San Diego DC Charge Non-Profit Organization (was Oct 1 meet)

Meeting @ San Diego Auto Museum (it's in the Navigation database), 2080 Pan American Plaza, San Diego 92101, in Balboa Park.

Saturday, Oct 1, 2011, 9am to 12noon.

We don't want to anybody to have range anxiety, so for those that need a charge, either myself, or somebody, will do our best to make sure that those who have stated they are coming and reserved a charge spot, will be able to get one.

There are a total of 13 chargers located in the area, all free with a Blink card. If you don't have a Blink card, somebody will have one at the meeting.

There are seven L2 chargers in the parking lot, and three additional L2s nearby at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Museum.

There are 3 new chargers that just went online at the ACE parking garage in downtown, free for a month, and only 1.5 miles from the Auto Museum. Located at: 1240 4th Ave.

Let's do it the charger reservations this way:

Name.......................One-Way Driving Miles

BnBinSD...................35 miles



9am - LEAF arrivals, please donate $2 for a door prize / raffle. Proceeds are all donated to the San Diego Auto Musuem

9:15 am - Car walk around… how many modifications can you spot?

9:30 am - Convene to Auto Museum classroom. Let's then vote on next meeting date / location, k? Planning for Plug in America's 1st Annual "Plug in Day" on Oct 16. Also, planning for the Nissan Electric Tour in San Diego on Nov 11-13. And finally, the movie "Revenge of the Electric car, also on Nov 11-13 at Ken Cinema
4061 ADAMS AVE.
SAN DIEGO, CA 92116

Information: 619-283-3227
Movie Line: 619-819-0236

9:45 am - LEAF written exam!!

9:55 am - LEAF door prize / raffle drawing and longest drive award

10 am - Discussion about L3 Quick Charging infrastructure in San Deigo

11 am - SOC meter discussion, possible assembly workshop and update flash.

12 noon - end of meeting



Tony

Who's meeting for what purpose?

San Diego LEAF Owners and Enthusiasts for no particular reason !!!

Tony and I talked about this at the meeting this morning...I think it's a great idea...Im certainly on board...Let's do it....

Randy

I'm just watching Saturday's Autoweek and the museum is featured. They just showed the EV charging stations, the Tango in the museum, and are talking about the "Car of the Future" exhibit. Unfortunately it's not available for streaming yet.

STEVEN CHUPNICK: But what would Louie Mattar say about electric vehicles? The museums parking lot is equipped with 7 EV charging stations, matching the Southern California region’s efforts of going green.

Inside this Romero Britto specially designed Tango is just the beginning of their future EV plans.

PAULA BRANDES: In our exhibit plan, in the next several years is to build what we’re calling the garage of the future. So what is your house going to look like when you have a car like this?

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Sounds like fun! Thanks for planning this.

No problem on the planning. We're going to leave a donation for the auto museum, in exchange for their hospitality. I'm thinking a $2 raffle at the door for some fantastic prize. I think I have some gift cards that might work.

Ideas welcome.

Also, I'd like to invite anybody who has any interest in forming a non-profit for the sole purpose of installing and operating several L3 chargers. It will come as no surprise that the main ingredient will be money.

Maybe somebody can pencil together a LEAF trivia test... winner gets something.

Furthest drive also gets something... there's no excuse with chargers right here!!! Orange County peeps can do this drive, and they might be as interested in L3's in north San Diego as we are in San Diego !!!

Should be fun, it's a great park to spend the afternoon after the meet, and cruise around downtown SD after a free L2 charge at Balboa. I would intend to have somebody, probably me, or several somebodies sort of "reserve" the charger spots. We can't officially cone them off, or otherwise inhibit their use, but maybe some streamers and signs might help keep the ICE's out.

Be forewarned; the park could be hosting some big event that I'm not aware of, which makes things more difficult. Let's all keep our ears peeled.

Sounds great! I'll try to make it.

TonyWilliams said:

Be forewarned; the park could be hosting some big event that I'm not aware of, which makes things more difficult. Let's all keep our ears peeled.

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Here the the Balboa Park calendar for that day:
http://www.balboapark.org/calendar/2011-10-01?mini=calendar%2F2011-10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I just saw this article by Brad Berman on plugincars.com - sounds VERY promising for quick charging, where Nissan is building it's own charger for ~$13,000 and they believe it may be possible to bring even that down to 3,000 - 5,000! If only...

http://www.plugincars.com/quick-charging-plus-better-batteries-equals-mainstream-electric-cars-107844.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Quick-Charging Plus Better Batteries Equals Mainstream Electric Cars

Nissan Motor Co. said yesterday that it will offer a new electric car quick-charger—resembling a gas-station pump—for around $13,000. That’s less than half of the cost of the current charger. So-called quick-chargers provide a jolt of 480 volts, filling an EV’s battery pack to around 80 percent of its capacity in approximately 20 minutes.

Today’s all-electric cars commonly provide a total driving range of 80 to 100 miles, but battery engineers are working on next-generation technology that could mean 150 or 200 miles of range for a similar cost. If combined with more affordable quick-chargers, the extended driving range of electric vehicles could greatly expand the desirability of gas-free EVs to mainstream car buyers.

"The newly developed quick charging unit retains the high performance of the current quick charger manufactured by Nissan, but is nearly half the size by volume," the company said in a statement. "The new charger unit's smaller size will take up less space and enable easier installation."

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P.S. I'll hope to be there a bit early so I can snag a Blink.

BnBinSD said:

P.S. I'll hope to be there a bit early so I can snag a Blink.

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Let's make a reservation here for a charger, so that those that REALLY need a charger (more than 35 miles one-way) can have first priority.

Anybody from Orange or Riverside Counties, of course, need a significant charge. We don't want to have range anxiety for those that need a charge.

Either myself, or somebody, will do our best to make sure that those who have stated they are coming and reserved a charge spot, will be able to get one.

Let's do it this way:

Name.......................One-Way Driving Miles

BnBinSD...................35? miles

I would like to attend, Tony, but I will be at Qualcomm all day on Oct. 1 running my '68 911 in a PCA autocross.

I'll tell my wife about it and see if she wants to go in the Leaf. It is only about 25 miles round trip for us and she wouldn't need to charge there.
TT

ttweed said:

I would like to attend, Tony, but I will be at Qualcomm all day on Oct. 1 running my '68 911 in a PCA autocross.

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Is that part of SCCA ? I've never done that kind of racing. I've raced motorcycles (motocross), go karts, and drag racing. I would enter the LEAF in an electric car class, with proper tires/brakes/suspension mods that are legal for the class.

TonyWilliams said:

Is that part of SCCA ?

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No, SCCA also runs events at Qualcomm, but the Porsche Club of America is not affiliated with them and runs their own regional and national motorsports programs (autox, time trials, club racing, DEs and rallies/tours, etc.) I have run with both groups, as well as the BMW club, and like the PCA events the best.

I've never done that kind of racing. I've raced motorcycles (motocross), go karts, and drag racing. I would enter the LEAF in an electric car class, with proper tires/brakes/suspension mods that are legal for the class.

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I tried out our Leaf at the last one (my report is here in the autox thread), but I'm going back to my 911 for this one. Unfortunately, the SCCA has not yet created any EV classes (nor has PCA), but you can always enter Exhibition (X) class.

TT

There are 3 new chargers that just went online yesterday at the ACE parking garage in downtown, free for a month, and only 1.5 miles from the Auto Museum. Located at: 1240 4th Ave.

Total chargers in the area of this meeting; 13

BnBinSD said:

I just saw this article by Brad Berman on plugincars.com - sounds VERY promising for quick charging, where Nissan is building it's own charger for ~$13,000 and they believe it may be possible to bring even that down to 3,000 - 5,000! If only...

http://www.plugincars.com/quick-charging-plus-better-batteries-equals-mainstream-electric-cars-107844.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Quick-Charging Plus Better Batteries Equals Mainstream Electric Cars

Nissan Motor Co. said yesterday that it will offer a new electric car quick-charger—resembling a gas-station pump—for around $13,000. That’s less than half of the cost of the current charger. So-called quick-chargers provide a jolt of 480 volts, filling an EV’s battery pack to around 80 percent of its capacity in approximately 20 minutes.

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Here on AutoblogGreen, they are saying less than $10,000 USD

Nissan reveals sub-$10,000 quick charger
Priced below $10,000 and set to go on sale in November, Nissan's newly-developed quick-charge unit takes up significantly less space ...

The Japanese automaker further states that the base quick-charge unit will cost less than one half the price of the Nissan's current 1.47-million yen ($19,088 U.S. at the current exchange rate) unit.

Nissan aims to sell 5,000 of the compact quick chargers by March of 2016 to contribute to the ongoing development of Japan's plug-in vehicle infrastructure. Preparations are currently underway for future sales of the cheaper quick charger in the U.S. and Europe.

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http://green.autoblog.com/2011/09/13/nissan-reveals-sub-10-000-quick-charger/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BnBinSD said:

P.S. I'll hope to be there a bit early so I can snag a Blink.

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When you have lots of cars, and a few chargers, remember that the LEAF only has a whimpy 3.3 kW half a charger. EV chargers (GM EV1, 2002 Toytota RAV4 EV, etc...) of 10 years ago are 6.6 kW! You'd think by now the production EVs would bump the on board charger to at least 10 kW. Tesla has got it right, they can use most of the J1772 capacity and charge at 70A, 240V for Tesla 17 kW which is 65 LEAF miles of range per hour of charge! We need a 10 or 20 kW onboard charger in the LEAF, even if it's an option, they could do it for less than $1500 additional costs. Ok, we know what a real EV charger is, and the LEAF doesn't measure up...

The advantage of being whimpy and using the EVSE upgrade or SPX EVSE is that you can charge two LEAFS (one at 12A, the other at 16A) from a single 30A 240V J1772. It goes like this:

J1772R -> NEMA 14-50R $240
NEMA 14-50P -> L6-30R (go to L6-30 with 30 amps for charging RAV4 EVs and others capable of 6.6 kW)
NEMA L6-30P -> 2 x L6-20R (split the 30A 240V circuit for two LEAFs!)
L6-20R #1 to EVSE upgrade 16A (or 12A) to J1772P -> LEAF #1
L6-20R #2 to EVSE upgrade 12A to J1772P -> LEAF #2

Yup. That's it. The magic formula to charge two LEAFs from one 240V 30A J1772 charger. Not something you'd need too often but great for LEAF meet ups, and possibly LAX! Another nice bit about this setup is that the NEMA 14-50, L6-30, L6-20 connections in this setup are much safer than an ordinary NEMA 14-50, because all of the connections are protected by the Groung Fault Interrupter (GFI) in the J1772 public charger you're feeding this whole setup with! So it's going to look interesting but is actually very safe. If you mate the source J1772 last and unmate it first then all of the connections are made with the electricity off, since the source J1772 won't turn on the main contactor until a few seconds after it verifies the connection using the J1772 pilot signal.


I actually use this set up at home as a J1772 extension cord since my Blink is mounted in the front of the garage and won't reach the LEAF when it's parked in the driveway. Also very hand to have a J1772 extension cord when the public charging station is ICEd, so you can park several spaces away but still connect using the J1772 extension cord.

Let's make a time to meet for "Revenge of the Electric Car". (Not listed on the website yet, starts Nov 11 at Kensington)
http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Market/SanDiego/SanDiego_Frameset.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
How about first show on Sunday Nov 13?

Is anyone planning anything for National Plug In Day, Oct. 16? If so that would be a good topic to add to an already very busy agenda for Oct 1. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5584&start=10

solartim said:

Let's make a time to meet for "Revenge of the Electric Car". (Not listed on the website yet, starts Nov 11 at Kensington)
http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Market/SanDiego/SanDiego_Frameset.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
How about first show on Sunday Nov 13?

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How about we show up at the Nissan Tour in San Diego and then go to the movie (or vice versa)?

walterbays said:

Is anyone planning anything for National Plug In Day, Oct. 16? If so that would be a good topic to add to an already very busy agenda for Oct 1. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5584&start=10

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Could we hook up with this event?

Granted, the logistics are a bit cumbersome!