Can you "top off" after a DC quick charge without damage?

[Deleted member 1622]

Hello --

It looks like my Leaf and I will not be visiting Vacaville and its L3 charger anytime soon. Now I have it from two solid sources in Vacaville that the L3 charger at the Bella Vista Road Park and Ride is definitely NOT for public use. I have an e-mail from Ed Huestis, former transit manager at Vacaville who talked to his contacts at PG&E, and a phone call from Brian McLean, the current transit manager there. Here is Ed's e-mail in full:
"I checked with my contact at PG&E. The EV Quick Charger at the Bella Vista Road Park and Ride Lot here in Vacaville is only available to OEM's and to CARB staff as part of a demonstration program for the time being. We have no chargers with J1772 connectors here in Vacaville yet.

We don't charge for using any of the electric vehicle public charging stations in Vacaville (45), and they are available 24/7. We just don't have any with the J1772 connectors yet.

I haven't heard if you can effectively "top off" with Level 2 charging immediately following the use of the EV Quick Charger."
Ed Huestis

Brian's call conveyed mostly the same information. I also learned some disappointing news from him... the grants, including Ecotality's EV Project to install more public chargers, all require some kind of local matching funds. Brian told me that it was very unlikely that Vacaville will put up any general fund money to upgrade to J1772's or to get the DC L3 charger online for the public. Given the recession, this is an unlikely scenario for most small to mid-sized cities in California. I am guessing that it will take 10 years before we have any significant number of public chargers on our highways. That's a reality I didn't want to face, but given the cost of installation, the lack of awareness, and the low numbers of EVs on the road at this time, that's my guess.

I'd like to know how George managed to charge at this station on Feb. 18 given that PG&E does not want the public charging from it. Could it have been left on by mistake? Is it actually online and usable even though PG&E doesn't want it to be?

Does anyone know of any other working DC L3 chargers in the Bay Area?

Thanks,
Josh

 

[LEAFer]

I'd like to know how George managed to charge at this station on Feb. 18 given that PG&E does not want the public charging from it. Could it have been left on by mistake? Is it actually online and usable even though PG&E doesn't want it to be?

Pure luck ... due to someone's mistake or a recently departed (authorized) user, and had not yet been turned off again.

Does anyone know of any other working DC L3 chargers in the Bay Area?

No; none yet.

... or to get the DC L3 charger online for the public.

Too bad about the UL listing or "making it public" effort being put on "ICE" :roll:

 

[Chuckster]

Hmmmm.... a ROAD TRIP in a Leaf....is that possible? Unless you have a lot of time to kill. The owners manual recommends no more than 1 quick charge per day. So, if you're on the highway averaging maybe 75 mpc. You do your one daily quick charge of 80%, that's 60 miles per day, assuming that you have access to an 8 hour home charging station each night for a total of 135 miles per day. I'm curious to hear how your road trip works out.

 

[garygid]

Apparently, after a QC to 80%, you can QC to 100% by "starting" a new charge.

 

[DarkStar]

Apparently, after a QC to 80%, you can QC to 100% by "starting" a new charge.

Yep, if you start below 50%. Starting above 50% SOC and it will automatically go to 100%.

 

[garygid]

So, when starting a QC above 50% SOC, you have to monitor the charge progress AND stop it MANUALLY to stop at 80% (or 90%).

Nissan should FIX the programming for L1/L2/QC so that the charge-to limits are independent of timers and starting SOC.

 

[DarkStar]

So, when starting a QC above 50% SOC, you have to monitor the charge progress AND stop it MANUALLY to stop at 80% (or 90%).

Nissan should FIX the programming for L1/L2/QC so that the charge-to limits are independent of timers and starting SOC.

Correct. One of my big complaints is that there is no setting on the car to tell it how many amps to draw and what SOC level it should stop at. For example, if I plug my L1 cable into a shared outlet and only want to draw 10 amps instead of the 12 the cable is designed to do I should be able to tell it so. Same for if I wanted to charge to 90% SOC (or 85% or maybe 93% for some silly reason).

 

[garygid]

Yep, I agree.
Nissan probably feels that charge rate control is beyond the capabilities of Grandma. J-However, in the default mode (EVSE-specified Max Rate), the car would be just what it is now.

I believe it was verified that the LEAF's chargee will obey EVSE settings other than 12 and 16 amps. Since the internal charger (apparently) has "fine" control of the charging Rate, the lack of User Settings seems to be just a software design decision.

 

[idunk]

All I'll write here applies to Li-ion EVs in general, not to just the Nissan LEAF.

A quick charge in 40 minutes from, say 0 to 80% is not necessarily a big deal for a battery. Yes, it will develop some heat and heat shortens the cycle life of a battery, but a one time thing will not make any noticeable impact. The level 2charging is at the end of the charge (the last 20%), so the current will be lower and it will only minimally stress the battery (and won't develop as much heat). The battery management system will prevent any significant overheating (unless it breaks down, of course). The final part of a level 2 charge (or of a level 1 for that matter) will balance the cells in the battery (I don't think that quick-charging balances the battery), which is important because not balancing will reduce range, even if you can get most of it back with a single balancing (the technical reason is too long and boring).
So, go ahead and do it if you need to and don't worry about it. If you don't need to, just avoid it.

 

[Deleted member 1622]

I posted this in the Vacaville L3 thread, too, sorry for the duplication, but I wanted to report on my trip:

Hello all --

I'm sorry to report that an attempted charge on the Vacaville DC Quickcharger with my Leaf did not work on April 3. PG&E really needs to step up to the plate and do some maintenance here, this uncertainty about whether you can get a charge or not is ridiculous.
I also noticed the peanut butter jar that had been smashed against the unit (yuck), and when I plugged in to my QC port and pushed every button I could think of, nothing happened. I have photos of the red failure report screen that comes up when you touch the screen, and I will try to post when I download them (do you need to be an upgraded member to post photos?). It was clearly inoperable, though, so for this week I do NOT recommend traveling 73 miles to charge on this unit.
My drive was 45 miles highway from Berkeley, and I had about 5 bars left (I can't stand to talk about "miles-left" anymore, that measure isn't very helpful in my opinion). My backup plan was to charge at the Vacaville Nissan two exits north on I-80, and it took me about 3.5 hours on the L2 to get enough charge to confidently drive the 45 miles back.
As far as I know, this is the ONLY quickcharger on the West Coast besides the one in Portland -- Nissan's promises of having quickchargers at dealerships seems to be not materializing, at least for this year. I am worried that Nissan and the EV Project are dropping the ball on the public charging infrastructure front.

Best,
Josh