DOH! Forgot to plug in...

[bradleygibson]

Ok, so I've had the car 6 months, and while the Blink has failed to charge on a several occasions (although not in the past 6 weeks or so, it must be said), I've never simply forgotten to plug the car in... Until now.

I guess with the dog, the baby, my wife and shuffling stuff in and out of the car, I forgot to plug the car in on Sunday night. We'd been driving around for most of the day and rolled in with two bars of charge (yep, the red ones).

The car sat around all day Monday, not plugged in, but I needed to travel from Woodinville to Bellevue, WA, a distance of 16.5mi. on Monday afternoon.

I jumped in the car and saw the two bars and 14 miles on the GOM. Crap!! (Or something like that )

I briefly debated not going, but then figured, what the heck?

I knew I wouldn't make it on the highway, so I drove on arterial streets (35-45mph) without climate control. I made it downtown, to a charging station just as '---' showed up on the GOM and my last bar disappeared. Two hours of L2 charging gave me 5 bars (!) which was plenty to run errands and get back home after my workout in Bellevue.

Other than my own absentmindedness, this experience only reinforced my belief that the GOM is really, really poor, because it can't know how the car will be driven. Very uncharacteristically, I kept the car down to a bubble or two, unless I was going uphill and/or holding up traffic by accelerating too slowly. Rather than telling me (repeatedly) that my destination was out of range, I would rather that display had the option to simply read the SOC in 1% increments. That would honestly have been much more helpful; I was just shown two bars of charge-- did I actually have 1.1 bars of charge or 2.9 bars of charge remaining in the battery?? That's a huge difference, but with the coarse graphical display of bars and the GOM all over the map, there was no way to tell!

So, just wanted to write in to make the above suggestion to Nissan, share my experience and to say that the range anxiety beast can be tamed.

Now I'm thinking about getting a T-shirt with "---" on the chest...

-Brad

 

[adric22]

I have never forgotten to plug in my car during the 9 months I've had it. I believe you can set something to have the car text you if you forget, so I've been told, but I've never had a reason to.

On the other hand, my wife ends up driving the Leaf often. She has a Prius, but to save money she will always take the Leaf if it is available and I'm not using it. She forgets to plug it in all of the time. However, it is still not a problem. My daily commute is 10 miles. I think the least amount of range I've ever started off my day with was 50 miles. So no problem there for me. I could probably go all week without charging.

I have to admit a curiosity. When will we hear the first story of a person having to call in to their job saying they can't make it because they forgot to plug in the car? It's bound to happen eventually. In my case, I have no excuse. It would have to be in turtle mode for me not to be able to make the 5 mile journey to work (where I could most likely plug it in on 120V if I asked the boss)

 

[Levenkay]

I have to admit a curiosity. When will we hear the first story of a person having to call in to their job saying they can't make it because they forgot to plug in the car? It's bound to happen eventually. In my case, I have no excuse. It would have to be in turtle mode for me not to be able to make the 5 mile journey to work (where I could most likely plug it in on 120V if I asked the boss)

It seems very natural to regard plugging the LEAF in as part of the overall process of parking the car, and so I also wouldn't expect there to be any problem with forgetting to charge. Pull into garage, register tire on chock, reset trip odo, turn car off, pop charge port, plug in. An easy habit to form.

So most of the "can't make it in to work" issues will probably come from drivers who've connected to a Blink EVSE, and are still trying to use a "have it charged in the morning" timer. I finally gave in, and configured my LEAF's timer for "start anytime, stop at 80%", so now I just add one final step to the ritual: "check to see if Blink has thrown a fit and needs restarting".

 

[tps]

I have to admit a curiosity. When will we hear the first story of a person having to call in to their job saying they can't make it because they forgot to plug in the car? It's bound to happen eventually.

Or, there's the excuse "My car won't boot" (as opposed to "My car won't start").

 

[evnow]

Do you have the plugin reminder setup ?

BTW, where did you charge ? Bellevue Sq ?

The problem I've found with charging on the go - is that the charger is rarely at a place where we are going to spend time. Couple of days went shopping to Alderwood mall - which has no chargers. Had to come back in a colder than my wife would have liked car (total 60 miles). If they had some chargers in Alderwood mall or even in Wholefoods in Redmond where we stopped on the way back, it would have been a much more comfortable drive.

We need the charger to be within a block or two of where we are going to spend time.

 

[padamson1]

Well I plugged in last night and the car responded normally (beeps and rotating lights). BUT THE CAR NEVER CHARGED.

I was in a hurry and left the garage before I noticed, so I could not diagnose exactly what happened. Fortunately I should have enough juice to get home.

Given I am using the 110 EVSE, the EVSE was probably not at fault. I'll check to see if my timer program was somehow reset when I get tonight.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

tsk tsk tsk Bradley!! ... ah just kidding. you made it!! ya didnt walk and i agree with your concerns about the less than informative GOM (are you coming the the SOC meter thing with Cathy and Tom??) could be better, but what i really get from your post;

** you knew you could make it if you wanted to and you did which means EVs can work if you choose to!

**despite the relatively new charging infrastructure which is still less than one year old, you were able to still plug in, get what you needed done done

** ya did it without burning a single drop of oil!!

 

[bradleygibson]

Do you have the plugin reminder setup ?

No, I don't have the plugin reminder set up. But as I say, I've forgotten a grand total of once in six months, I'm willing to rely on my brain a little longer... It should be easier for me to remember now, since I screwed up once.

BTW, where did you charge ? Bellevue Sq ?

I charged in the parking garage under the City Center Bellevue building (500 108th Ave NE). They have free chargers there (Blinks) but the parking is very spendy. I splurged instead of charging at Bellevue Square because it was just a couple of blocks away from where I wanted to be.

The problem I've found with charging on the go - is that the charger is rarely at a place where we are going to spend time. Couple of days went shopping to Alderwood mall - which has no chargers. Had to come back in a colder than my wife would have liked car (total 60 miles). If they had some chargers in Alderwood mall or even in Wholefoods in Redmond where we stopped on the way back, it would have been a much more comfortable drive.

Agreed. This happened to me once as well in Fremont. Google and Adobe have chargers there, but they are reserved for employees only, even after hours.

We need the charger to be within a block or two of where we are going to spend time.

Personally, I think the L2's are probably too costly and too slow to really achieve critical mass. I could be wrong, about this though, particularly if L3's remain an unfulfilled promise.

I've been saying for a while now that once they put in even one L3 somewhere in the city, this problem will effectively vanish--5 or 10 minutes on the L3 will give plenty of range, even with heat on. Even if we have to drive several miles out of the way, it would make all the difference, and alleviate the need to have so many L2's.

Well I plugged in last night and the car responded normally (beeps and rotating lights). BUT THE CAR NEVER CHARGED.

That's a new one--please keep us posted on what you find!

tsk tsk tsk Bradley!! ... ah just kidding. you made it!! ya didnt walk and i agree with your concerns about the less than informative GOM (are you coming the the SOC meter thing with Cathy and Tom??) could be better, but what i really get from your post;

Haha--yup, I thought I'd post my shame here for all to see. Regarding the buy with Cathy and Tom, I don't think I want an extra readout in the car, I'd rather have it fully integrated. Once someone puts out or leaks some documentation on how to program the Leaf, I would love to replace the current GOM display.

** you knew you could make it if you wanted to and you did which means EVs can work if you choose to!

Excatly what I mean about taming the range anxiety beast in my original post. Once you get to know the car, you can tell pretty accurately what you have to do to get where you need to go. I've hit turtle mode once stretching the limits of the car's range, but now that I know where it is, it's unlikely I'll visit the turtle again.

**despite the relatively new charging infrastructure which is still less than one year old, you were able to still plug in, get what you needed done done

In this case, yes. A situation about three weeks ago wasn't so rosy, though in Fremont. But you're right that the infrastructure is still maturing. And as I mentioned above, give me one (not outrageously priced) L3 somewhere centrally located in Seattle and I probably won't need the west side L2 network any more...

** ya did it without burning a single drop of oil!!

Amen to that. Doing my best to prove Exxon wrong. Feels great, doesn't it?

 

[OrientExpress]

I have this sign on the door between the garage and the house:

Works like a charm!

 

[lpickup]

Well I plugged in last night and the car responded normally (beeps and rotating lights). BUT THE CAR NEVER CHARGED.

I am personally very nervous that this will happen to me. It will probably take me a month or two of successful timer firings before I will feel comfortable enough with it.

 

[lpickup]

Personally, I think the L2's are probably too costly and too slow to really achieve critical mass.

I was kind of in the same frame of mind, except I think I'm coming around to thinking that for the car's intended purpose (i.e. around town, not an point A to point B highway trip) that properly placed L2's make a LOT of sense. The majority of the time I'm travelling more than just down the street to pick up some groceries, I've found that I'm going to be at my destination for at least a half hour. And I've also found that even a half hour in an L2 (if your battery is not almost full) can actually get you at least 2 bars. If L2s are placed in strategic locations that people will be spending a fair amount of time in (shopping centers, restaurants, parks, parking decks downtown) then I think it will work very well.

We have an L2 at a McDonalds in our area which makes very little sense to me, and the chargers at Nissan dealerships also don't make a lot of sense for that kind of opportunity charging, unless they are willing to shuttle you to the mall or something like that.

 

[adric22]

I was kind of in the same frame of mind, except I think I'm coming around to thinking that for the car's intended purpose (i.e. around town, not an point A to point B highway trip) that properly placed L2's make a LOT of sense. The majority of the time I'm travelling more than just down the street to pick up some groceries, I've found that I'm going to be at my destination for at least a half hour. And I've also found that even a half hour in an L2 (if your battery is not almost full) can actually get you at least 2 bars. If L2s are placed in strategic locations that people will be spending a fair amount of time in (shopping centers, restaurants, parks, parking decks downtown) then I think it will work very well.

I agree. Malls, department stores, movie theaters, etc. All good places to put L2. Even if you don't actually "need" to use them, just knowing they are there will do a great deal of good in avoiding the dreaded "range anxiety" that the general public has. If they start seeing chargers at their favorite places to go, suddenly they'll feel better about the idea of an EV. Once they buy the EV they may find that they never really needed the chargers, but if they help the cars sell, then I'm all for them.

 

[camasleaf]

Personally, I think the L2's are probably too costly and too slow to really achieve critical mass.

I was kind of in the same frame of mind, except I think I'm coming around to thinking that for the car's intended purpose (i.e. around town, not an point A to point B highway trip) that properly placed L2's make a LOT of sense. The majority of the time I'm travelling more than just down the street to pick up some groceries, I've found that I'm going to be at my destination for at least a half hour. And I've also found that even a half hour in an L2 (if your battery is not almost full) can actually get you at least 2 bars. If L2s are placed in strategic locations that people will be spending a fair amount of time in (shopping centers, restaurants, parks, parking decks downtown) then I think it will work very well.

We have an L2 at a McDonalds in our area which makes very little sense to me, and the chargers at Nissan dealerships also don't make a lot of sense for that kind of opportunity charging, unless they are willing to shuttle you to the mall or something like that.

I do not agree, I am a firm QC believer. Shopping centers, restaurants, parks, parking decks downtown with L2 will work fine while the number of EVs is limited. There is no way they keep up with an increased number of EVs. In my opinion the future will have to be L2 over night at home and QC during the day, if needed.

If one QC is available on 10x10 miles square, I would wait until I get down to 10 miles, go charge for 15 minutes and be up to 60 miles range. That QC will deliver close to 50kW per hour since I believe at lower SOC the full 50kW charge is delivered. Nine chargers will conver a 900 sq miles city. Let's say the charger will be used for a total of 7 hours a day (likely the afternoon and evenings since most of us will be charged in the morning). It will deliver a total of 350 kW or about 1400 miles for 28 EVs (4 miles/kW). All nine would charge daily 252 EVs for 12600 miles. Each driver will spend 15 minutes at the charger.

Each charger will only take one parking spot (one the few valid complains I hear is that EVs take preffered parking spots).

To get the 350kW on L2 we would need 106 hours of charging or even longer if SOC is high. The same 28 EVs will each need about 3.8 hours to get the 12.5kW. If they charge for 1.9 hours at one location (that is over my max time limit for being in a mall or store), and we will all want to use them at the same times (lunch, after work hours ...) then we will need more than 28 L2 stations. The less time you charge at the more L2s are needed (up to a point, but that is far in the future). I am not sure how to calculate that but I put 40 down (it could be higher!)

So you will need 40 L2 to achieve the same charge of one QC and with the disadvantage that you can not use them as an emergency (Hold that baby honey, I will go to Kohl for 3 hours to charge the car!).

With the cost of comercial L2 at $800 and QC at $10000 the QC has a $22000 advantage, that should offset the higher installation cost.

QC only, STOP wasting tax money on public L2.

 

[adric22]

With the cost of comercial L2 at $800 and QC at $10000 the QC has a $22000 advantage, that should offset the higher installation cost.

QC only, STOP wasting tax money on public L2.

We'll just have to agree to disagree... because I want all the tax money possible spend on L2 units. Also, have you considered that only 2 vehicles even support Chademo? There are and will be EV's on the market that require L2. Mine is one of them. My Leaf SL is not equipped with QC. So it does me no good. If looking at a EV charge location from a perspective of making money, the market is much larger when you can sell your service to all EVs including PHEVs.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I think L2 should be part of the charging network because it is much cheaper to implement but st the same time without L3 its like having a car with an engine and no gas.

 

[camasleaf]

With the cost of comercial L2 at $800 and QC at $10000 the QC has a $22000 advantage, that should offset the higher installation cost.

QC only, STOP wasting tax money on public L2.

We'll just have to agree to disagree... because I want all the tax money possible spend on L2 units. Also, have you considered that only 2 vehicles even support Chademo? There are and will be EV's on the market that require L2. Mine is one of them. My Leaf SL is not equipped with QC. So it does me no good. If looking at a EV charge location from a perspective of making money, the market is much larger when you can sell your service to all EVs including PHEVs.

OK, I will change my shouting to "STOP buying cars without QC" . I am sorry, but without QC I do not see EVs becoming very popular. And I do want as many EVs on the road as possible as soon as possible.

Next month I will have SolarCity inspecting the house. My PUD power mix is 58 hydro, 32 natural gas, and 9.5 nuclear, but solar will be better.

 

[bradleygibson]

Haha--that's perfect!

I have this sign on the door between the garage and the house:

Works like a charm!

 

[bradleygibson]

Personally, I think the L2's are probably too costly and too slow to really achieve critical mass.

I was kind of in the same frame of mind, except I think I'm coming around to thinking that for the car's intended purpose (i.e. around town, not an point A to point B highway trip) that properly placed L2's make a LOT of sense. The majority of the time I'm travelling more than just down the street to pick up some groceries, I've found that I'm going to be at my destination for at least a half hour. And I've also found that even a half hour in an L2 (if your battery is not almost full) can actually get you at least 2 bars. If L2s are placed in strategic locations that people will be spending a fair amount of time in (shopping centers, restaurants, parks, parking decks downtown) then I think it will work very well.

We have an L2 at a McDonalds in our area which makes very little sense to me, and the chargers at Nissan dealerships also don't make a lot of sense for that kind of opportunity charging, unless they are willing to shuttle you to the mall or something like that.

I do not agree, I am a firm QC believer. Shopping centers, restaurants, parks, parking decks downtown with L2 will work fine while the number of EVs is limited. There is no way they keep up with an increased number of EVs. In my opinion the future will have to be L2 over night at home and QC during the day, if needed.

If one QC is available on 10x10 miles square, I would wait until I get down to 10 miles, go charge for 15 minutes and be up to 60 miles range. That QC will deliver close to 50kW per hour since I believe at lower SOC the full 50kW charge is delivered. Nine chargers will conver a 900 sq miles city. Let's say the charger will be used for a total of 7 hours a day (likely the afternoon and evenings since most of us will be charged in the morning). It will deliver a total of 350 kW or about 1400 miles for 28 EVs (4 miles/kW). All nine would charge daily 252 EVs for 12600 miles. Each driver will spend 15 minutes at the charger.

lpickup, you may be right, but I find it's a relatively rare occasion that I need a top-up charge when I'm using the car for it's "intended purpose" of driving around town.

For longer trips, I find myself in agreement with camasleaf, it's the L3's that will make this a realistic and practical use of these vehicles. Shuttling people around while their cars charge will only make the EV experience more complex and expensive--I can't see that working either for dealerships or for most EV owners.

have you considered that only 2 vehicles even support Chademo?

My understanding is that the requirement for the L3's to be installed in WA is for them to be "upgradeable" to the emerging DC charging alternative. Even without this, whenever the SAE DC charging standard is ready for prime time, we'll be fine using some form of adapter, much as Tesla vehicles do today. As much as I hate the Beta vs. VHS wars revisited, I see this as a part of what it means to be an early adopter.

Even if you don't actually "need" to use them, just knowing they are there will do a great deal of good in avoiding the dreaded "range anxiety" that the general public has. If they start seeing chargers at their favorite places to go, suddenly they'll feel better about the idea of an EV. Once they buy the EV they may find that they never really needed the chargers, but if they help the cars sell, then I'm all for them.

As for installing L2's for "peace of mind", it's true that we would all like to see them as EV owners, but I don't think that more L2's will truly help the public's range anxiety much, once the public understands they must wait for hours for a charge--people will still feel effectively stranded. Knowing that a few miles drive would get them to a L3 with a several minute charge is very much like the gas station model that the general public is already used to.

Ultimately, installed L2's have to make good business sense for those businesses installing them, peace of mind or no for EV drivers. I just don't see dozens or hundreds of occasionally used L2 chargers in every city to be a viable business model. As an EV owner, I would be delighted to be wrong about this, but I am concerned that overinvesting in L2 infrastructure could come back to haunt the EV industry that we all want to see mature and thrive.

-Brad

 

[planet4ever]

For longer trips, I find myself in agreement with camasleaf, it's the L3's that will make this a realistic and practical use of these vehicles.

Maybe we need to define "longer trips". If you are talking about driving, say, 50 to 70 miles to some place you are only going to spend an hour or so at, then return home, QC would make a lot of sense. IF you could count on one very close to your destination and IF you could depend on it not being in use. But that seems like a very restrictive case, and one that would require a lot of very expensive QC chargers to cover it.

If you are talking about driving 300 miles in a day on a vacation, QC makes no sense at all to me. You would be stopping at least five times during the day's trip for half an hour each time (assuming you never had to wait for a charger), even if you held your speed down to 60 or so. Turning a five hour drive into a seven and a half hour drive does not meet my test of "realistic and practical".

Ray

P.S. In case you doubt my numbers, a 25-30 minute charge takes you from LBW = 16% charge to 80% charge. That's 64% of the usable battery capacity. Tony's chart shows 82 miles at 60 mph, full to empty, so 0.64 x 82 = 52.5 miles.

 

[lpickup]

lpickup, you may be right, but I find it's a relatively rare occasion that I need a top-up charge when I'm using the car for it's "intended purpose" of driving around town.

Maybe it's related to the geography in my area in that things are pretty spread out, but a typical scenario I've experienced is this: my wife does her 30 mile commute to work in the LEAF and then after that we need to make another 30 to 40 mile round trip to take my son to a bowling match. Or like happened the other night, my wife did her commute but had to work late (otherwise I would've been able to get 2 hours of charging at home) and I wanted to do some Christmas shopping that night, spending about 2 hours at one shopping center and 1 at another with maybe a 20-25 mile total trip. Or, every 2 weeks when I travel a 70 mile round trip to donate platelets, and we want to use the car for errands or taking the kids somewhere when I get back. Or, last weekend when this was our schedule:
15 mile round trip to take my son to bowling league, followed by a 70 mile loop to a different bowling center for team practice (yes, we spend a lot of time at bowling centers) then to my sister's house for an early Christmas celebration then to a basketball game and then back home.

I've had the LEAF less than 2 weeks now, but already have experienced all 4 of these situations. They are all right at or right over the current range of what I've been getting with it (or comfortable trying to achieve) without a charge somewhere in the middle. Additionally there have been opportunities mid-route where the car is just sitting there for 1-2 hours (or more) in the parking lot when an L2 charge for that time would have easily made the difference.

I'm not sure why the debate has to be L2 OR L3. There are occasions where either one would be appropriate. I don't think we necessarily have to exclude one to get the other.

To respond to an earlier comment though, the case against L2s is that once EVs are pervasive, finding open charging stations (due to the longer time a car will be connected) will be difficult. As much as I would like to see that scenario, unfortunately I think we are quite a ways off from that reality. Let's not put the cart before the horse. But as has been suggested before, if charging stations are put in more remote areas of parking lots, most people would think twice about giving up the "better", closer spot if they didn't really "need" the charge. And I'm not sure about the technical feasibility of this, but I can't help but look at light poles in most parking lots. You've already got power running to them, there are access panels in each one that may be able to be retrofitted, and at peak hours the lights are off anyway. There might be a fairly low-cost alternative right in front of us.

As for the L3 situation and the argument that a limited number of L3s would suffice to service a larger geographical area, I have to ask why the same concern about being overrun with EVs is not present in that argument? Here's the problem scenario as I see it: you arrive at an L3 station to get your QC, expecting to be in and out in 15 minutes, but there are 3 cars ahead of you in line, and one of them is almost empty and will insist on fully charging (and if it's cold and you believe the owner's manual, that may take up to 90 minutes!) So suddenly you are there for an hour anyway.