New to the EV market...advice?

Hi to all! Tips on how to effectively charge and maintain this cool car is greatly appreciated! I live in a rural area of SW Missouri. I only have the 110 charger right now, as I just got this car yesterday! My wife and I wanted a commuter car to lessen the miles on our convertible gas car. Work trip for us daily is approximately 45 miles round trip. It is a '13 with 36k and 12 bars.

How should I do timed charging? Is it needed with the trickle charger?

Most cost effective Level 2 charger to have both at home and if I traveled with the Leaf?

Thanks for all the help!

Congratulations on the new (to you and your wife) LEAF!!

I'm thinking you'll be very happy, especially if you operate it within the parameters you've outlined, a 45 mile round trip.

In my opinion, you don't have to rush into getting a L2 charger installed. I went for many, many months with just using L1, and others here still use L1 exclusively. I just eventually got upset thinking about the decreased efficiency of L1, which is about 10% or so less efficient than L2, so I installed a GE Wattstation, which has a cord and was a plug-in operation, as I had pre-wired the garage when it was being built. Some of the experts don't like the GE Wattstation, I think it got a poor reputation because of Nissan, there was a software update Nissan installed, and I haven't heard of any problems since. I don't know what the price of the GE Wattstation is vs. others. One other option is to send the OEM L1 charger to EVSE Upgrade, https://evseupgrade.com/ which is run by Phil, a brilliant guy who has contributed a great deal to the EV world.

One other bit of advice I have is to open the hood, look to the left and the right, there are two little plastic covers covering the struts. Carefully remove those covers to see the strut threaded portion with nut, and clean out all rust and water sitting in there as best as possible, and put some grease in there to prevent further rusting. Somebody else here pointed this out, and I was upset when I looked at my 2011 and saw how bad it had gotten.

The only other bit of advice is to keep the battery cool, or at least as cool as possible out of the hot sun on an asphalt pavement, and don't have it hot and fully charged any longer than necessary. It seems the battery can get hot, but if it hot and 100% charged the degradation is dramatically faster than either just hot or just 100% charged.

Keep the tires inflated to about 42 p.s.i. or so and they should last a decent amount of time. My OEM Ecopias lasted 45K miles, and I was happy. In the LEAF, Low Rolling Resistance tires are important, both for range and to lessen to a small extent wear and tear on the main costly item, the battery.

Good luck with everything.

L1 charging will net about 3 miles per hour. Therefore your 45 miles will require about 15 hours.

Also if you're using an old or shared outlet, you introduce some risks as well as that is a full 12 amp draw over a very long period of time.

Do you have a 220V outlet nearby (old dryer or welder)? If not suggest calling an electrician for a quote for a proper & dedicated L2 connection or outlet.

Thank you both for the help!! I really do appreciate it!!

Phatcat73 said:

L1 charging will net about 3 miles per hour. Therefore your 45 miles will require about 15 hours.

Also if you're using an old or shared outlet, you introduce some risks as well as that is a full 12 amp draw over a very long period of time.

Do you have a 220V outlet nearby (old dryer or welder)? If not suggest calling an electrician for a quote for a proper & dedicated L2 connection or outlet.

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Do make sure your 120V outlet is solid. Nothing else on it, (ideally) wired straight to breaker box, nothing getting hot while you charge.

A dryer outlet, anything else 240V in the garage would be better.

L1 charging will net about 1 kW or 1 kWh per hour, so how many miles per hour of charging depends on how many miles per kWh you get.

I get about 4 miles per kWh, somewhat less in winter, somewhat more in summer. Your mileage WILL vary.

Mileage will depend on speed you drive, how cold it is, snow/rain/wind, how much altitude change, and probably more.

Recharge times might be slightly marginal with just L1.

L1 charging will net about 3 miles per hour. Therefore your 45 miles will require about 15 hours.

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Reasonably gentle driving will net 4 miles per hour of charging. Hopefully you have an SV or SL, with the heatpump. Set your charge timer with an end time only, and a charge limit of 100%, with the time set for 1 hour before you leave. That way you get the most range, without harming the battery pack. I'll post a link to the 'Tips & Tricks' topic.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=23297

sub3marathonman said:

I installed a GE Wattstation, which has a cord and was a plug-in operation, as I had pre-wired the garage when it was being built. Some of the experts don't like the GE Wattstation, I think it got a poor reputation because of Nissan, there was a software update Nissan installed, and I haven't heard of any problems since. I don't know what the price of the GE Wattstation is vs. others.

Click to expand...

The GE Wattstation is discontinued as best as I can tell. The current model is the DuraStation and that seems to work fine. It's a 30 amp EVSE (requiring a 40 amp circuit) but can be dialed down to as low as 12 amps (15 amp circuit) if your present service cannot handle a larger feed.

For the OP: many of us have Clipper Creek EVSEs: https://store.clippercreek.com/residential Not fancy but get the job done. Downside is that unlike the DuraStation they cannot have their input wattage dialed down. Their model number designation denotes the required circuit capacity, not the output; e.g. the HCS-40 requires a 40 amp circuit but only outputs a maximum of 32 amps.

Unless you see yourself getting a Tesla in the future, no need to get an EVSE greater than 32 amps. All Leafs produced thus far can only pull a maximum of 27.5 amps. All 2011/2012 Leafs, and the Leaf S without the Quick Charge Port, can only draw a maximum of 16 amps anyway.