Charging at home

Where I currently live, I rent. I live about 1/10 mile from a thruway that has a welcome center that has 3 quick chargers that I use predominantly to charge my leaf. They are completely free to use.
Me and my wife are about to get pre-approved to start looking for houses and I was thinking about a charger in a garage. Aside from the convenience of charging at home, why would I pay for charging if I don’t have to? Plus where I work they are about to install a charger there too. What would you do in my situation? Put the charger in or keep charging the way I have been since Oct of 2018?

It's far preferable to have charging available at home, because you can charge overnight, while you sleep, and you can charge when you've just barely made it home and are out of charge. It doesn't have to be L-2 charging: a good, newer, little-used 15 or 20 amp 120 volt circuit will work. Still, L-2 charging, if you have the wiring available, provides the best benefit for cost if you have to buy the charging station or cable anyway. At the very least, make sure you have a usable 120 volt circuit, and a Nissan or similar L-1 120 volt charging cable in the car.

BuffaloBillsfan said:

Aside from the convenience of charging at home, why would I pay for charging if I don’t have to? Plus where I work they are about to install a charger there too. What would you do in my situation? Put the charger in or keep charging the way I have been since Oct of 2018?

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Lefty used up one of his correct answers for the day. :lol:

I'd put in a charging station. Or at least make sure you have a good 120V circuit, with no other significant loads and good wiring and outlet.

The convenience of home charging is the main reason. The joy will hit you in about a week or two.

BuffaloBillsfan said:

Where I currently live, I rent. I live about 1/10 mile from a thruway that has a welcome center that has 3 quick chargers that I use predominantly to charge my leaf. They are completely free to use.
Me and my wife are about to get pre-approved to start looking for houses and I was thinking about a charger in a garage. Aside from the convenience of charging at home, why would I pay for charging if I don’t have to? Plus where I work they are about to install a charger there too. What would you do in my situation? Put the charger in or keep charging the way I have been since Oct of 2018?

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Don't depend too much on free ****. It has a tendency to suddenly stop with no warning.

BuffaloBillsfan said:

Where I currently live, I rent. I live about 1/10 mile from a thruway that has a welcome center that has 3 quick chargers that I use predominantly to charge my leaf. They are completely free to use.
Me and my wife are about to get pre-approved to start looking for houses and I was thinking about a charger in a garage. Aside from the convenience of charging at home, why would I pay for charging if I don’t have to? Plus where I work they are about to install a charger there too. What would you do in my situation? Put the charger in or keep charging the way I have been since Oct of 2018?

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We got our 2016 Leaf Oct 2019 and used the 120 volt OEM charger for a couple weeks and a few places around with a J1772 connection until I got in the parts I needed. While I did have 240 volts nearby I just kept it simple to upgrade later.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Levi...w-Single-Outlet-Black-R10-00279-S00/300324414

This and some short runs of wiring is all I needed to get started. Because I did not want to have to unplug it to to kill the power I added a switch before the 14-50 outlet. Since I plan to build another parking place I put the outlet and 240 volt slider off/on switch on a board so I can move my set up in a flash to another 240 volt source someday.

While our Leaf can only draw 26 amps but I purchased the 40 amp Mustart so I can move to a larger EV some day.

https://camelcamelcamel.com/MUSTART-Portable-Charger-Electric-Charging/product/B077D5C86M

Since Nissan replaced our traction battery a couple weeks ago with the 40 kWh version we do not have the range issue when it was like on 60 miles so we do not have to charge as often but like yesterday I got home with 14 miles of range left at 10%. As noted by others batteries should have state of charge (SOC) of 40% when parked for very long so I plugged in as soon as I got home.

Selling a house 10-20 years down the road I expect being EV ready will help the speed of the closing. The 14-50 outlet is just an industry standard like used by 50 amp RV's, etc so if someone stops by in a motor home we could have them powered in like 30 seconds now.

Since you have a working solution now just start looking at you options so when you are shopping for a home you will be more critical of the wiring capacity of the places that you look at. Should you fine a place that has lighter 240 wiring like for a window unit or 240 volt space heater you could drop back to 32 or 16 amp 240 volt home charger option. I need self driving features in an EV but the Leaf was the most I can afford today and I love it. Best of luck with your home shopping. If you find a place with the breaker box handy like in the garage adding a 240 volt receptacle requires little labor. Even if you do it yourself do it by code so when you sell you will have one less potential headache.

...yesterday I got home with 14 miles of range left at 10%. As noted by others batteries should have state of charge (SOC) of 40% when parked for very long so I plugged in as soon as I got home.

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Just to clarify: it's either 20% or 25% that should be considered the lower threshold for having to plug in, depending on who you ask. 40% is a good storage charge, but that's also taking into account the need for some range, or the possibility of the battery heater coming on in frigid weather (in which case 60% is better) - it isn't a requirement of the battery to be at 40% to keep it happy.

It's my understanding that quick-charging on a regular basis can increase long-term battery degradation, especially combined with heat in the summertime. For long term battery life, you might consider doing most of your charging with level-1 and level-2.

Once the charger gets installed at work, I’ll probably charge there mostly since I work a 2-2-3 12 hour shifts. As far as the summertime goes, I live in Buffalo, NY roughly and our summers get to around 80-90 most if the time. We might get a week of 90’s but that’s it.

PrairieLEAF said:

It's my understanding that quick-charging on a regular basis can increase long-term battery degradation, especially combined with heat in the summertime. For long term battery life, you might consider doing most of your charging with level-1 and level-2.

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Once the charger gets installed at work, I’ll probably charge there mostly since I work 2-2-3 12 hour shifts. As far as the summertime goes, I live in Buffalo, NY roughly and our summers get to around 80-90 most if the time. We might get a week of 90’s but that’s it.

The only 2 reasons I'd charge at home are convenience and being able to charge at night. I've had a 2017 Leaf for 2.5 years and have charged at home probably 3-4 times. Once was just to make sure I knew how.

I'm planning to put in a 240V circuit and L2 charger in my garage so I can charge at night this summer. I'm in CO and we get about 20-25 days of 90+F weather in the summer so I'm planning to charge overnight in those conditions. But after 2+ years, it's purely just a convenience and not something I think I need.

Buying a house is a big deal and I'd get settled in before planning too many upgrades. As mentioned, if there is a sub-panel or main panel in the garage adding a circuit would be trivial. Otherwise, unless you can DIY it's probably $400+ plus to run the circuit and then the cost of the EVSE.

BuffaloBillsfan said:

PrairieLEAF said:

It's my understanding that quick-charging on a regular basis can increase long-term battery degradation, especially combined with heat in the summertime. For long term battery life, you might consider doing most of your charging with level-1 and level-2.

Click to expand...

Once the charger gets installed at work, I’ll probably charge there mostly since I work 2-2-3 12 hour shifts. As far as the summertime goes, I live in Buffalo, NY roughly and our summers get to around 80-90 most if the time. We might get a week of 90’s but that’s it.

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Don't know what your work situation is, but anticipate that workplace charging can quickly become over-subscribed. They put 2 charging bays in at my workplace and I took advantage of it for a while even though I didn't really need to. But it didn't take long before our impromptu mailing-list of EV owners swelled to over 30 people, and despite good cooperation, plug-in time became difficult to count on.

[/quote] Don't know what your work situation is, but anticipate that workplace charging can quickly become over-subscribed. They put 2 charging bays in at my workplace and I took advantage of it for a while even though I didn't really need to. But it didn't take long before our impromptu mailing-list of EV owners swelled to over 30 people, and despite good cooperation, plug-in time became difficult to count on.
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Good to know! Currently I am literally the only employee out of the few hundred employees that work there that have a vehicle that can plug in. I’ll enjoy it while I can. It should give me enough time to settle into the house before we put a charger in.