Multi-EV owners' acquired wisdom

[MikeD]

I only have one Leaf, but am interested in what owners with more than one EV have learned about their experience that may be of particular value to single EV owners thinking about getting a second...

Thanks!

 

[adric22]

I only have one Leaf, but am interested in what owners with more than one EV have learned about their experience that may be of particular value to single EV owners thinking about getting a second...

Hmm.. Only thing I can think of is to make sure you have adequate charging for two vehicles simultaneously. In our garage we have two wall mounted EVSE, one is a 240V and the other a 120V. Usually whichever car needs the charge the most gets the 240V.

I suppose you might also want to consider the second EV being some sort of plug-in hybrid. That has worked out well for us with a Leaf and Volt. That way we always have one car that can make the trip no matter where we need to go.

 

[MikeD]

adric22: May I ask you to speculate on your situation if you had two 16a 240v EVSEs instead?

 

[camasleaf]

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14894" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Make sure the cables are long enough. We were fine for over one year, but if it can happen ... it will happen. We were fine with only the Blink, but one of the cars stayed at 80% all night. We have no TOU on electricity.

 

[epic]

we have the cmax energI & the leaf.Problem is after all electric ,you don't want to pay the gas to drive your ice car.We only have the 2-factory 110v chargers.Have had no issues.

 

[mwalsh]

Your wife doesn't drive as far daily as she thinks she does.

Only having one L2 charing option is not as convenient as you hoped it might be.

The LEAF is still the best affordable EV out there (except for that darn battery pack thing).

 

[adric22]

adric22: May I ask you to speculate on your situation if you had two 16a 240v EVSEs instead?

I'm sure we'd be able to get along just fine with that arrangement.

 

[rumpole]

Your wife doesn't drive as far daily as she thinks she does.

True, but I've definitely noticed that the Leaf tends to get used much more in our family, thereby putting miles on it faster. It has become the default go-to car for every trip. Only if I can't use the Leaf, either because my wife is using it or wants it later, or the destination is too far, will I use our '04 Honda Civic Hybrid, which gets mid 40's mpg.

And, I tend to drive it on more trips, since, at 3 cents/mile, I think nothing of running here or there for this or that errand, while before I would have had to decide if a trip was "worth it". Yes, my time is worth something, too, I'm just noting how the Leaf has changed how we use our cars, and what we're using them for.

 

[lion]

Instead of getting 2 EVSEs, I would look at getting one which has 2 J1772 plugs (but charging only 1 at a time, so it can ). I know some commercial units support this, not sure if there are residential units on the market which support this.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Hmm.. Only thing I can think of is to make sure you have adequate charging for two vehicles simultaneously. In our garage we have two wall mounted EVSE, one is a 240V and the other a 120V. Usually whichever car needs the charge the most gets the 240V.

We did the same thing, except for a little bit of playing musical cords it does what we need it to.

FYI the Volt can get by better on 120v than the Leaf (assuming both come home near empty) from the standpoint the Volt holds less, about 10kWh, so as long as it's plugged in by 9pm it's ready to go by 7am. You pretty much need the 240v on the Leaf unless you are only driving short distances.

 

[cgaydos]

We have 2 LEAFs, 2 older ICE cars, and 5 drivers, so we have some experience with the multi-EV thing. The cars are shared in a "pool" with the keys available on hooks in the garage. To distinguish the LEAF keys from each other we use color-coded key rings. the LEAFs are constantly in use, while the ICE cars may get used 4x weekly combined (I would dearly love to reduce to 3 cars but logistically can't make it work just yet).

We do not have regular 8-to-5 style commutes - parents work from home offices when not on the road while the kids have various classes and activities at different times in the week, so schedules vary a lot. To keep things simple both LEAFs are configured to charge to 80% whenever plugged in. If more range *may* be needed the driver uses the timer-off button shortly before departure to charge to 100%.

The challenge is mainly coordinating the various trips and chargers (we have one level 2 unit) so that longer trips use the LEAFs and the LEAFs are charged for next use. I've got an order ready to go for the EVSEupgrade once I get time to install the 220V circuit in the garage and that will help. We also sometimes have had discussions about which LEAF to use for a given trip - the 2012 is the cold weather warrior with snow tires, but those reduce range relative to the 2011 LEAF. In the summer the 2012 has more slightly more range because, although it has fewer miles the 2011 was a dealer demo in the heat of Texas and as a result has a bit more battery degradation. When range is not a factor we tend to use the 2012 more because it is on a 15k mile/year lease and we want to return it at the end of the lease with exactly 30k miles.

One constant is that everyone prefers to drive the LEAFs so when there is competition the tie-breaker is who will drive the most miles in the EV.

 

[laalan]

Having gone from one LEAF to Two Leaf's and then to one LEAF and a Tesla, it was cost effective with a very quick payback to put in a second meter from Southern California Edison and get TOU EV rates of $.11 per KWH. About an 8 month payback