daniel said:
TimeHorse said:
... Nissan is just following the rules about charging and trying, all be it rather unsuccessfully, to make the EVSE installation as painless as possible for its customers.
Painless? By contracting with a band of baldfaced criminals who charge five times what an installation is worth???
As far as "most people don't have an RV plug," that plug can be installed by any local electrician for less than a tenth of what AV is charging people for an EVSE which serves no real purpose.
And I don't think the "standards" for an EVSE would apply for a car that simply does not use an EVSE. All you really need to do is require the the use of a GFI. And a GFI should be required for any outlet in a garage anyway.
Daniel Daniel Daniel. Yes, you are very smart. And actually, I agree with you in hindsight. Nissan has never made an EV of any substance before and the J1772 standard is fairly new. I don't agree with it; you don't agree with it, but that's the way it is. Yes, Nissan could have fought the industry trade group to which it belongs in court. Sure, they could have quagmired themselves in years of litigation to save us all the trouble of going through all this J1772 compatibility issues, in addition to building up buzz and making sure the engineering is sound for all the other areas of the car beyond its charging. It could have spent a year or 2 trying to get this overturned. And meanwhile, another manufacturer who didn't want to make waves and just accepted the J1772 standard is first to market and steals Nissan's thunder.
As for AV, I am lucky enough never to have dealt with them and because I am a December order I have every intention to have the electrical work done before they even try to contact me to schedule an assessment. Thanks to people like you and this forum I know better than to deal with this company. Now, all we need is a time machine and go back to Nissan when they first were facing the charging issue and signing contracts with AV to explain to them this is a mistake. Yes, there were warning signs even then: military-only contracts with no experience with the consumer market. But here's a company again naïve about the the EV charging issues, just looking for a partner to forestall any disagreement with the industry with respect to charging. Again, look at CHAdeMo. It's a risk. The industry may end up not ratifying it. But sometimes if you want to be first risks need to be taken. Unfortunately, it turns out AV is a crap company when it comes to direct-to-the-consumer sales and now we're stuck with them. Or at least we would be if Nissan didn't set up a waver program, but it did. Short of breaching their contract with AV, I think this is about all they can do. It was a risk Nissan took; it failed; we suffer. Blame Nissan for choosing AV, but remember they didn't then know all that we know now. Personally, though, I with Nissan could break their contract with AV; maybe sign one with Leviton instead. But I also wish I could have ordered my LEAF in August, or September, or October or November but we can't always get what we want, now can we?
And for the record, I personally think the
right approach is to standardize on NEMA 6-50P, with interlocking connectors to keep them safe but with some kind of detachment fail-safe to keep the wire from ripping if the car starts to roll away while charging. I like the Pilot signal of the J1772 but yes, it would be a lot easier if we could just plug into a NEMA 6-50P and even better if we could charge at it, instead of about 1/3 of it.
And all that said, it's not just this AV contract that we have to hold Nissan accountable for: there's the opaque RAQ schedule, the problems with eTec, the incredible disappearing Heated Seats and conspicuously absent Cold Weather package. There's the engineering issues of weight and battery capacity and aerodynamics. There's the mysteries of Residual value and leasing options and of course making 36 states wait nearly a year to get the car, especially New Mexico, between to initial states, Pennsylvania just north of a third tier, and Massachusetts just because we don't have enough commonwealths in this roll-out. The number of Nissan flubs is to many for me to even enumerate all of them. Not to mention how greedy AV has turned out to be. But as far as their choice of contracting AV and the J1772, I personally have to cut them some slack. There are a lot of reasons to hate Nissan and AV, but those I just don't think it worth the time.
I just look forward to the day in November when I have my TOU installed, my #6 Gauge wire run and my NEMA 6-50P mounted in my garage thanks to a local contractor with a local service warranty for longer than AV would have ever certified.
