Looking at certified pre-owned 2015 Leaf

[Charviolon]

My Leaf has a 6kW charger on board. Can you be brand-specific about some home-based or portable chargers that would install at least 20-22 miles worth of charge per hour, similar to what the commercial ChargePoint Level 2 chargers do for me? Does the type of 240v outlet play a part in this? If so, then what kind of installation should I request from my electrician? Thanks!

 

[goldbrick]

W (watts) = V (voltage) * A (amps). To get the fastest charging you want as many W as possible so you need to maximize both V and A. For a typical residence, this means a 240V circuit which will require a 27.5A rating to yield the 6.6kW for the Leaf charger.

That should be enough information for your electrician but there are several more considerations to keep in mind. This should be a dedicated circuit (breaker, wiring and receptacle are used for EVSE only). Continuous loads like an EVSE can only use 80% of the rated amperage of the breaker so you should use a 40A/240V breaker. The most common 240V receptacles are 30A or 50A and since 30A is too small (due to 80% rule) you should install a 240V/50A receptacle. Also, the installed receptacle needs to match the EVSE cord or you can 'hard-wire' the EVSE which means it doesn't use a receptacle but has its wires permanently attached.

 

[GerryAZ]

If you want maximum charge rate at home, you need a charging unit (EVSE for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) that is rated at 240 volts and a minimum of 30 amperes. A 30- or 32-ampere unit will require a 40-ampere branch circuit. Higher capacity units require larger branch circuits, but will not charge LEAFs any faster so they are only beneficial if you have a car such as certain Tesla models that can take more input current.

 

[alozzy]

@Charviolon

You asked:

Before I consult with the electrician, what is a solid, inexpensive way of doing Level 2 charging at home? A portable apparatus would be quite handy, as I could charge at RV sites or similar places that have 240v plugs as well as at my home 240v source. An acquaintance described an adapter to his Volt's 120v charger that enables him to do Level 2 charging at his house. Is there similar equipment in the Leaf world?

Given your desire to charge at RV sites, I would recommend the Zencar 32A portable EVSE. It will let you charge at both 120V and 240V supply voltages and will also let you set the amperage to match the supply and receptacle...

With my Zencar EVSE, I can charge using:

• 120V @ 12A when plugged into a regular outlet
• 120V @ 24A when plugged into an older TT30 receptacle at RV campgrounds
• 240V @ 24A when plugged into a NEMA 14-30R (think dryer outlet)
• 240V @ 32A when plugged into a NEMA 14-50R (think electric range outlet)

I have a single adapter cable and some gender changing plugs to make the above possible, all with the Zencar. I saved a bit of money on my home wiring costs by installing a NEMA 14-30R (dryer outlet), as that gives me 240V @ 24A charging (5.76 kW, 90% of full speed is good enough for me). You could ask Zencar to give you a 26A setting, as that would still be pretty safe on a 30A circuit and give you a 95% charging rate. I decided to be more cautious...

You also asked:

I have noticed from Level 2 commercial chargers in my area that I am getting at least 20 miles of range per hour of charging; the most recent one from today of slightly greater than one hour's charge from a commercial ChargePoint unit yielded 25 miles of charge and added 7.261 kWh to the battery. Will any home unit or portable unit such as an EVSE Upgrade to my included-with-purchase EVSE plugged into a 240 volt outlet provide as much charge/range to the car as these commercial chargers?

Most L2 public chargers will provide full rate charging on a LEAF. In other words, they'll add 6.6 kWh of energy to the battery pack after an hour of charging at full rate. Same goes for an L2 EVSE that you purchase for home, unless you use an amperage setting that's lower than 27A, or buy an EVSE that maxes out at 240V @ 16A (ie Duosida portable EVSEs, which charge at only 58% of full rate).

 

[Charviolon]

This is very helpful - thanks! My electrician friend will be by tomorrow morning, and your suggestions will help guide my discussion.

Does anyone ever hear a clicking sound when he/she brakes or resumes accelerating? This does not appear normal, and I demonstrated that to the Leaf technician at the local Nissan dealership. He thought the brake pads were moving around or something. My salesman and I noticed that weeks before when I was test driving the car, and I would hope that any repairs would be covered under the CPO.

The number suggesting the current range of miles left on the car - GMO, right? - seems really weird at times. Yesterday, it read 19 miles when I hooked it up to the commercial charger for an hour. ChargePoint said I added 21 miles, so I expected to see a reading of around 40. Instead, it read 60! Where did that come from? It seemed to exaggerate before on previous charges, but not this much. Of course, at other times, the number just falls off by 2-4 miles spontaneously, for no apparent reason. What exactly is going on here? Thanks.

 

[goldbrick]

The range display you are referring to has been labeled as the GOM (Guess O' Meter). It is not very accurate as you have found out. While no one here is privy to the coding that generates that number you can assume it is some sort of extrapolation of remaining range based on the last X miles of driving and remaining charge. So if you just came down a big hill and used very little energy, it will predict that you have lots of miles left since the previous energy usage was low. On the other hand, at the top of a long hill, it will show very little range since the previous distance covered used a lot of energy. And so on.

A much better gauge of your remaining range can be determined by selecting the remaining charge (in %). Then you can use your own knowledge of your route, speed, AC/heat use etc to estimate how far you have left to go.

 

[WetEV]

On the other hand, at the top of a long hill, it will show very little range since the previous distance covered used a lot of energy.

I drove to Hurricane Ridge from Sequim, WA. Near sea level to 5000 feet. At the top, I had 22% left and the GOM suggested 9 miles left. I had 40 miles to get back to the bed and breakfast we were staying at, with charging. No problem, after the descent into Port Angeles, WA, I had added 19% and the GOM after driving more than 18 miles was suggesting I could drive 59 miles.

A much better gauge of your remaining range can be determined by selecting the remaining charge (in %). Then you can use your own knowledge of your route, speed, AC/heat use etc to estimate how far you have left to go.

+1

 

[jlv]

ChargePoint said I added 21 miles

As noted above, you can't believe the GOM, because how it estimates range is known to be screwy.

But you can't believe ChargePoint, either. The EVSE added some number of kWh to your battery. ChargePoint takes that number and multiples it by some estimated efficiency (mi/kWh) which probably has no relationship to what you actually get in your car. As an analogy, think of it going to a gas station and pumping 5 gallons of gas into an ICEV, but the gas pump says it added 150 miles of range.

 

[Leaf15]

A charge to full from VLB will give you a kWh result from the meter. Some home EVSE products have metering built in, or you can use a commercial charger, e.g. ChargePoint.

At 6 miles per kWh or better, it only takes about 16 kWh to travel 100 miles so that is no proof that LeafSpy is reporting correctly. Of course you may not want to know, which is fine too. Just beware that you may be in for a surprise come winter if you live in a 4 season climate.

Just got an opportunity to get some stats on my battery today:

Assumptions:
100% = 21.6 KWH Assuming 10% safety buffer (5% off top and bottom of 24 KWH total advertised capacity)
1% = 0.216 KWH

Conditions:
VLB warning < 8m (1.9 KWH), remaining ~2m downhill with coasting regen ~ estimating ~1.5 KWH left before charging started. I let it sit for 3 hours for outside temp to come down (got car covered by the shade) and use it as an opportunity to rebalance cells at low voltage.

Result:
JuiceBox-garage | 8/5/2018 4:45:09 PM | 8/5/2018 8:34:42 PM | 03:49:33 | 20.005
My charger is 93% efficient and reports the amount of energy received by the car, not including its own inefficiencies into reports.
Total charged: 20.005 KWH
Total capacity: 20.005 + 1.5 = 21.505 KWH
Capacity loss after 30K: 21.505 - 21.6 = -0.095 KWH (-0.43%)
LeaSpy reports 287 GIDs that is 102.1% rated capacity; SOC: 96.9%
Nissan estimates 2% capacity drop for every 10,000m. AFAIK, it looks like the battery is holding up exceptionally well so far.

 

[SageBrush]

I'm not sure about the capacity remaining from VLB to turtle but hopefully others will chime in.

Metered charge = charge into battery + losses.
Losses are ~ 13% during L2 charging
LeafSpy also reports Gids. One Gid = 80 Wh by default