Do All Nissan Dealers Have Chargers? Do They Charge $?

[CarmineMac]

Do all Nissan dealers have chargers?
Are most available 24/7?
Do they charge you if you didn't buy the car there?

In Plattsburgh (upstate New York), the Nissan dealer used to charge for the L2, but got asked by Nissan to back off. So now, they will have you pay a 50$ fee to use the parking spot in front of the charger (charger is free, parking is not). Crazy right? Well, since they have the ONLY charger in the area, they still get people who are STUCK to pay the fee. If you get your car fixed there, and they charge it up afterwards, they charge you 50$.

They were on PlugShare, but had such horrible comments, the location has been deleted.

I placed a complaint to Nissan USA, who -NEVER FOLLOWED UP-. I think they're just too afraid to lose their only Leaf dealership in that area.

Most chargers at dealerships are placed behind closed gates after business hours, so they are not accessible 24/7 at all. Do check PlugShare.com to see if the specific charger you need access to has comments about its availability, or you might have a bad surprise.

You could file a price gouging complaint with the NY Attorney General here. There is a prerequisite for price gouging in that it has to be in response to "abnormal disruption of the market." I would argue that the recent increase in the number of vehicles that require electric "refueling" is the disruption to which this dealer is responding. If they offered the service for substantially less than $50 before the "abnormal disruption," that's price gouging.

 

[SSS]

Torre Nissan, La Quinta, CA has a new, totally free DC, and I've used it. They still have two free L2 chargers, and they keep them available 24/7.
The Redlands Nissan dealer also has a new DC for free, along with their L2.
All we need now is a DC point in the Banning/Beaumont area to connect the Palm Springs area to the rest of California.

 

[Graffi]

In November we are planning a 4-day trip from San Diego to Indio for a Square Dance Festival. This past year we did not take the Leaf due to only having L2 available for the trip. This year we plan to use the L3 in Temecula, and then the L3 in La Quinta. On the drive back we will do the same.

 

[TomT]

Based on this, the times, they may be achanging...

"We received a notice from Nissan that our first year of free charging may be coming to an end here at the dealer. They are giving us three choices. Please see the following and give me your opinion. We are on the fence, but currently leaning toward the Chargepoint option at our store (Nissan of Downtown LA). We can set a price with Chargepoint for users, but we can't with EVGO. EVGO has a better warranty of 4 years vs. 1 year with Chargepoint.

What do users of these stations prefer?
****************

First off, congratulations for participating in the Nissan DC Quick Charger Program. With your installation complete the second part of our program is to offer Dealerships the opportunity to Network these Chargers. Currently you activate your Quick Charger using an RFID key fob. Both options presented here would replace your current means of operating the Charger.

Benefits of Networking are:
1. Allows EV Drivers to find, locate and determine Quick Charger Status
2. Attracts existing and potential new Customers to your Dealership
3. Provides real time metrics on health and usage of the Quick Charger
4. Allows Dealers to monetize each Quick Charging event and create a revenue stream

These are options you have to choose from:
Option 1 – Choose NRG eVgo as your network provider. Free to the Dealer
Option 2- Choose Charge Point as your network provider. Free to the Dealer
Option 3- Choose neither and continue to provide free charging to EV drivers. Caution – should you elect to choose this option then decide later you want to be able to network this Charger, Nissan will not pay for this. Approximate cost to install at a later date is $2,000.

Free Network installation offer, over $2,000 value, expires on March 31, 2014."

 

[SSS]

Looks like a dealer by dealer policy. Postings on this forum over the past 3 years suggest inconsistency is the common characteristic among Nissan dealers.

 

[cwerdna]

Looks like a dealer by dealer policy. Postings on this forum over the past 3 years suggest inconsistency is the common characteristic among Nissan dealers.

Which is probably a side-effect of automakers being legally unable to own dealers, due to franchise laws.

Nissan, the company, can only do so much over dealers it doesn't own...

 

[plugzin]

FWIW - I really don't have a problem with dealers charging some reasonable, market based price for the use of their QC's, or even the L2's, as long as they make them avaialble 24/7, don't block them with their own EV's or ICE cars, and make repair efforts on an urgent basis. Don't force users to ask "mother may I", and then also require payment. Public, pay-to-use chargers need to be treated by the owner/operators as a true network. Imagine if Verizon or AT&T had a wireless site down for some reason. You can bet the techs get a call at 2:00 am to get going to fix it, as revenue is being lost every minute they are down. If public EVSE are not treated the same way, the EV driving public will be unable to depend on them to get what they need. Car Charging Group is an excellent example of how NOT to operate such a network. Would like to think Nissan would not tolerate such treatment by eVgo or Chargepoint. I also feel that if they are going to charge a market-based price, that the dealer chargers need to be open to all EV's, not just Nissans. And, I drive a Leaf! This business of indiviudal dealerships setting their own little, unpublished, ever changing rules is "Bravo Sierra".

 

[Graffi]

As of April 5, 2014 the L3 DCQC at the dealer (Mossy Nissan Kearny Mesa) we got our Leaf from 7 months earlier, and were told would be available for free charging, was taken over by NRG eVgo and is NO LONGER FREE. As it was, even when I was in the area, if I did not need a charge to get home I would not waste 15 to 20 minutes of my time to save $1.00 of home electricity. Now I will NEVER use it again because the only time I need public charging is if I drive out of the area so a membership to eVgo will not help and the cost of single use is more than the cost of gas for the ICE, plus the time savings by not having to charge.