Cutting it close too often. Merry Xmas !

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madbrain

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 26, 2012
Messages
281
Location
San Jose, CA
This is how Xmas Eve went in my Leaf.

12/24 charged 100% at work . All 12 bars showing. This is a 2 months old car.

7:30pm Commute home Santa Clara to east SJ foothills : 12.8 miles . max freeway speed = 65 mph . Car is down to 9 bars when I get home.

I put the car to charge for about 1 hour on L1 when I got home.

9pm going to dinner : east SJ foothills to Mountain View : 19.1 miles. max freeway speed = 65 mph
My partner happened to mentioned on the way that he wanted to see a movie. I start to worry that we should have taken the Prius instead.
11pm go to movie : Mountain View to South SJ : 18.8 miles . max freeway speed = 55 mph . We were conscious to conserve battery
2am drive home from South SJ to east SJ foothills : 13.2 miles . freeway speed = 50mph, on cruise control

Total distance : 63.9 miles . Freeway miles : about 50 . We did have the heat the whole time, on lowest setting (1 bar).

We made it back home up the hill with no miles showing (---), no bars left, very low battery warning.
How close were we actually cutting it ?

I don't want to think how long the Nissan tow would take at 2am on Xmas eve, having experienced 2 hours at 11pm on regular business day 2 weeks ago when my Leaf got a flat.

When I first logged in to Carwings on my cell phone after plugging in the car, it showed a charge time of 25 hours (!) which is 4 hours more than the max 21 hours that Nissan quotes. Yes, I'm still charging on L1 at home.

About a minute later when I logged from my PC to capture this crazy charge time, it had already decreased to 19 hours. Logged back on the phone right after that, and it decreased even more to 18 hours.

I have never yet taken the car to turtle, but this is about my 3rd VLBW in 2 months. I have several 18 hour full charges on L1. I hardly think I am pushing the car with the speeds I'm driving. Tonight we drove it barely fast enough to make the movie after dinner (and missed the previews). The car was on cruise control almost the entire time on the freeway for all 4 trips from full charge.

The farthest I have gone from home with my Leaf so far was San Mateo which was 72 miles roundtrip. I drove 65mph on the way there, 55 on the way back with no heat, and ended up with 3 miles on the dashboard.
 
I have no Leaf, but you might want to consider the fancier gid-meter referenced at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=246357#p246357" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. The guy who makes it, Turbo3 lives in SJ. I've met him 2x before.

Re: the flat tire, maybe that's why you need to buy a Nissan Altima spare. :)

I don't recall your situation in terms of buying or leasing and all, but if the Leaf's range won't work, perhaps you should dump it (costly to do so though :() and go for a Rav4 EV? Tony got 130 miles out of his rental (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=240769#p240769" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) before he bought one. I'd imagine if he tried harder, he could get a lot more miles/charge. From his posts to that thread, I think he's MUCH happier w/its range vs. his former Leafs. His post about sport mode at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=240492#p240492" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is kinda funny. :) I did test drive one at Alt Car Expo and will say it's VERY easy to chirp the tires in sport mode. :D

He was wrong about SKS behavior (see later posts). I think he was thrown off since Nissan/Infiniti vs. Toyota have different SKS implementations and the # of beeps for lock/unlock I believe are the opposite between the automakers.

I'm still seeing a $5K incentive AND 0% financing at http://www.buyatoyota.com/Specials/SpecialOffers.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for the 95136 zip code. Unfortunately, you don't want to lease as Toyota doesn't pass along the $7.5K tax credit when you do that, unlike Nissan. They only give you $5K of it.

Maybe if poor Rav4 EV sales continue, Toyota will put even more incentives on them (losing them even more $)?
 
cwerdna said:
I have no Leaf, but you might want to consider the fancier gid-meter referenced at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=246357#p246357" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. The guy who makes it, Turbo3 lives in SJ. I've met him 2x before.

If it extended my range I might :)

Re: the flat tire, maybe that's why you need to buy a Nissan Altima spare. :)

No, actually I would have no clue what to do with it. Even I had the spare in my car I would still need someone to come install it.

I don't recall your situation in terms of buying or leasing and all, but if the Leaf's range won't work, perhaps you should dump it (costly to do so though :() and go for a Rav4 EV? Tony got 130 miles out of his rental (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=240769#p240769" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) before he bought one. I'd imagine if he tried harder, he could get a lot more miles/charge. From his posts to that thread, I think he's MUCH happier w/its range vs. his former Leafs. His post about sport mode at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=240492#p240492" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is kinda funny. :) I did test drive one at Alt Car Expo and will say it's VERY easy to chirp the tires in sport mode. :D

I leased for 39 months. The range sort of works but I'm really borderline, just surprised how close I have been cutting.

The plan was always to use the Prius for the long range trips. I guess even with a full battery, a 64 mile trip has to be considered long range when you factor in 78% freeway, heat on, and living on a hill.

If we knew ahead of time about the movie, we might have taken the Prius to begin with. It just takes more planning about which car to take. Before we had 2 Prius so we never really cared which car we took.

My L2 charger was supposed to be installed several times previously, last time friday, but it's still isn't done. If it had been done, the 1hr of L2 charge after I got home would have given an extra 7 miles and maybe 1 bar, or at least not require us to drive well below the speed limit and speed of traffic.

I'm still seeing a $5K incentive AND 0% financing at http://www.buyatoyota.com/Specials/SpecialOffers.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for the 95136 zip code. Unfortunately, you don't want to lease as Toyota doesn't pass along the $7.5K tax credit when you do that, unlike Nissan. They only give you $5K of it.

I am leasing the Leaf for another 37 months. I may consider the RAV4 EV when my lease is up. I won't likely try to return the Leaf unless the battery degrades significantly.

I believe that at this time, the RAV4 is in a much different price range than the Leaf. It is closer to Tesla S range, if I recall. If we wanted to spend that much, we probably would have gotten the Tesla.

Toyota is silly not to give the full tax credit to lessees. The current IRS rules for California domestic partners won't allow us to file as married federally, but instead requires us to file separately, split our income 50%, and report half of the total on each of our separate 1040s. There are a few exceptions for separate property and income, but this means we both roughly have about the same taxable income and federal tax liability. But as the case happens, neither of us will reach $7500 in federal tax liability. Meanwhile of course we file together at the state level ...

As far as I can tell, the EV federal tax credit cannot be split between two buyers. Only one buyer can take it. Even though we owe more than $7500 federal tax together, neither of us owes $7500 individually. So we could not take the full EV tax credit. This is one reason we chose to lease the Leaf rather than purchase it. But by no means the only reason.

Maybe if poor Rav4 EV sales continue, Toyota will put even more incentives on them (losing them even more $)?

I don't think I will be in the market for another car for another 3 years, though, unless Toyota outdoes Nissan and not only gives the car away, but also pays for the registration, insurance, etc.
 
madbrain said:
cwerdna said:
I have no Leaf, but you might want to consider the fancier gid-meter referenced at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=246357#p246357" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. The guy who makes it, Turbo3 lives in SJ. I've met him 2x before.
If it extended my range I might :)
It won't, but it it'll give you a better idea of how what efficiency you need to drive at. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=224711#p224711" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

madbrain said:
Re: the flat tire, maybe that's why you need to buy a Nissan Altima spare. :)
No, actually I would have no clue what to do with it. Even I had the spare in my car I would still need someone to come install it.
It's not that hard to change. Problem is you might have to stop in a place that's not so safe (from getting rear-ended).

madbrain said:
...
I am leasing the Leaf for another 37 months. I may consider the RAV4 EV when my lease is up. I won't likely try to return the Leaf unless the battery degrades significantly.

I believe that at this time, the RAV4 is in a much different price range than the Leaf. It is closer to Tesla S range, if I recall. If we wanted to spend that much, we probably would have gotten the Tesla.
Oh. Well, Rav4 is $50K BEFORE tax credits and incentives. So, knock the $5K Toyota incentive off and then the $7.5K Fed tax credit and $2.5K CVRP.

Tesla Model S is more $ and going up (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/2013-model-s-price-increase" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). Turn-by-turn nav isn't even standard on the Model S. It's part of $3,750 package. And, the Model S has pricey required maintenance (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/transforming-automotive-service" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.teslamotors.com/service" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

Unfortunately, by the time you might be in the market, Rav4 EV may no longer be sold. Toyota was targeting 2600 sold over 3 years. At current sales rates, they are falling short. Unclear if they'll do another Rav4 EV or some other EV afterward...
 
madbrain said:
This is how Xmas Eve went in my Leaf.

12/24 charged 100% at work . All 12 bars showing. This is a 2 months old car.

7:30pm Commute home Santa Clara to east SJ foothills : 12.8 miles . max freeway speed = 65 mph . Car is down to 9 bars when I get home.
Wow I drive my Leaf pretty hard and it takes some real pedal to the metal driving to use 3 bars in 12.8 miles. Hope you had fun.

I put the car to charge for about 1 hour on L1 when I got home.
Why anyone would spend over 30k for an EV and then not buy a decent charge station is beyond me. A good L2 EVSE will charge almost 3 times faster than that crummy 120 volt outlet you have.

http://www.amazon.com/AeroVironment-Plug-In-Residential-Charger-EVSE-RS/dp/B00AHG8XVA/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1356447090&sr=8-6&keywords=evse+charger" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you do not like that one, then how about this one.
http://www.evseupgrade.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I have done way more than 72 miles in a day. It just takes a tiny bit of effort on your part to make it enjoyable.
 
madbrain said:
As far as I can tell, the EV federal tax credit cannot be split between two buyers. Only one buyer can take it. Even though we owe more than $7500 federal tax together, neither of us owes $7500 individually. So we could not take the full EV tax credit. This is one reason we chose to lease the Leaf rather than purchase it. But by no means the only reason.

Hold title to the EV under both names and then split the EV credit ($3750 on each individual Federal return). The IRS respects California community property rules.
 
Stop by one of the quick chargers along 101 on the way home. Now that Blink is putting L2 chargers next to their unreliable L3 chargers, you at least have a backup plan if the quick charger fails. Or pay $7 at the Stanford Mall QC.
 
madbrain said:
Total distance : 63.9 miles . Freeway miles : about 50 . We did have the heat the whole time, on lowest setting (1 bar).

The fan bars aren't what really determines the CC energy use, they just show fan speed. The fan itself uses negligible power. The main determinant is the difference between outside temp and your chosen cabin temp. Lower the temp to use less power for heat. Use of Eco mode modifies this somewhat by limiting the heater to about 1500 watts. So Eco mode will warm the car more slowly and may not reach your set point depending on the temperature difference.
 
KJD said:
madbrain said:
This is how Xmas Eve went in my Leaf.

12/24 charged 100% at work . All 12 bars showing. This is a 2 months old car.

7:30pm Commute home Santa Clara to east SJ foothills : 12.8 miles . max freeway speed = 65 mph . Car is down to 9 bars when I get home.
Wow I drive my Leaf pretty hard and it takes some real pedal to the metal driving to use 3 bars in 12.8 miles. Hope you had fun.

Definitely not pedal to the metal at all. As I said, I was at 65mph on 101, with the car on cruise control, in ECO mode, with most cars passing me by.
Before I had the heat on, in October, it was only taking 2 bars for that commute. It's up to 3 with the heat.

There is some uphill involved on the way home. I have experimentally determined before that the last 0.5 mile home alone with the 10% grade takes half a bar.

Why anyone would spend over 30k for an EV and then not buy a decent charge station is beyond me. A good L2 EVSE will charge almost 3 times faster than that crummy 120 volt outlet you have.

Oh, I see, you are the judgmental one here. I did not spend $30k for an EV, so far I have spent $1000 down, gotten $2500 back from CVRP, and made 2 lease payments of $259. So I have spent negative $982 on my Leaf.

And I do have an L2 charging station, but the contractor hasn't gotten around to installing the additional circuit that I need for it.

Anyway, as I mentioned, one hour of L1 vs L2 would have made only a small difference - 7 extra miles or perhaps one bar.
The car was fully charged at work on L2 at the beginning of the trip anyway. It should have been able to handle those trips without any charging at home.
The 1hr of charging at home only happened because my partner was late. He was supposed to be there at 8 and we were supposed to go to dinner right then.

I have done way more than 72 miles in a day. It just takes a tiny bit of effort on your part to make it enjoyable.

Why don't you tell the secret then ?
 
Randmac said:
madbrain said:
As far as I can tell, the EV federal tax credit cannot be split between two buyers. Only one buyer can take it. Even though we owe more than $7500 federal tax together, neither of us owes $7500 individually. So we could not take the full EV tax credit. This is one reason we chose to lease the Leaf rather than purchase it. But by no means the only reason.

Hold title to the EV under both names and then split the EV credit ($3750 on each individual Federal return). The IRS respects California community property rules.

Well, it hasn't been clear in which ways they respect it for this specific credit. I tried to call the IRS before I leased my Leaf, but I was on hold for 2 hours then they hung up on me before I could speak to a human being, sigh.
Anyway, I feel the lease is a much better deal on the Leaf with this new technology, so I didn't pursue it.
 
MaxPower said:
Stop by one of the quick chargers along 101 on the way home. Now that Blink is putting L2 chargers next to their unreliable L3 chargers, you at least have a backup plan if the quick charger fails. Or pay $7 at the Stanford Mall QC.

The farthest north that we got was Mountain View, and I am not aware of any Q.C. south of there.
 
Nubo said:
madbrain said:
Total distance : 63.9 miles . Freeway miles : about 50 . We did have the heat the whole time, on lowest setting (1 bar).
[ /quote]

The fan bars aren't what really determines the CC energy use, they just show fan speed. The fan itself uses negligible power. The main determinant is the difference between outside temp and your chosen cabin temp. Lower the temp to use less power for heat. Use of Eco mode modifies this somewhat by limiting the heater to about 1500 watts. So Eco mode will warm the car more slowly and may not reach your set point depending on the temperature difference.

Thanks, good to know. We were already using ECO mode the whole time.
Outside temp was 9C . That is about 48F. I have the dash temperatures set to metric. It's nice that I can do that and keep the distances and speeds in imperial since the speed limits are in imperial.

The center screen which controls the heater is in imperial though, and I believe I had it set around 72. So about 24F temperature difference.
 
I know DaveinOlyWA has posted about using http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-rubberized-heater-with-fan-96144.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I don't recall if he still uses it/finds it useful. Maybe dig around for his posts, possibly w/the help of Google?
 
cwerdna said:
I know DaveinOlyWA has posted about using http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-rubberized-heater-with-fan-96144.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I don't recall if he still uses it/finds it useful. Maybe dig around for his posts, possibly w/the help of Google?

I noticed the reviews are pretty awful on that thing about heat output and product quality.
 
madbrain said:
This is how Xmas Eve went in my Leaf.

12/24 charged 100% at work . All 12 bars showing. This is a 2 months old car.

7:30pm Commute home Santa Clara to east SJ foothills : 12.8 miles . max freeway speed = 65 mph . Car is down to 9 bars when I get home.

I put the car to charge for about 1 hour on L1 when I got home.

9pm going to dinner : east SJ foothills to Mountain View : 19.1 miles. max freeway speed = 65 mph
My partner happened to mentioned on the way that he wanted to see a movie. I start to worry that we should have taken the Prius instead.
11pm go to movie : Mountain View to South SJ : 18.8 miles . max freeway speed = 55 mph . We were conscious to conserve battery
2am drive home from South SJ to east SJ foothills : 13.2 miles . freeway speed = 50mph, on cruise control

Total distance : 63.9 miles . Freeway miles : about 50 . We did have the heat the whole time, on lowest setting (1 bar).

We made it back home up the hill with no miles showing (---), no bars left, very low battery warning.
How close were we actually cutting it ?

I don't want to think how long the Nissan tow would take at 2am on Xmas eve, having experienced 2 hours at 11pm on regular business day 2 weeks ago when my Leaf got a flat.

When I first logged in to Carwings on my cell phone after plugging in the car, it showed a charge time of 25 hours (!) which is 4 hours more than the max 21 hours that Nissan quotes. Yes, I'm still charging on L1 at home.

About a minute later when I logged from my PC to capture this crazy charge time, it had already decreased to 19 hours. Logged back on the phone right after that, and it decreased even more to 18 hours.

I have never yet taken the car to turtle, but this is about my 3rd VLBW in 2 months. I have several 18 hour full charges on L1. I hardly think I am pushing the car with the speeds I'm driving. Tonight we drove it barely fast enough to make the movie after dinner (and missed the previews). The car was on cruise control almost the entire time on the freeway for all 4 trips from full charge.

The farthest I have gone from home with my Leaf so far was San Mateo which was 72 miles roundtrip. I drove 65mph on the way there, 55 on the way back with no heat, and ended up with 3 miles on the dashboard.

When you got VLBW, it was at 8.5% capacity left. Turtle would have been 1.4% so you had about 5-7 miles left to Turtle depending on how you drove.
 
If you click on the "Range Chart" link in my signature line, you'll see how much further you might have driven from VLB "---".

I concur on getting the EVSE modified. It seems foolish to drive the distances you have without it. Very quick turnaround, loaners are available, and all you have to do is have an electrician put an L6-20R receptacle in the garage.

Probably about $500 total. Your 120 volt charging is gaining 5 miles per hour, and after the modification, it will be 12 miles per hour. That alone would have made this a non-event.
 
TonyWilliams said:
If you click on the "Range Chart" link in my signature line, you'll see how much further you might have driven from VLB "---".

I concur on getting the EVSE modified. It seems foolish to drive the distances you have without it. Very quick turnaround, loaners are available, and all you have to do is have an electrician put an L6-20R receptacle in the garage.

Probably about $500 total. Your 120 volt charging is gaining 5 miles per hour, and after the modification, it will be 12 miles per hour. That alone would have made this a non-event.

I have an SPX charging 220V/15A L2 station which I bought used for $300 a few months ago from a forum member.
I have been using it at work in conjunction with an Avcon adapter. So I know how fast it charges.
That is how my car was fully charged at work yesterday at the beginning of the trip I related.

An electrician was supposed to add a new circuit and dryer outlet to my garage last friday, but he just purchased the parts and did not complete the job that day, sigh. Hopefully later this week it will be done.
I want to add a 40A circuit for future expansion, and NEMA 14/50 dryer outlet for the SPX charger.

I won't be taking that SPX station to work anymore after it's installed at home even though it's a plug-in. I will get the Avcon adapter modified to have the J1772 plug directly on it instead of dryer plug.

Anyway, this was only a 64 mile total trip, starting with a full charge, plus one hour of L1 charge. And that extra hour of L1 only occurred because my partner was late and only at home at 9pm instead of 8pm.
I thought about charging in downtown Mountain View at City Hall which was showing on the station map. We weren't sure if they were really working. It was already 9:30pm and our reservation was for 9pm. As it is we were also the last ones out of the restaurant. If we had parked at city hall, we would have to walk more and I'm not sure if the restaurant would have taken us. And the extra walking time would probably have caused us miss the movie. Taking the chance of missing both the dinner and the movie was a gamble I didn't want to make.

Thankfully we were able to make it. And I have never yet run completely out of battery.
Next time I will make sure to ask before we leave the house what the full plans are and take the Prius if we are cutting it close. My partner took the glasses he knew for the theater, so he already knew about the movie before leaving, but he only told me on the way.

The bottom line is that we unfortunately cannot count on the Leaf getting the 73 miles EPA range on a full charge. We were really trying yesterday by limiting the speed and using ECO and cruise control. But still ended up too close to being stranded.
 
Leaffan,

LEAFfan said:
madbrain said:
This is how Xmas Eve went in my Leaf.
When you got VLBW, it was at 8.5% capacity left. Turtle would have been 1.4% so you had about 5-7 miles left to Turtle depending on how you drove.

As it happens, the VLBW (---) showed up at the bottom of the steep 0.6 mile uphill stretch just before I get home.
That stretch was determined in the thread below to take between 0.65 kWh to 0.75 kWh, or 3 to 3.5% of the battery.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=10419&start=90#p239126" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So I guess I ended up with about 5% of capacity left, not far from turtle.

I have never taken the car to turtle yet, but the numbers say that if I had, the car could would not have enough energy left for that 0.6 mile uphill.

1 hour of L1 charging is about 1 kWh or 4.1% of the battery. So it seems that I didn't have that extra hour of L1 charging, the car would have gone to turtle in the middle of the last stretch. Good thing my partner was 1 hour late and I had that extra hour, then !

I wonder if the car can still go up that steep in turtle. Is it just acceleration that's limited ? Or power ?
 
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