Pls give us START time in "charging timer" - 2013 Leaf S

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GregH said:
If, as I understand it, Nissan opted to just put one setting (end time) rather than two (start and end) to make the non touch screen interface easier... Why 'end' and not 'start'?
End only is far preferable to start only for anyone on a TOU power rate.
  • It minimizes the length of time the battery is at 100% for people who need to charge fully.
  • It optimizes charging cost for customers with short lowest-rate time periods without them having to do daily estimates and timer reprogramming. (I am assuming that time overrun before the best rate period costs the same as time overrun after it. If you overrun before the best time, the car is ready when you need to leave. If you overrun after, it may not be.)
  • It avoids the future problem of system load surges at the beginning of the lowest rate time of night.

Ray
 
planet4ever said:
GregH said:
...

It optimizes charging cost for customers with short lowest-rate time periods without them having to do daily estimates and timer reprogramming. (I am assuming that time overrun before the best rate period costs the same as time overrun after it. If you overrun before the best time, the car is ready when you need to leave. If you overrun after, it may not be.)
...
Ray

The problem is that charging guess-ometer is way off. It starts charging way ahead of time. For example, it thinks that it needs 16 hours to charge when indeed it needs only 10-12 hours. And then it sits there fully charged WAY before your "leaving time". Thus for planning your charging End only time should work well in theory... but it just doesn't.
 
BestPal said:
The problem is that charging guess-ometer is way off. It starts charging way ahead of time. For example, it thinks that it needs 16 hours to charge when indeed it needs only 10-12 hours. And then it sits there fully charged WAY before your "leaving time". Thus for planning your charging End only time should work well in theory... but it just doesn't.
So what? Yes, end-time-only does tend to end somewhat early. And this difference is greater if a climate control timer is set.

The difference in time is less if you charge at L2; if it is important to you, that is an option. (Nissan doesn't expect people to routinely charge at Level 1; that is for opportunity charging away from home where there are no charge stations present.)

As for finishing several hours early being bad for the battery, that is a stretch. Leaving the battery for days or weeks at 100% is not a good idea. Leaving it for a few hours at 100% (or 80%) shouldn't matter very much. This is much ado about nothing.

Nevertheless, if you want to have the charging finish closer to your departure time, all you have to do is set your departure time after you plan to leave. I do that and it isn't a big deal. You already have an idea of how early the charging finishes but, even if you didn't, you could do the experiment by iteration: just set the charging end time back by an hour each day until you find that the car is still finishing when you leave, then push it forward a bit. Not very difficult.

While it would be nice if the end time was more precise, it is actually a hard problem since charging speeds depend on a number of factors such as voltage and the temperature of the battery (not to mention preheating/precooling, if used). It also doesn't really matter if the charging finishes somewhat early.
 
dgpcolorado said:
BestPal said:
The problem is that charging guess-ometer is way off. It starts charging way ahead of time. For example, it thinks that it needs 16 hours to charge when indeed it needs only 10-12 hours. And then it sits there fully charged WAY before your "leaving time". Thus for planning your charging End only time should work well in theory... but it just doesn't.
So what?
No comment.

dgpcolorado said:
...
It also doesn't really matter if the charging finishes somewhat early

You mean it doesn't really matter to you? OK. Fine. But what matters is that it starts/ends way too early and thus not utilizing/maximizing best TOU. I'm generally a very nice guy but you know what, now I'm gonna stick to my guns now. Give me my START option in my charging "timer", or don't even bother calling it a timer and that is addressed to Nissan, and Nissan only and not to my dear forumers with all the understanding that is not going to happen. Thank you very much. To all the nay-sayers, stop trying to convince me that there are ways around it (I KNOW THAT!) and also stop trying to convince me that I don't need a Start setting in my 'timer". I think I have a good idea of whether I need it or not. I want it to be there. If you don't - FINE. I also want my truck to be a 4x4 and it is. Are you going to try to convince me that I don't need that for whatever subjective reasons you might have, not knowing my lifestyle, habits, schedule, etc.? Nonsense.
 
Reading over the first page of this thread makes me want to go find a small puppy and punch it. BestPal was actually being pretty cool and making a good point, but assholes in this forum are so full of themselves they see someone without an avatar/sig/flashy graphics/colored name, and assume they're an idiot. Can't even see past the blindingly obvious. The 2013 doesn't have a "start time" option? The timers are already convoluted enough in the LEAF as it is, and Nissan actually took a step BACKWARDS with the 2013 LEAF? That's stupid. That should be glaringly obvious as a senseless omission (like Cruise Control) from the start.

This is why I hate forums. :roll:
 
FalconFour said:
Reading over the first page of this thread makes me want to go find a small puppy and punch it. BestPal was actually being pretty cool and making a good point, but assholes in this forum are so full of themselves they see someone without an avatar/sig/flashy graphics/colored name, and assume they're an idiot. Can't even see past the blindingly obvious. The 2013 doesn't have a "start time" option? The timers are already convoluted enough in the LEAF as it is, and Nissan actually took a step BACKWARDS with the 2013 LEAF? That's stupid. That should be glaringly obvious as a senseless omission (like Cruise Control) from the start.
I'm afraid you may be talking about me, FalconFour, but I'm sorry if that's the way I came over. I certainly wasn't thinking of BestPal as an idiot, only as someone just learning the ropes. I knew from considerable personal experimentation that end-only was the best way to run the timers for many, if not most, people, even when more features were available, and I was trying to guide BestPal to understand that.

I also think if you read the subsequent pages of the thread you will discover that Nissan didn't just "take a stupid step backwards" on this. (I will agree that they did on the cruise control.)

Ray
 
Well, I personally think the timers are trying to solve the wrong problem. Nissan should be implementing a system that "doesn't charge" during certain periods instead - that is, "blackout periods" instead of "charging periods". After all, when I plug in the car, I expect it to charge. That's what I expect when I plug my car in, and I have to invert that logic to apply it to LEAF's timers. The timers are designed such that "when I plug it in, I expect it NOT to charge unless I told it to". That's backwards.

I don't have any typical routine every day. I work as an independent contractor at a PC repair shop, and I do on-site work with my LEAF - also my only car. So whenever I happen to get home and plug in, if it's not peak (or partial peak) times, I want it to charge. Sometimes (like right this minute), I don't mind if it's charging during partial peak hours (but would still like it to end at 80% if I don't use it). There actually isn't enough flexibility in the LEAF timers right now to accomplish this task. Since I can't stop it via web/mobile if I started it via web/mobile, those methods would crash all the way through to 100%, leaving me without regen for most of my usual trip.

Now, since the peak periods changed on May 1 (yesterday), I have to reprogram my LEAF's timers. I tried figuring those periods out and how they invert to apply to LEAF's timers (without sketching out a timeline on paper and marking it out visually). Even with start and end times, I couldn't seem to make it work with just 2 timer slots. So to hear that Nissan took a step backwards with 2013 seems like a hugely stupid decision.

Don't mean to hijack this, but this is why I'm frustrated by people saying that the LEAF's timers are adequate. Taking away charging timer functionality is just ridiculous. That should be standard just for the fact that an EV should *always* be avoiding charging during peak hours. And to do that, you need a level of charging timer functionality that can do that.
 
I know I'm repeating myself, but the functionality Nissan took away in the S was the touch screen console. I don't see how they could have met the price point they were obviously aiming for if that had been left in. Without that they had to re-implement the timers from scratch using the two-button input of the "Trip computer". It is a laborious task to set up just the single charge timer they provided using two buttons. If I had been in their shoes I would have come to the same usability conclusion they did: KISS.

And if you have to choose between start-only and end-only, end-only is more usable.

Ray
 
Wait, the S has no touch console at all? I've gotta see how they implemented this... *googles*

However, they could have more sensibly used CARWINGS to send timer parameters via the website at no additional cost. Hell, that should've been how it was developed to start with. Use the site to set up the timers, then send it to the car. >.<
 
The telematics module required for CarWings operation retails for more than $1,000 and apparently fell victim to cost cutting in the 2013 S trim.
 
surfingslovak said:
The telematics module required for CarWings operation retails for more than $1,000 and apparently fell victim to cost cutting in the 2013 S trim.
Holy. :shock:

Wow. I'd think telemetrics would be a core function of the Leaf. Oh well. Good for cost-cutting, and I think making them affordable and maintaining the core of "why it's better than the gas-guzzlers" is more important than making them "WAY better than gas-guzzlers".

I'd still drive one. I think the 2013 "S" model is more in-line with my financial situation... $400/month for my current '11 LEAF (SL) is completely strangling me. :lol:
 
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