wasting money on 30 amp units ??

[brent]

I have been reading comments, and there are lots of them, on the different features of the
30 Amp EVSE units, wire guages, circuit breakers etc.

BUT THEN, last night I was thumbing through the owner's manual and it said

"Maximum rated current 12A (ASC 120V) 18A (AC240V)"

So if it means what I think it means, we can cant use anything bigger than an 18 amp
load. EVSEs rate 25, 30, 32 or 40 amps are a waste of money ???

So is the only next step to go to DC input on the high speed plug, that is not installed
on my car. Can that plug be field retro fitted ???

 

[Smidge204]

That's kind of like saying "why put a 200-Amp service in a house when they only draw 70?" isn't it?

There's no reason an EVSE couldn't be in service for decades, spanning the service life of multiple vehicles. It's only a waste of money if you assume you will never own an EV/PHEV that can draw more than 18 amps.
=Smidge=

 

[keydiver]

Nissan has no plans to offer an upgrade to the built-in 3.3 kw charger of our 2011/2012 Leafs. But, many people on here are installing larger EV charging stations in their garage in anticipation of a 2013 Leaf or other EV in the future that will be able to charge at a faster rate. If always charging at the 3.3 kw rate is going to satisfy your EV charging needs, now and in the future, a larger/faster charger may not be necessary. Personally, I have no issues with it, as I work from home, and the car always has plenty of time to charge.

 

[TomT]

It costs very little more to build a 30 amp EVSE (which is what most home units are) so simply consider it future proofing...

And no, the QC port can't be added after the fact.

So if it means what I think it means, we can cant use anything bigger than an 18 amp
load. EVSEs rate 25, 30, 32 or 40 amps are a waste of money ???

So is the only next step to go to DC input on the high speed plug, that is not installed
on my car. Can that plug be field retro fitted ???

 

[jcobb]

Nissan has no plans to offer an upgrade to the built-in 3.3 kw charger of our 2011/2012 Leafs.

Not according to my dealer, who mentioned the 6.6 kw charger for the 2013 leafs will be available for a retrofit for "hundreds" of dollars i.e. $999 or less.

 

[brent]

I just went on the Nissan.ca web site and there is virtually no mention of the Level 3 DC charge port.

No retrofit possibility .!!!!!.. .. OMG .... that's a game changer. I'm suddenly feeling a pang of buyer's remorse.

A trip to anywhere outside of a 30-35 mile range is virtually impossible without a 3 - 4 hour recharge ?????

I can't believe Nissan could be that stupid.

 

[garygid]

Who suggested that you buy a LEAF without QC ... to save some money?

Dealers usually have less real information available than we do on this forum.

Also, some persons tend to "make up" any story that they think will help sell a car.

Generally, I do not believe any dealer information until I check it here.

Note that there are several very good dealers, but ...
even their staff can be mis-directed or mistaken.

 

[TomT]

Like many (most?) dealers, yours is misinformed and wrong.

Nissan has no plans to offer an upgrade to the built-in 3.3 kw charger of our 2011/2012 Leafs.

Not according to my dealer, who mentioned the 6.6 kw charger for the 2013 leafs will be available for a retrofit for "hundreds" of dollars i.e. $999 or less.

 

[abasile]

Some folks are opting to purchase the less-expensive LEAF "SV" model without the Quick Charge port, if they do not expect to be able to utilize Quick Charging in the foreseeable future.

If you find yourself "stuck" with a LEAF that lacks the Quick Charging port, perhaps that will give you an excuse to replace it with an improved model in a few years, if you can afford to do so. It also seems quite possible that there will exist third-party options for upgrading your car, though this is far from guaranteed.

Due to the slow rollout of Quick Charging infrastructure in California, we have not yet had the opportunity to use a Quick Charger. Hopefully that will change within the next few months, if any of the press releases and business announcements are to be believed. In the meantime, we have found ourselves using our LEAF on many occasions where it is necessary to extend the range with public charging, and/or charging at the homes of friends and family members. This past Friday and Saturday, for instance, we did over 200 miles of driving total. With some planning, it actually isn't as hard as it might seem to get very good use out of the LEAF.

 

[brent]

Gary nobody "suggested" it. This was the only car available until March/April so I grabbed it.
It is the SL, but no DC charge port. What is astonishing is that the Nissan Canada official web site
does not mention it as standard or as an option.

We are just beginning to see high speed chargers installed on the major highway between Montreal,
thruough Toronto and down to Windsor / Detroit. Half hour breaks every 80 - 100 miles I could live
with, but taking 3 days of charge / drive / charge / drive etc to go to Montreal is a bad joke.

I sure hope a solution comes up somewhere, otherwise my life with this Leaf may be shorter than planned.

 

[GeekEV]

Not to be rude, but if you're only now learning this, you really didn't do your homework. I can't believe anybody would jump on something as radically different as an electric vehicle without THOROUGHLY researching it first. Would you just, on a whim, decide to buy a helicopter and only later realize that you need both a license and a place to land it? :shock:

 

[abasile]

Gary nobody "suggested" it. This was the only car available until March/April so I grabbed it.
It is the SL, but no DC charge port. What is astonishing is that the Nissan Canada official web site
does not mention it as standard or as an option.

I am so sorry to hear this. I wonder if there might be any possibility of trading cars with another LEAF owner, for a price, who has the QC port but doesn't expect to use it.

In any case, it probably would not be realistic to count on driving 80 miles on the highway between multiple Quick Charge stops, unless you can keep your speed way down and the battery isn't cold, or you charge to 100% (more like 45+ min. of QC). A more realistic QC-to-QC distance might be 100 km / 62 miles. A total of 593 km / 367 miles (Caledon, ON to Montreal) is probably further than you'd really want to drive a LEAF in a day, even with ample QC opportunities.

 

[keydiver]

Nissan has no plans to offer an upgrade to the built-in 3.3 kw charger of our 2011/2012 Leafs.

Not according to my dealer, who mentioned the 6.6 kw charger for the 2013 leafs will be available for a retrofit for "hundreds" of dollars i.e. $999 or less.

I suppose a dealer will tell you whatever makes you feel warm and fuzzy about your purchase. But, I'm sure that the Nissan factory engineers know better. This was from the synopsis of their recent meeting in CA with some of our group:

Great meeting and a definitive no answer regarding an upgrade for a 6.6kw leaf charger on existing LEAFs. But we knew that

Oh, they had an answer... no. They mentioned all the wiring harness changes, etc.

Factories aren't usually in the business of performing upgrades to their older models, and if they did I'm sure it would be MUCH more "hundreds" of dollars. The 6.6 kw charger alone probably will list for several thousand.

 

[brent]

Not to be rude, but if you're only now learning this, you really didn't do your homework. I can't believe anybody would jump on something as radically different as an electric vehicle without THOROUGHLY researching it first. Would you just, on a whim, decide to buy a helicopter and only later realize that you need both a license and a place to land it? :shock:

Actually I thought I had done enough research. And I have owned 7 airplanes, twin engine, pressurised and amphib float planes, so
I've done my share of "looking into". I read here about the level 3 chargers and talked to the dealer about it and somehow never got to the susinct question " can I fit the level 3 recepticle into the car later " Since there is not one level 3 charger in Ontario yet, I figured there was no hurry. In fact we we have 360 Kva of power at work and I even dreamed of putting in one there, that would take credit cards, and help promote the whole EV thing by providing a service. I read about real world range, factored in cold weather, and this thing is just about perfect for my trip to work. Wrote off the volt when I saw 3 1/2" of clearance underneath. Hopeless in snow country.

Next time I'm in front of a mirror I'll be telling the guy I see there what an idiot he was.

A trade up in 2 - 3 years seems pretty likely now.

Edit: I see now Nissan Canada has put the 2012 model listings on their site and there it is. $900.00

 

[tps]

EVSEs rate 25, 30, 32 or 40 amps are a waste of money ???

I've installed the Leviton Evr-Green 160 (16A EVSE), which at $1K is not really any cheaper. However the advantage, in my case, was not having to rewire the sub-panel in the detached garage, which is currently fed from a 60A circuit. Adding a 40A EVSE breaker to that sub-panel would have been pushing it. So I guess the 20A breaker required by the Leviton saved me an expensive rewiring job. Also, the Leviton is in a rather sturdy metal box with a beefy cable to the J1772 connector; I can see why it costs what it costs. It came with a pigtail and a 6-20P. The electrician put in the breaker, ran the wire, and installed the 6-20R outlet for less than $200. In the future, a car with a bigger on-board charger would be advantageous mainly for public charging; 16A is probably fine for overnight charging for a long time to come, given my normal daily range requirements.

 

[planet4ever]

In any case, it probably would not be realistic to count on driving 80 miles on the highway between multiple Quick Charge stops, unless you can keep your speed way down and the battery isn't cold, or you charge to 100% (more like 45+ min. of QC). A more realistic QC-to-QC distance might be 100 km / 62 miles. A total of 593 km / 367 miles (Caledon, ON to Montreal) is probably further than you'd really want to drive a LEAF in a day, even with ample QC opportunities.

Even that is not realistic. A 30 minute QC fills only 2/3 of the battery. The only way you can get 100 km is if you are going slowly enough to get 150 km on a full charge, and that means no more than about 85 kph. So you would have to be be driving 1:10 and sitting 0:30 for every 100 km you travel. Net average speed: 60 kph.

Also, I don't remember seeing any real numbers for QC charging from 80% to 100%, but I seriously doubt it can be done in 15 minutes. Even L2 charging tapers off after 80%. Why would the battery tolerate a 15-20 kW QC charge when it can't handle even a 3 kW L2 charge?

Ray

 

[fooljoe]

For your first point, yes, the extra capacity of 30 amp EVSEs is wasted, but it's not necessarily a waste of money. The only real money saver out there is getting your Nissan EVSE upgraded (does this work in Canada?) from EVSEupgrade.com. Otherwise, the 16 amp EVSEs currently out there cost as much as or more than the 30 amp options. And if you're installing a new circuit either way, the additional cost of heavier gauge wire and a bigger breaker is peanuts compared to the electrician's labor. However, if you already have a <40 amp outlet available, or the extra 20 amps would require you to do a panel upgrade, then you would definitely be wasting money big time to install a 30 amp EVSE and the new circuit it requires.

For the 2nd point, I wouldn't lose any sleep about not having the QC port. In fact you probably should pat yourself on the back for saving $900. I think it's going to be quite awhile before enough of these chargers are out there to be useful, and the SAE/ChaDeMo standard battle is not helping things. As someone else pointed out, even if you had chargers available to make long trips, are you really going to want to stop for 1/2 hour or more every 50-60 miles? (realistic range for 80% charge at highway speeds) Even if there were chargers every 50 miles, I'd still take my wife's ICE or rent a car for long trips.

In short, if you plan to use the Leaf in a way that would make frequent use of the QC port, you're doing it wrong.

P.S. All hope is not lost. Read about Ingineer's work on a turbine range extender / QC trailer. He's found a way to fairly easily tap into the DC lines directly in order to hook up his trailer for range extension. It shouldn't be too big of a leap to use that same connection to hook up an external DC charger system. Those of us with ChaDeMo ports might have to end up doing something like this anyway if the SAE standard wins out.

 

[brent]

If all I want to do is go to work and return, then the present set up is OK. But today for example, a QC would have been great. Bad weather moving in so I want to go to work for a few hours. Not enough time to charge at work for the run home in the snow, slush, freezing rain or whatever the weatherguessers actually deliver. So I took the ICE at 10 to 15 times the cost.

Under normal circumstances I'd love to give it to my servicemen for short local service calls while I'm in the office. That's not going to happen on a long charge cycle at 16 amps. I'm going to hit the dealer to see if they can retrofit it. Can't hurt to ask.

Hmmmm .... snow slush and ICE. OK it sort of goes doesn't it.

 

[Boomer23]

Hmmmm .... snow slush and ICE. OK it sort of goes doesn't it.

Allow me to give you an international high-five for that bit of EV humor. :lol:

 

[fooljoe]

If all I want to do is go to work and return, then the present set up is OK. But today for example, a QC would have been great. Bad weather moving in so I want to go to work for a few hours. Not enough time to charge at work for the run home in the snow, slush, freezing rain or whatever the weatherguessers actually deliver. So I took the ICE at 10 to 15 times the cost.

If you can charge at work you're already much better off than most of the rest of us. Taking care of that problem is way more important than QC if you ask me. But damn you must have a long commute if 2 hours on L2 is not enough to get you back home. Of course there's the cold weather factor, which I must admit I'm not at all familiar with down here in SoCal (it was about 75 on Christmas.)

EDIT: Sounds like you're running your own business, hence the ability to charge at work. And it sounds like you'd want to use QC at work mostly. If that's the case the option I previously mentioned of tapping into the DC lines directly and using an external charger might actually work for you and could be cheaper than buying a CHAdeMO charger anyway. Of course there's no "off-the-shelf" solution for you, but then again the current market for CHAdeMO chargers probably isn't much better.