Recent content by vkruger

I got the official Nissan one. It has a flap for charging and the solar pannel and a window to see the dash lights. I use it for the airport on long trips to keep the car clean and the 12v battery charged.

I think I got the 9th private Leaf 1/4/11. Overall I love it. I expected a few problems with a totally new design, but they never happened!!!!!!! (I cringe thinking about how the Apteva I was waiting for would have worked out.) The cost was great (about $23k net). I was ready to pay $40k for a...

Mine is still working at more than 14 months (1/4/11 delivery). It died at around 6 months but I called in and on the 3rd try got a 6 month extension. So I expect mine to die soon. Then I'll try just traffic for a while. Most likely I'll stop that because of little use.

Is the DC to DC inverter ever off in the Leaf? I assume it is always on so the 12V battery will never go dead if stored for a long time in the shade.

Took me 3 20 minute calls to get free trial. 1st call went through fast, but CS would do nothing for me. No argument would budge him. 2nd 20 minute call was going better, but call was dropped. 3rd 20 minute call worked great with a pleasent guy and got my 6 month trial!

I purchased my Leaf 1/4/11. I rarely use XM but noticed on Saturday that traffic worked in the morning but didn't in the afternoon. It finally dawned on me that my 3 month free XM must have ended after 5+ months. I don't need the stations, but the traffic was nice. I can use my Droid X for...

I had a similar problem this weekend picking something up from Craig's List in a residential area. The Nav said I was there and I was at the indicated location on the map but I was still a block away from the address. The street and house were at least 30 years old. I will be keeping a closer...

I've had my Leaf for over a month now. There have been some changes in my driving habits: 1) I accelerate much faster from stops and on entrance ramps. There is very little penalty in an electric motor to deliver the energy needed to get to a certain speed much quicker (I^2R losses). 2) I...

I wonder if any has put one a spreadsheet together to track the resale value of the Leaf? It could be an interesting shape over time as more Leafs and other EVs come out. I don't know if one has shown up on Ebay yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if one does soon (every has their price). Also a...

I have over 300 cycles on my LiMn battery pack I built for my bike. When I researched the cells I found out that discharging to 3.0 V does no harm but charging above 4.1 V does. I charge my pack to only 4.06V. I would be surprised if Nissan allowed charging above 4.1 V. Data back then showed...

My guess is that Nissan has a commitment to fill out participation in all the EV projects. I've heard that there are still a few openings in the (1000?) for the San Diego Area and perhaps others in the initial states.

Any time you charge up the location is put into your CarWings, but not the shared data base. That way you have a history of everywhere you have charged up in case you want to use it again.

My bike is a bicycle so the fuel is ice cream and pop corn.

I feel a little guilty leaving my new Leaf at home tomorrow, but as environmentally friendly as it is, me riding my bicycle to work and my wife running to work is even better. I got the Leaf for the 2 or 3 times each work week that errands or weather would make one of us drive our ICE to work...

This spreadsheet is catching most of the Leafs that have landed. I was told that mine was the 9th one sold in the US (1st of the 6 going out of Fontana Nissan today and tomorrow). They had trouble starting up CarWings for the 3 of us there this mourning. They had to reinstall some software...