DC Quickcharging for Leafs at dealers

[TonyWilliams]

... what should Nissan do? wait until GM has that franken plug network installed at their dealerships first?

Not gunna happen.

[DaveEV]

In fact, it is my opinion that the dealerships are probably not the best place for Nissan to locate their DC FC stations. It would cost a LOT of money to install them at some of the dealer sites because of the 3-phase power requirements that may or may not exist there.

I'm not buying it - even if you only have 240V single-phase power, a simple 200A feed will get you 48 kW. But heck, even 240V/100A would be great. If 3-phase is available that makes things easier, of course.

Some dealers are close to the freeways where the DC FC would be valuable, but several of the dealers are far from freeways (which may not be as ideal for DC FC).

So don't install them at all dealers. But even then an on-site DCQC would be an invaluable sales tool. Even when servicing cars, it would be very useful to have a QC on site - as often customers typically have to drive out of their way to drop their car off and L2 may not be fast enough to provide sufficient range for the rest of the day's activities.

[BEVeedom]

I could not understand why Nissan does not have a DC Fast Charger at every dealership in America. Nissan has invested in the charging equipment, has figured out how to get the price down significantly, and has many stations in Japan. Every dealer with a garage and/or body shop will have 208/277/480 3P commercial power available on-site.

Maybe the answer is in the recent announcement of the SAE Combo Plug and maybe a change is in order to promote a business case for DC Fast Charging. Actually the SAE Combo makes sense to me and I believe it should become the standard for the industry. It's an all-in-one unit. No more optional cost DC Fast Charge port. Who wants to spend extra money to maximize your "fill-up" time. Also, real estate on an automobile is critical and the SAE Combo requires much less space for the receptor. Add to that 200 amp charging in 20 minutes from depleted to 80% and what's not to like? Switch to SAE Combo, make an adaptor for CHAdeMO to SAE Combo and get on with it. We need DC Fast infrastrture here in the Northeast Corridor now, not 500 miles away on the Tennessee Cracker Barrel circuit. (But, thank you very much Cracker Barrel for your support).

Hint: The Chevy Spark EV, due out this summer, will have the SAE Combo as standard equipment.

[91040]

1/14/13 Plug In Cars
Nissan Promises Dealership-Based EV Quick Charging
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http:/ ... ssan-promi
ses-dealership-based-ev-quick-charging-126089.html&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARg
AIAAoATAAOABAyd3QhwVIAVgBYgVlbi1VUw&cd=ZhXKk2t3Qkk&usg=AFQjCNFCbLQEw
PT3v0EdH4aHzE3Cx1qdsg>

Nissan will use its own CHAdeMo-based Quick Charge equipment at dealerships.
“Three or four years ago, it was not part of the business plan to do our own
...

[NYLEAF]

1/14/13 Plug In Cars
Nissan Promises Dealership-Based EV Quick Charging
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http:/ ... ssan-promi
ses-dealership-based-ev-quick-charging-126089.html&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARg
AIAAoATAAOABAyd3QhwVIAVgBYgVlbi1VUw&cd=ZhXKk2t3Qkk&usg=AFQjCNFCbLQEw
PT3v0EdH4aHzE3Cx1qdsg>

Nissan will use its own CHAdeMo-based Quick Charge equipment at dealerships.
“Three or four years ago, it was not part of the business plan to do our own
...

I'm still waiting for details on this. So far the only details that have been thrown around are 600 installed by the end of fiscal 2013 (which really means March 2014) and Phoenix & the Bay Area being "priority areas". What about us poor souls up in the Northeast that have never even SEEN a QuickCharger? My two nearest QCs are in CANADA (over 8 hours away by car). I want to see a list of which dealers are getting QCs, and a rough estimate of when. My Leaf turns 1 year old in 5 days...I'm tired of waiting for QC.

[GregH]

I heard there will be 20 in SoCal by March 31st with the first going in at Santa Monica.. Not sure what the other locations will be but I hope we find out soon!

[Phoenix]

My leaf is almost TWO years old and ditto
on being tired of waiting for DC QCs (at least those
heading east on 80 towards the state capital.) How are
we supposed to lobby for change if we can't drive the
LEAF there? ; )

[ksnogas2112]

1/14/13 Plug In Cars
Nissan Promises Dealership-Based EV Quick Charging
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http:/ ... ssan-promi
ses-dealership-based-ev-quick-charging-126089.html&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARg
AIAAoATAAOABAyd3QhwVIAVgBYgVlbi1VUw&cd=ZhXKk2t3Qkk&usg=AFQjCNFCbLQEw
PT3v0EdH4aHzE3Cx1qdsg>

Nissan will use its own CHAdeMo-based Quick Charge equipment at dealerships.
“Three or four years ago, it was not part of the business plan to do our own
...

Unless you're a Nissan dealership in Sedalia, MO. Just heard back from them after trying to plan out a road trip. Not only will they not have a CHAdeMO station they don't even have an L2 now and won't ever because their market is too small to justify an L2.

[TonyWilliams]

... Actually the SAE Combo makes sense to me and I believe it should become the standard for the industry. It's an all-in-one unit. No more optional cost DC Fast Charge port.

Not every car with an J1772 port can use the Frankenplug port... and not even the European version of Frankenplug will be compatible with the USA version until 2017. Only three cars are slated to have the Frankenplug, and we do not know yet if this will be standard, or optional on those cars.

The announcement of Frankenplug was intended to put the brakes on Nissan and CHAdeMO (they've spent more time on press releases than engineering), but I suspect this effort will fail. Not because either charging protocal is significantly better or worse technically than the other, but instead it will be a simple matter of supply and demand. There are currently over 2000 CHAdeMO chargers in the world, with 70,000 cars that can use them; Frankenplug has zero and zero today.

Of the three cars coming to market soon that will offer the Frankplug; BMW i3, GM Spark, and a VW car, the first one is expected to be far more expensive than the LEAF, and therefore not expected to sell in significant quantities, compared to LEAF with CHAdeMO. If you want an idea how few electric vehicles a manufacturer might sell at $40,000 - $50,000, the Toyota Rav4 EV has sold less than 200 since Sept 2012. There currently is a total of $16,000 in credits and rebates offered to move this car, making the effective price about $34,000... and it still doesn't sell.

The latter two Frankenplug cars, GM and VW, are strictly California ARB compliance cars, to be sold in very limited numbers. None of these small numerical offerings pose a serious challenge to the expansion of CHAdeMO, and it certainly hinders the growth of Frankenplug.

FrankenFew cars means FrankenFew Frankenplugs!!!

To give you an idea of just how few of these compliance cars will actually be produced, Toyota intends to sell 2600 Rav4 EV's in three years to meet the 0.79% Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate, so you can expect GM to be required to sell a similar number, and VW to sell far less over the same period.

Nissan alone will likely sell 50,000 or more LEAFs in the USA in that time period.

It is believed that the number of CHAdeMO chargers will double in 2013, and literally explode this year in California (like it already has in Washington and Oregon). I'll bet that there is not ONE public operational Frankenplug (beyond a demonstration or factory installed "see, we have one") in the USA in 2013.

Switch to SAE Combo, make an adaptor for CHAdeMO to SAE Combo and get on with it.

Or, don't switch at all, and let the manufacturers of the non-CHAdeMO cars build an adapter to use the already existing CHAdeMO infrastructure. Quite a bit more cost effective.

Hint: The Chevy Spark EV, due out this summer, will have the SAE Combo as standard equipment.

Hint for you... there won't be many of these cars, and compared to a LEAF, it feels like a tinker toy (I've only sat in one and not driven it, however). Like other compliance cars, it just rolls down an assembly line, and they plop an electric drive train in place of the oil burner. I can hardly wait to see Spark and i3 owners wondering where all the Frankenplugs are that they were promised at the dealership, while all the other EV drivers are plugging into existing Tesla and CHAdeMO chargers.

Again, I don't care what the ultimate standard is, but I do want the folks at GM to fail in their attempts to divide and diminish the electric car world while they provide virtually nothing to bolster BEV's (ya, that Spark doesn't count, because they wouldn't build it if they didn't have to).

[jcan]

The Frankenplug VS Chademo . If we refer to the two plugs enough this way hopefully they will always be known as Frankenplug and Chademo.