Spotted NB101 in SJ: AV QC unit

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squirrelmeat

Active member
Joined
Oct 28, 2010
Messages
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This morning around 9:30 NB 101, North of 87 I spotted a stake-body truck with a large unit, blue/green/white, with the words:

AeroVironment
Nissan
LEAF
Charging in Minutes

Seems someone in the SF Bay area will have a QC station pretty soon. I believe Brenden of Boardwalk Nissan said they were getting one soon (I was unable to find this in the forum with a quick search).

If not Boardwalk, any ideas?

Sorry, no photos. I was more focused on merging then getting a shot.

Carl
 
squirrelmeat said:
This morning around 9:30 NB 101, North of 87 I spotted a stake-body truck with a large unit, blue/green/white, with the words:

AeroVironment
Nissan
LEAF
Charging in Minutes
Click to expand...
That'd be great if it's really for a site installation somewhere, but it may be the unit Nissan has been sending around with the Drive Tour. I remember it was a pretty big, self-contained unit for charging the show ponies. I'd be surprised if the permanent ones were very (relative term) large. But we can always hope! :)
 
It's possible that'g going to be a public QC, sure would be nice! It's also possible it's going to a LEAF who owns a sercurity firm I think in the San Jose area, and is getting a fast charger for private charging of the multiple LEAFs he has for his business. Where's the MNL Air Force to do an aerial survey and see where that's getting installed and what the access policies wil be? :)

Given EcoTotalities deployment rate, it may well be a private charger. I haven't heard much about immediate plans for dealers to get QC chargers.
 
Interesting... although I am in no rush to use a QC charging station even though I have the option to do it.
Reading the Owner's Manual on charging, it tells me that L2 charging is the recommended method - L1 - "trickle charging" they call it, is not recommended. WHY NOT? The dealer tells me the battery pack will last longer with L1 charging. Why would the manual not recommend L1 charging???
 
There are no issues with L1 charging other than the time it takes to charge. Nissan is concerned that people new to EVs or who drive over 50 miles every day will not get enough time to charge with L1, so they encourage L2 charging, though they sometimes don't give the right reasons. L1 charging should not adversely affect the battery pack life. Nissan's "Not Recommended" simply means that it takes longer to charge on 120V L1 charging versus 240V L2.

Quick Charge will slightly reduce battery pack life and it finishes at an 80% charge, not 100%. So use the Quick Charge when you need it - once a month is probably no worries, once a week will slightly reduce battery pack life (maybe 10% capacity loss over 8 years attributable to Quick Charge?) and daily Quick Charge or multiple Quick Charges every day will further reduce battery pack life.

It takes about ~30 minutes to 80% at a 480 volt quick-charge station. Starting from a depleted battery, ~7 hours at 220/240V (depending on amperage), about 20 hours at 110/120V.

Like all lithium ion batteries, the Nissan LEAF battery will experience gradual capacity loss over time. We expect the battery to last over 10 years, however, there may be a gradual loss of capacity of 30% or more depending on your driving patterns, and the effect on your battery. The battery can be used afterward for storage applications.
Click to expand...
http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/faq/list/charging#/leaf-electric-car/faq/list/charging
 
Was it just the charger unit, or did it have a generator on the truck too?

The Leaf test drive tour mobile L3s looked like this:
portable-diesel-powered-440-volt-quick-charger-for-nissan-leaf-electric-cars_100329909_l.jpg

AVchargerTruck.jpg
 
The Quick Charger is the cabinet on the end of the truck bed. About the size of a small low height refrigerator. That big blue connector? That's where the quick charger plugs into the generator to get it's power. You can see the generator cabinet starts from where the blue connector mounts all the way to the front of the truck bed. The generator looks like it occupies maybe 80% of the bed length and the quick charger, maybe 10%. That generator must be around 35 kW, probably more like 50 kW. Portable generators are around 1-2 kW and the jobsite generators that produce 5 kW are around 200 lbs. So this generator to power the Quick Charger is quite the beast!

I've seen some other quick chargers that are maybe one half to one third the size of the quick charger in this picture, closer to the size of a small end table ignoring pedestals or other mounting fixtures. They seem to run $15,000 - $30,000 in cost. I expect to see continued price and size reductions if the volume goes up to thousands across the US and other countries.
 
TEG said:
Was it just the charger unit, or did it have a generator on the truck too?
Click to expand...

Looked just like your photos, right down to the name on the truck.

I was really wishing for a QC installation.
 

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