How people use Leaf in Europe - QC as needed

[EdmondLeaf]

As much as I would love to use QC, I think I have more important thing to solve - how to protect my car from the heat. I stop driving my Leaf to see how battery temp respond to changes in temp in garage and best way to control it. My friend is driving his car and at some point we will compare notes.

QC network in Ireland is impressive as well as your driving range achievements. Wonder what are long range plans for QC maintenance and if there is any discussion about price schedule, as I understand charging (QC and L2) is still free.

 

[mxp]

Stating that chademo/much faster charging is not going to help is equal to assuming that this is most what we can get from EV, ever. This is completely different what is going on in Europe and Japan. Of course, if I only have L2, I can't think to go anywhere, just local car, and that is all. Many people wants to have one car solution and in that case ev is not an option. If we want ev to be local transportation only, than we can't expect wide adoption. For me chademo/much faster charging is a bridge solution, until next generation with higher energy density, range is on the market, but future technology will also require much faster charging. Faster system is also needed for wide adoption assuming local travel only. If instead of 2 right now, in my workplace there is 200 ev, and 100 wants to recharge in my opinion chademo will be more capable then L2.

http://www.chademo.com/04_maps.html

Wow! Look at how many Chademos are there in Europe... particularly in the UK/Ireland and France. One could easily drive across the English channel in a Leaf! (ok.... not exactly possible since there isn't a QC on each end of the channel just yet ;-) )

I am just wondering does anyone know just how many plug-in EVs (Nissan Leafs or any other) are there on the road, in say the UK, Ireland and France combined (units on the road compared to the USA market)?

 

[September]

Current number from Republic of Ireland, which covers most of island of Ireland is that between 1 Jan 2007 and 31 May 2012 there have been 117 EV registered. There seem to be ~25 Chademo, ~95 L2 (21kW A/C @240V but LEAF takes only 3.3kW here) and 12 regular sockets (240V 3kW - not available to LEAF drivers).
IMHO this is a bit of failure, because unlike US there is much stronger price incentive. LEAF costs same as similar VW Golf, Ford Focus and cheapest fuel (diesel) is 5 times more expensive than electricity for same distance - this difference means that electric mile is about .11$ cheaper than diesel mile. Home charger is free including installation.

On other hand, LEAF in Ireland is not as useful as in warm US states - tempratures over year would usually stay between 30-70f. It means that I have seen 6 bars only once due to ambient temp, after parking in full sun. For big parts of year 4 bar is typical which is great range killer combined with ultraunefficient heating.