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Madders

New member
Joined
Jun 25, 2016
Messages
1
Hi all. Madders here, UK based and buying my first electric car on Monday and I'm a little apprehensive about how to go about this.
My car is 150 miles from home so I'm going to need to recharge probably twice to get home but have no motorway services card to enable me to do this and my trip means that Nissan dealers will be closed for the second half of my journey.

Does my car rapid charge? It's a 2011 Acenta.

How do I know if it's 3.3 or 6.6 kW? The garage vendors don't know.

Is there a charging app that I can use in lieu of a card.

What supermarkets can I use along the M4 corridor?

Thanks ks for your help.
 
I'm not sure what equipment was standard or optional on your year/model, but look at the charging port compartment. If there is a single charge port, and a large blank plastic cover plate next to it, you don't have Quick Charging. If there are two ports, one large and one smaller, you do have QC. In either case you have the 3.3kw charger, although when using QC that isn't used, so the car will still charge quickly with a QC station.
 
Madders said:
Does my car rapid charge? It's a 2011 Acenta.

How do I know if it's 3.3 or 6.6 kW? The garage vendors don't know.
Unfortunately, this is a US-centric board so it's impossible for most of us to answer many of your questions w/accuracy. We also don't have trim names/levels like Acenta. It's SV and SL for us, and with model year 13+, S was added.

In the US, the 6.6 kW on-board charger was only available beginning w/the 2013 model year.

Yep on the answer given about whether you have the CHAdeMO inlet for DC fast charging.
 
In the US, the 6.6 kW on-board charger was only available beginning w/the 2013 model year.

I think this holds true for all the Leaf models worldwide. Nissan has kept options in Europe after dropping them here (80% charging) but AFAIK they haven't done things like upgrading the Leaf 1.0 in Europe but not here. Since the powertrains still come from Japan, I think, they've had to keep most features the same.
 
Welcome to the electric world.
There is an app called PlugShare. It is world wide. It gives you pretty accurate listing of all charge points for a given area.
If you haven't made your trip yet. Call Ecotricity and see if the can set you up with temporary access to the motorway service points. Not sure if they will but worth a shot. Also there is a Youtube channel Rural Leaf. It contains wealth of tips from someone that leased a 2014 and has documented that experience. He is in the Gloucester area. Message him and I'm sure he will give you some tips.
I'm not UK base but that Channel was incredibly helpful in learning about these cars and their limits.

greg


Madders said:
Hi all. Madders here, UK based and buying my first electric car on Monday and I'm a little apprehensive about how to go about this.
My car is 150 miles from home so I'm going to need to recharge probably twice to get home but have no motorway services card to enable me to do this and my trip means that Nissan dealers will be closed for the second half of my journey.

Does my car rapid charge? It's a 2011 Acenta.

How do I know if it's 3.3 or 6.6 kW? The garage vendors don't know.

Is there a charging app that I can use in lieu of a card.

What supermarkets can I use along the M4 corridor?

Thanks ks for your help.
 
Welcome, Madders.

Here are the two options that I see for getting your car home (if it doesn't have a quickcharge port):

Option 1: Start early, drive 65 miles or so to a charging location, charge for 4 hours, drive 66 miles, to a new location, charge for 4 hours, drive home.

Use Plugshare.com to find the charging locations:

rxpsEo5.jpg


Option 2: Have a car transport company put your car on a trailer and take it to your house. This is what I did for a cost of about $500.

Option 1 is slightly risky, depending on the density of charging locations. But for only 150 miles, that's what I'd choose.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Al
 
Late post, but it goes without saying that you must make sure the dealer has it 100% charged for you to collect.
 
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