Nissan to install charging station at dealership

[gameon]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nissan-install-chargers-leaf-170009807.html

good for leaf owner (or future owner) to charge it when away from home (for people who don't have access to charging port at home)

sounds good to me if you can charge for FREE and 80% in half and hour (pretty reasonable for daily commute)

 

[dhrivnak]

But only IF Tesla offers a CHAdeMO adapter. And for a Model S the charge time will be 3x. But still far better than most public chargers.

 

[gaswalla]

LEAF owners are having a lot of problems with these dealer installed DC chargers: some are charging for their use, many close the units down after business hours, the reliability of that one charger working 100% of the time is poor. Note that dealers are paying for electricity and have next to nothing to gain by offering free charges (there is almost no maintenance for the LEAF)

In fact, this experiment by Nissan proves that EV's have no role at dealerships.

 

[gameon]

this program is not fully implemented yet and existing chargers are courtesy off dealer to let you use it. Dealer make money on sale or lease or any warranty repair or other repairs (just like tesla service department charge for out of warranty customers). It is pilot program not full blown EV network but it is better compare to nothing for leaf owner outside of home charger.

 

[gaswalla]

it's an ev.. very little repairs needed.. I'd argue this worse than nothing.. b/c now you have leaf owners showing up on their last bar (low battery warning) to the dealership only to find the gates closed or the DC charger out of service. Not to mention that Nissan recommends against repeated DC charging due to battery damage..

 

[fastcars]

@gaswalla

it is additional place to charge your EV just like tesla offers.. you can't compare leaf to model s (mainly for battery capacity and price)

you are telling ev owner not to charge battery otherwise you will damage it... any link to the article publish by nissan says that... interested in knowing unless it's own opinion.

 

[bart513]

There is a charger at a local Nissan dealership and they charge $25 per charge.

 

[bluetinc]

Fastcars,

It is not like what Tesla offers. If I show up at any Tesla store, any Tesla Supercharger, or even Tesla Service Center (Though they are so busy in most areas this makes for a lot of car shuffling so I don't recommend it) and need a charge I know that I will be welcomed with open arms and they are always happy to let me charge. All chargers at the stores are left on 24/7 (with a very few exceptions due to a couple of privately owned garages locking up at night (DC, Manhattan).

Juxtapose this with showing up at a Nissan Dealer (in a Leaf) needing a charge and being turned away because you didn't purchase the car from that dealer, or the charge ports being purposefully ICEd to keep them from being used, or the main power to the chargers being shut off. If you follow the Leaf community you will hear lots about these issues (which are hit and miss depending on the dealership).

Peter

@gaswalla

it is additional place to charge your EV just like tesla offers.. you can't compare leaf to model s (mainly for battery capacity and price)

you are telling ev owner not to charge battery otherwise you will damage it... any link to the article publish by nissan says that... interested in knowing unless it's own opinion.

 

[gameon]

At least nissan is doing something in this direction compare to ford and GM. Nissan is not making money (a lot) on leaf compare to tesla, so dealer can charge but again it is not separate charging station like supercharger.

It will take sometime for all big companies to build common charging station (not including tesla in that list)

 

[gaswalla]

@gaswalla

it is additional place to charge your EV just like tesla offers.. you can't compare leaf to model s (mainly for battery capacity and price)

you are telling ev owner not to charge battery otherwise you will damage it... any link to the article publish by nissan says that... interested in knowing unless it's own opinion.

if you are a leaf owner or considering the car, you should go to mynissanleaf.com -- lots of info there.. Using the DC chargers on a LEAF very significantly increases the temperature of the LEAF battery. It has been associated with early degradation (as well as living in warm climates -- ie anywhere outside of the Northwest or Northeast). When the LEAF was first sold, the recommendation was to limit DC charging to less than once a month, then they said less than once a week.. now with chademo chargers popping up commonly, they say to charge it to <70% but don't mention a frequency. If you doubt this advice... please go out and get a LEAF and quick charge it everyday and report back your range after two months.

 

[EVNow]

When the LEAF was first sold, the recommendation was to limit DC charging to less than once a month, then they said less than once a week.. now with chademo chargers popping up commonly, they say to charge it to <70% but don't mention a frequency.

I'd like to see links to those "recommendations". Only one I'm aware of is no more than once a day.

 

[fastcars]

if you are a leaf owner or considering the car, you should go to mynissanleaf.com -- lots of info there.. Using the DC chargers on a LEAF very significantly increases the temperature of the LEAF battery. It has been associated with early degradation (as well as living in warm climates -- ie anywhere outside of the Northwest or Northeast). When the LEAF was first sold, the recommendation was to limit DC charging to less than once a month, then they said less than once a week.. now with chademo chargers popping up commonly, they say to charge it to <70% but don't mention a frequency. If you doubt this advice... please go out and get a LEAF and quick charge it everyday and report back your range after two months.

Still I want official link not another forum link (just like this forum is not official one and info posted by users)

 

[caffeinekid]

@fastcars:

Find an online copy of the Leaf operators manual and you can find the exact verbiage. Also, Nissan has been having buyers/leasees sign a disclaimer upon delivery to the effect of what gaswalla is posting.

I have two Leafs- an SV and an SL. I live in Texas and use the evgo QC stations daily on the SL. As an example; if the outside temp is 95 degrees and I charge for 20 minutes, module 1 heats up to ~ 103.8F degrees with the remaining 3 at just under 100F. It takes almost 24hrs of being parked in an 80F degree garage to bring that first module down to 101F degrees, which is still 7 temperature bars (considered "high"). Needless to say, if I have to QC twice in a day, the T delta goes from ~ 5 To 8% up to 10 to 20%. I suppose that would be fine coming from a starting T of around 60F degrees, but anything over 80F degrees seems to be bad for this poorly engineered excuse of a battery array. The SV lost its first capacity bar at just under 2 years and 19K miles. The SL lost its first bar at 16K and 1 year. The SV has never been quick charged and mostly garage kept with 80% charges. IMO, it isn't the QC that is the problem so much as the ambient temperature.

 

[ChadS]

Nissan had a warning in the owner's manual to only charge once a day when the car first came out, but removed it after more testing. Tomsax's Leaf battery survey for Plug In America did not show any correlation between battery degradation and fast charging in the Leaf. It did show some correlation between high ambient temperatures and degradation.

Incidentally, Tom just announced his Roadster battery survey results at Teslive today. No correlation to heat with the Roadster. The roadster doesn't do DC charging, so he didn't check that. But projecting based on the data, it looks like Roadster owners can expect 80% or so of range after 100k miles.

The Plug In America battery surveys are HERE.

 

[lloyds]

This is where the Tesla trumps in so many ways. The battery's temperature will significantly affect its longevity and Tesla put proper cooling in place to take care of this issue. I do not think the Leaf or Volt has this system protection.