Carwings Survey from Nissan

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

cgaydos

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
653
Location
Monument, Colorado
I just received an email from Nissan asking me to participate in a Carwings Survey. Pretty robust series of questions - they are aware of all the LEAF apps out there.

But my big concern was the statement that they will be asking us to pay for Carwings soon (after the 3 year subscription is up for newer LEAFs) and gave the following values as possible annual prices for Carwings: $140, $170, and $200.

My reaction was: No freaking way. Sirius XM/NavTraffic is just $3/month or $36/year and the benefit is comparable (actually I let NavTraffic expire as the traffic info from Google Maps is about 10 minutes newer, which with traffic is an eternity). I can't see paying anywhere near that for Carwings in its current semi-reliable state, with excessively slow response times and missing features. I'd still have trouble conceiving of that kind of payment even if the reliablility and speed of the connection were fixed, it offered good support for multi-LEAF households, and if Carwings started reporting SOC, GIDs, battery cell state, and history, but at least then it would be something worth paying for.

It also seems to me that the LEAF is in a fragile situation market-wise - yes it is now clearly the top-selling plug-in in the US and momentum is building, but it's still very much an early adopter market and other manufacturers are in good positions to snatch the leadership position from Nissan - so a move like charging for Carwings could stall that momentum. Especially considering that the LEAF owner who gets the letter announcing that Carwings will now cost her/him $140+/year will have had the car 2.5+ years, thus experiencing at least some battery degradation, and paying for the service will seem a bit like rubbing salt in the would.

What do others think? I should emphasize this is just a survey - if Nissan gets a resounding "no" response to paying that much for Carwings I'm sure they'll revise their plans.
 
I'll take a look at the survey. It looks like EV's may be in a position of dying from a thousand little cuts as each profit center is a debit center for us owners. The fun and cost factors may erode to a point where we may have to say, "Well it was great while it lasted." Really, I am hopeful some of these issues are consolidated to the point where we have a few basic charges and are not paying for ten cards covering 3 essential services.
 
$12 per year max. Nissan gets more out of the data than LEAF owners IMO.
As long as LEAF owner pushes "YES" to send data to Nissan then the functions should remain very low to no cost for the LEAF driver.

How about 20 cents per inquiry, message sent etc to cover the cellular fee. I went months at a time with ZERO use.
$140 per year is crazy talk.
 
Yet another survey I did not receive... I don't see Carwings being worth more than about 25 bucks a year...

cgaydos said:
I just received an email from Nissan asking me to participate in a Carwings Survey. Pretty robust series of questions - they are aware of all the LEAF apps out there.
 
TomT said:
Yet another survey I did not receive... I don't see Carwings being worth more than about 25 bucks a year...
I wouldn't worry about it. I didn't get it either ... and ... our leaf is over 3yrs old now. It's still running ... and just as flakey as they day it activated.
:lol:
.
 
When you pre-heat the car is that using Carwings? Is there a way to do it not using Carwings? I think that's the only thing I've ever used Carwings for.

If Carwings goes away will that annoying prompt when you start your car about tracking your driving go away?

I know someone who has a 2011 and Nissan let him know he'll receive an extra year of Carwings for free.
 
gsleaf said:
When you pre-heat the car is that using Carwings? Is there a way to do it not using Carwings? I think that's the only thing I've ever used Carwings for.

If Carwings goes away will that annoying prompt when you start your car about tracking your driving go away?

I know someone who has a 2011 and Nissan let him know he'll receive an extra year of Carwings for free.

Well, from the beginning Nissan has been open about saying Carwings was free for 3 years - it's even on the car price stickers for 2011 and 2012. When 3 years hit for the first LEAF buyers Nissan wasn't ready to charge for Carwings so they just said they were giving everyone extra free time. This survey indicates they are now starting the process of evaluating whether to charge for Carwings and how to go about that.
 
I got the survey. Really wasn't much substantial about it. Asked what parts of Carwings I use, and why didn't I use the other parts. Made it a point to tell them it was slow, clunky, and pretty poorly laid out. Comments section I told them I wanted to be able to send an address to the NAV unit like I can with OnStar, and I wanted a readout of the battery temperature whenever I update so I can see if I need to move it in to some shade or not to try and stop the battery from degrading as fast.. They asked about the range, and battery too. So let them have that as well. Figure if I never complain the car will never change... Really hoping based on all these survey's I've gotten lately that this is the year of change. I want to stay EV, but I cannot afford a Model S. Neither the Volt or Leaf have changed really at all in almost 4 years. Going to let the Volt go when my lease is up in September and not get another one. Feel my hand is kind of forced on the Leaf though. Especially since living in Virginia that is really the only game in town unless I want to take my change with loosing warranty support.
 
I just filled out the survey as well. Not sure how they decide who gets them or not. I've only had my leaf for 3 months as of today.

Obviously, their market research team did their homework. I was honestly surprised to see any mention of 3rd-Party apps in the survey. The ones that use the Carwings API was one thing, but for them to even acknowledge Leaf Spy...

My responses were similar to cgaydos'. No way at $200, $170, or $140. I would consider $20-25 a year. Or hell, just bundle it in as a "lifetime" service with any options package that includes the NAV system (i.e. not the base "S" model). Why charge us extra for what is expected functionality in a high-tech car? I don't know, does Tesla charge for all their automation separately?

I also provided feedback that Carwings needs to be faster. The web interface needs to be the same as the mobile interface, with the same control functionality. Provide start and stop and 1-time timer functionality for charging and climate, allow setting the charge % and climate temp remotely. Allow for display of actual charging rate (in kW), and a better estimate for charging time, reflecting the actual EVSE's capabilities, instead of just the silly 3.3 / 6.6 kW times. What about 16A/240 (3.84kW), 24A/240 (5.76kW) or any other de-rated EVSE? Allow Carwings to connect via WiFi, at least at "home".

I'll add to this that wifi access must be able to be set up via carwings...no way am I trying to type in the 63 random character password on my wifi network via the touch screen.

Honestly, as it is now, if carwings went away, I don't know that I would miss a whole lot. Sure, remote climate control and charge override is nice, but I don't know that I would mourn it's loss. Now if they added some real, useful functionality...

Anyway just my $0.02

--G
 
Really like and use the remote monitoring. Somewhat like the efficiency rankings and hints. The charger finder seems often out of date and unaware of even spots where Nissan itself sold DCQCs.

If we pay for it will that also upgrade the cell modem service to 3g or better yet 4g. When at home the car should be enabled to make use of any WiFi that is present to update more quickly and keep the features working after the cell service obsoletes. Or ideally all of the above... modular cell and or WiFi radio interface in the glove box or something.

How about piggybacking onto traffic service... instead of data from cell... data from sat.

Cell and or WiFi uplink and sat down.

Let us use tethering from our phones to feed data to the car over whatever net exists where we live?

I like CarWings concept... execution needs work.

Android app should request update everytime I open it.
 
I like having Carwings, but not at those prices.


I'd pay $5 per month, IF it were improved. I took the survey and listed improvements as adding features comparable to existing CAN-attached devices in use.

But honestly, Nissan, cut out the dinosaur thinking and stop viewing this as a "cost center", but rather as a feature driving vehicle sales and a competitive advantage.

You'd expect that the cost per customer should have been dropping as the number of LEAFs keeps climbing. Should be much less than it was at roll-out.
 
That is in hardware so won't happen on older cars... But 1G/2G service is going away so soon Nissan (and some other manufacturers) will have no choice but to move to newer hardware and service... Nissan currently does it all by SMS, by the way...

jsongster said:
If we pay for it will that also upgrade the cell modem service to 3g or better yet 4g.
 
I have an 2011 Leaf, I received an email telling me the had extended my CarWinds indefinitely for free, great. Then I read the fine print at the bottom AND. AT&T is ending 2G in two years and the will end CarWinds in my Leaf unless there might be a Hardware upgrade at my cost.

An 2011 car with 2G communications, strange.
 
I answered it this morning but the pay-to-play options I was presented with were $100 / $80 / $60. I said I was not interested at any price because there is so little it does. I did state I would consider it if it were significantly improved (including using PlugShare to source charging locations)
 
vgniphone said:
AT&T is ending 2G in two years and the will end CarWinds in my Leaf unless there might be a Hardware upgrade at my cost.
I bet most people already have a phone with SMS, 3G/4G data, Wifi, and/or Mifi. It would be nice if the car would use a Bluetooth connection to send and receive Carwings data through the phone instead of having to buy redundant hardware and redundant monthly cell service.
 
Ford thought that was a great idea too for their system but is going to a built in 3G modem next year because it proved to be such a nightmare! You don't want to have to depend on someone elses unknown and variable hardware...

walterbays said:
vgniphone said:
AT&T is ending 2G in two years and the will end CarWinds in my Leaf unless there might be a Hardware upgrade at my cost.
I bet most people already have a phone with SMS, 3G/4G data, Wifi, and/or Mifi. It would be nice if the car would use a Bluetooth connection to send and receive Carwings data through the phone instead of having to buy redundant hardware and redundant monthly cell service.
 
GIBBER said:
I answered it this morning but the pay-to-play options I was presented with were $100 / $80 / $60. I said I was not interested at any price because there is so little it does. I did state I would consider it if it were significantly improved (including using PlugShare to source charging locations)

Interesting. One possibility is that they set the survey up to use different price points at random ,and the other is that after getting a day of very negative responses they changed the survey with lower prices.
 
Yeah when I originally took the survey the other day it only had options over $200.. told them I wasn't paying anything for it cause it just isn't really worth it to me. In the beginning I used to check the car using the App all the time, but if I had to pay for it I would just use the in car timer for climate control. Car has more than proven itself, and without any improvements in the app, and the refresh speed of the data I'm not going to pay money for it. It would need to be like the OnStar app for my Volt which gives me tire pressures, charge state, and the ability to program the navigation unit from my phone before I would consider paying for it.
 
Roadburner440 said:
Yeah when I originally took the survey the other day it only had options over $200.. told them I wasn't paying anything for it cause it just isn't really worth it to me. In the beginning I used to check the car using the App all the time, but if I had to pay for it I would just use the in car timer for climate control. Car has more than proven itself, and without any improvements in the app, and the refresh speed of the data I'm not going to pay money for it. It would need to be like the OnStar app for my Volt which gives me tire pressures, charge state, and the ability to program the navigation unit from my phone before I would consider paying for it.
I agree, Nissan has done nothing to improve CarWings from day one. If they want to charge for it, they need to be continually improving CarWings. They can't even get the miles driven right.

Everyone with a 2011-12 should just hit decline, every time, that is what I have been doing since the EV Project ended.
 
Back
Top