DC Quickcharging for Leafs at dealers

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The big difference between a Tesla network and a Nissan dealer-based network would be the conflict of interest from the Nissan dealerships. The dealerships exist to generate a revenue stream from the cars built by the manufacturer. They upsell services, and make profit from the maintenance and repairs. The LEAF turns the dealership business model upside down - there is almost zero maintenance, and LEAF owners rarely visit the dealership.. the dealers have no interest in spending thousands of dollars to have LEAFS charge for free in their lot - on the other hand, Nissan should have an interest in promoting a charging network - they are limited by their dealers. Tesla on the other hand has eliminated the dealerships -- bravo!
 
gaswalla,

If Nissan were forward thinking enough, they would realize that the Leaf is not their only electric car. It is their first attempt and, since I bought one, an excellent first try. If dealers allowed for electric cars to quickcharge for free, they will not only sell a boatload of new leafs but also develop a deeper level of brand loyalty. Even more importantly, having all those leafs coming to the dealership to charge gives a dealer many opportunities to upsell to better electric vehicles down the road. In this way, I think having dealerships aka a brick and mortar location is actually a positive for both dealers and manufacturers.

To say that Tesla doesn't have a dealership is somewhat mistaken. They have Flagship stores just like the original apple stores. How many apple stores are there now? What they have eliminated is the ugly middleman, who confuses the market with different markups, fast-talking salesmen and an overall dishonest sense of doing business. Tesla has one price that everybody pays, no matter your location or negotiating prowess. The exchange of money for a car becomes less of a transaction and more about the actual purchase of the car. When was the last time we haggled over the price of an iMac?
 
gaswalla said:
The big difference between a Tesla network and a Nissan dealer-based network would be the conflict of interest from the Nissan dealerships. The dealerships exist to generate a revenue stream from the cars built by the manufacturer. They upsell services, and make profit from the maintenance and repairs. The LEAF turns the dealership business model upside down - there is almost zero maintenance, and LEAF owners rarely visit the dealership.. the dealers have no interest in spending thousands of dollars to have LEAFS charge for free in their lot - on the other hand, Nissan should have an interest in promoting a charging network - they are limited by their dealers. Tesla on the other hand has eliminated the dealerships -- bravo!

I don't think anyone here expects to QC for free at a Nissan dealer. Nissan needs to find a way to make it a financially viable option for dealers to install the QCs, and to reward those dealers that not only install them, but make them easily available for drivers.

As I've suggested previously, I think Nissan should offer to refund part or all of the cost of the QC unit itself, as well as the installation costs, to the dealership as credit towards buying new inventory in the 2013 model year. Additionally, I think Nissan should offer dealers that take advantage of this offer 70% of all revenue generated by the QC during normal business hours, and 100% of the revenue generated during non-business hours. This would hopefully encourage dealers to install QCs at essentially no cost to them, and would make it a money-making venture for the dealers. I also hope that by letting the dealer keep 100% of non-business hour revenue, it would encourage them to make sure the QC is powered up and available during the overnight. No one wants to get stranded, and certainly not at night!
 
tranhv68 said:
FREE FOREVER quick charging for all model S and probably all teslas.
Wrong.

If you actually watched the video, Musk mentions some sort of "nominal fee" for the 60 kwh Model S. It's unclear what that is given that http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; currently (and previously) said the Supercharger hardware is included in the 60 and 85 kwh models. BTW, the 40 kwh model CANNOT be Supercharged.

All Teslas? Seems highly unlikely the Roadster can unless they get retrofitted, somehow.
 
The one dealership installed QC that I've used (Santa Rosa, CA), was great to have access to, but is only available during dealership hours as it's behind a gate that gets locked. This was fairly inconvenient for me at the time and I hope that it doesn't become a trend...
 
In Phoenix, AZ, there are 5 QC locations that I'm aware of:

1 installed at a Ford dealership
2 installed at Toyota dealerships
1 installed at Ecotality
1 installed at PADT (they manufacture Blink stations)

0 at any Nissan dealership
 
Electric4Me said:
The one dealership installed QC that I've used (Santa Rosa, CA), was great to have access to, but is only available during dealership hours as it's behind a gate that gets locked. This was fairly inconvenient for me at the time and I hope that it doesn't become a trend...

Yes, the fact that it was NOT 24/7 impacted some planned evening activities. Nevertheless, so overjoyed to have a QC, we overlooked that for the time being. Nissan needs to put some QC action behind its words.
 
Volusiano said:
In Phoenix, AZ, there are 5 QC locations that I'm aware of:

1 installed at a Ford dealership
2 installed at Toyota dealerships
1 installed at Ecotality
1 installed at PADT (they manufacture Blink stations)

0 at any Nissan dealership

Just to be clear - we are talking about Level 3 DC Quick Chargers? I wasn't aware that any Ford or Toyota had the Chademo plug.

Do you mean Level 2 chargers?

I've charged my Leaf at a Toyota Level 2 EVSE - you should have seen the funny looks I got...
 
I always thought Arizona was a bit strange. ; ) Neither Ford nor Toyota have quick charge ports for their EVs, yet kudos to them for having DC QCs available for LEAFs.
 
tranhv68 said:
Well, Tesla just announced their network of DC Superchargers able to deliver 95kW per hour vs. 50kW per hour for the Leaf. What is even more amazing is that Elon Musk has set a new standard for other electric car manufacturers to rise to - FREE FOREVER quick charging for all model S and probably all teslas.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/24/tesla-supercharger/#continued" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's only a matter of time before they come out with a smaller maybe lower range tesla that will compete with the Leaf and the Volt in the 38K-40K range. I imagine it will be at least 100 USABLE miles. Their superchargers are not the ChaDeMo or SAE GM standard. They don't have to be. If Nissan does not add quick chargers to their dealerships they will surely miss an opportunity to maintain their sales momentum. They've got 38000 Leafs on the road. I am one of them. I am also getting a model s and a model x and probably the next model that tesla makes. Unless Nissan gives me a compelling reason to keep my leaf or trade it in for another one, this is probably the last nissan electric car I buy.

Nissan will probably have that out in a year or so at a lower price and beat Tesla to market by probably at least 12-18 months
 
Electric4Me said:
The one dealership installed QC that I've used (Santa Rosa, CA), was great to have access to, but is only available during dealership hours as it's behind a gate that gets locked. This was fairly inconvenient for me at the time and I hope that it doesn't become a trend...

I nearly took my Leaf to visit a friend in Santa Rosa, which would require a DCFC to get home. Good thing I checked Plugshare before I left. I would have been stranded due to them locking their lot :(
 
it is a bit "strange" that Tesla which is still essentially very much a start up, able to put in a nationwide charging system by the end of 2013 but Nissan cannot outfit their dealerships with DCFCs. If I were Nissan, i definitely would do it and require dealer permission for any non LEAF to charge.
 
I think it is because Nissan is still very much an ICE culture and follows that paradigm of independent dealers and third-party QC stations. Tesla seems way ahead of the game by thinking ahead as to what EV drivers most want and need, then providing that supercharger network to sell more of their cars. Nissan should probably spin off their EV sales and marketing to a separate and independent division.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
it is a bit "strange" that Tesla which is still essentially very much a start up, able to put in a nationwide charging system by the end of 2013 but Nissan cannot outfit their dealerships with DCFCs. If I were Nissan, i definitely would do it and require dealer permission for any non LEAF to charge.

To me, it is almost two separate examples. Tesla only needs stations every 150-200 miles, and they've made the decision that those stations are a marketing expense (if you buy a Tesla Model S, sir, you can use our Supercharger network and take trips for free). Elon said at the Supercharger event late last year that he thought it would cost $20-$30M to build out their SC network across the US. In many cases, Tesla is installing them in semi-out-of-the-way places where power is right adjacent or nearby. That is important from an installation cost and a land acquisition/lease cost. They also minimize cost because the stations don't have to do point-of-sale billing. Plug in and charge for free...

Nissan, on the other hand, would need to install many more stations to get the same penetration or effect because of the LEAF's shorter range. 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. 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). Also, while it was listed as an option on their DC FC sales website, the early Nissan / Sumitomo models did not do billing. So if Nissan or the dealers intended to collect revenue for charging, that would cost extra for the hardware.

I think Nissan would be better off to fund a few DC FC in key metropolitan areas on or around the key in/out roads to the cities/towns so that LEAFs could use them to springboard to or from the next city or town. And if they do want to fund a grant for the stations, pay for the entire installation and don't require the host to have to pay some of the costs. That just slows down site acquisition until people come to the table that are willing to pay (and their sites may not be optimal)...

It isn't an easy problem to solve since the total installed cost of a DC FC station is much higher than people think. I'll say $15-25K for hardware (depending on features) and $15-$25K for installation (depending on available power).

So that's my two cents worth...
 
Randy said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
it is a bit "strange" that Tesla which is still essentially very much a start up, able to put in a nationwide charging system by the end of 2013 but Nissan cannot outfit their dealerships with DCFCs. If I were Nissan, i definitely would do it and require dealer permission for any non LEAF to charge.

To me, it is almost two separate examples. Tesla only needs stations every 150-200 miles, and they've made the decision that those stations are a marketing expense (if you buy a Tesla Model S, sir, you can use our Supercharger network and take trips for free). Elon said at the Supercharger event late last year that he thought it would cost $20-$30M to build out their SC network across the US. In many cases, Tesla is installing them in semi-out-of-the-way places where power is right adjacent or nearby. That is important from an installation cost and a land acquisition/lease cost. They also minimize cost because the stations don't have to do point-of-sale billing. Plug in and charge for free...

Nissan, on the other hand, would need to install many more stations to get the same penetration or effect because of the LEAF's shorter range. 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. 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). Also, while it was listed as an option on their DC FC sales website, the early Nissan / Sumitomo models did not do billing. So if Nissan or the dealers intended to collect revenue for charging, that would cost extra for the hardware.

I think Nissan would be better off to fund a few DC FC in key metropolitan areas on or around the key in/out roads to the cities/towns so that LEAFs could use them to springboard to or from the next city or town. And if they do want to fund a grant for the stations, pay for the entire installation and don't require the host to have to pay some of the costs. That just slows down site acquisition until people come to the table that are willing to pay (and their sites may not be optimal)...

It isn't an easy problem to solve since the total installed cost of a DC FC station is much higher than people think. I'll say $15-25K for hardware (depending on features) and $15-$25K for installation (depending on available power).

So that's my two cents worth...


there is an "after the install" maintenance issue that would be greatly complicated if not at a Nissan dealership. having it at the dealership increases brand name loyalty and recognition. I am not familiar with most dealerships not being close to the freeway unless they are in a town that is simply not on the beaten track but there are usually main county roads connecting them as the limited traffic they do have still funnels by them.

and yes, there will be some dealerships where the power upgrade requirements will be extreme but I think Nissan has to take the long view in this. Tesla's actions make it all that more imperative. what should Nissan do? wait until GM has that franken plug network installed at their dealerships first?
 
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