2 x EV and no offstreet parking - about to find out how it’s done 😄

[father_of_6]

negativity. The world has enough of that already.

Agreed.

--

To be fair though, we haven't ever had widespread adoption of EVs to know the social behaviors we might need to expect.

When filling an ICE, you stand there for 5 minutes and then leave. Also *usually* all the pumps aren't full.

Imagine a scenario though where you pulled up to a gas station and all the pumps were full, and one of the cars was sitting there without a driver, pump in the tank, but seemingly no longer actually pumping fuel.

In that scenario, I don't think it'd be so unreasonable for someone to take the pump out of your car and try to pull up close enough to put it in theirs.

I'm not saying it's right, but we might find that when 90% of vehicles are electric, this type of behavior becomes quite normal.

 

[bcarp]

Imagine a scenario though where you pulled up to a gas station and all the pumps were full, and one of the cars was sitting there without a driver, pump in the tank, but seemingly no longer actually pumping fuel.

Strangely enough, this happened to me last week when filling up our ICE car. Only one pump available for left fuel tanks as the other had a truck refilling the station’s tanks. One car parked there. No driver in sight. Nobody paying or in the shop. No idea where the driver was. With our large car, we couldn’t use another pump and stretch around the car.

 

[father_of_6]

Strangely enough, this happened to me last week when filling up our ICE car. Only one pump available for left fuel tanks as the other had a truck refilling the station’s tanks. One car parked there. No driver in sight. Nobody paying or in the shop. No idea where the driver was. With our large car, we couldn’t use another pump and stretch around the car.

So I have to ask... how did it end? Did you wait around, leave, or were you able to use that pump even with the car parked there?

 

[Vostok]

I'm not saying it's right, but we might find that when 90% of vehicles are electric, this type of behavior becomes quite normal.

It might, or it might not. Terminating a DCFC session normally wouldn’t help because the car is still there and the cables usually aren’t long enough to reach the non-designated spots. In my case, instead of shrugging my shoulders and leaving, I could have gone back, restarted the session, given the Tesla driver a middle finger, then disappeared back into the shopping centre. But I was close enough to my target and I didn’t know their circumstances or how desperate they were for a charge… they didn’t check in to Plugshare.

 

[dronus]

I’m guessing that if the previous person hadn’t paid for the fuel, the attendant won’t enable the pump anyway?

 

[doggy1]

On a different note, it is great your Leaf is still going nicely after more than nine years. Even if range is down, due presumably to the lack of thermal management. I'm expecting our Zoe to do the same or better and the battery SOH is 91% several months into our sixth year. So fingers crossed on that. Zoe has NO DC charging and it would be very difficult if we had no charging at home, perhaps more-so than you are experiencing. May your new garage door arrive soon!

 

[Power Hungry]

That was the first time anything like that has happened to me . More material for Channel 9

I can see it now... cameras and mics at every charging station. A huge winner for Channel 9.

 

[bcarp]

So I have to ask... how did it end? Did you wait around, leave, or were you able to use that pump even with the car parked there?

“Inventive parking” to get to a pump on the “wrong” side.

 

[Vostok]

On a different note, it is great your Leaf is still going nicely after more than nine years. Even if range is down, due presumably to the lack of thermal management.

The Leaf has been a fantastic car apart from the battery. Almost nothing has gone wrong with it in 9 years. However we did have the battery replaced in March 2021, missing out on warranty replacement by 8 months (dropping to 8 bars out of 12 or below 66% capacity within 5 years).

We still made a warranty claim which Nissan rejected and instead offered us a battery replacement for a “concessional” price of $10,000 which we thought long and hard about. In the end we did it since it was a lot cheaper than buying a new EV. We figured a brand new battery would probably have a better chemistry in it (even if still no thermal management) as well as being looked after from the get-go.

And so it has come to pass… after 2.5 years and more than 30,000km on the new battery, it is still showing 12/12 bars capacity.

 

[doggy1]

after 2.5 years and more than 30,000km on the new battery, it is still showing 12/12 bars capacity.

But "...only 150km range on a good day"- your quote.

Sounds low for a new battery. Our Zoe is still around 300km and I thought a Leaf with a newish battery was not far behind- say 250km?
With 150, no wonder you were trying to get as much as possible.

 

[Vostok]

But "...only 150km range on a good day"- your quote.

It’s an original Gen 1 LEAF. Not Gen 2 or later. It has a 24 kWh battery, with usable capacity for daily driving 22 kWh. The new battery has definitely performed better than the original battery. There was a later Gen 1 LEAF with 30 kWh battery that was never sold here.

Also a “good day” means we’re not doing challenging driving (e.g. hilly, or it’s cold and using its very inefficient resistive heater, or driving at 110 km/h). Those things are really noticeable on a car that never had a lot of range to begin with.

 

[dronus]

I see the same old school Leaf every day on my daily commute most days for as long as i can remember. He/She probably has a similar commute with only 1 decent hill to contend with on the way home. For a while i didnt see it in the afternoons, but then saw it taking the less steep hill to get back home haha. Just cruises along...

 

[doggy1]

It’s an original Gen 1 LEAF.

Aha. Understood! Good luck with the new door. Ours did the same as yours (two years ago) after a mere 30years of operation but fortunately it opened onto a driveway so not too difficult. We are loving the replacement and hope yours works out........

 

[Vostok]

Those of you following this gripping story might be wondering what’s happening on the Tesla side…

My wife visited family over the weekend on the mid north coast. She topped up at at Evie Leichhardt on Wednesday night and drove up on Thursday morning, grabbing the last spot at Heatherbrae to supercharge. After that it was AC charging at her relative’s home, and doing a 90% charge before returning. She managed to charge at the new-ish BP Pulse single stall site at the Heatherbrae sort-of-service-centre on the way home, which I thought was impressive given the odds of finding it unoccupied. Home with about 240 km range left.

 

[Vostok]

Some excitement today… my Type 2 to Type 1 adaptor arrived! Very fast delivery from AliExpress, only ordered it 11 days ago. It looks very solid, well made, not cheap (even though it was). I should be able to try it at work on Thursday. There’s no latch on the Type 1 end, but that latch is mostly a placebo.

I loved the badges on the box… “Source Manufacture”, “Complete specifications”, “Good Material”, “Simple Operation”, “Convenient Installation”. I’m convinced

Meanwhile my wife topped up the Tesla today at Evie Schofields, near Blacktown in western Sydney. She reported lots of EVs out there. Who knew… need to get Sky After Dark out there to report.

 

[Vostok]

Into the office today and used my adaptor! It didn’t work straight away because I’m out of practice with the Leaf… forgetting that you have to turn it off before charging (yes, it has an on/off button ) and then manually turning the charge timer off using the button in the car to get charging going (not needed when DC charging). Once I did that, the contactors kicked into action and charging started.



It was a stark reminder of the limitations of the Leaf. Because it has to be turned off to charge, there are no on-screen controls in the car to start or stop charging. The timer button in the car can be used to start a charge but not stop one. There’s also now no App (Nissan killed off Carwings in 2021) but even when the App worked it too could only start charging not stop it .

The EV chargers at work also don’t have a stop button, so the only way to stop a live charging session would be to turn the EVSE’s isolation switch off, or just pull out the adaptor and hope the proximity pin does its job .

I let charging run to 100% so that it stopped itself. Even then, curiously, the Leaf didn’t fully charge, stopping at 11/12 bars .

But very happy with the adaptor. It worked perfectly (once I got my brain into gear ) and felt really solid with no play in either connection. This additional charging option will be very helpful.

 

[Vostok]

Not a lot to report this week… the LEAF has not needed any additional charges as it wasn’t driven much this week, while the Tesla has had only one charge but it was a big’un - 52.3 kWh at Evie Leichhardt.

I’ll be in the office most days for the next few weeks so now I have my adaptor, I’ll be charging the LEAF at work so that might be that for CHAdeMO charges .

So far, the no-offstreet life has been OK. It has required only small adjustments to our routine, we’ve not yet needed to wait for a charger anywhere, so little if any inconvenience. But the cars are definitely dirtier living outside!

 

[0xZoom]

Meanwhile my wife topped up the Tesla today at Evie Schofields, near Blacktown in western Sydney. She reported lots of EVs out there. Who knew… need to get Sky After Dark out there to report.

We live at The Ponds, near Schofields. There are tons of Teslas, and other EVs, mostly BYD Atto. We play Tesla bingo on the way to dropping the litte one to school most days which involves ticking off all the standard colours and complete it most days on the 10 minute drive to school. I drive around the area a lot for work and i'd see 20-30 EVs a day easily, 80% Tesla.

 

[Vostok]

The chargers at work were busy today so I didn’t plug the LEAF in until 5pm. It didn’t need a lot of charge so 90 minutes later I hoped it would be full… but it wasn‘t. With no way to stop charging, I had to take a deep breath and slowly remove the J-1772 end of the adaptor and trust the proximity pin would do its job (the adaptor has no latch on it).

Thankfully it did its job . The charger disconnected the AC as soon as I withdrew the adaptor about 5mm, no sparks

Since getting my adaptor, I found one that does have the latch on it, which is the ”correct” way of disconnecting the AC. If I had my time again, I would have gotten this one:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005614057480.html

 

[Vostok]

Our new garage door was supposed to be installed today, but for reasons I won't bore you with, the tradies who turned up did not have the right equipment to remove the old door. So we'll have another week of public charging...

We’ve settled into a groove where my wife usually charges the Tesla once a week at Evie Leichhardt, about 50 kWh each time, while I charge the LEAF up once or twice a week using the AC chargers at work. It’s been OK, more manageable than I thought it would be.

The worst part is battling to find parking spots near our house - the fun of inner city living. We also had to get temporary “exceptional circumstances” resident parking permits from Council to avoid getting booked - that was another story. Sometimes we get lucky with rockstar parking right outside our house, at worst we end up parking a street away. But others without garages have to deal with that day-in day-out so we shouldn’t complain. The neighbours will be happy when they get 2 street parking spots back

I’ll post some stats (of course) when we’re done.