LEAF in Kansas City

Greetings and salutations!!

I can confirm that the three Quick Chargers planned for the Northland (Hy-Vee on Barry Road, Hy-Vee off 64th Street, and Price Chopper off 291 / I-35) are indeed now operational. I drove around trying them out tonight.

Some observations:

• The Price Chopper station is just a few feet away from their Ripple Glass recycling bin, so there is glass everywhere. I hope they move the bin farther away. Driving over glass isn't fun.
• The stations are in out-of-the-way locations, so the chance of ICE'ing is minimized. There are no signs yet though.
• Charging is free - and from what I understand will continue to be so for at least the next two years.
• After you scan your card and it is validated, you are asked what type of adapter you want to use, SAE Combo or Chademo. Once you choose, you plug in your vehicle and then press the start button. The quick charge station starts humming and current is delivered.
• When you are done charging, you scan your card just like the other ChargePoint stations.
• The Chademo connector looks better designed than the original ones. It doesn't have the "gas squeezer" that I've seen in pictures and videos. Instead, you just insert the connector and there is a push button to release.
• I was at 2 bars at one station, and the station showed that I had 30% battery. At first, the screen indicated 7 KW's, but then quickly ramped up to dozens of KW's (so cool!!). As the battery is filled, this number drops until it's around 10 KW's or so at 90% battery charge.
• I plugged in, started charging, and when I came out 10 minutes later I had gone from 30% battery to 55% battery. I was up to 80% in 20 minutes.
• It was really cold outside. So, I was happy to be able to successfully turn on my car while charging was in progress.

MobileEV said:

The solar panel racks and microinverters are mostly mounted and the first roof area got panels on Friday. One more day of panel installation, then inspection. After that KCP&L has 15 days to install the bi-directional meter. The LEAF and I are getting psyched!

Click to expand...

Very impressive!! I hope the credits are still there when I buy my next house.

ericvoll said:

Very impressive!! I hope the credits are still there when I buy my next house.

Click to expand...

The rebates are still available, but they keep going down in value.

They're $1.00 per Watt through the end of 2015.

http://www.kcpl.com/save-energy-and-money/for-home/home-rebates/mo/solar-power-rebate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My out of pocket without the KCPL rebate is about $3.35 per Watt. So if you can get $1.00 off, it's down to $2.35 per Watt. That makes for quick payback.

If anyone is interested, private message me and I can hook you up with the installer, with whom I am very pleased so far.

BTW, nice work on hunting down the L3 chargers. I will likely try the one in Liberty tomorrow.

Karl

ericvoll said:

Greetings and salutations!!

I can confirm that the three Quick Chargers planned for the Northland (Hy-Vee on Barry Road, Hy-Vee off 64th Street, and Price Chopper off 291 / I-35) are indeed now operational. I drove around trying them out tonight.

Some observations:

• The Price Chopper station is just a few feet away from their Ripple Glass recycling bin, so there is glass everywhere. I hope they move the bin farther away. Driving over glass isn't fun.
• The stations are in out-of-the-way locations, so the chance of ICE'ing is minimized. There are no signs yet though.
• Charging is free - and from what I understand will continue to be so for at least the next two years.
• After you scan your card and it is validated, you are asked what type of adapter you want to use, SAE Combo or Chademo. Once you choose, you plug in your vehicle and then press the start button. The quick charge station starts humming and current is delivered.
• When you are done charging, you scan your card just like the other ChargePoint stations.
• The Chademo connector looks better designed than the original ones. It doesn't have the "gas squeezer" that I've seen in pictures and videos. Instead, you just insert the connector and there is a push button to release.
• I was at 2 bars at one station, and the station showed that I had 30% battery. At first, the screen indicated 7 KW's, but then quickly ramped up to dozens of KW's (so cool!!). As the battery is filled, this number drops until it's around 10 KW's or so at 90% battery charge.
• I plugged in, started charging, and when I came out 10 minutes later I had gone from 30% battery to 55% battery. I was up to 80% in 20 minutes.
• It was really cold outside. So, I was happy to be able to successfully turn on my car while charging was in progress.

Click to expand...

Eric, thanks so much for the detective work! I wasn't aware any of those were installed yet. I will definitely be using the ones near I-29. Good to know the handles have been upgraded for ease of use. (Now if we could just get one near the 29/35 split...).

Kathy

Yea haw! Wrangle them up. It's worth a test run...when it warms up. Are the DCQC plus ChargePoint?


ok, click on eric's pictures and yes they're chargepoint even though not on the cp map.

Rock on everyone!

ksnogas2112 said:

Yea haw! Wrangle them up. It's worth a test run...when it warms up. Are the DCQC plus ChargePoint?


ok, click on eric's pictures and yes they're chargepoint even though not on the cp map.

Rock on everyone!

Click to expand...

Yes, it's ChargePoint...and it's free. I took a ride up to the Liberty Price Chopper and had my first ever DCQC while my son was at Boy Scouts. It got up to about 26KW for me (at least while I was watching...went inside to shop and for a coffee at the convenient cafe).

Very cool to have this here, although from what I hear, it's not good for the battery to charge this way regularly. I made some positive comments to all the Price Chopper employees I encountered, but none of them had a clue that it was there.

Karl

MobileEV said:

...<edit> Very cool to have this here, although from what I hear, it's not good for the battery to charge this way regularly. I made some positive comments to all the Price Chopper employees I encountered, but none of them had a clue that it was there.

Karl

Click to expand...

yeah get used to the no clue thing. ran into that at most of the stores that had devices installed.

So according to plugshare, it looks like Blue Springs got a new DC quick charger at a Price Chopper. Also there's a new Tesla supercharger in the same area. Things are looking up for the charger infrastructure.

MobileEV said:

So according to plugshare, it looks like Blue Springs got a new DC quick charger at a Price Chopper. Also there's a new Tesla supercharger in the same area. Things are looking up for the charger infrastructure.

Click to expand...

Now that's good news! It will enable me to more confidently visit my best friend and some relatives out there. Will have to check it out. Thanks, Karl!

I took a drive out to the Blue Springs Quick Charger and can confirm that it works just as well as the Liberty DCQC. It's a ChargePoint, so you just need the card and it's free. It has both ChaDeMo and the CCS heads, so you are prompted to select one. There is no J1772 so those without the quick charge port, you're out of luck at this location.

Although the parking spaces are not marked, they are way in the back and there are at least 3 spaces to which the cord could reach. Therefore, IMHO it is unlikely to be ICEd.

That's how you do it America!

Hello parked outside in 9*F...good bye regeneration. Wish we had a L3 handy to warm up the battery on days like these.

It looks like the L3 @ HenHouse 87th and Lackman is under construction (picture later). It is on the west side of the parking lot just off Lackman. It's a good spot.

A few more L3s have popped up on PlugShare.

Plaza: http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/61414" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Downtown KC Library: http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/61589" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It would be great to get someone to check those out for functionality, accessibility, and maybe a few pics. I won't have occasion to go there this week.

I also have to report that the Zona Rosa HyVee L3 (http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/60910" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false was non-functioning yesterday. Green light at the bottom, but the screen was blank. The thing beeped when I scanned my card, but otherwise no response. I opened a trouble ticket with ChargePoint. Let's see if they respond and feel responsible.

The PriceChopper in Blue Springs L3 (http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/61259" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false got a 2nd visit from me since I was visiting a friend in Lee's Summit and I absolutely needed it on the way home. :shock:

I haven't noticed any new L2s pop up and the KCP&L map hasn't been updated since end of January.

Can't wait until the weather warms up and the range improves.

Looking at the Plaza location on Google, 4706 Broadway is just a door between 2 retail stores. The aerial view shows a dotted line from the street to the middle of that building. I would venture to guess that address & door is just a walk-in access to the parking lot, whose actual vehicle entrance is around the corner (north and then west) on 47th Street (Karl, the 47th street corridor is the main east/west thoroughfare through the Plaza). I may be able to get down there at lunch soon, unless Dr. Dave reads this and gets there before me. Will post a link to pictures, if I do.

Kathy

The Hen House L3 is in place, not operational but in place.

and the one on 135th (prairie fire) has power and beeps when you hold a charge point card up but doesn't actually activate or have a program run on the screen.

OK, guys, I made it to The Plaza to find the DCQC. I confirmed the Broadway address is just a walk-in entry door into the parking garage. There are 2 vehicle entry accesses to that garage's lower level, one on the north (47th) and one on the south (Nichols Rd., enter via the bank). The other accesses are an entry on Pennsylvania that won't get you to the lower level and an exit from the lower level (one way/out), so don't bother with them.

I spent considerable time trying to find this *!@#$!! station, mainly because I had high expectations it would be in an actual marked parking area. It was not (lesson in futility). It was unrecognizable from 3 viewpoints, but might have been more easily seen on its only marked side (south-facing), had it not been ICED. :evil: Honestly, it was right where I thought they should/might put it, but it was not obvious driving into the garage from the north or south entries or driving around in the garage (west parking area, lower level). I had apparently driven by it a couple of times after entry. Had it been marked, positioned properly and NOT had a big, black Ford F150 parked right next to it, I might have seen it when I was heading north through the south/bank entry. The markings and screen are on the side facing south, the cords are on the side facing the east wall (stupid).

What rocket scientist placed that station between a huge pillar and the east garage wall, with the plugs positioned on the wall side, so they're inaccessible to anyone other than the vehicle parked in that unmarked spot??? You can't really park in the drive west of the blocked-in pillar and station to charge, IF the cords would even reach your car. Someone will surely advise me that there's a reasonable explanation for this placement and I'll have to accept it. Whatever. To say the least, I was annoyed at how difficult this big metal box was to spot in that concrete garage, because of the way it was positioned and the only discernible markings were blocked from my view by an unwitting truck driver. Harrumph! Yes, I'm ranting.

I would have posted links here to the 5 pictures I took from all directions, however, our hospital blocks Imageshack.com and PostImage.org as policy (I'm using my work computer). My iPhone would not get through all the interference to 3G connectivity here to post to those sites, either. SO! I posted the pictures directly from my phone to Plugshare. PLEASE go to Plugshare, take a look at those pictures for The Plaza ChadeMo location and tell me if you'd have missed it, too. I know the parking lot well and I sure did. Guess I should've first looked where I suspected connectivity would've been easiest.

We need to contact someone (who??) to get the station marked (as and EV charging unit) and to have the parking spot marked, as well.

Kathy

P.S: I obviously did not get to try out my DCQC port. One of these days...

Edit: For your convenience, here are the links from the confirmation notice I received from Imageshack:

http://imageshack.com/i/exASyvRqp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://imageshack.com/i/idoQ9sABp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://imageshack.com/i/p55ftcUtp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://imageshack.com/i/f0kzhzwLp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://imageshack.com/i/ipvsW7fFp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sorry Kathy, that one is not much worse than the one at Starbucks in Olathe (119th+Renner). Left side parking stall (unmarked and ICE'd of course). Right side - DRIVE THRU!

Thanks for your pix though. I hadn't seen the software running on any of the one's down here so none of the one's I've checked are operational yet.

ksnogas2112 said:

Sorry Kathy, that one is not much worse than the one at Starbucks in Olathe (119th+Renner). Left side parking stall (unmarked and ICE'd of course). Right side - DRIVE THRU!

Thanks for your pix though. I hadn't seen the software running on any of the one's down here so none of the one's I've checked are operational yet.

Click to expand...

That's rich, Tom! No chance to even block a drive-thru at The Plaza. :lol:
Now I'm trying to see my glass as half full; I'm in Fantasy Land thinking they turned that thing backward so as to have a nice, flat, plain side upon which to paint a great big EV Charging Station sign marking where it is. Yeah, in my dreams...