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Nords

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
47
Location
Oahu, Hawaii.
Aloha and thanks for everyone’s advice here.

My spouse and I are retirees on Oahu. Our 2006 Prius is facing a couple of laborious repair hassles after 103K miles, and we’re ready to replace it with a Leaf. We’re looking at the 2015 and 2016 years.

I’ve read through most of the forum’s recent threads on Leaf history, the various features, longevity issues, and LeafSpy. As we begin our search, I’d appreciate any additional tips or regrets.

We’ve bought used vehicles since the 1990s and we prefer paying cash with private sellers, but we’ll talk with a dealer if the car looks like a bargain. We’re checking VINs with CarFax. I’m a retired U.S. Navy submariner with the usual mechanical & electrical skills, and I know how to assess a used vehicle’s condition, but I’m not seeking a project car.

I have LeafSpy Pro loaded on our iPhone 6 (iOS12) with a Bluetooth OBDII reader. I can use the OBDII reader’s software just fine on our Priuses but I haven’t tried LeafSpy on a Leaf yet.

Our longest drive on this island is a 60-mile round trip and we’re usually under 5000 miles/year. We’ve seen lots of Leafs here and we know people who’ve had several years of easy commuting. 2015s seem to be relatively rare on the local resale market-- probably a good sign-- and we haven’t seen any 2016s yet.

We don't commute and we’d probably only use it once per day with plenty of overnight recharge time. We don’t care about a Leaf’s heating system but we’ll routinely use the air conditioning. We expect to drive it at least a couple times per month, although it’ll occasionally be garaged for 2-3 months while we’re on travel. Our home has a grid-tied photovoltaic system, and we’ll add at least 400 watts of solar panels to bring it up to the necessary capacity.

We can recharge through our garage’s 120v outlets, but we’d like to recharge through our 240v receptacle for the electric dryer. (We only run the dryer once or twice a month.) The dryer’s dedicated 30-amp breaker seems to be suitable. Any particular EVSE recommendations?

Our second car is a 2005 Prius with a Thule roof rack and only 54K miles, and that’s now our longboard hauler.

I’ve done plenty of reading and I've watched a bunch of videos, but I’ve never actually driven a Leaf. That part seems a lot like a Prius.

Also like our Priuses, I suspect that we’ll want to replace a Leaf’s 12v battery every four years.

Any other recommendations?
 
Let me bump and link my used Leaf buying guide. What you seem to want, unless you like extra features like remote access to climate control and a mediocre Nav system (or an excellent 4 camera parking system and good Bose stereo) is a Leaf S. Assuming that the 60 mile trip isn't at freeway speeds (heh) then the 24kwh "Lizard Pack" is what you want. It's found in all 2015 Leafs and in all 24kwh 2016 Leaf S cars. It's the most heat-tolerant pack Nissan has made to date, and while not perfect in that regard it's still your best bet. I'll add the buying guide link shortly.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=26662
 
A couple of questions:
Hawaii has expensive electricity, how much is your effective rate, considering you have solar? The reason I ask is that at 30 cents /kwh, the fuel cost for a Leaf will be very close to the fuel cost of a Pruis, assuming gasoline at $4/ gal.

With your minimal driving, even if your electricity cost is 15 cents/kwh, you will save very little yearly on fuel costs.

With your minimal driving, why do you want to charge at 240 volts? Even though slow, 120 charging should be fine for you.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Leaf, but I don't see much reason in your post for buying one. If you "just want electric" that's fine.
 
I think that they will, after driving a Prius, find driving a Leaf to be delightful. It happens a lot: driving a Prius gives one a taste for a quiet, clean electric drive, and then driving an actual EV becomes more like switching to a luxury sport sedan.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Let me bump and link my used Leaf buying guide. What you seem to want, unless you like extra features like remote access to climate control and a mediocre Nav system (or an excellent 4 camera parking system and good Bose stereo) is a Leaf S. Assuming that the 60 mile trip isn't at freeway speeds (heh) then the 24kwh "Lizard Pack" is what you want. It's found in all 2015 Leafs and in all 24kwh 2016 Leaf S cars. It's the most heat-tolerant pack Nissan has made to date, and while not perfect in that regard it's still your best bet. I'll add the buying guide link shortly.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=26662
Thanks for writing the buying guide-- it's one of the first things I read on the forum.

You're right, the S version is fine for us. We don't care about the remote access or the Nav system... or even the cameras & stereo... although we'd still buy a car with those features if the battery and the rest of the drive train was in good shape. We don't even care about the color and we wouldn't mind a few dings & scrapes.

On Oahu's "interstate" highways we're usually driving no faster than 60 MPH. (One stretch of H-1 and H-3 each have a 60 MPH speed limit, the rest are 55.) Most of our driving is between 30-50 MPH.

The vast majority of our weather is 75-85 degrees F with a few days in the low 90s. Air conditioning is nice but we can live without it if we need to squeeze out a few more miles of range. If I had to drive over 60 miles round trip then I'd probably take our other Prius anyway.

stjohnh said:
A couple of questions:
Hawaii has expensive electricity, how much is your effective rate, considering you have solar? The reason I ask is that at 30 cents /kwh, the fuel cost for a Leaf will be very close to the fuel cost of a Pruis, assuming gasoline at $4/ gal.

With your minimal driving, even if your electricity cost is 15 cents/kwh, you will save very little yearly on fuel costs.

With your minimal driving, why do you want to charge at 240 volts? Even though slow, 120 charging should be fine for you.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Leaf, but I don't see much reason in your post for buying one. If you "just want electric" that's fine.
The main reason for buying a Leaf is that we're going to buy something, and a Leaf's been on our radar for a few years.

We've lived here for 29 years and we're familiar with expensive electricity, but that expense is not the main reason for buying a Leaf. We'll generate all the power we need from our solar panels, so we're independent of HECO's 30 cents/KWHr. I think the average Oahu homeowner's electric bill is up to $250/month, and we've heard of $400/month with some neighbors who use air conditioning.

We've had our grid-tied photovoltaic system since 2005 (we were one of the island's early adopters), and it paid for itself by 2011. (We did most of the mechanical & wiring work ourselves with used panels, and then we paid an electrician to do the final connections. We needed the electrician's license for the city permits and the signatures on HECO's net-metering agreement.) Our monthly electric bill is $18 for the grid connection fee, and the first-generation net-metering agreement compensates us at HECO's retail rate for each KWHr we generate. (HECO's latest net-metering agreements are much less generous.) We rarely use more power than we generate. As long as we stay at this address, a Leaf has very low operating costs for us.

Our total gas expense last year was about $850 total for two Priuses. I think gas got as low as $2.95/gallon for a while in 2018 but it's crept back up to about $3.50. Getting rid of at least a quarter of our fuel expenses that won't change our financial lives, but I'll happily give up oil changes.

I think you're right, we don't need a 240v charging system, although a shorter recharge time would be more convenient. It's not a big deal either way. I haven't done a lot of research on the choices, and we could wait until a bargain L2 system comes along. If we had two Leafs in our garage someday then I'd definitely want a 240v charger.

Most of our Prius systems have been reliable and we won't miss an internal-combustion engine. (We're not going back to ICE vehicles.) Our 2006 would be worth about $5000 if all of its auxiliary hardware & electronics worked. The main battery is fine but the dashboard display needs a new circuit card, which is a $150 card and either $1100 of the dealer's labor or a few hours of my frustration. (And brittle plastic dashboard pieces.) Another repair is a ventilation damper's stepper motor for a couple hundred bucks (and more brittle dashboard plastic). It could use new tires & struts, in a few years it'll need new brake shoes, maybe an engine tuneup in another five years... it all starts to add up. We'd easily buy another Prius, but the Leaf (with no ICE) seems simpler than a plug-in Prius.

LeftieBiker said:
I think that they will, after driving a Prius, find driving a Leaf to be delightful. It happens a lot: driving a Prius gives one a taste for a quiet, clean electric drive, and then driving an actual EV becomes more like switching to a luxury sport sedan.
I think it's a nice vehicle for our needs. We prefer to drive beat-up beach cars instead of luxury sport sedans. If a Leaf fits in well with our routine then in a few years we'll replace the other Prius with another Leaf, perhaps with a bigger battery pack.

I don't feel mature or responsible enough to own a Tesla.
 
I second the notion that you will really an enjoy a Leaf and that it will suit your needs well. The S trim should be fine for you (no heat pump heating, no internet access to car from your phone, no navigation system built in, no LED headlights, crummy sound system, etc) but great for basic transportation. I have a 2017 S and the AC has little effect on range. The heat - which you won't need - has a much, much bigger effect.

As far as charging, the NEC limits the amount of charging current on a 30A circuit to 24A (80% rule). A Leaf charging with L2 and an 'upgraded' charger will pull 27.5A unless the EVSE indicates that it cannot supply that much current. Long story short, if you plan to charge at 240V using your dryer plug, make sure you get an EVSE that lets you set the current limit to 24A or lower. If you get a Leaf that doesn't have a CHAdeMO port (non-upgraded charger), this isn't a concern since the charger on the car will limit the power below this level, even with a 240V source.

Last but not least, consider importing a car from the mainland. I don't know how much that would cost or what other hassles that might involve but it would widen the available cars by quite a bit. I'm sure LeftieBiker's guide covers all the battery chemistry and hot climate concerns so be careful to check the car's history before buying remotely.

Go test drive a Leaf. They're great little cars and I bet you will really enjoy it.
 
goldbrick said:
Last but not least, consider importing a car from the mainland. I don't know how much that would cost or what other hassles that might involve but it would widen the available cars by quite a bit.
Good suggestion. I suggest you contact Platt Auto Group in Portland, OR. They are a major reseller of used Leafs. Given their location, I'd expect they know a bit about shipping to Hawaii.

http://plattauto.com/
 
If you get a Leaf that doesn't have a CHAdeMO port (non-upgraded charger), this isn't a concern since the charger on the car will limit the power below this level, even with a 240V source.

Just to be clear: he's talking about the S specifically here. An SV or SL made after 2012 will have the higher rate onboard charger regardless of options. Clipper Creek makes nice inexpensive home charging stations with long warranties, that are US-made. They designate them by breaker size required rather than by output, so you'd want something like an HCS-30 for a 30 amp dryer circuit.
 
"Well, that escalated quickly."

We bought a 2015 Leaf S yesterday, with 13,298 miles. I think we were one of the first people to contact the seller.

It was listed on Facebook Marketplace at $15K, which in our ZIP code is a Blue Book value in the range of $11.3K-$15.6K.

CarFax says the car was shipped from Nissan to Oahu’s King Windward Nissan in mid-2014. In August 2014 they leased it to someone who then paid for shipping to Kauai (?!?) and drove it for 7900 miles through July 2018. They returned it to King (which meant they paid to ship it back from Kauai). King detailed it and sold it to the second owner in October. The only events that CarFax recorded during the lease were for annual registrations and safety checks, along with a Lihue dealer’s “electrical system checks” at 5000 miles. Nissan’s corporate database says there are no recalls or campaigns.

The seller (the second owner) has lived here for a few years with his son. He says that he’s had a change of life plans and is returning to the Mainland. He enjoyed the car and it looks like he took good care of it for two months. He commuted daily and says he recharged mostly L1. He managed to drive it nearly 5400 miles over 84 days, though, so it went an average of 65 miles/day.

Its battery has all 12 bars, of course, although I couldn’t get LeafSpy to work with my OBDII reader for more details about the battery’s health. My iPhone seemed to connect with the reader over Bluetooth but LeafSpy never picked up any data. I’ll figure that out in the next few days; it’s either my operator error or I might have an incompatible OBDII.

The car is pristine and the auxiliaries look good. There’s not even any red dirt under the hood. The 12v battery (factory original) is due for replacement but everything else is squeaky-clean.

After a test drive, we offered to buy it for his $15K price with a certified check. He had already closed his local bank accounts and said he’d prefer cash. We drove to our credit union and withdrew a stack of $100s. He offered us his driver’s license for ID (we took a photo) and he signed over the title (and a bill of sale for DMV’s excise tax). We drove him home to the address on the car’s title.

Unless he was exploited by the dealer, this looks like a great car. It’s charging in our garage tonight (on the standard L1 charger) and this week I’ll work with the LeafSpy app some more.

I never expected to buy a used car this quickly. So far it’s been one of our easiest purchases ever.

goldbrick said:
As far as charging, the NEC limits the amount of charging current on a 30A circuit to 24A (80% rule). A Leaf charging with L2 and an 'upgraded' charger will pull 27.5A unless the EVSE indicates that it cannot supply that much current. Long story short, if you plan to charge at 240V using your dryer plug, make sure you get an EVSE that lets you set the current limit to 24A or lower. If you get a Leaf that doesn't have a CHAdeMO port (non-upgraded charger), this isn't a concern since the charger on the car will limit the power below this level, even with a 240V source.
LeftieBiker said:
Clipper Creek makes nice inexpensive home charging stations with long warranties, that are US-made. They designate them by breaker size required rather than by output, so you'd want something like an HCS-30 for a 30 amp dryer circuit.
Thanks. I’ll look into those details over the next few weeks. It seems to be recharging just fine overnight on its L1 charger.

goldbrick said:
Last but not least, consider importing a car from the mainland. I don't know how much that would cost or what other hassles that might involve but it would widen the available cars by quite a bit. I'm sure LeftieBiker's guide covers all the battery chemistry and hot climate concerns so be careful to check the car's history before buying remotely.
Luckily the selection around here was “good enough”. Shipping from the west coast is about $1000, and then there’s the expense of shipping me to the car to buy it.
 
OP: you seem to be well informed and I wish you great success with your LEAF(s)
For your next one though, reconsider your decision to buy locally. I think a mainland purchase with shipping will be worth it.

And :: two thumbs up: on your early adoption of PV!
 
Congrats! I hope you like it as much as I enjoy mine.

I bought my Leaf new (first new car purchase ever....). I had test driven one with my wife a year or two before but didn't pull the trigger. Then when our local electric company offered insane rebates in 2017, I drove down to the dealer, told them I wanted a Leaf and bought the first one I saw on the lot since it checked all the boxes I had decided on (color, trim level, options). Went in and paid them and picked it up the next day. Probably took less than 60 minutes total. I've had for about 18 months now and just love it.

I charge with free L2 at work and have charged with L1 at home a few times. I'm planning to switch over to L2 at home since I need to up my electrical usage so I can install solar panels. Our local utility restricts grid-tie systems to 120% of average use so I want to add the car usage to my bill before doing the solar install.

I wouldn't worry about the 12V battery until it starts to give you trouble. You can replace it proactively if you want but I think the charging issues that affected some models were fixed by the 2015 model year. Every year is a little different in details so ask or search here to be sure but the load on the 12V battery is pretty low and unless it is subject to very high temperatures (eg Phoenix) they seem to last a long time in the Leaf.
 
I'm just a little concerned about how early in 2014 this "2015" Leaf was built, but I do seem to recall that 2014 production ended early. Hopefully it does have the Lizard pack. If not, a good "Wolf" pack with good stats should hold up well too, if not kept too hot.
 
We have a couple weeks (and a couple hundred miles) of experience.

The registration & title transfer was only $10 but when the old registration expires in July then we'll have to pay $340 annually. That's still $40 cheaper than our Prius. The Honolulu County and Hawaii state laws permit 2.5 hours of free parking and we get to use the HOV lane.

I've driven the same Oahu roads for 30 years, but driving them in the Leaf is different than a Gen II Prius. I've optimized my driving for high MPG with gentle acceleration. I know where to let a Prius coast, where to accelerate, and where to touch the brakes. It's all become muscle memory.

But with the Leaf in ECO mode (a good thing around here), I'm re-learning those habits. I can use the dashboard display to feather the accelerator and manually let the Leaf coast, and the Leaf's regenerative braking helps the cruise control maintain speed going downhill as well as uphill. (Not as much coasting downhill as the Prius.) The Leaf decelerates (regenerates) more than the Prius, so I have to get closer to intersections or turns before I take my foot off the accelerator to slow down. I hardly ever use the brake.

I’m pleasantly surprised that the Leaf displays my iPod's info on the dashboard in a presbyopian-friendly font. No more scrabbling for reading glasses to squint at the iPod's 1”x1” display.

I really enjoy driving it, but I'm not going to get to do that very often. It's definitely my spouse’s car. (When our daughter & son-in-law were visiting, it somehow became our daughter’s car.) Luckily it’s plenty roomy in the passenger & back seats.

Spouse has informed me that our Leaf is now “the clean car” and will not be subjected to seawater, sand, or surf wax. I'm apparently never going to be allowed to load a longboard in it, either, so that cargo question has been rendered moot. I’ve moved the roof rack to our 2005 Prius, which only has about 54K miles and will probably give us a few more years.

I've noticed that when I press or release the Leaf’s accelerator I can hear the faint "click" from the axle. It’s barely audible, and I'm only hearing it because the rest of the car is so quiet.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=26720
Please let me know if there’s a copy of the NTB 12-055 TSB around here or where I can find one. I’m not in any particular hurry (right?) and the car’s almost certainly out of its 3-year/36K warranty, so I could have a dealer take a look at it this year or next.

The Leaf has more hauling volume than our Prius, but I’m a little skeptical about driving it without a spare tire. We have the 12v air pump with its can of "flat tire sealant", and the sealant expired in March of 2018. Is it worth buying a new can of sealant? Or is it better to buy a spare wheel/tire? (And maybe a jack, and a wheel nut wrench?) 3 out of our 4 flat tires in the last decade have happened in our garage (slow leaks from road debris). We could just use our Prius jack on the Leaf, put the flat in the Prius, and head for the tire shop. If it happened on the road it’d be mightily annoying, but it’s only a 30x40-mile island.

The Leaf owner's manual seems to assume that we've installed a L2 240v charging system on the garage wall, and it discourages L1 110v charging. We're fine with L1 charging but I'd still like to understand the engineering issues behind the L1 vs L2 debate. I'm tempted to attach a 240v adapter plug on the Leaf's OEM 110v charger and stick it into the 240v receptacle behind our (rarely used) electric dryer.

I’m not trying to be a cheapskate-- I just don’t want to be responsible for still yet even more redundant infrastructure in our house. Is it worth buying an L2 EVSE? Any other benefits other than the faster charge, which we don’t need? Is the L2 somehow better for battery longevity? Do the aftermarket L2 EVSE charging systems have some convenience feature (charge timers? time-of-day metering?) which we "can't live without"?

I’ve verified (the hard way) that our Bosch OBDII code reader doesn’t connect to LeafSpy with our iOS devices. LeafSpy came right up with the LELink2. Thanks for all the threads and documentation on that.

On the “Battery Cells” first screen, the cells all seem to be within a mV of each other. It reported “AHr=54.69”, SOH of 88.06% after 3.5 years, and Hx of 80.21%. It shows nine DC charges and 620 L1/L2 charges (since August 2014).

The temperature graph (after the car sat in the garage overnight) shows all three sensors around 75-76 degrees. I’ll take another look at them after finishing a charge.

SOC on the third “Table” screen is 69.6% (same as the dashboard) and 175 GIDs (62.3%) with 13.6 Kwh remaining.

The code scan was interesting but not scary. DTCs include “U1000 0008 BCM CAN Comm Circuit” and I found this thread:
https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=25335
with this manual reference:
http://www.nicoclub.com/manuals/Leaf/2013 LEAF/BCS.pdf
There’s also
“B29A0 2408 Charger N/CHG Port Engage Err VC-95”
and
“B29C1 2308 Charger EVSE VC-98”
with these threads:
https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=25812&p=526973&hilit=B29A0+VC+95#p526973
https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=26179&p=532376&hilit=B29C1+VC+98#p532376

I’m not sure what “2408” or “2308” mean but the issues seem to be possible dirt or poor insulation. The car’s charging fine on L1 and I haven’t used an EVSE yet.

Best of all, LeafSpy helped me shut off the door auto-lock feature and the backup beep.

After extensive discussions, we gave away our dying 2006 Prius. A local family understands the issues with the dashboard display and the rest of the car's failing parts. They're happy to live with it or to fix it on their own. I gave them every opportunity to change their minds and say "No thanks", but their gearhead friend says there's really no downside for them. They've already transferred the title & registration.

I'm still figuring out how many more solar panels we'll need for our photovoltaic array. We've only charged the Leaf's battery a few times in the last week. We'll get a better feel for our driving habits during the next month but I'm guessing that I'll need at least 400 more watts.

This has still been our fastest & easiest vehicle transaction in nearly 40 years.
 
L-1 charging is fine as long as it meets your needs and the wiring is sound and not otherwise loaded. An occasional charge to 100% in cool temps will equalize the pack just as well as an L-2 charge to 100%. I'll try to fix your links to make them clickable.
 
Nords said:
We bought a 2015 Leaf S yesterday, with 13,298 miles. I think we were one of the first people to contact the seller.

Congrats on the find, it should be a good car for your situation. Given the short travel distances, tight parking, and generally bad traffic on the island I think the Leaf is a great car for Oahu (especially in town).

Good call on the panels, with HECO charging almost 30c/kWh they are a no-brainer out there. My mother-in-law installed an array on her house on Oahu has been a net producer for almost a decade now. Between the federal/state incentives and the high electricity prices I think she calculated her payback period as <3 years since she got in when net metering was still allowed.

The only real advice I can give is try to park it in as cool a place as possible (that tropical sun is strong) and enjoy the clean, quiet, low-maintenance experience. Also, are you familiar with B-mode? You basically put the car into "drive" twice and it engages more aggressive regen without giving up the throttle response like you do with ECO mode. I think it would be good for H1 traffic or maintaining speed coming down the Pali.

I'd also advise against just sticking an adapter on your OEM EVSE (I think that's what you meant) and plugging it into a 240 outlet, you really need an EVSE that is designed for that. I can't answer whether L2 charging is worth it for you or not without knowing your habits but it is nice to be able to charge the car faster that 4 miles of range per hour. I upgraded my OEM unit through EVSE upgrade and am very happy with it. If you already have a 240V plug available it's a great option and qualifies for a 30% federal tax payback on the cost.
 
LeftieBiker said:
L-1 charging is fine as long as it meets your needs and the wiring is sound and not otherwise loaded. An occasional charge to 100% in cool temps will equalize the pack just as well as an L-2 charge to 100%. I'll try to fix your links to make them clickable.
In my opinion l1 charging is not fine. Even at 16A l2v is superior. An enhanced Leal can charges at 27.5A from at least a 40A circuit. The NEC requires a circuit to be derrated to 80% for an EVSE. That means a 30A circuit does not pass go.
 
I use L1 charging only for my Leaf and it's fine, as long as you don't want to make 2 long trips in the same day.

But isn't level 2 charging more efficient? I seem to recall that it was, but not how much. If so, if the owner has expensive electricity or PV electricity, the efficiency may matter.
 
GlennD said:
LeftieBiker said:
L-1 charging is fine as long as it meets your needs and the wiring is sound and not otherwise loaded. An occasional charge to 100% in cool temps will equalize the pack just as well as an L-2 charge to 100%. I'll try to fix your links to make them clickable.
In my opinion l1 charging is not fine. Even at 16A l2v is superior. An enhanced Leal can charges at 27.5A from at least a 40A circuit. The NEC requires a circuit to be derrated to 80% for an EVSE. That means a 30A circuit does not pass go.

Read what I wrote again. If you don't think that L-1 charging is "fine as long as it meets your needs and the wiring is sound and not otherwise loaded" then you are expressing a personal preference not based in fact. Lothsahn at least gives a possible reason for preferring L-2 charging, although the cost of electricity would have to be awfully high to be worth the cost of an L-2 charging station. I'll bet that you'll be doenright horrified to learn that I'm still using L-1 only at home to charge my 40kwh Leaf. ;-)
 
Lothsahn said:
I use L1 charging only for my Leaf and it's fine, as long as you don't want to make 2 long trips in the same day.
But isn't level 2 charging more efficient? I seem to recall that it was, but not how much. If so, if the owner has expensive electricity or PV electricity, the efficiency may matter.
Oahu electricity is 28-30 cents/KWHr, but we've had a photovoltaic array for nearly 14 years. (We were in the first 30 net-metering agreements on the island.) We generate more KWHr than we use and we're compensated at the retail rate under the original (subsidized) net-metering program. Our monthly bill is only $18 for "grid connection fees" and miscellaneous fees & taxes. We have plenty of room on our roof & racks, so once we get a feel for our Leaf charging routine we'll add more used (or overstocked) panels.

LeftieBiker said:
Lothsahn at least gives a possible reason for preferring L-2 charging, although the cost of electricity would have to be awfully high to be worth the cost of an L-2 charging station. I'll bet that you'll be downright horrified to learn that I'm still using L-1 only at home to charge my 40kwh Leaf. ;-)
Good to know, thanks. So far we have no need for L2 charging speed. We have plenty of time to charge at L1 overnight, and we don't even see the need to recharge while we're out & about.

Depending on our retiree routine, most of the time we might only recharge weekly. We're usually on travel for 2-3 months of the year as well, and an L2 charger seems to be overkill for our needs.

This 24 KWHr battery pack appears to be the perfect size for the islands. In five years or so maybe our 2005 Prius will die and we'll buy a second newer-to-us model of used Leaf with a bigger battery pack, but there's been no need so far.
 
Nords said:
...snip...I'm tempted to attach a 240v adapter plug on the Leaf's OEM 110v charger and stick it into the 240v receptacle behind our (rarely used) electric dryer.
DO NOT DO THIS!!!!! The OEM EVSE has components inside that are not capable of the higher voltage. You might get away with it a few times, but eventually the higher voltage will fry the electronics. If you desire or need to charge on 240V, get it upgraded at EVSEUpgrade.com (many many on this board have had it done and Ingineer is a very early adopter, though now he rebuilds more Teslas than Leafs.
Nords said:
...snip..I’m not trying to be a cheapskate-- I just don’t want to be responsible for still yet even more redundant infrastructure in our house. Is it worth buying an L2 EVSE? Any other benefits other than the faster charge, which we don’t need? Is the L2 somehow better for battery longevity? Do the aftermarket L2 EVSE charging systems have some convenience feature (charge timers? time-of-day metering?) which we "can't live without"?
Only you can answer that question. I've been using the OEM EVSE and 120V charging for nearly eight years with no problems. As long as your daily drive is less than about 40 mi and you don't need to pre-heat when it's below 20 F, then you are good with L1 120V. Some benefits of L2 240V charging are the slightly more efficient charging (maybe 85% vs 75% efficient) and being able to more quickly fill the battery, say during a specific 4 hr window when electricity is cheaper (or during high solar flux from 10am-2pm to be grid-friendly). Some stations do have timers, wireless connectivity, etc. that might also be beneficial.
 
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