Level 1 only

I am getting my Leaf in November and have been researching chargers. I am getting my Nissan assessment tomorrow but the more I am reading the more I am getting convinced that I do not need level 2 charging.

My latest idea is to have an electrician install a 120V socket close to where I park my car and use that to charge the car. I am hoping to find a public L3 or L2 charger for those rare ocasions that L1 will not be fast enough.

Can some Leaf owners who only have L1 share their experience?

I was doing it for a while. Driving about 50 highway miles a day, and plugging in for 12 hours overnight, and working fine.
The 50 miles took about 14kWh of juice, so at 1.4kW (120V@12A) that takes about 10 hours to "refill'.

I had only L1 for the first month and a half of my ownership, and that worked fine for me. The only thing that got a little iffy was when I drive out to the stables to ride on Saturdays; that's a significant distance, a chunk of which is uphill into the foothills of the Cascades. I'd have enough charge to get home without issue (even without stopping at an L2 charger along the way back), but not a lot; I'd get home around 5:00pm with maybe three bars left.

Having only Level 1 charging meant I couldn't top off quickly enough to turn around and go do any significant errands (like head downtown for a movie) the evening after riding. Level 2 means I can plug in around 5pm with 3 bars of charge, go take a shower and change to get rid of stable sweat, dust and horse-slobber (my mare is a little mouthy when affectionate), call friends and wait for them to show up and meet me, then unplug the car around 7pm with 6-7 bars of charge to go off to movies and dinner.

That wasn't a deal-breaker, mind you; it only was an issue maybe once in the entire 1.5 months I was doing L1 charging only. But since the L2 EVSE was paid for by the EV Project, I am glad I do have the option to charge more quickly now. If they weren't picking up the tab on the L2 charger, though, I don't know that I would've bothered; L1 worked fine for me for 98% of all situations.

That is what I am going to do to use LEAF for my 66 miles round trip commute to work. Charge L1 overnight to 80%, once at work charge again whole 8 h to go back home. That kind of arrangement also should help to keep my battery in top condition for long time. No 100% charge no deep discharge, also no need for expensive equipment. Prices for L2 slowly going down so time is on our side.

I primarily use L1 as I have access to a plug at work and am there long enough for it to charge. During the weekends I plug into my L2 at home and I will say that having L2 at home has allowed me to do 1 or 2 trips I may have had to take the ICE for if I only had L1. It also allows me to be gentler on the battery by still charging to 80% and then doing an on-demand charge from 80% to 100% if I'm about to go somewhere I know I'll need the range. If I only had L1 capability at home then I would have to charge to 100% all the time on the weekends and may have to either delay a trip slightly to take the Leaf or give in and take the ICE. Certainly doable with L1 but just requires a little more advance planning.

If you're going to have an electrician install new wiring and sockets anyways then have him run at least a 240V/20A with a L6-20R receptacle and that will allow you to have the EVSE that comes with the car upgraded to support full speed L2 charging. Take a look at http://evseupgrade.com. The only reason I had an AeroVironment EVSE installed (and by my own electrician, not by Nissan/AV) was in order to take advantage of the LADWP $2000 rebate which is only eligible for EVSEs that are UL-listed. The "evseupgraded" unit is safe and has been extensively tested, it just hasn't been sent to UL (which is quite costly).

When my AeroVironment unit was installed my electrician also ran an additional 240V/20A L6-20R to the other side of the garage so that we can use both the AV and the upgraded EVSE at the same time either when we get another plug-in car or if I have plug-in visitors (not unusual as my parents own a Volt). I'm going to send my stock EVSE in to get upgraded when they resume work in September.

Level 1 just didn't work for me at all. A roundtrip commute of 55 miles (with lots of AC...its texas summer!) yielded about 75% battery usage that would not fully charge overnight. Even if it was slightly less, this ment that all I could do was go to work and back and no shopping or anything else around town. I had a week of level 1 before I got my level 2, which had a defective unit twice. Each time on level 1 I reached a point that i couldn't make it to work at the end of the wek.

I definetely prefer level 2. I use the car for everything and it sucks wanting to take the car out to run errands or meet friends only having to leave it because its charging slowly.

I used L1 exclusively for the first month or so.

Then Ingineer's Mod-L1 became available, and I bought a 2nd EVSE from him. The 2x faster charging was great.

Having a Plug-in, portable EVSE seemed like the right thing to do.

Now, if I could get the SPX 120/240v EVSE (which also has external Max-Current settings) with a 25' cord (instead of just 16'), I would likely get that.

:shock: :shock: CANCEL YOUR APPOINTMENT FOR THE ASSESSMENT :shock: :shock:

I have driven just under 50 miles per day average since May 17th on L1 only. Usually I have 20+ extra miles on the guess-o-meter when I plug in in the evening. Usually I charge to 80% as recommended for battery longevity. There have been zero times where I was stuck waiting for a charge to go some place. We do have a second gas burner.

Some days if I run it way down I may not get 100% charged for the next day. This has not been any trouble as 80%+ is generally enough. If you have several consecutive days of 70+ miles you will probably not make it on L1 and will be looking for some L2 charging time.

Either way the amount AV charges is way higher than you need to spend. Save the $100 sucker fee. Cancel your appointment NOW. You can always reschedule if somehow AV is the best option for you. Your own electrician can install an outlet of your choice where needed for charging at half the AV price or less. You can have your included Nissan 120v EVSE modified to charge at full power 240v 16a for a few hundred dollars. SPX and others are available at $750 to $1050. It is very little extra cost for your electrician to pull a 240v circuit compared to a 120v circuit. The SPX can operate on a 15a, 20a, 30a or 40a circuit. Leviton can operate on a 20a or better circuit. Most others including AV require a 40a circuit that could cost more including a panel upgrade. The modified Nissan unit can run on 15a or 20a depending on the mod level.

You can get the work done after you get the car and have time and experience to sort it all out for what works best for you.

Just canceled my appointment. Will get 120 and 240 installed on on outside wall close to my parking spot.

Sounds like a good call. Been using L1 for seven months now. Seems to be working well for us so far.

A fellow Leaf owner at work uses only L1 and says it's better for the battery than using L2. Is this true? I know L3 is hard on the battery but I've never heard anything negative about L2. I've been using L2 but just to top off and so I could be using L1. The only hassle would be taking the L1 unit in and out of its case.

dutchinchicago said:

I am getting my Leaf in November and have been researching chargers. I am getting my Nissan assessment tomorrow but the more I am reading the more I am getting convinced that I do not need level 2 charging.
[...]
Can some Leaf owners who only have L1 share their experience?

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Here are some data points for your decision:

My commute is 4.1 miles each way. Much of my commute are up and down big hills i.e. no toodling along drawing less than 10 kWh, and with speeds pushing 80 on one downhill ). I drive about 7500 miles a year. On weekends, 60 miles a day would be a lot of driving.

I had been charging on 120V for 3+ months initially. It was completely sufficient. At first I thought the 20+ hours per full charge would be a problem, but it turns out that 1. that's only if I run the battery all the way down and 2. it's only a problem if I need to drive a lot the next day.

(I could have gone on charging on 120V forever. But, I got a Schneider EVSE recently, only because it's free: I get 50% Fed tax credit, and 50% rebate from the local electricity company. I must say, the much-reduced charging time does not make a whole lot of difference to me as far as convenience goes.)

I even got the 240V conversion for the Nissan OEM EVSE, but have never actually need to use it!

The average U.S. commute distance is 16 miles each way.

I find the LEAF is like my cell phone: it does not take much more planning/forethought to have enough charge at any moment for my needs.

badamsfx said:

A fellow Leaf owner at work uses only L1 and says it's better for the battery than using L2. Is this true? I know L3 is hard on the battery but I've never heard anything negative about L2. I've been using L2 but just to top off and so I could be using L1. The only hassle would be taking the L1 unit in and out of its case.

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Totally not true. Show your fellow Leaf owner the manual on page CH-7 where it says trickle charging (L1) is not recommended for normal use. On the same page, it also says "Nissan recommends using normal charging (L2) for usual charging of the vehicle".

This implies that L1 is not any better for the battery than L2. In fact, the manual recommends L2 over L1. But that's only because L2 is faster to charge than L1, not because L2 charging is better for the battery than L1. Of course the manual doesn't say why it doesn't recommend trickle charging for normal use, but it's a no brainer to infer why (too slow).

Do yourself a favor and don't take the L1 unit in and out of its case anymore and charge on your L2 exclusively from now on.

Volusiano said:

badamsfx said:

A fellow Leaf owner at work uses only L1 and says it's better for the battery than using L2. Is this true?

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Totally not true.

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Agreed. In fact L2 may be better -- not for the battery, but for your wallet. There is a charger cooling system in the car that runs while the battery is being charged. That uses extra power which is supplied at the wall and never makes it to the battery. It appears that the cooling loss may be worse during L1 charging, simply because it takes longer. [I haven't seen any hard proof of this, only apparent discrepancies in charging efficiencies.]

Of course, even if this should be true it has to be balanced against the cash outlay of getting an L2 system.

Ray