Vacaville L3 Chargepoint

YES, based on my experience and from others I have read reports from....The DAVIS STREET exit charging station in Vacaville has an OPEN, Public, and FREE L3 charge point.

There is only 1 charge handle available and it is on the west end of the south array of charging connections (they have charge cables for about every variety of EV on the road in the last 15 years it seemed to me). These various charge points are served by a large set of SOLAR PANELS and these provide also a bit of shade and/or rain protection while using the charge stations.

There is also a SONIC DRIVE-IN just 100 feet across the parking lot, so both your passengers and your vehicle can be "recharged."

Vacaville, as I read the recent history, might be the MOST EV FRIENDLY city in the U.S. About 10 years ago, the then city manager committed the city to going as green as possible with the city fleet of service vehicles and they are reported to have over 100 electric powered CITY OWNED vehicles.

I did use that charge station to get from Petaluma to Sacramento without "range anxiety" on getting my new LEAF home from North Bay Nissan.

LEAF VIN #320
Volt VIN # 679

GeorgeParrott said:

YES, based on my experience and from others I have read reports from....The DAVIS STREET exit charging station in Vacaville has an OPEN, Public, and FREE L3 charge point.

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Wow! Other posts recent as March 6th have indicated Vacaville was not available.

So did you charge to 80%? How long did it take? Did you have to manually start the charger? Did the LEAF need any input to start charging? Did anyone on site need to enable the charger? Did the battery temp meter increase? Pictures?

Nice! Not that I'll ever use it. Though KeiJidosha clearly might.

I read about GeorgeParrot's comments about quick charging his LEAF at Vacaville quick DC charger, on the day he took his delivery and drove to Sacramento.
This quick charger has been available for many months. In fact there was a test drive of iMiEV done by some journalists done in May 2010 and they did use DC quick charger to get some juice for their cars on the way from Bay Area to Sacramento. Here is the link for that story.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/reviews/hybrid-electric/2011-mitsubishi-i-miev-test-drive

Harv said:

This quick charger has been available for many months.

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Yes, this quick charger has been installed for many months now but every time I personally have been over to check it out it has been shut down. Granted I have not been by for a while and it just so happens that my significant other is heading that way tomorrow so hopefully she will have time to stop and take pictures of it up and running. If we could have some sort of guarantee of it up and running she would be taking the Leaf and not the gas guzzling Prius

It would be nice to know if it works as I need to use it soon

Please NOTE:

I did find it hard to get the handle to release from it's mounting point on the huge unit( by comparison to 220-240V chargers). I am still not sure what sequence of moves I did use to get it to release and then I had the same "challenge" to get the charge handle to release from the QC port of the LEAF. Of course I did NOT read the LEAF manual where there are some pictures of the QC charge process...

I only had patience to wait about 25 minutes, but in that time I got back to around 75% of a total charge (my range display then showed about 72 miles or so and I had only about 25 miles left to get home, so). It was cold, windy, and raining, so that reduced even more my general lack of patience for anything that involved me doing some standing outside in that setting....

Without some real-time data on the status of charge-stations (individual e-pumps), especially QC stations, it will be difficult to risk depending on one QC to accomplish your journey.

Using a string of QC's, unless I could make it to a 3rd one ahead, I would hate to pass the 1st QC only to find the 2nd QC "out of service".

Having good real-time data would help with planning.

garygid said:

Without some real-time data on the status of charge-stations (individual e-pumps), especially QC stations, it will be difficult to risk depending on one QC to accomplish your journey.

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Coulomb MyChargePoint.net site gives data that seems current within about 10 minute sample rate, but does not show legacy/other sites. Next best is EVchargerMaps.com as it includes most sites, and has a place to post successful/ unsuccessful results. Vacaville QC site is not yet in EVchargerMaps, but can be added with form http://www.evchargernews.com/chargerform.txt For now, posts are probably best way to communicate availability or problems.

KeiJidosha said:

garygid said:

Without some real-time data on the status of charge-stations (individual e-pumps), especially QC stations, it will be difficult to risk depending on one QC to accomplish your journey.

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Coulomb MyChargePoint.net site gives data that seems current within about 10 minute sample rate, but does not show legacy/other sites. Next best is EVchargerMaps.com as it includes most sites, and has a place to post successful/ unsuccessful results. Vacaville QC site is not yet in EVchargerMaps, but can be added with form http://www.evchargernews.com/chargerform.txt For now, posts are probably best way to communicate availability or problems.

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I really like how Coulomb has done up their website and I hope ECOtality does their network in a similar fashion. The only bummer is nobody has created an Android app yet...

If you are looking for good info on it, [here] is a link with many pictures showing how it works.

Does this L3 charging station have any way for the user to set the rate of charge ? If no option on the charging station, is there any way to set the rate from the car ? I would like to have the option to charge at a slower rate than 40KW (80% of 24KWh in 30min) to be "easier" on the battery.

I'm not sure about this, but I know the Battery ECU in car sets a upper limit for the fast charge depending on current battery state, and also backs it down in the event the battery temperature rise is too high.

On the Leaf I tested which was at around 50% SOC and a pack temp of 55 degrees F, it reported a ~30kW charge limit. This means it would not charge faster than that. I expect when the pack warmed up a bit, this limit would increase though.

Note that in the above picture, it's only charging at ~24kW.

Ingineer said:

If you are looking for good info on it, [here] is a link with many pictures showing how it works.

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Great post and information Ingineer, thanks! It would be nice to see a "demonstration unit" here in Southern California. At the Edison training center in Irwindale, or at the Southern California Air Quality Management office in Diamond Bar. Both sites have Solar Arrays to help offset grid demand.

tbleakne said:

Does this L3 charging station have any way for the user to set the rate of charge ? If no option on the charging station, is there any way to set the rate from the car ? I would like to have the option to charge at a slower rate than 40KW (80% of 24KWh in 30min) to be "easier" on the battery.

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There is no way for the "user" to modify the rate of charge at a DC Quick Charge station as they are currently designed. I've wished many, many times that Nissan should have added a function to allow me to choose the maximum charging rate for both Level 1/2 and DC Quick Charging...

The car's charging controller, not the QC machine, controls the rate of charge (current) from the QC machine, I believe.

So, it is just a new software feature in the LEAF that is needed for the user to be able to "dial back" the QC charging rate.

The car already reduces the rate if the battery temperature is too high, or too low. Most likely the tapering off of the QC current as the battery approaches 100% is also done (sending commands to the QC machine) by the in-car charge-controller.

So my significant other just reported to me that she did stop to take another look at the DC quick charger in Vacaville. It appeared to be shut down just like before. Nothing is displayed on the screen as if it is not powered up and pushing the stop or start button or removing and replacing the charge plug does not seem to have any effect.

So now I am beginning to wonder if the unit is actually up and running but only appears to be once it is plugged into a car. That is to say the screen stays completely dark until it is plugged in. I am not prepared to drive 75 miles on the freeway with my Leaf to find out if this is true.

George, did you happen to notice what the charger looked like before you plugged it in?

Oh, she also noted that there is really no identification she could find on the unit such as a number to call for assistance or similar.

Spies said:

So my significant other just reported to me that she did stop to take another look at the DC quick charger in Vacaville. It appeared to be shut down just like before. Nothing is displayed on the screen as if it is not powered up and pushing the stop or start button or removing and replacing the charge plug does not seem to have any effect.

So now I am beginning to wonder if the unit is actually up and running but only appears to be once it is plugged into a car. That is to say the screen stays completely dark until it is plugged in. I am not prepared to drive 75 miles on the freeway with my Leaf to find out if this is true.

George, did you happen to notice what the charger looked like before you plugged it in?

Oh, she also noted that there is really no identification she could find on the unit such as a number to call for assistance or similar.

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The DC Quick Charger in Portland is always on, the screen never goes "off."

I suspect PG&E has "found out" about the use of the DCQ and has "locked" it back up. Since my last post a couple months ago I have not yet had an official word about the station being UL listed and therefore released for public use. George got lucky

Spies: Thanks for your SO's report. At least it allows us to "not rely on it" ... for now.

DarkStar said:

I've wished many, many times that Nissan should have added a function to allow me to choose the maximum charging rate for both Level 1/2 ...

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You mean like 6.6 kW?