Charging questions

I live about 1.5 miles from this location. There are 4 different locations around the mall actually, all with similar J1772 connections. I've read it's best not to completely charge or discharge so if I were to try to stay within a 25%-75% range and plugged into one of these at 25% about how long would it take to get to 75%? Also, can you sit in the car with it on and the a/c running while it charges? I realize it would take a bit longer but it can be unbearably hot at times. Finally, what, if anything, am I not yet educated enough to know to ask here and should know about? Thanks for any and all input.

https://www.plugshare.com/location/313897

Welcome. What is it that you want to charge, exactly? We need to know the year and model of the EV (like "2019 Leaf SV+") in order to know the battery size and thus the length of time to charge to 75%. Even then, since Level 2 charging stations can vary in power output, we can only give a rough estimate. As for your other question, yes, you can run the A/C while charging: just turn the car off, plug it in, then start it back up and run the A/C as normal. The good news is that running the A/C uses much less power than running the heater, so it won't slow charging a lot except maybe in extreme heat.

Yes, I definitely dropped part of that. I'm looking at a 2022 Leaf S 40. The charging points all are marked 8.32kW. I don't know enough about any of this yet to know exactly what that means as far as charging speed/time.

I get about 10% per hour increase on a 6.6 kW EVSE...you should do better with the smaller batter.

Yes you can run the AC, it will reduce the charge rate slightly.

LDB415 said:

Yes, I definitely dropped part of that. I'm looking at a 2022 Leaf S 40. The charging points all are marked 8.32kW. I don't know enough about any of this yet to know exactly what that means as far as charging speed/time.

Click to expand...

your car will charge at 6.6 kW on a J1772. That is the limit of the built in AC to DC converter.

Ok, so how far off am I in my uneducated speculating? If the car is 40kW and I'm running 25-75% that means I charge when it hits 10kW remaining and charge until it has 30kW charge? And if it charges at 6.6kW that means roughly 3 hours to get the 20kW needed?

And is 25%-75% the range to be aimed for or is it ok to run a broader range, 20%-80%, 15%-85%?

And is it linear? IOW, if I ended up getting a plus with 62kW would everything just be adjusted up ~50%?

The math is actually pretty straightforward. As mentioned before, you can expect to get full L2 charging rate at pretty much any starting state of charge as L2 charging is pretty linear regardless of the pack size.

This formula will get you the time in minutes to add y number of kWh to the pack:

time in minutes to charge = (y kWh x 60 mins/hr) ÷ 6.6 kW

So, if y is 1 kWh, then expect charging to take about 9 minutes. Also, each kWh of energy adds about 4 miles of range (this varies a lot based on driving conditions, but it's a decent ballpark number).

For simplicity sake, I round up the charge time per kWh to 10 minutes. So, if you plan to eat lunch at a restaurant while charging for 30 minutes, you'll know you'll have added roughly 3 kWh to the pack (and added roughly 12 miles of range).

A 70-30% state of charge (SOC) range is good for Summer. In Winter, when heat uses a lot of power and the battery isn't usually in danger of overheating, you can do 30%-80%. You can also charge to 100% anytime the battery isn't already hot, as long as you drive the car within an hour of the charge ending in Summer, or several hours later in Winter.

LDB415 said:

Ok, so how far off am I in my uneducated speculating? If the car is 40kW and I'm running 25-75% that means I charge when it hits 10kW remaining and charge until it has 30kW charge? And if it charges at 6.6kW that means roughly 3 hours to get the 20kW needed?

Click to expand...

Corrections:

the car is 40kWh
10kWh remaining and charge until it has 30kWh charge
if it charges at 6.6kW that means roughly 3 hours to get the 20kWh needed

Click to expand...

kWh is a capacity. kW is a rate.

LDB415 said:

so if I were to try to stay within a 25%-75% range and plugged into one of these at 25% about how long would it take to get to 75%? Also, can you sit in the car with it on and the a/c running while it charges?

https://www.plugshare.com/location/313897

Click to expand...

Since you updated that you bought a Plus, it will take about 5 hours to go from 25%-75% with a L2 charger. That’s a long time to sit in your car waiting for it to charge. Rule of thumb 1 hour of L2 charge will get you about 25 miles of range.

I haven't bought yet, and probably won't spend the extra for the Plus as I don't need that around home. I'm leaning toward an SV with tech pkg as the best overall configuration.

The 2022 model year is your last chance to get an SV with the 40 kWh pack.

What networks does one need to join? Some obviously no for a Leaf as they are Canada or Tesla but are there a certain few that cover 98% to simplify things? PlugShare shows 26 networks total. I see some listings that seem to indicate you must join the network to use the charger.

That's a very region specific thing, so I would suggest you check out the "chargers" (EVSEs for L2 or DC fast chargers for L3) that you will use most frequently, either by physically visiting each location or looking up each location's details via PlugShare. Then, consider joining the network(s) that you'll need for those chargers.

Note that some chargers will work with credit cards and some will not.

It's one of the crappiest things with EVs right now - the charging experience isn't consistent and neither are the payment options. Greed is the reason why many network require an account, as they make you pre-pay and then draw down your balance. Then, once a threshold is reached, they top up your account via auto-pay on the credit card associated with your account.

alozzy said:

Greed is the reason why many network require an account, as they make you pre-pay and then draw down your balance.

Click to expand...

No, it is because of the high fixed cost fees of the credit card middle-men

Indeed. I suspect it's due to the fixed portion of a swipe fee that I've mentioned numerous times like at https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=588612#p588612. If you primarily small transactions and you're hit by those swipe fees for each of them, you're either going to lose $ or you're going to really have to jack up your charging prices even further.

Filling $10 to $25 at a time into a "wallet" makes the sting of the fixed portion less painful.

As I've used PlugShare to map driving back from various dealers around the country I've discovered if I don't keep all networks selected I lose most of the Nissan dealers from the map. I'm not sure which specific one causes that as I thought I only unchecked Canadian networks. Doesn't hurt to have them all checked. Just an interesting happenstance.

Is there a beep or some other alert to confirm the connector is properly seated and charging is taking place? I can just see myself thinking I connected correctly but somehow didn't and 2 hours later have the same battery level as when I started.

Is there a beep or some other alert to confirm the connector is properly seated and charging is taking place?

Click to expand...

Yes, there is a beep, followed by 2 beeps, IIRC. Try it at home or anywhere you regularly charge and you will recognize the sound. The EVSE station also usually reports that charging has started on its screen or that the EV is not connected or whatever. I have also had charging sessions just stop mid-charge for no reason before but 95+% of the time, once it starts you are good to go.

There are also indicator lights on the dash board of your car.