Charging Station?

My Nissan dealer knows nothing about the Leaf. They just want to sell me an ICE vehicle so please answer my question. Thanks;

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) from the youtube video and google search that this is the case;
1. You have to install a special Nissan charging station in your home for $3000 in order to charge your 2018 Leaf in 7 to 8 hours. You use the right hand side charging port on your car. The charge cable is permanently affixed to your wall charging station.
2. If you charge your Leaf with the normal wall socket (NEMA 240v or 120v normal household socket) it will take 21 to 24 hours to charge your Leaf. You will have to buy a special Portable charging cable from Nissan. The cable plugs in to the right hand side port on your car.
3. If you charge your Leaf at a commercial charging station, you have to buy the "Quick Charge" option from Nissan and it will charge on the left charging port on your car and it takes 30 min to charge. The cable is permanently attached to the commercial charging station.

Is this correct information?
Thanks again and happy holidays!

You can use any J1772 compliant EVSE. Some common ones are Chipper Creek, Siemans, and GE. On the DIY front there is OpenEVSE and JuiceBox. I am an OpenEVSE person and I usually just build them to keep busy. I sell at around cost. On the OpenECVE site there are high priced complete kits.

https://store.openevse.com/

Using Chinese parts you can shave hundreds off of the price. It usually takes several weeks though. I usually sell for around $350.

Tell your electrician you want a 14-50 receptacle for your large RV. Telling them it is for an EVSE usually raises the price. That way the installer does not think that they have struck gold!

lilly said:

My Nissan dealer knows nothing about the Leaf. They just want to sell me an ICE vehicle so please answer my question. Thanks;

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) from the youtube video and google search that this is the case;
1. You have to install a special Nissan charging station in your home for $3000 in order to charge your 2018 Leaf in 7 to 8 hours. You use the right hand side charging port on your car. The charge cable is permanently affixed to your wall charging station.
2. If you charge your Leaf with the normal wall socket (NEMA 240v or 120v normal household socket) it will take 21 to 24 hours to charge your Leaf. You will have to buy a special Portable charging cable from Nissan. The cable plugs in to the right hand side port on your car.
3. If you charge your Leaf at a commercial charging station, you have to buy the "Quick Charge" option from Nissan and it will charge on the left charging port on your car and it takes 30 min to charge. The cable is permanently attached to the commercial charging station.

Is this correct information?
Thanks again and happy holidays!

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You do not need a "nissan charging station" and certainly not for 3000 dollars (which I believe is a mistake as I am not aware of any EVSE even costing 1000 dollars let alone 3000). The "nissan charging station is called an EVSE which stands for "Electric vehicle supply equipment" You can buy a decent one for around 400 to 600 dollars, I recommend a juice box 40 KWh wifi unit. Here is a link. https://emotorwerks.com/store/residential/juicebox-pro-40-smart-40-amp-evse-with-24-foot-cable

Having said that Home Depot also has them and sometimes on sale.

All of these EVSE's use a J1772 protocol. A nissan is no different than a Tesla or a BMW or a Bolt or a whatever. You can buy a Tesla wall charger if you like but you will have to buy a 200 dollar adapter if you go that route.

I concur with other poster and recommend a 14-50 240 volt receptacle be installed where you need it. SImply plug the EVSE into it. Make sure you specify the plug type (14-50) to whoever sells you the EVSE so it will be a plug and play.

Here is our setup. The EVSE was around 500 and the 14-50 receptacle install was about 240 bucks.

You will have to buy a special Portable charging cable from Nissan.

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No, that comes with the car. If you have a home 240 volt charging station, you likely won't need the 120 volt portable charging cable. Home charging stations start at $400 for good ones and even less for lower quality Chinese units.

lilly said:

My Nissan dealer knows nothing about the Leaf. They just want to sell me an ICE vehicle so please answer my question. Thanks;

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) from the youtube video and google search that this is the case;
1. You have to install a special Nissan charging station in your home for $3000 in order to charge your 2018 Leaf in 7 to 8 hours. You use the right hand side charging port on your car. The charge cable is permanently affixed to your wall charging station.
2. If you charge your Leaf with the normal wall socket (NEMA 240v or 120v normal household socket) it will take 21 to 24 hours to charge your Leaf. You will have to buy a special Portable charging cable from Nissan. The cable plugs in to the right hand side port on your car.
3. If you charge your Leaf at a commercial charging station, you have to buy the "Quick Charge" option from Nissan and it will charge on the left charging port on your car and it takes 30 min to charge. The cable is permanently attached to the commercial charging station.

Is this correct information?
Thanks again and happy holidays!

Click to expand...

I'd be very suspicious of your dealer, based on what you wrote that he told you.

The 2018 SL model (don't know about the other models) of the Leaf comes with a 240 volt charging cable (can use in with a 110 outlet as well with its adapter). This cable should cost you nothing when you buy the Leaf!!

Charge time will vary with the amount of juice in your batteries as well as which socket you're charging from. From empty, in a 110 volt socket, the 20 plus hours looks about right. But you'd never charge from zero anyway, so that number is only theoretical.

If you buy the lowest model Leaf then I suspect you will have to buy the "Quick Charge" option for your new Leaf.

Good luck,

Rich

The 2018 SL model (don't know about the other models) of the Leaf comes with a 240 volt charging cable (can use in with a 110 outlet as well with its adapter). This cable should cost you nothing when you buy the Leaf!!

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No, the charging cable is now part of the Technology Package. It is no longer standard on the SV. Orient Express did say that it would be possible to buy just the EVSE at a dealership, probably for about $1100.

AFA charging speed, to get a rough idea you can just divide the kWh of your battery(40 max I believe for a '18) by the kW output of your EVSE.
A 120v OEM EVSE puts out roughly 1.4kW, a basic 16a Chinese L2 (starting ~$199) would be 3.8kW, a basic 30a L2 EVSE(starting ~$300-400) 7.2kW and I believe this may be the max for the '18 higher charging Leafs.
As noted your never really going to charge 40kWh's in one shot, there is a bottom buffer and you should never really(nor will the car allow you to) go down to 0% charge, so if you figure a low SOC as being ~35kWh's with the 120v OEM EVSE ~25hrs, 16a L2 ~9hrs, 30a ~5hrs. Of course, there are loses in the car's charger among other places so you could probably subtract 10??% off my EVSEs kW or add 10% to my charge times. And again this is going off a quite low SOC%, if charging from less(say 50% to 100%) half the times I listed.

I'm guessing your $3k is including installation and a somewhat complicated installation at that. For an easy installation, it could be <$500 and a max power EVSE anywhere from $300 to $600 for an OEM Nissan leaf wall mounted EVSE from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Nissan-LEAF-EV-Charger-UL-Listed/dp/B00BNY14IE/ref=sr_1_27?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1514246142&sr=1-27&keywords=level+2+ev+charger
It's a nice model but personally, I'd go with the much more versatile Juicebox mentioned, more for less.

https://www.amazon.com/JuiceBox-Pro-40-Lite-WiFi-equipped/dp/B00I4D6SJ2/ref=sr_1_24?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1514246142&sr=1-24&keywords=level+2+ev+charger
https://www.amazon.com/JuiceBox-Pro-40-JuiceNet-WiFi-equipped/dp/B00UB9R4KO/ref=sr_1_5?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1514246142&sr=1-5&keywords=level+2+ev+charger

jjeff said:

AFA charging speed, to get a rough idea you can just divide the kWh of your battery(40 max I believe for a '18) by the kWh output of your EVSE.
A 120v OEM EVSE puts out roughly 1.4kWh, a basic 16a Chinese L2 (starting ~$199) would be 3.8kWh, a basic 30a L2 EVSE(starting ~$300-400) 7.2kWh and I believe this may be the max for the '18 better Leafs.

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No. Charging rate is measured in kW, NOT kWh!

kW and kWh are very different metrics. It's the same as confusing gallons with horsepower. Think of kW = horsepower, kWh = gallons.

If one charges at 1 kW (or 1000 watts) for 6 hours, 6 kWh came out of the wall. If it's at 6 kW for 1 hour, it's also 6 kWh. If it's 1 watt for 6000 hours, it's also 6 kWh.

Watts or kilowatts are measure of power. Watt-hours are a measure of energy.

One pays for electricity at home in cents per kWh. There are a few utilities w/residential plans where they not only bill per kWh but also have demand charges, but that's rare and complicates calculations. (Demand charges aren't unusual on many commercial plans.)

(BTW, 1 hp = ~0.746 kW. And, many .gov sites say 1 gallon of gasoline=33.7 kWh.)

Stock 120 L1 EVSE does 120 volts * 12 amps = 1,440 watts = 1.44 kW out of the wall. So, for every hour, 1.44 kWh has made it out of the wall. Not all the energy coming out of the wall makes it into the battery. Figure about 1.1 to 1.2 kWh is added to the battery for each hour.

OP can read https://www.clippercreek.com/three-things-determine-ev-charge-time/. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=262630#p262630 may also help the OP.

Updated, yes a EVSE is rated in kW's , batteries in kWh's

Careful, jjeff, you don't want Cwerdna hunting you down!

cwerdna said:

kW and kWh are very different metrics. It's the same as confusing gallons with horsepower. Think of kW = horsepower, kWh = gallons.

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Agreed! My 1967 Corvair gets 140HP from a 14 gallon tank, so that's about 10HP per gallon. Not too shabby for an old ICE car.

I'll bet you could get 150HP if you completely filled the filler pipe with gas as well.