Are Nissan Dealerships REALLY On-Board with EV Charging?

[Dmchose]

But that is what we need at this point; lots of free loaders. We need a visual impact showing the viability of EV. I had been grabbing a few boltz at public stations prior to getting a L2 charger. There are 3 different charging L2 areas on the way to my work. All are empty 90% of the time. These cost public funds and are looked on as a waste. Now as they are breaking down no one sees the reason to fix them. Why we'll there are no EVs.
I get probably one or two inquiries about my Leaf a week . The idea is now catching on. What we need is for people to see the idea working. So in this case at least in the Carolinas. bring on the moochers.
EV clubs can put out full page adds that make people think. Bill boards too. Ok this is getting off topic but the thing is " if you drive an EV you are not alone"...

 

[kikngas]

While I agree that using the infrastructure helps show support and need for it. It also invites naysayers to assert that it only works because it's free or subsidized. They have no idea how much electricity you are using, nor what the costs are. Just that the expense is NOT helping THEIR daily lives. They will also suddenly notice you aren't paying any road taxes through fuel purchases.

My plan is to do my daily commute and errands and, for the time being anyway, road trips are essentially impractical. You end up with only one charge choice every 60+ miles, and it's L2. So I keep my 20yo ICE 2 seater which gets ~40MPG.

For those rare occasions when I want to road trip, I'd be very happy to pay the cost of 2 maybe even 3 gallons of gas for a quick charge. You'd think that would allow for enough profit margin to make a business model out of it. But there aren't enough EVs yet. At least around here. I think I saw a number like 600 EVs in all of MN. So, at any given time, there are only about a dozen EVs out on a road trip and willing to pay.

It is ironic that one reason people do not buy an EV is the lack of charging infrastructure, and so they may agree that the car meets their daily needs, but be unwilling to accept that they can use the maintenance and fuel savings to rent a car for a road trip. Or that by the time they take a second road trip there will be a charge station installed along their route. Meanwhile then may consider me a freeloader because I take advantage of the $7,500 tax credit, dodge the road taxes and perhaps use some government backed charging infrastructure. What they seem to fail to see is that it takes people like us to make it all possible for everyone to do the same thing 10 years from now. And when you talk about 10 years from now they still can't picture a flushed out charging infrastructure nor increased range batteries. This all just sounds like pie-in-the-sky to people. We've all heard the promises before (thanks to the press for hyping so many bad ideas), and so I think we are rather immune to seeing the full potential.

 

[cwerdna]

Charging on a Nissan QC today I noticed that the cooling fans seem to run full speed even when not used and didn't appear to vary speed depending on load on the station. It seems that if the fans would spin down when additional cooling isn't needed the inlet filter (inexplicably located right on the ground where tons of dirt can be picked up) it would increase time before the filter clogs up.

Yes, I had the same observation about Nissan QC's as well.

I do wonder if the fan speeds are fixed or whether they can be controlled via software.

Re: fans, I used the Nissan-branded DC FC at http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/6466" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; today and noticed that unit has different fan behavior. I wonder if there was a firmware update to reduce frequency of filter clogging?

I didn't monitor the fans before charging, but I definitely heard them go much faster once charging started.

And, I saw my first Kia Soul EV in the wild (not a test vehicle, not at an EVent). I left to briefly grab a bite (leaving my contact info behind on my Leaf) and came back to see a Soul EV waiting to CHAdeMO charge. I told him 5 more minutes and he was fine w/that. I disconnected for him while still at above my L2 speed.