Public Charging Gripes

2013 Leaf rather consistent. AHr dropped a few times but has for the most part stuck at 67.36 SOH=100% Hx=106.68% Odo=21,283 2QCs & 1423 L1/L2s. 284 Gids at 100%.

Most of the time I get these values but it is hard to tell if I have any noticable range loss quite honestly. I thought I did this winter then took that Christmas Marathon with the Leaf and went 84 miles on one charge in 30 degree weather. I am Highly satisfied. Highway speeds and many hills still get me at minimum 50 miles on a full charge in the worst conditions. Now that it has started to warm up I'm back to 60 miles on a full charge and that's with 20% remaining on battery (I tend not to push it much past 20% due to lack of charging stations). The one thing I will say is that I'm finding that Dealerships around here have been becoming less open to letting me charge. I really hope that the charging stations start popping up around here. My belief is free charging is hurting the rollout. I've read several different posts on here from some shady characters. One guy actually had the audacity to consider charging his car at a charging station a few blocks from his house. Others leaving their car plugged in locked even when not charging, and of course some being ICED (this is what happens to the Hyvee here just outside Omaha that has the ONLY public charging station in the Metro). I believe all of these problems would be overcome by a simple fee based system. BTW WHY DOES ANYONE EXPECT TO PAY RETAIL PRICE FOR A CHARGE AT A PUBLIC STATION!? We all had to spend money on a evse at home so why should we expect to be charged just the cost of electricity? I think $5 dollars for a full charge (similiar hourly rate fair too) is fair with a fee for time left plugged when once charging is completed. This might be steep for some but I believe it would help in the long run.

Quick Charging stations are something I could only dream of seeing one day here in Omaha and I fully hope that they are fee based to compensate the provider. $10 dollars minimum (maybe $15?)

IraqiInvaderGnr said:

2013 Leaf rather consistent. AHr dropped a few times but has for the most part stuck at 67.36 SOH=100% Hx=106.68% Odo=21,283 2QCs & 1423 L1/L2s. 284 Gids at 100%.

Most of the time I get these values but it is hard to tell if I have any noticable range loss quite honestly. I thought I did this winter then took that Christmas Marathon with the Leaf and went 84 miles on one charge in 30 degree weather. I am Highly satisfied. Highway speeds and many hills still get me at minimum 50 miles on a full charge in the worst conditions. Now that it has started to warm up I'm back to 60 miles on a full charge and that's with 20% remaining on battery (I tend not to push it much past 20% due to lack of charging stations). The one thing I will say is that I'm finding that Dealerships around here have been becoming less open to letting me charge. I really hope that the charging stations start popping up around here. My belief is free charging is hurting the rollout. I've read several different posts on here from some shady characters. One guy actually had the audacity to consider charging his car at a charging station a few blocks from his house. Others leaving their car plugged in locked even when not charging, and of course some being ICED (this is what happens to the Hyvee here just outside Omaha that has the ONLY public charging station in the Metro). I believe all of these problems would be overcome by a simple fee based system. BTW WHY DOES ANYONE EXPECT TO PAY RETAIL PRICE FOR A CHARGE AT A PUBLIC STATION!? We all had to spend money on a evse at home so why should we expect to be charged just the cost of electricity? I think $5 dollars for a full charge (similiar hourly rate fair too) is fair with a fee for time left plugged when once charging is completed. This might be steep for some but I believe it would help in the long run.

Quick Charging stations are something I could only dream of seeing one day here in Omaha and I fully hope that they are fee based to compensate the provider. $10 dollars minimum (maybe $15?)

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mine has dropped below 100% Hx after just 5200 miles. I have much less L2 charging but 15 fast charge events. I personally dont think they are the issue as my fast charges tend to be shallow. i rarely charge to as much as 80%.

what is your GID setting? I noticed the other day mine was at 77.5 whr/GID. I changed it to 80 whr but did not seem to affect anything.

as far as your public charging fees, they might be a bit high for most but then again, we have pretty low electrical rates in WA. Most Nissan dealers have gone to Chargepoint and are charging $3 for a fast charge session. unfortunately, this is not regulated which means there will be some that will want to get a full charge when an L2 could do the trick after they get somewhere above 80% SOC (I was going to check where the tipping point was the other day but lost patience at 82%...)

Either way, all this could be avoided and provide greater acceptance in most cases by going to a time based fee structure. That way, if you decide to spend a lot of time on a very valuable (and time sensitive!) asset, you will pay accordingly.

IraqiInvaderGnr said:

Quick Charging stations are something I could only dream of seeing one day here in Omaha and I fully hope that they are fee based to compensate the provider. $10 dollars minimum (maybe $15?)

Click to expand...

Would you really be willing to pay $0.30 per mile and have to spend 30 minutes every 50 miles on a trip in the Leaf when you could use an ICE for $0.15 per mile and not have to stop or only spend a few minutes every 300 miles? For me the cost of Electric fill-ups would have to be substantually LOWER than the cost of ICE driving before I would spend so much extra time on a trip.

The one trip we took in our leaf after about 1.5 months of ownership was 115 miles each way and took 14 hours, with three hours at the destination. In our ICE at 30+mpg we could have made the entire trip in about 3 hours of driving and saved 8 hours. That time is worth something to me. However we did it just for the adventure. We may even do it again, but if we had to pay $10 or $15 per DCQC to get 50 more miles each time then I vote "NO". To get those 50 miles would cost less than $7 each with the ICE and save 3 hours on Quick charging if we went 300 miles and LOTS more time if we had to use L2.

Graffi said:

IraqiInvaderGnr said:

Quick Charging stations are something I could only dream of seeing one day here in Omaha and I fully hope that they are fee based to compensate the provider. $10 dollars minimum (maybe $15?)

Click to expand...

Would you really be willing to pay $0.30 per mile and have to spend 30 minutes every 50 miles on a trip in the Leaf when you could use an ICE for $0.15 per mile and not have to stop or only spend a few minutes every 300 miles? For me the cost of Electric fill-ups would have to be substantually LOWER than the cost of ICE driving before I would spend so much extra time on a trip.

The one trip we took in our leaf after about 1.5 months of ownership was 115 miles each way and took 14 hours, with three hours at the destination. In our ICE at 30+mpg we could have made the entire trip in about 3 hours of driving and saved 8 hours. That time is worth something to me. However we did it just for the adventure. We may even do it again, but if we had to pay $10 or $15 per DCQC to get 50 more miles each time then I vote "NO". To get those 50 miles would cost less than $7 each with the ICE and save 3 hours on Quick charging if we went 300 miles and LOTS more time if we had to use L2.

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several good points here. what I see is simply not enough chargers to go around and the situation is getting worse by 2500+ units monthly. In WA, one of the main fast charge companies has a low rate of $20 a month for unlimited charging which sounds good but encourages people to camp out instead of charging up and going and they dont cover the Seattle area.

The other option if you elect to not subscribe monthly is $7 a charge which is too much especially considering the cost of peak electricity in the state. So the only fair solution is time based charging. you said it yourself; time is valuable but we are devaluing it to the user by session based fees while making it more inconvenient for the people stuck behind you.

The other day, I was in Auburn to get a fast charge. I pulled in and the guy in front of me had been charging 7 minutes and was already over 80%. He had dealer license frames from the dealer in question which made me think he lived near by. I waited over 40 minutes for him to finish his charge at like 98%. I had 8%. I plugged in, got what I needed and was gone 23 minutes later with a 50 mile drive in front of me.

this is just one example of many of what we are putting up with...

I met the enemy and they are us... :|

Last Tuesday a red Leaf pulled up at one of the 2 L2 chargers at Chuck's in Hazel Dell (Vancouver, WA) as I was watching my Leaf charge. The lady with matching hair disappeared without plugging in. I walked out to see if I could locate her and have her move so others could use the one spot left.

There was a Common Cause sticker on the Leaf. I then figured she had something to do with the petition drive against corporations being citizens that was going on.

So ... I went to the GE WattStation and uncoiled the cord then wrapped it around the driver's side rear view mirror. :lol: It was enough to make a maggot vomit! Probably wouldn't please Bill Moyers either... :roll:

DaveinOlyWA said:

Graffi said:

IraqiInvaderGnr said:

Quick Charging stations are something I could only dream of seeing one day here in Omaha and I fully hope that they are fee based to compensate the provider. $10 dollars minimum (maybe $15?)

Click to expand...

Would you really be willing to pay $0.30 per mile and have to spend 30 minutes every 50 miles on a trip in the Leaf when you could use an ICE for $0.15 per mile and not have to stop or only spend a few minutes every 300 miles? For me the cost of Electric fill-ups would have to be substantually LOWER than the cost of ICE driving before I would spend so much extra time on a trip.

The one trip we took in our leaf after about 1.5 months of ownership was 115 miles each way and took 14 hours, with three hours at the destination. In our ICE at 30+mpg we could have made the entire trip in about 3 hours of driving and saved 8 hours. That time is worth something to me. However we did it just for the adventure. We may even do it again, but if we had to pay $10 or $15 per DCQC to get 50 more miles each time then I vote "NO". To get those 50 miles would cost less than $7 each with the ICE and save 3 hours on Quick charging if we went 300 miles and LOTS more time if we had to use L2.

Click to expand...

several good points here. what I see is simply not enough chargers to go around and the situation is getting worse by 2500+ units monthly. In WA, one of the main fast charge companies has a low rate of $20 a month for unlimited charging which sounds good but encourages people to camp out instead of charging up and going and they dont cover the Seattle area.

The other option if you elect to not subscribe monthly is $7 a charge which is too much especially considering the cost of peak electricity in the state. So the only fair solution is time based charging. you said it yourself; time is valuable but we are devaluing it to the user by session based fees while making it more inconvenient for the people stuck behind you.

The other day, I was in Auburn to get a fast charge. I pulled in and the guy in front of me had been charging 7 minutes and was already over 80%. He had dealer license frames from the dealer in question which made me think he lived near by. I waited over 40 minutes for him to finish his charge at like 98%. I had 8%. I plugged in, got what I needed and was gone 23 minutes later with a 50 mile drive in front of me.

this is just one example of many of what we are putting up with...

Click to expand...

Each one of us on here got a Leaf for unique reasons. The Big reason I got a leaf was yes to save money but also to stop being reliant on the oil companies. I still have my ICE car but it hasn't been driven since Last Thanksgiving. I use my Leaf as much as possible including long adventures. Maybe I am unique in this position but everyone needs to remember the Leaf was never meant to be a cross country car but rather a commuter car. That being said to have to pay $10 dollars to quick charge my "commuter" car to allow cross country travel I would do that. Savings isn't everything people. Think about it this way. If there were ample charging stations to allow cross country travel with a "commuter" car how many here would do without a ICE vehicle? I know for sure I would. The only reason I continue to pay insurance on my ICE car is because I have to have a car that takes me to Mid-Missouri a few times a year. That Christmas Marathon showed me one thing. It is possible now but risky being how I'd be relying on Campgrounds. Throw charging stations to allow it I would do gladly and would just plan on leaving the night before and napping while it charges. BTW how are you driving where you can only get 50 miles to a charge!? Easily I get 70 miles on a charge doing highway speeds.

DaveinOlyWa: I left all my settings on default. I just changed my whr/GID from 77.5 to 80. I'll see if that changes anything.

Charging stations are not built for just the Nissan Leaf but for all electric cars to use. We must remember this. Yes in a Nissan Leaf we might have to charge every 50 miles as Graffi puts it but what about a Tesla or RAVev? Every 100 or 200 miles for them. That's a big difference. Fee based is the way to go and in the long run bigger the battery the less cost for the driver. Right now we should be happy to have companies investing money into charging stations and in my humble opinion we should show our support to these companies. Without them the electric vehicles might just be another chapter in a history book. We can't make everything about saving a penny here or 30 minutes there.

IraqiInvaderGnr I understand what you are getting at and mostly agree. However, I believe the way the charging infrastructure is being set up will NEVER work for allowing the Leaf to be used for other than a short distance commuter vehicle.

We love our Leaf and do almost all our charging in our own garage on the L2 installed there. There is no need to go anywhere else to charge. We only charge to 80% so have a range of 60 to 65 miles at about 4 miles/kwh with our freeway driving. I used 50 miles for trip driving because you never want to push it to the limit thinking the charging station will be ready and waiting for you, because it may not be. If the freeways were set up to have L3 statons every 25 to 30 miles then I would plan to use our Leaf for more of these trips. Until that time arrives, using the ICE will be our norm for travel out of the local area. As it is we are pretty much on track with our lease of 15,000 miles per year with just local driving, this with my wife using it for her daily commute of only 19 miles R/T plus our other local driving.

IMHO the only practical way public charging stations will work is with the state public utility commissions in the various states mandating that the various utility companies provide the electricity at some low rate without the extra demand charge. This way some service provider such as Blink, eVgo, etc., could provide billing and maintenance for a low fee, such as a connect charge, but then also charge us for the electricity used and forward this to the utility. The actual charging stations could be set up using a public grant such as federal or state transportation monies.

The way it currently works, the service provider pays a very high price for the electricity plus an even larger monthly demand charge. In order for them to make a profit, they have to mark-up the price even higher to the end user. At a recent EV gathering here in San Diego I was told by an eVgo representative that recently a new L3 was put in service. It was used only one time in the billing cycle, with only a few dollars of electricity, but the demand charge for that month was over $1,500. That was a very expensive charge the EV got. Why should the EV drivers pay all that extra profit to the utility? I pay $0.11 per kwh at home, so why can the utility company not sell me that same electricity through an L3 charging station at the same price? Why should we be expected to pay $10 or $15 for $2.00 or less of electricity?

If the charging network could be set up as I have proposed then we could all use these stations along major highways or freeways for travel and still reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Using the ICE I find myself following the flow of traffic at maybe 80mph in the fast lane, but with the Leaf I usually drive at only 60mph in the slow lane. We do not need a law to make us drive slower, we just find ourselves doing it to be more efficient.