What I've found about the car so far

[mwalsh]

Gudy, others who already have cars...

Are you guys as annoyed as I am about having to click "ACCEPT" on the Carwings agreement every single time the car starts? Just show me my console, darnit! Is there some way to keep this from happening?

Yes, that it kind of annoying.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

sounds like the EXACT same complaint we had with the Toyota NAV issues. if you ignore the screen will it go away on its own?

the Toyota accept screen "auto accepts" after about 3-5 seconds

 

[mwalsh]

the Toyota accept screen "auto accepts" after about 3-5 seconds

If it does, it takes much longer than 5 seconds - I drove several blocks yesterday without realizing I hadn't accepted.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

well, the earlier Priuses were like that but there was a way to dig into the unpublicized setup screens (easter eggs) to change that setting.

will have to explore that option

 

[cdub]

My honda civic hybrid does that with it's navigation screen - I think it's a legal thing.

 

[kmp647]

any news or info on how long the heater takes to provide heat?

 

[WWBD]

Instantaneous if you pre-heat! But no, I haven't messed with climate control yet.

 

[IBELEAF]

I am interested in how long it takes to heat up. My ICE car from 2007 takes about 5+ minutes at least.

 

[prberg]

I used the heater the other night when I was driving home. It was about 40 degrees outside. It took about 3 minutes for the heat to start flowing. So pretty quick I think.

An observation that I made about charging. Maybe it's me.. I still have to finish reading all the manuals. But I set a charge timer for 11pm, 80% charge, for everyday. I enabled the timer. When I got home around 11:40pm, I plugged in and the car did not start charging. I waited a few minutes and nothing. The blue lights showed that a timer was programmed but charging never started. I hit the button in the car to cancel the timer and then it started to charge right away.

Maybe this is the way the programmed it, but I don't like it. It seems to me that if you plug in the car after your timer start time, it will not begin charging until the next night! Is that right? I would think the car would be smart enough to know that it needs charge, and it should start charging around 11pm. If it's 11:01 when I plug it in, I would like for it to start charging under the parameters of the existing timer. Does that make sense?

Well maybe I missed something.. or it's better for the car to not start charging unless it's actually plugged in at the exact time the timer would begin. Just make sure you hit that 'turn off timer' button if you get home late... or your car won't be charged in the morning. Still lots to learn....

-Peter

 

[mwalsh]

I was a bit underwhelmed with the heater, if I had to be honest. I wouldn't like to rely on it from cold in the local mountains or a back east winter. Pre-heat your car...that's clearly the answer.

 

[LakeLeaf]

Gudy, others who already have cars...

Are you guys as annoyed as I am about having to click "ACCEPT" on the Carwings agreement every single time the car starts? Just show me my console, darnit! Is there some way to keep this from happening?

The same web programmers that wrote the Leaf website, and the T-shirt website put code in the Nav unit to set a cookie, forgetting that the interface isn't a web browser. :lol:

 

[Jimmydreams]

I used the heater the other night when I was driving home. It was about 40 degrees outside. It took about 3 minutes for the heat to start flowing. So pretty quick I think.

An observation that I made about charging. Maybe it's me.. I still have to finish reading all the manuals. But I set a charge timer for 11pm, 80% charge, for everyday. I enabled the timer. When I got home around 11:40pm, I plugged in and the car did not start charging. I waited a few minutes and nothing. The blue lights showed that a timer was programmed but charging never started. I hit the button in the car to cancel the timer and then it started to charge right away.

Maybe this is the way the programmed it, but I don't like it. It seems to me that if you plug in the car after your timer start time, it will not begin charging until the next night! Is that right? I would think the car would be smart enough to know that it needs charge, and it should start charging around 11pm. If it's 11:01 when I plug it in, I would like for it to start charging under the parameters of the existing timer. Does that make sense?

Well maybe I missed something.. or it's better for the car to not start charging unless it's actually plugged in at the exact time the timer would begin. Just make sure you hit that 'turn off timer' button if you get home late... or your car won't be charged in the morning. Still lots to learn....

-Peter

It seems to me that maybe the program for the charging timer doesn't sense the 'timer zone' (the 'zone' between on and off charger times) for charging, and instead simply turns charging on or off when the target time rolls around. The program might need to be tweaked to know the 'timer zone' so that if the vehicle is plugged in while inside the 'timer zone', charging would commence and continue until the next command to turn off. (shrug) Perhaps you should submit this request to Nissan and see if they can fix it?

 

[TomT]

On my BMW, setting the Nav to U.K. rather than U.S. got rid of the "lawyer nag screen." There were no negative affects in doing this.

I find not being able to enter anything while moving much more annoying. Fortunately, neither Acura nor BMW implement this.

well, the earlier Priuses were like that but there was a way to dig into the unpublicized setup screens (easter eggs) to change that setting.

will have to explore that option

 

[prberg]

I used the heater the other night when I was driving home. It was about 40 degrees outside. It took about 3 minutes for the heat to start flowing. So pretty quick I think.

An observation that I made about charging. Maybe it's me.. I still have to finish reading all the manuals. But I set a charge timer for 11pm, 80% charge, for everyday. I enabled the timer. When I got home around 11:40pm, I plugged in and the car did not start charging. I waited a few minutes and nothing. The blue lights showed that a timer was programmed but charging never started. I hit the button in the car to cancel the timer and then it started to charge right away.

Maybe this is the way the programmed it, but I don't like it. It seems to me that if you plug in the car after your timer start time, it will not begin charging until the next night! Is that right? I would think the car would be smart enough to know that it needs charge, and it should start charging around 11pm. If it's 11:01 when I plug it in, I would like for it to start charging under the parameters of the existing timer. Does that make sense?

Well maybe I missed something.. or it's better for the car to not start charging unless it's actually plugged in at the exact time the timer would begin. Just make sure you hit that 'turn off timer' button if you get home late... or your car won't be charged in the morning. Still lots to learn....

-Peter

It seems to me that maybe the program for the charging timer doesn't sense the 'timer zone' (the 'zone' between on and off charger times) for charging, and instead simply turns charging on or off when the target time rolls around. The program might need to be tweaked to know the 'timer zone' so that if the vehicle is plugged in while inside the 'timer zone', charging would commence and continue until the next command to turn off. (shrug) Perhaps you should submit this request to Nissan and see if they can fix it?

+1 That's exactly right. I would think it would be better for the car to know it's in the timer zone and start charging. Rather than like an alarm clock, where it has to roll past the time in order to activate the timer. I just called the EV customer support number (the 877-NO-GAS-EV number) and they were receptive to my comments and said they would forward them on and let me know if they found any 'solutions' in the future. Hopefully they will listen to the early drivers so the later versions will be even better. I know that GM is listening to their early Volt drivers... it makes sense to capture some of the customer feedback. Hopefully they do something with the information.

-Peter

 

[wsbca]

would think the car would be smart enough to know that it needs charge, and it should start charging around 11pm.
-Peter

It may depend on whether you set an end time for that charge time, which you can do but don't have to do. With no end time, and logic that says "oh, I'm some arbitrary amount of time past my start time, but now I'm plugged in, I better start charging", it seems your car could essentially decide on it's own to accidentally shaft you on TOU rates.

Example:

timer set for midnight start (beginning of super off peak)...no end time set, just 80% SOC, which should complete before super off peak ends IF you actually start at midnight.
you get home at 3am (which as far as the car knows should not be interpreted any differently than showing up at, say, 12:20pm) and plug in. car starts charging because it's past the start time for that un-initiated timer
5 am arrives, and you switch out of super off peak, but car happily keeps charging. Cha-ching. So maybe it doesn't allow that.
Now, if you did have an end time on the timer, the above obviously isn't relevant...but it might be worth trying (plugging in during the window of a bounded timer, not just a start timer).

On the other hand, we had a timer set for 8pm last night, plugged in our Clipper (at around 7:30), then (mistakenly, it turns out), pushed the button on the Clipper. It started flashing green (the EVSE) - I thought maybe that meant it was waiting for the car to ask for juice, but it turns out it basically disabled the clipper because the car was NOT asking for juice at the time. At 8pm, the car made a noise (chime), but did NOT start charging. It was, however, plugged in, which is a difference from your scenario. But, once we cycled the clipper (one push on the button), it did start charging, and technically it was after the timer start time. Again, since we actually had the cable in the whole time, this isn't quite the same situation...

There's also something about the dash leds blinking for 15 minutes when you exit the vehicle with a timer set...that may actually indicate a window of time during which you need to plug in for the timer to be effective?


Now that I've finished typing this non-authoritative answer, maybe somebody will have already replied with some useful info...

 

[johnr]

I used the heater the other night when I was driving home. It was about 40 degrees outside. It took about 3 minutes for the heat to start flowing. So pretty quick I think.

An observation that I made about charging. Maybe it's me.. I still have to finish reading all the manuals. But I set a charge timer for 11pm, 80% charge, for everyday. I enabled the timer. When I got home around 11:40pm, I plugged in and the car did not start charging. I waited a few minutes and nothing. The blue lights showed that a timer was programmed but charging never started. I hit the button in the car to cancel the timer and then it started to charge right away.

All I can think of is, make sure the clock in the touchscreen is set correctly. I read in the manual somewhere that there are two separate clocks in the car and you need to make sure they're both set correctly. If both clocks are set, then this must be a useability bug and you might want to report it to Nissan - I'm sure they'd be eager for owner feedback.

As for the heater, that confirms what we suspected - Nissan is reusing their standard ICE heater components and simply substituting an electric element for the heat source. It might seem like they're being lazy, but I think most likely they're concerned about the high voltage being too close to the vehicle's occupants. After all, the heater is powered directly from the main high-voltage battery pack. So for safety reasons, they've decided to isolate the heater. The drawback of course is that it takes time to warm up, just like with a gas car.

 

[WWBD]

I am totally confused about charging this thing. The owner's manual is pretty confusing (not to mention riddled with errors). The 80% only working with timed charging is really annoying. But ok. So I'm setting my car to charge every night to 80%. Will this wear down the battery? Is it better to limit the amount of recharges (I could go 2 days easy before needing a recharge).

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

its not the # of charging sessions that wears the batteries the quickest. its the potential to overcharge or discharge too deeply that you have to worry about. the latter your car will do everything it can to warn you before that happens. its the overcharging that you must worry about.

 

[AndyH]

its not the # of charging sessions that wears the batteries the quickest. its the potential to overcharge or discharge too deeply that you have to worry about. the latter your car will do everything it can to warn you before that happens. its the overcharging that you must worry about.

And the car will not let us overcharge or over-discharge so that's one thing we don't have to worry about. It won't let us charge or drive if the pack's too hot or too cold, and it won't let us pull too much power from the pack or regen or charge too quickly.

The car is managing all the important bits that we DIYers used to have to worry about. Result? No more need to worry!

 

[WWBD]

I can't figure out what the little "Timer off" button does (to the left of the steering wheel). I have tried pressing it both with the car on and with it off, and the button never lights up or changes anything on the console screen or dashboard. Am I correct that you press that when you want to override your timer settings and instead do an immediate charge? Maybe the button is only functional if the charger cord is plugged in.