Navigating by latitude/longitude + Chargepoint first time

As a geocacher I was irritated that neither the in-car GPS system nor Carwings had a way to input waypoints by latitude and longitude. Reading over the related thread on route planning, though, I discovered that it's relatively easy. Google Maps accepts latitude/longitude waypoints and displays them on the map. You can then send them to your car as specified in the previous thread. There are a few fine points with this method, though.

First you have to do it in Google Maps, which for those of you with a smart phone is no big deal, but for those of us with only a desktop at home, you can't do that in the field. Next, geocachers typically want to put several points into the system and not specify a route or order. You could download each of them, hit pause, and add to route, then at the end save the current route, which is a bit cumbersome and leaves you with a fixed route which may not be the way you want to go. We often skip one waypoint or decide to do them in a different order depending on various factors. So after I found a series of four on Google Maps and sent them to the car, and then figured out to download them from Google Maps, I saved each one as a destination, only to find that saving them apparently only prevents them from being deleted from the Google Maps car storage server after downloading. It does NOT save them in the car unit even though you are pushing the save button there.

What I just did in preparation for tomorrow's geocaching trip is (in my garage) to download the Google Maps feed, hit pause on the first one, set as destination, wait until it sets the destination and starts telling me the navigation, then go back and start the Google Maps feed again, when it starts playing destination 1, push the down arrow to get destination 2, repeating the process using that as the new destination, and so on through all four. Then I canceled navigation and then started it again and pushed the previous destinations button. All four locations are now stored there. I could have just done this one by one tomorrow if I knew for sure I would have a cell phone connection the whole way, but I can be pretty sure I won't since I'll be up on Summit Road in Los Gatos/San Lorenzo area which is mountainous, sparsely populated, and heavily wooded. This way they are all in the car and I can choose them in whatever order I want. As long as the car can get a GPS signal pretty reliably (which it should up there), then it can navigate without needing to connect to the information center to get the next destination.

A note of caution. When using Google Maps this way, it resolves to the nearest road address to send to the Leaf since apparently the Leaf's system isn't sophisticated enough to do that. I.e., it calculates in On Road mode not Off Road for those of you familiar with handheld units, which makes sense for a car-based system. That means it may not always pick the right road location, especially if the coordinates are on a frontage road to a freeway, for example, or deep in a park of any kind. You may want the nearest parking lot, not the nearest road, and certainly don't want to be told you're arriving at your destination on the freeway going 65. So look on the Google map display first, i.e. before sending the car, and be sure the location highlighted is on the street you want. If it has the wrong location, such as the nearest road (but where you can't stop or park), I use Google Earth street view to get a street address nearby where I do want to stop or park and input that.

A second problem is that it seems to name them only according to street address or street name. Although you can give each one a name (e.g. general store, Los Trancos Park) in the Note field on Google Maps, and that name is read out by the voice at the end of each repetition at the time of downloading, that does not display in the car menu. The display just has the "address" and street, so it is a bit difficult to know which one you are choosing when you select it as the next destination. I also managed to download a Carwings route with all of them in the order I think I am going to do them, but I am not certain what happens if I decide to skip one of I try to jump into that route while I'm halfway done. Does anyone have any experience with that?

This actually worked really well. The documentation is lousy and the interface is even worse, but I did get the route I wanted into the Leaf and used it all morning up in the mountains. I changed to a different waypoint mid-route selecting from the ones from Google Maps, then resumed the Carwings route. All the directions were right on, easily heard, etc. It only lost satellite lock once, briefly, which was indicated by the voice suddenly announcing in the middle of driving ("Beginning navigation to Waypoint 4") even though it had already been navigating to waypoint 4. It's an impressive and effective system once you get over the learning curve, which is unnecessarily clunky.

I also found and used a Chargepoint station for the first time. I really didn't need the juice, since I was at 11 bars, but I wanted to make sure my card worked and I knew how to use the system in case I ever needed one. It worked, but only after a learning curve there. The station I used was at Coulomb Technologies in Campbell. They have two public stations there. The nav system directed me to the street address, but didn't tell me whether it was in the large complex on the right or left, or where in the complex, but the signage got me in the general area and I cruised until I found one. There was a Mini-e at that one, but there was a second parking slot there and second handle next to it, which I took. The other station, I later learned, was around the corner of the building and another Leaf was using it. There was no second handle or second parking spot on that one. The one where I was had station #1 available according to the LED display so I pulled out my card and tried to find a slot for it. Then I remembered I was just supposed to tap it. I fiddled around a bit and finally tapped it on the LEDs and it responded with a "card not authorized message." I called the 888 number on the card and actually got a human promptly, and she spoke English! I explained and she asked me to read the station number, my card #, etc. She confirmed I was in the system as an authorized user and put me on hold while she consulted someone higher. While I was waiting I realized the tiny display on the unit was rotating between station 1 and station 2. It said station 1 available, tap card to start, then station 2 charging, tap card to stop. I realized that I may have tapped my card while it was displaying the station 2 message, so I waited for station 1 to rotate through again and sure enough when I tapped it this time it authorized me immediately. I noticed it had a minimum charge of $.50, which is fine, but the website said this was free, so I was a bit miffed to learn I can't count on the website being accurate. I only let it charge for about 10 min. since I didn't really need the juice, but I learned also that I'm pretty sure I was only on a Level 1 station, because after I started charging the girl came back on the phone and said she wasn't sure the 120V station could charge while the 240V station was charging. The handle I used was marked 16 something maximum (amps, I assume, but maybe it was Kwh). I never looked at the other handle which was stuck in the Mini-e. I wish they would have better signage on that - just say Level 1 and Level 2 if that's what they are. The LED display doesn't say, either. I just assumed I was getting Level 2 at the time I plugged in. Although these two charging stations are available to the public, it looks like employees are tying them up most of the day, so it's clear we need more of them and you can't count on the ones that do work being available.

The L1s I've seen are just regular 3-prong outlets behind a door. You plug your portable EVSE into it. If there was a J1772 handle, then I'd expect it was L2.

Yes it was a J1772.

Hey Rat,
Thank you for posting your observations. Very much appreciated.