Interested in leasing Leaf but no charger at home

Folks,

I want to lease Nissan leaf but have no charger/ outlet in my condo complex garage. My office ( 11 miles from home) has charging station & also plugshare shows public charger 1 mile away from home

I want to get practical advise and views from current leaf owners that having a charge facility at home is a highly desirable and pre requisite for having Leaf?

Regards
tmarana

I see this question from time to time. I'm not what I can bring to the party by virtue of being a LEAF owner. Like most LEAF owners I have the ability to charge at home. All I can offer is my opinion about what it would be like to not have home charging. I can't see how my existing situation helps me to form a more enlightened opinion on this matter.

In other words, you have to decide for yourself whether your available charging options are sufficient. It depends on the nature of those options, your driving requirements and your overall outlook. Nothing about being a LEAF owner helps me suggest a decision that is better than the one you can make.

Do you have access to a regular 110/120V (15 amps) outlet at home? If so, no problem. With a commute of only 11 miles--and charging capability @ work, I see no reason why you couldn't make do.

If there is no way to charge at home you will be somewhat limited on weekends.
Do you have a second car to use at all?
Daily commute will be fine with just a few hours charging at work.

The main reason being able to charge at home is nice is that it lets you charge while you sleep, and you don't have to go out of your way to plug in. You don't need to find something to pass the time while you wait for your charge. Since you have charging at work, you essentially meet those same objectives on the opposite end of the commute from those that charge at home.

If you do little more than that commute, you won't even have to charge every day. And if work has L2 EVSE then you'd only need less than 4hrs to fully charge. In other words, even if others want to use the charger at work, if you can get an hour here or there, that is all you will need. An hour of L2, with the 6.6kW charger that comes with the quick charge package on the model S will give you enough charge for a day's commute in about an hour. But you'd have enough range for closer to 3 days of the commute if you wanted to free up the EVSE for someone else. You don't always have to charge to full, and don't always have to drive to empty. "Sure, I don't have to get a charge this morning, if I could sneak in sometime this afternoon and pick up an hour, that's all I need to get home and back. Then I can charge more tomorrow when you are off."

My own opinion of this is no, don't do it unless you at least have access to a 120V plug. I mean I feel inconvenienced by only have a 3.3k charger, and wouldn't recommend even doing it solely on 120. The thing you have to remember with the lease is that you are commited to making all of those payments, and is not something you can undo. I know I will be the unpopular guy for it, but I stongly recommend in your case if you want to drive on electricity to get a Volt. That way if you can't charge due to broken stations or time you are not left stranded.

So the short answer is yes, to me the charge station is a pre-requisite. At least a 16amp, but with a new one the 30amp is definitely the way to go.. Relying on that public charger it could either be broken or occupied. So that is a bad plan. Especially if you ever need to be somewhere in a hurry.

With this distance I would bet that your reasons are more environmental than economical so I'd assume you're more willing to trade time for EV use. Just in case you ever get really low and public chargers for hours aren't an option I'd say you need a safety net of someone close, friends or family that has a place where you can leave the car for 24hrs. If plug share shows a home charger unit close to you reach out and contact that owner first and tell them what you're doing. You may find they are happy to be your back up and you may make some new friends. The time needed to rely on them will be much less than 24hrs if they have a J1772. If that's not a possibility you have to ask yourself. Would you be ok if once or twice over the next year you had to call and have the car towed to Nissan for a charge? Would you be ok killing 4+ hours at a public charger maybe 4 or more times a year? Are you willing to adapt your driving style and learn how to stretch the range when needed? (read go slow, very slow)

What's the commitment to public charging at work? Will the boss/manager/land owner fix that charging unit ASAP if it goes down? If it blows a circuit can you reset it yourself or do you have to call someone in?

If that work charger is 100% reliable you will never run out of juice coming and going for work. Your afterhours/off days should still provide you lots of freedom to drive too.

I lived with only workplace charging (and some public charging) for about a month when I first got the car. I would not recommend it. Weekdays were fine but I quickly became frustrated by the lack of mobility on the weekends. The leaf was my only car at the time. I lived in Folsom, CA which was a ~10 mile wide town east of Sacramento. My commute was only a few miles as well.

I would highly recommend a Volt for this use case.

Thanks folks for candid feedback !!!

I have a nissan leaf and don't have a charger at home. I have a second car and my wife is not working so her needs are usually running errands, and going to class whichi is about 3 miles from home, so we are not heavily dependent on nissan leaf. Now, there are blink chargers close to my apartment (0.3 miles, 6 minutes) and near my workplace (10 minutes). But, it is still a hassle to stop there for charging and then come back to pick up the car. I was doing this when blink's charging rates were low ($1/hr), now that they have become exhorbitant, I don't use them anymore. Now I have an EVGO membership, and I stop at a fast charging station on my way to work (adds about 4 miles extra), wait there for 20-30 mins in my car, go to starbucks or to vons! Half of the time this charging task is taken care of by my wife, so I'm pretty happy with this arrangement for the last six month. I will eventually buy a house and get out of this.

So, my suggestion would be: if your driving need are limited to going to work and back then you should be able to manage with fast charging 2-3 times a week and out of this 1-2 is anyways required for grocery. But, as in my case, if you drive beyond the commute to work then you will end-up requiring 5-6 trips to the charging station per week which would become a big hassle. Since, I'm not solely dependent on nissan leaf, I don't need charging more then 2-3 times and out of this I go to a charge station 1-2 times a week. On the other hand, if you are ok with the walk to and from your workplace to the charging station, then that should also be fine.

tmarana said:

Folks,

I want to lease Nissan leaf but have no charger/ outlet in my condo complex garage. My office ( 11 miles from home) has charging station & also plugshare shows public charger 1 mile away from home

I want to get practical advise and views from current leaf owners that having a charge facility at home is a highly desirable and pre requisite for having Leaf?

Regards
tmarana

Click to expand...

Your getting some good advice here, but as Nubo wrote, only you can really decide.

Problem is, so many details are importent in your case. Absolutly no chance of even a 120 plug in your garage, now or in future? 22 miles RT commute is pretty easy, you could go a couple days without charging. But how much driving do you do after work or on weekends? Do you have another car? If you list your location in your profile, we could get a better idea of what plugshare shows in your area, and what the weather is like where you'll be driving. (Very importent) How busy are the stations at your office? How reliable have they been? Also the public one near you? Any QCs in your area? What about when you're on vacation? How willing are you to put up with the inconvenience of reying on public stations? I think it's possible in your situation, but you have to put a little more effort into it without home charging. A Volt or similar is a good idea too, or wait until a longer range BEV is available.