How many people just use 120v charging at home???

I'm on the fence about buying a new 2015 Leaf. The prices seem pretty good, but I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle of installing a 220v charger in my garage.

I have a modest commute of about 10 miles each way.

Do you think I could just get away with using the slow trickle 110v charging option?

The 110V charger charges at roughly 3-4 miles per hour, so with just ~3 hours of charging you'd be set.

Yes, you'll be fine. I have done it for 2+ years with much more driving. Just make sure the wiring and, especially, the outlet, are in good shape, and nothing else that draws more current than a light bulb is on the circuit with the car.

Works great for me. I get around 6 miles per hour. Do make sure you have a good socket though. No extension cord. I keep the nice open evse packed in back for long trips. RV sites are the only options out here in the wild west.

A 10 mile commute would not be a problem on just 120 volt charging. However as already mentioned, make sure the circuit you plan on plugging into is of good quality and is not shared with anything else particularly high wattage appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners/heaters. Unless you have fairly new wiring, it may be a good idea to have an electrician come out and inspect the wiring and maybe put in a new outlet in.

When I first got my LEAF, I had a 55 mile commute and only had 120V charging available. It worked in the summer, but just barely.

My commute is roughly 16-20 miles per way and I use the trickle charger only, as of now. I get home by 5:30-6pm plug in and leave at 7:30am and I generally have anywhere from 55-75 GOM's and that gets me to and from work no problem.

S

Look at it this way. Charging at 120v gets you about 4 miles per hour of charge. If you can manage to plug it in 12 hours each night, that gives you 48 miles of charge each night. So, you need to average less than that, in general, for the plan to work. plug in numbers for your personal use to fine tune. This ignores severe weather or other things that might lower your efficiency. To account for them, use a lower number of miles per hour of charge.

I always recommend people take the plunge and put in 240v charging, but I recognize that some people can't.

If you drive less than 40-50 mi/day it will work just fine. However, it only provides 1.2KW of pre-heating in the winter which isn't much at 0F. Works ok (barely) down to about 20 F.

have 2 ev's.only charge at home with the 110volt.works great.about 1000k miles per mo on the leaf average.

No Worries!! I nearly exclusively trickle charge, and charge my Leaf every other day or so with about 20 mile (total daily) commute. Heavy "heater" days I will need to charge every night as the heater will draw 1Kw, or on "AC" days it can reduce range significantly.

My only critique is that I wish trickle charge wasn't such an after thought in the design of the car. Since the charger is a separate unit and I live in an apartment building, I have the problem of theft (costing me about $1100 replacement if it were stolen). So, the inconvenient part about charging is that I have to pull the charger out of my car to charge, and then stow it in my car after charging. However, after a month or so, it became habit and I don't even really think about it. Of course, if you are charging in the comfort of your own garage, you can just leave the charger plugged into the wall all of the time.

Transtead said:

My only critique is that I wish trickle charge wasn't such an after thought in the design of the car. Since the charger is a separate unit and I live in an apartment building, I have the problem of theft (costing me about $1100 replacement if it were stolen). So, the inconvenient part about charging is that I have to pull the charger out of my car to charge, and then stow it in my car after charging. However, after a month or so, it became habit and I don't even really think about it. Of course, if you are charging in the comfort of your own garage, you can just leave the charger plugged into the wall all of the time.

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All EVs are like that, including the Teslas. For 2013+ cars Nissan did offer the option of locking the J1772 handle to the charging port, though it won't discourage someone from simply cutting the cord off at the handle and stealing the rest of it.

Transtead said:

I have the problem of theft (costing me about $1100 replacement if it were stolen).

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If it DOES happen to you, you can pay way less than $1100 for a replacement. I see them on ebay and craigslist in the $175-300 range frequently and a brand new Clipper Creek 120v charger is $395.

We've been charging with a 120V garage outlet since getting the Leaf in April. With typically 15-20 miles of daily driving, the 120V charging isn't an issue.

The wiring has been another issue. Our tract home was built in the early 80's and had cheap builder's grade outlets with wires pushed in on the rear. Code at the time was GFCI only in bathrooms, outdoors, and garage, so all are on one GFCI breaker on one circuit. Now we have all new and tight GFCI outlets and a new standard breaker on the circuit. We just can't dry hair and charge the car simultaneously!

What country are you in?

US and Canada use 120v
Mexico uses 127v

There are some countries that use 110v but they aren't the most common suspects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country

Cuba is 110v

many Caribbean countries are 110v

Columbia is 110v

Taiwan is 110v


a way to avoid discussing voltage would be to change the title to "using L1 EVSE" or "using Nissan / Panasonic EVSE"


and similar for 220v vs 240v.

Also, if you're reluctant just because of cost, you can go with modifying the OEM EVSE provided to run on 240V or if you happen to live in an area where they offer rebates for EVSE installs (here in IL, last I checked, both residential and commercial installs get a 50% rebate). You may find that you would use the car more often for longer errands (we charge to 100% on the weekends; 80% overnight) if you have a faster charger on hand; we've driven ours as much as 140 or so miles on a weekend day by coming home and charging for a few hours between longer trips; the L2 makes it possible