mesh, somewhat similar to the filter you see used for kitchen range fans. Seems like you could simply vacuum the filter which might remove a good deal of the dust and wouldn't take more than a minute or two.

Given the amount of air the 3 fans suck through the station, the small size of the filters and 24/7 operation, I would not be surprised if the filters need cleaning as often as every week. Just getting the filter a foot off the ground would help reduce dust build-up.

Required frequent maintenance must really eat into revenue.

 

[cwerdna]

BTW - noticed that the intake fans on both stations seemed pretty dusty and seemed to run constantly regardless of whether or not the station was in use.

These are a big problem. There is a paid-for service that is supposed to come by regularly to clean / replace the air filters.

How often do you find that maintenance is required on these filters? Does the Fuji station at SJC require similar maintenance?

At https://www.facebook.com/groups/BayLeafs/files/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, if you're there, someone did upload Aerovironment's guide for filter cleaning and maintenance of http://nissanqc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. There are 5 filters and essentially, the interval is between 30 and 90 days, depending on how heavily restricted they get after the 1st 30 days.

There's some internal filter that requires annual replacement which says "This should only be performed by a licensed electrician". There 1 other filter that also requires an electrician. The other 3 just require a qualified technician.

We only found out about this after the uploader (who I've met before) kept encountering temperature errors and I believe he called AV/Nissan offering to provide some cleaning... (don't remember all the details). We were also noticing temp errors on a bunch of these units around the area. Hats off to his persistence.

 

[JeremyW]

I'm reading the filter cleaning/matenence pdf right now and all I can say is.... wow. Five filters, two of them requiring an electrician?! It's an absolutely horrible design. I've seen the Tesla Supercharging cabnets up close, it looks like they're just using a radiator/fan from the model S parts bin. Didn't see any sort of filter at all. Way better.

I'm still shaking my head over this. It boggles my mind how unnecessarily complicated Nissan's QC is.

 

[DaveEV]

I'm reading the filter cleaning/matenence pdf right now and all I can say is.... wow. Five filters, two of them requiring an electrician?! It's an absolutely horrible design. I've seen the Tesla Supercharging cabnets up close, it looks like they're just using a radiator/fan from the model S parts bin. Didn't see any sort of filter at all. Way better.

I'm still shaking my head over this. It boggles my mind how unnecessarily complicated Nissan's QC is.

Yeah - the nice thing about water cooling is that you can use a radiator and a large fan which is basically impervious to dirt buildup. The drawback is that you have coolant to deal with.

Of course, compared to 5 different filters that need frequent cleaning, water cooling seems like a big win.

The Nissan QC may be cheap up front, but the maintenance costs eat into those costs.

I'd love to see what Evoasis and eVgo think of them from that point of view.

The maintenance requirements on the stations seem to be a large reason why the stations are rather unreliable.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I'd love to see what Evoasis and eVgo think of them from that point of view.

The maintenance requirements on the stations seem to be a large reason why the stations are rather unreliable.

Failure rate is the biggest issue. If these "free" chargers need to be replaced within a few years, they weren't really "free". Just a delayed expense.

 

[DaveEV]

Failure rate is the biggest issue. If these "free" chargers need to be replaced within a few years, they weren't really "free". Just a delayed expense.

So they actually fail quite often that require parts replacements outside of the thermal issues caused by dirty filters? So I guess they're somewhere between the SJC Fuji unit (which appears to be quite reliable) and Blinks in terms of reliability.

Hopefully by the time you need to replace it they either figure out the reliability issues or someone actually comes out with an affordable, reliable QC station. This isn't rocket science, but it sure seems that right now you can only choose from two of either full-power, cheap or reliable.

At the very least, it's good you have two of these stations there, that should increase reliability of the location significantly. And worst case if you do have to replace them, a delayed expense isn't all that bad.