Charging Rudeness?

[LTLFTcomposite]

Look, when there are thousands of these cars in the same area, what then? You'll have two charge stations and maybe six cars that want to charge. What then?

There is one school of thought that won't be popular, particularly with the clientele on this forum, that there should be a fee to use the charging stations, and the fee should rise with the market conditions to the point where there is no contention for using the stations. Then, upon seeing the great fortunes to be made with EV charging stations, others enter the market and build more stations, and the increased supply drives the price back down.

That used to be how scarce resources were allocated in the free world

 

[DarkStar]

This is going to come up more and more as the Leaf becomes more common. As far as employees complaining, indeed they can complain. Sure, the boss could tell them, look she's paying for it but again that's a business decision and there's no "right" for electricity to be provided by any business, whether it's paid for or not.

Does anyone know what the requirements are regarding LEED certification and charging stations? Are they required to be usable?

 

[Lanzer]

Sorry to hear about your experience.

I've purchased an used Nissan Maxima from Steven's Creek Nissan before and my experience had been unpleasant. From the pushy salesmanship to the lack of responses and follow up that lead to various mis-haps down the road.

After reading your post, it sounds like I definitely wouldn't be dropping by the dealership for any services in the future.

 

[earther]

Did she make it home? I hope you had a cold one waiting for her .

to bring closure to the story: yes, she did make it home just fine, thanks for asking! (I was nervously following along the battery progress refreshing the dashboard at home every few minutes, lol)
she ended up getting honked at a few times (staying right at the speed limit in the right lane), so ended up pulling off the 101 highway and taking back roads (well, Monterey) to Gilroy. When she arrived home it read "17 miles" range remaining, and 2 (red) soc bars left. Total roundtrip mileage for the day = 93 (includes the half hour begrudged charge at Stevens Creek Nissan)

I did learn something new though: I had assumed that "Turtle" mode kicked at when you hit the red bars, but apparently it doesn't hit until you're done with the red bars?

 

[ElectricVehicle]

I don't complain when the company starts to offer free mental health evaluations, just because I'm totally sane.

Hmm.. you should go insane so you can take advantage of the benefit!!! :shock: :?

 

[occ]

. . . she ended up getting honked at a few times (staying right at the speed limit in the right lane), so ended up pulling off the 101 highway and taking back roads ?

That's just fellow EV enthusiasts acknowledging a LEAF sighting

 

[JohnnySebring]

I'm concerned that vandals will mess with our Leafs and EVSEs out in the wild as far as charging rudeness goes.

 

[Ready2plugin]

Did she make it home? I hope you had a cold one waiting for her .

to bring closure to the story: yes, she did make it home just fine, thanks for asking! (I was nervously following along the battery progress refreshing the dashboard at home every few minutes, lol)
she ended up getting honked at a few times (staying right at the speed limit in the right lane), so ended up pulling off the 101 highway and taking back roads (well, Monterey) to Gilroy. When she arrived home it read "17 miles" range remaining, and 2 (red) soc bars left. Total roundtrip mileage for the day = 93 (includes the half hour begrudged charge at Stevens Creek Nissan)

I did learn something new though: I had assumed that "Turtle" mode kicked at when you hit the red bars, but apparently it doesn't hit until you're done with the red bars?

Glad it hear she made it!! Hopefully you're feeling better too. As for "turtle mode" I go down to the last two bars almost each day since the software update (I use to have 4 bars remaining) and have yet to see the "low battery" alert or Turtle come up. The lowest I've pulled into the garage is with the two red bars and 15 miles remaining on the guess-o-meter.

 

[davewill]

Blorg has it right. Perhaps the dealership didn't handle things right, and it does seem that allowing other Leafs to charge would appear to be a nice courtesy but it's their dealership. And they have their own reasons for their policies.

Look, when there are thousands of these cars in the same area, what then? You'll have two charge stations and maybe six cars that want to charge. What then? Then what happens when someone who actually bought a car from the dealership wants to charge there? Are they supposed to wait? How does the dealership identify who is and isn't a customer and you have two customers arguing in the parking lot of the dealership over a charge.

This is going to come up more and more as the Leaf becomes more common. As far as employees complaining, indeed they can complain. Sure, the boss could tell them, look she's paying for it but again that's a business decision and there's no "right" for electricity to be provided by any business, whether it's paid for or not.

Well, Nissan certainly noted that charging was being installed at all of their dealers. In practically every single press release. On the website. At the drive events. In several emails to their customers. Now, I'm supposed to have construed that to mean, "We are installing L2 charging at every dealer, but you can't use them?" Sorry, I don't buy it. I suspect that Nissan screwed this up and either didn't make the obligation clear in their dealer agreements for the Leaf or, more likely, doesn't have the will to enforce it on backsliding dealers. They certainly represented the the facilities as available to Leaf owners.

As far as too many Leafs and not enough dealer EVSEs...If the infrastructure lags THAT badly, Nissan has bigger problems than needing some more J1772s at the dealerships.

The best point blorg makes is the mob mentality everytime there is a story like this. Whether it's Leafs not starting, EV etiquette, or something else, there seems to be this knee jerk reaction and pitchfork and torches approach.

There's always two sides to a story. This reminds of the witch scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. All of a sudden, we're naming names, castigating the dealership, calling people a**holes.

Well, I'll tell you, treating anyone, especially a woman, like that will earn you some backlash. Being named on a blog and called names seems to fit the crime.

 

[planet4ever]

I did learn something new though: I had assumed that "Turtle" mode kicked at when you hit the red bars, but apparently it doesn't hit until you're done with the red bars?

See GeekEV's experiment here.

• I got the low battery warning at 8 miles and 1 bar SOC remaining.
• I got the very low battery (---) warning at 2 miles and 0 bars remaining after having traveled 8 miles on the trip meter.
• I got turtle mode after having traveled 13 miles on the trip meter.
• The car died on me after 14 miles on the trip meter.

Ray

Update: I did finally get through to Kahssay, and he admitted he was involved. He kept insisting that he did let her charge, but that their policy was appropriate that she didn't have a right to charge there. I certainly wasn't able to change his mind, let alone the dealership position.

 

[Anonymous]

Glad it hear she made it!! Hopefully you're feeling better too. As for "turtle mode" I go down to the last two bars almost each day since the software update (I use to have 4 bars remaining) and have yet to see the "low battery" alert or Turtle come up. The lowest I've pulled into the garage is with the two red bars and 15 miles remaining on the guess-o-meter.

I was experimenting a bit the other day and got home with 6 miles left on the guess-o-meter (I like that term). No turtle mode, but it did start flashing me the low battery warning when I got down to 8 miles. This was in eco mode and after the reprogramming which "corrected" the guess-o-meter.

Funny how I wasn't really worried about the range. I knew I was close enough to home, and I've gotten down to where my "distance-to-empty" on my ICE dropped to asterisks because it couldn't even calculate when running on fumes! Range anxiety is for wimps.

 

[TRONZ]

If your wife's company has a real HR then she own's the employee that has singled her out. Even better if it is more than one employee, as this is proof of a hostile environment. Any HR dept will sit bolt upright whenever they hear the words "hostile environment". Lets be clear, your wife has done nothing wrong and no employee can single out the special needs of another unless it somehow effects them directly. Charging at work is at the discretion of the employer and not an employee that hates her car. A carefully written and signed reminder of this would be a good idea and taken very seriously if the employer has integrity and/or an aversion to legal action because they were protecting a hostile employee.

As far as Dealers go, Nissan has leverage on them if they are not meeting the standards of Corporate conduct they had to agree to. This issue, like the hostile employee above should be managed from the top down. So that's where you start.

 

[Stoaty]

The best point blorg makes is the mob mentality everytime there is a story like this.

Which is a good reason for dealers to bend over backwards to help Nissan build their brand around EV. Good for Nissan, good for the dealer. The converse of this story is that some dealers (e.g., Fontana Nissan) are really shining and getting a lot of good press.

 

[Nubo]

Update: I did finally get through to Kahssay, and he admitted he was involved. He kept insisting that he did let her charge, but that their policy was appropriate that she didn't have a right to charge there. I certainly wasn't able to change his mind, let alone the dealership position.

Sad that he'd take such a self-defeating position. What about his own customers? Wouldn't he prefer that they could get out of trouble by visiting other Nissan dealerships if the need arose? Or would he prefer they be refused, and end up bad-mouthing the LEAF and Nissan, and him for selling them on the idea? Gawd, they could charge for the service, if that's the issue.

 

[Nubo]

This is going to come up more and more as the Leaf becomes more common. As far as employees complaining, indeed they can complain. Sure, the boss could tell them, look she's paying for it but again that's a business decision and there's no "right" for electricity to be provided by any business, whether it's paid for or not.

Definitely will become an issue. Even if the boss had some backbone and explained the pay-for-use arrangement, there comes a day when there are 5 EVs in the lot; then 10... 20.... Soon they run out of conveniently idle plugs. Resolving that scarcity involves either unpleasantly restricting access (first-come-first-served, rotating basis, etc...), or spending real money on electrical upgrades, or simply declaring a no-charging policy.

Long-term all of those issues will be resolved, as charging amenities become an expectation. But getting there isn't going to be a smooth process.

 

[ElectricVehicle]

Update: I did finally get through to Kahssay, and he admitted he was involved. He kept insisting that he did let her charge, but that their policy was appropriate that she didn't have a right to charge there. I certainly wasn't able to change his mind, let alone the dealership position.

Sad that he'd take such a self-defeating position. What about his own customers? Wouldn't he prefer that they could get out of trouble by visiting other Nissan dealerships if the need arose? Or would he prefer they be refused, and end up bad-mouthing the LEAF and Nissan, and him for selling them on the idea? Gawd, they could charge for the service, if that's the issue.

That brings up an interesting point - if we follow Stevens Creek Nissan logic, public chargers should be accessible to the public, some will charge money, others will not and they should accept any type of charging j1772 compatible vehicle EXCEPT FOR EMPLOYEES FAMILIES AND AFFILIATES OF STEVENS CREEK NISSAN!!!! (I'd also say customers of Stevens Creek Nissan, but I wouldn't want to cause them further grief than they're assoiciation with Stevens Creek Nissan has already caused them. And their not responsible for their dealer's behavior.)

Way to go STEVENS CREEK NISSAN!!! LOSERS!

STEVENS CREEK NISSAN has what it takes to set the mainstream deployment of EVs back by ten years!

(not to mention violating their promise and harassing a woman to the point of tears. That's just utterly absurd. Imagine the press and fall out if this happened at a Denny's restaurant! They'd be publicly lambasted in the newspaper - not about the EV charger but the rude discriminatory treatment of a person.)

 

[earther]

I did finally get through to Kahssay, and he admitted he was involved. He kept insisting that he did let her charge, but that their policy was appropriate that she didn't have a right to charge there. I certainly wasn't able to change his mind, let alone the dealership position.

Hmmm, well, maybe the talking to he received from the general manager there, Jack Ma, will be able to change his mind.

I received a return call this afternoon from Paul Smith, originating from the comment/complaint I registered yesterday on Nissan's 877-NOGASEV hotline. I am very impressed with Nissan's follow through on this (to be honest, when first placing the call, I fully expected it to be logged in some computer checkbox never to be looked at or acted upon). Paul at Nissan did in fact directly contact the general manager there to get Jack to explain Stevens Creek's policy and to impress upon him Nissan's desire that the dealership chargers be as available to all Leafs when possible. According to Paul, Jack said that the policy at Stevens Creek is that chargers WILL be available to ALL Leafs, within reason. (e.g. they wouldn't want a customer, Stevens Creek or otherwise, to simply camp out on one of their chargers hours all day every day, simply because they worked nearby. Also, in the event of a "queue", they would want to give priority to their own customers. All of which seems fair). Jack apologized if that policy was misrepresented or not known by Kahssay, and that he would make an announcement to all his staff to make certain that everyone at Stevens Creek is aware of and adheres to that policy.

Side note: It probably didn't help get things off on the right foot that our Leaf had the large "Boardwalk" dealer tags on the backplate... which is something that didn't even occur to me at all, but it did get mentioned by Jack as a possible reason that Kahssay took a bit of umbrage. Personally, I think it actually makes Stevens Creek look good, like a "team player", to have other customers see them helping out another dealer's car, but I can also see their side of it as being advertising for a "competitor" on their lot. (Had they asked, I wouldn't have been offended to cover it... or maybe even replace it with a Stevens Creek one had we been treated better). In any case, it'll all be a moot point once my "0 TPIPE" vanity plate arrives

p.s. a "shout out" to Paul, who handled my concern so smoothly and got back to me in under 24 hours to report the results (and who apparently also reads MNL!)

 

[linkim]

I received a return call this afternoon from Paul Smith, originating from the comment/complaint I registered yesterday on Nissan's 877-NOGASEV hotline. I am very impressed with Nissan's follow through on this (to be honest, when first placing the call, I fully expected it to be logged in some computer checkbox never to be looked at or acted upon).

Sounds like Nissan is interested in what goes on at the dealer level. Any idea who Paul Smith is? I assume he is a Nissan employee and not a contractor working for the Mauritiz organization handling CS. If he is following the MNL forum, he should have a good idea of the diverse opinions that are expressed regarding the different Nissan dealers.

This event should be a wake up call to the Nissan dealers to be more receptive to the LEAF community because we are helping them and Nissan spread the word on their EV technology.

 

[sdbonez]

So - I've thought of this quite a bit in the past, and have a thought. It's really hard (and potential slander) to discuss dealerships based on individual experiences..and despite what is always reported as factual, you never know.

Why don't we draft a letter of sorts and allow forum members to take it to their PD's GM to get their official public word. It could be worded with enough 'other dealers are doing this, you should, too' and give them the option to say choose options for:

Charging for all electric vehicles
Charging for Nissan Leaf's only
Charging for Nissan Leaf's purchased from this dealership

and some options like: free, paid, etc.

Bottom line, give them the opportunity to go on-record and tell them that if they don't respond, we understand but we will note publically that they declined to complete the questionnaire. For those that complete it positively, they'll get natural good press (and other business for new vehicles, service, accessories) just because people will see them in a friendlier light. For those that complete it less-than positively, I'm actual appreciative that they've gone on-record about it and it allows us to plan in-advance.

whatdayahink?

 

[thankyouOB]

So - I've thought of this quite a bit in the past, and have a thought. It's really hard (and potential slander) to discuss dealerships based on individual experiences..and despite what is always reported as factual, you never know.

Why don't we draft a letter of sorts and allow forum members to take it to their PD's GM to get their official public word. It could be worded with enough 'other dealers are doing this, you should, too' and give them the option to say choose options for:

Charging for all electric vehicles
Charging for Nissan Leaf's only
Charging for Nissan Leaf's purchased from this dealership

and some options like: free, paid, etc.

Bottom line, give them the opportunity to go on-record and tell them that if they don't respond, we understand but we will note publically that they declined to complete the questionnaire. For those that complete it positively, they'll get natural good press (and other business for new vehicles, service, accessories) just because people will see them in a friendlier light. For those that complete it less-than positively, I'm actual appreciative that they've gone on-record about it and it allows us to plan in-advance.

whatdayahink?

dumb idea. Nissan seems to want to knock around the dealers and tell them to behave--chargers are for all Leafs. Why would we ask for less by negotiating with ourselves?