Canceled reservation after almost two years of frustration

[surfingslovak]

It's pretty clear that some additional work will need to be done to make charging smarter. Not that difficult - most of the time you want the car to charge as slow as possible while fitting into the lowest priced TOU time frames. Failing that, at least the car needs to be aware of TOU time frames and better randomize charging within that time frame to minimize spikes in demand.

Dave, great analysis. Enjoyed reading it. I sent Nate a PM yesterday indicating that Nissan likely went with the smaller charger for two reasons: lower cost and the need to placate utilities. This was based on the discussion we had in an earlier thread.

 

[walterbays]

Companies like PG&E really need to start focusing on how to divert these demands into the off-peak (with appropriate stagger)...

Staggering of start times would naturally occur if most people were setting the Leaf's end time to coincide with the end of super off-peak. Even with all the cars attempting to finish at, say, 5am, since they'd start with various states of charge the start times would be nicely staggered. This would be better for the grid. It could be better for batteries, reducing the amount of time they sat at 100% charge or even 80% charge. It could be better for range in winter if late charging warmed the battery closer to departure time.

"All" that would be necessary is totally reliable EVSE's. The great majority of time I've charged outside of super off-peak has been when I needed to be certain to have a charged car the next morning, and so I needed to initiate charging before I went to bed and make sure that the Blink would work. If firmware version 2.0 and/or new Wifi hardware makes the Blinks completely reliable then I'd expect the Leaf charging load to spread out more and more.

 

[planet4ever]

"All" that would be necessary is totally reliable EVSE's. The great majority of time I've charged outside of super off-peak has been when I needed to be certain to have a charged car the next morning, and so I needed to initiate charging before I went to bed and make sure that the Blink would work.

I've never had a moment's concern with Phil's EVSE upgrade.

By the way, terminology varies among utilities. PG&E has peak, partial-peak, and off-peak. it has no super-off-peak.

Ray

 

[lpickup]

It's pretty clear that some additional work will need to be done to make charging smarter. Not that difficult - most of the time you want the car to charge as slow as possible while fitting into the lowest priced TOU time frames. Failing that, at least the car needs to be aware of TOU time frames and better randomize charging within that time frame to minimize spikes in demand.

My AC compressor has a device on it that the utility can remotely ping to shut it off for 15 minutes in order to manage peak demand. In all likelihood I'm probably not going to even notice. I can't remember the exact parameters, but there are additional rules for how many times in a given time period (i.e. day) they can do this, and I am allowed to override a certain number of times per year (in case I REALLY need A/C on continuously). By doing this once an hour, for example, they could reduce their peak demand by 25%.

Issues with not handling power interruptions (timer issues and "EV system warning" issues for example) in the LEAF aside (these would also have to be addressed), as well as slightly longer charging times "leaking out" into higher TOU rates, it seems like we'll need to get to this point before EVs get too prevalent. The "smart" charging station could adjust its charging time estimates assuming a certain duty cycle (i.e. you'll only get 45 minutes out of every hour, so 75% duty cycle). Potentially the utility could even predict expected duty cycles based on parameters such as day of week, time of year, etc. and feed that info to smart charging stations to adjust their calculations. Looking even further out, the communication could be two-way so that when you plug your car in, the charging station lets the utility know you will be charging that night and they can use that information in their prediction algorithms.

Additionally I would like a localized "smart home" capability so my AC, charging station (and maybe big appliances) could lock each other out. Right now my rate plan is not TOU or demand based at all, but one attractive rate plan looks good except that a significant portion of the monthly bill is based on your peak demand so it would be great to be able to have my big consumers be able to manage this automatically.

Wow, I guess I got way off topic, but this was a very interesting post!

 

[smkettner]

Anyway, I'll revisit the Leaf at the end of the year if it still interests me.

Then you can be the first on the block with a 6.6kW charger in a 2013 LEAF.

Along with the next price increase

 

[nater]

The best way to handle amp draw is to allow the driver to select the number of amps he needs. Only Tesla and the eBox allow this, as far as I know.

Also, a smart EVSE that could momentarily interrupt the charge to help the grid, or even go the other way; that is, vehicle to grid, would be ideal.

It would also be nice to drop the 120v amp draw all the way down to a bare minimum, like 8 amps or so, when you are on a shared circuit with unknown load. Example: The car lot by the airport said I could park an EV up by their building and plug into the outlet shared with the pepsi machine. I'll be gone a week, so I mostly care about not blowing the breaker.

Nate

 

[LEAFfan]

quick charging is a pipe dream. The grid will never handle the load, also, it damages the battery.
Nate

Well, then I guess I'm dreaming because I've been using DCQC for several months. I would love to see your 'hard evidence' that QCing damages the battery pack. I've been posting on here about QCing since June, but until Mark Perry gave his 'speech' lately, hardly anyone wanted to believe what I was telling them. I was told in June by Brendan Jones that he was here in AZ when Nissan tested these batteries in the extreme HEAT and found that QCing them up to 6 times a day does NOT degrade or damage the battery pack any more than L2 charging. After extensive testing to simulate 8 years/100,000 miles of use, there was NO difference in battery capacity loss compared to using L2 charging for the same period of time. There were also techs there at that time who are still working for ECOtality that witnessed and heard exactly the same info about the desert testing. If QCing would damage the battery pack, I don't believe the Japanese would be using their LEAFs as taxis since they QC many times a day. So, try not to believe everything you read in the manual (many errors due to different languages) and what you may hear from uninformed people.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Except, all that high heat desert QC testing was done AFTER 10,000 cars were delivered.

Not exactly good quality assurance, particularly for new technology.

But, like has been echoed many times in this thread, QC as often as you like, as long as the battery is not in the red temp zone (per Nissan Quality Assurance dude, Dec 3, 2011).

 

[travisty]

Then, after doing some digging, I finally discover that I could call and get a waiver from Nissan, but not before ordering is opened up to the public.

..... I got my waiver a week before I ordered. I had already installed a GE Wattstation (7.2 kwh) for future EVs with faster charging. Though I havn't had an issue with the 3.3 kwh cap since I got mine.

 

[GRA]

...Demand with just 442 cars in the project can spike to 824 kW immediately at midnight (about half the cars started charging). Now imagine that each of these cars had the equivalent of a Tesla HPC and could charge at 240V70A / 17 kW or about 4x faster. ... And this ignores the neighborhood effects of a big load since most owners are going to want to install a charger with the most capacity available to take advantage of fast charging at home when needed. A lot more neighborhood transformers will have to be upgraded to handle the load....

And I wonder if this isn't a major reason why Nissan decided to go with 3.3kW charging -- wanting the LEAF to be a good neighbor and staying as far away from infrastructure issues as possible during the crucial early-adoption phase.

At some point these constraints will become important. Companies like PG&E really need to start focusing on how to divert these demands into the off-peak (with appropriate stagger) with attractive policies, instead of making Time of Use into some kind of booby-trapped Vision Quest. Their "cost recovery" concept is beyond myopic.

Yeah, I've thought that might have been the reason for the 3.3 kW charger also. In addition to battery exchange, Better Place is all about smart management of EV charging so neighborhood transformers don't start blowing everywhere:

http://www.betterplace.com/the-solution-ev-network-software" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Yeah, I've thought that might have been the reason for the 3.3 kW charger also.

I thought the same but was quickly corrected by others here who are much smarter than I am, who say that it was done for cost reasons and that Nissan is stupid. That said, there are a couple benefits to the lower rate as you point out, it puts less strain on the load calculation on your residential service, and that in turn results in a smaller load making its way up the rest of the distribution system.

 

[Herm]

People are still thinking in terms of refueling a conventional car.. fast. While it would be nice to have fast charging, slow charging works well overnight.. when most of our cars sit unused. Leaf is a 100 miles + city car and a 70 miles hwy car.. not really intended for long range travel.

Hopefully Nissan wont get a nasty surprise in a few years since a majority of owners charge to 100% routinely... from Blink data.

 

[surfingslovak]

Hopefully Nissan wont get a nasty surprise in a few years since a majority of owners charge to 100% routinely... from Blink data.

Yes, that is surprising, isn't it? I saw a nice plot on the Tesla forum a while ago. It was interesting to see just how much time some cars spend sitting with either 80% or 100% charge over the course of 2-3 years. One would expect that this will add up and affect the battery in the long run.

 

[EVDRIVER]

The reason I put off buying an orphan was because Nissan promised again and again that they would make it to Colorado before the end of 2011. By the time it became apparent they would not, my only choice was to try to chase down an orphan. Two others here in Colorado gave up sooner than I did and changed their address in the Nissan database and Nissan let them order. Basically, Nissan strung me along. Hey, I let them do it, so it's partly my fault for having so much faith.

On a side note, quick charging is a pipe dream. The grid will never handle the load, also, it damages the battery. I had my RAV4 EV for 3 years, and seriously, being able to use 240v at max amperage anywhere you can find it is extremely freeing, you can drive all over the place. NONE of you have experienced what this is like. It changes the EV dynamic completely. The incremental cost to go to 6.6kw is probably under $100.

Last month I was in an eBox and we were on 0%. We plugged into a nearby 240v 70Amp circuit and brought the car almost full in about 90 minutes. (Yes, we drew 70 amps). That's a 35kwh battery. Note also the car keeps going when the battery is near death, unlike the Leaf; it's algorithm is simply to draw fewer amps at low SOC so the car is sluggish, but it WILL get you there.

Anyway, I digress. In spite of all this, I was still willing to buy a car. LAST month.


And careful who you call whiner. You have no idea of my history and what I've done for EVs. I won't go into detail since I don't think it's relevant to my point about Nissan's botched Colorado launch. All I ever wanted was an honest timeline, that's all, and they refused to give it to me.

Anyway, I'll revisit the Leaf at the end of the year if it still interests me.

Nate

You knew about the charger so no surprise. Yes, Nissan was told this was a mistake and they did it anyway. To say no one knows what charging at 30A is like is a bit misguided since I have been charging above that level for many years and know exactly what it is like and what the benefits are. You can't compare and ebox charger as it is based on ACP drive and uses the motor as part of the charger and remains very expensive. Your estimate to go to 6.6kw is close but there needs to be larger harnesses on both pack and J side and other costs. $100-$200 for an auto maker is a few million for Nissan this year and about $500 more on the sticker price, however a dumb move for Nissan IMO.

 

[LEAFfan]

Except, all that high heat desert QC testing was done AFTER 10,000 cars were delivered.

Not exactly good quality assurance, particularly for new technology.

But, like has been echoed many times in this thread, QC as often as you like, as long as the battery is not in the red temp zone (per Nissan Quality Assurance dude, Dec 3, 2011).

LOL Tony...WITW did you hear that! That's sooo much FUD. The packs were tested in AZ several years ago. You mean like I've been saying since June, dude, way before this thread. ; )

 

[bradleygibson]

I've only done one L3 charge at a Nissan event with a CHAdeMO charging station hooked up to a generator. It never exceeded 20kW, so I can't say for sure what the draw will max out at. My understanding is that the CHAdeMO standard our cars use maxes out at 500V/125A or 62.5kW. I agree that a 62.5kW charge is "optimistic"--I do not doubt the car will charge more slowly than this, but without knowing the peak draw, I can only say "up to" 62.5kW.

My point was just that even if the car is limited to 48kW (2C) DCQC, that would still be most welcome, when the best we can do today maxes out at 3.3kW (0.14C).

I have the 2011, and would love it if it charged faster. I think once DCQC becomes available, this will seem like much less of a limitation, though--we'll be able to charge at up to 62.5kW on the road or 3.3kW at home.

I'm afraid you are being a bit optimistic. 62.5 kW would charge from LBW to 80% in less than 15 minutes, rather than the 30 minutes Nissan promises.

Nissan QC is rated at 2C, but the session information I found online indicates that it rarely exceeds 1.5C, and averages 1C in a typical session.

Yes, he knows what he is talking about. 2C would be 48 kW, 1C is 24 kW.

Ray

 

[surfingslovak]

My understanding is that the CHAdeMO standard our cars use maxes out at 500V/125A or 62.5kW. I agree that a 62.5kW charge is "optimistic"--I do not doubt the car will charge more slowly than this, but without knowing the peak draw, I can only say "up to" 62.5kW. My point was just that even if the car is limited to 48kW (2C) DCQC, that would still be most welcome, when the best we can do today maxes out at 3.3kW (0.14C).

The Eaton QC spec speaks a clear language: 125A @ 400 VDC or 50 kW max out of the charger. This amounts to (roughly) 2C.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Except, all that high heat desert QC testing was done AFTER 10,000 cars were delivered.

Not exactly good quality assurance, particularly for new technology.

But, like has been echoed many times in this thread, QC as often as you like, as long as the battery is not in the red temp zone (per Nissan Quality Assurance dude, Dec 3, 2011).

LOL Tony...WITW did you hear that! That's sooo much FUD. The packs were tested in AZ several years ago. You mean like I've been saying since June, dude, way before this thread. ; )

I was under the impression that the testing was completed last summer. I stand corrected if that's not the case.

 

[TonyWilliams]

The Eaton QC spec speaks a clear language: 125A @ 400 VDC or 50 kW max out of the charger.

Note the mistake on F temp in the limitations; -30C does not equal 22F

Also, I wonder if these will ever show up in Denver, with a 1000 meter altitude limitation.

 

[abasile]

Also, I wonder if these will ever show up in Denver, with a 1000 meter altitude limitation.

Interesting. 1000m isn't that high. Even El Paso, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Reno, and parts of Southern California's High Desert between LA and Las Vegas are above 1000m. I'm assuming that not all Quick Chargers have this limitation, significant here in the West.