glennr01
Active member
We have access to a Quick Charge station in the neighborhood. Any thoughts regarding daily charging to 90% of battery capacity vs. trickle charging to 80% or 100% of battery capacity?
From my personal experience of using Blink DCFC stations, the QC charging rate slows down CONSIDERABLY between 80%-100%. The charging rates seem to come in Tiers. According to this website, the charging rate up to 50% SOC is 400-500 Wh/min, but above 50%, the charging rate goes down to about 200 Wh/minute. Compare this to L2 rate of about 50 Wh/min.EVDRIVER said:At 80% is where the heat ramps up very quickly, don't QC past 80%.
Ingineer said:Even if it's "free", and even if it doesn't harm your car, doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it all the time. Your cost to charge at home is likely negligible, and if you routinely charge at the "free" QC, it may drive up the bill for whomever is paying it, then it could end up having a steep charge imposed, or worse; removed/disabled! Not to mention that you'd be "hogging" the spot in the event other drivers show up that actually may need the QC for an extended trip.
-Phil
This has already happened once in Southern California. The site owner got a steep bill and shut the unit off!glennr01 said:why would you speculate that an unused, available free charger would somehow or other be removed, disabled or even worse, have a steep charge imposed by simply following its intended use?
davewill said:I wouldn't do it unless I had to.
1. It's harder on the battery.
2. It's less convenient than overnight charging in my own garage.
3. It's probably lots more expensive than home charging.
Now, if you need a boost, or you live in an apartment and have no other way to charge, then go for it, although I'd limit charging to 80% if possible.
Or because it brings customers in who might otherwise go elsewhere, and is thus cheaper than advertising. After all, when was the last time you parked in a shopping mall with a dirt parking lot? That's $1-$2,000/space for leveling, paving and striping, drainage, landscaping, lighting, signage etc., but given the choice between walking in the rain or in windy conditions from your car on pavement or in mud/blowing dirt, which are you going to choose?Volusiano said:This thread makes me wonder how the whole DCFC process works from the business point of view. The companies who put them at their places, what kind of subsidies do they get? What do they get out of it? How much of the electricity bill they're footing?
If Blink L2 stations already go on a charge fee model, why are still DCFC still free? I'm assuming that they're still free because the gov't is still footing the electricity bill for some further period, at which point a charge fee model will be put in place. But I doubt that all of these businesses that currently offer free charging are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They must be allowing it because somebody else (gov't?) is footing the electricity bills and not them.
Ya I think you should do it. Sounds like a great way to wear out your battery pack in the shortest amount of time possible.glennr01 said:We have access to a Quick Charge station in the neighborhood. Any thoughts regarding daily charging to 90% of battery capacity vs. trickle charging to 80% or 100% of battery capacity?
Cool it, Glenn. You are not going to make any friends by throwing undeserved nasty posts at Phil, who is probably the most valuable person on this board. He was not discourteous, and his points needed to be made. He had no way of knowing you were talking about the QC charger at Nissan HQ, but in fact that doesn't invalidate his comments. Nissan is trying to boost LEAF sales, but they may well decide at some point that giving away electricity is not a practical way to do that. If they realize that you are hitting them up for their freebie every day, they might decide that sooner rather than later. I'm sure they would much prefer to have many LEAFs use that charger occasionally rather than have a few very lucky locals hog - yes I said hog - it every day. Most of us pay for our fuel most of the time. You should too.glennr01 said:I'm sure, in real life, you are a very nice, logical man who for some reason, was perturbed by my prior post enough to build this silly scenario, but please, rest assured that if I were to charge my car at any public charging station (paid or otherwise), I would address the situation with far more courtesy then you just provided to me in your missive.Ingineer said:Even if it's "free", and even if it doesn't harm your car, doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it all the time. Your cost to charge at home is likely negligible, and if you routinely charge at the "free" QC, it may drive up the bill for whomever is paying it, then it could end up having a steep charge imposed, or worse; removed/disabled! Not to mention that you'd be "hogging" the spot in the event other drivers show up that actually may need the QC for an extended trip.
-Phil
abasile said:As Phil and Ray pointed out, I think it comes down to "need". If the QC makes it possible to complete a drive that wouldn't otherwise have been possible, then by all means use it. For instance, if there were a QC near my home, I'd sometimes use it after getting home from work with a low battery, to enable our family to turn around and go somewhere else without an excessively long wait for an L2 charge. But I would definitely not use the QC, or any other "free" charging, when my own EVSE would suffice. Also, when I do use "free" charging, I try to thank someone who is at least partially responsible for the cost of providing that service.
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