ECOtality Level 2 charger : Blink

[turbo2ltr]

I spoke with Adrienne from EcoTality today. She told me that I would be getting a call in the next few days from the contractor to get my EVSE installed.

She says that BLINK is NOT yet UL certified, but should be within the next 30 days. So what they are going to do in San Diego (and probably other cities) for the first wave Leaf owners is:

they will install a NON-BLINK EVSE (she wouldn't specify the brand) for 30 days. After that, BLINK should have it's UL listing and they will come back and replace the non-Blink with the Blink unit. All done free.

No other info from Adrienne. The contractor may have more info...I'll post more if/when I find out.

I just had a similar call as well. I was instead contacted by a gentleman here in Phoenix and asked if I had heard the good news from Nissan yet; that I would be getting one of the very first cars. He said that I will be getting the temporary charger as well and that mine needs to be installed next week.

I guess that means I might one of the December deliveries?

I just got exactly the same call as well! WOOT!

 

[Gonewild]

I spoke with Adrienne from EcoTality today. She told me that I would be getting a call in the next few days from the contractor to get my EVSE installed.

She says that BLINK is NOT yet UL certified, but should be within the next 30 days. So what they are going to do in San Diego (and probably other cities) for the first wave Leaf owners is:

they will install a NON-BLINK EVSE (she wouldn't specify the brand) for 30 days. After that, BLINK should have it's UL listing and they will come back and replace the non-Blink with the Blink unit. All done free.

No other info from Adrienne. The contractor may have more info...I'll post more if/when I find out.

I just had a similar call as well. I was instead contacted by a gentleman here in Phoenix and asked if I had heard the good news from Nissan yet; that I would be getting one of the very first cars. He said that I will be getting the temporary charger as well and that mine needs to be installed next week.

I guess that means I might one of the December deliveries?

I just got exactly the same call as well! WOOT!

OK same here I will get a call Friday and have it install early next week. I wonder if we will get enough car from Rairdon to get my free shipping? He said the same thing at I am one of the first car owners.

 

[wsbca]

I just had a similar call as well. I was instead contacted by a gentleman here in Phoenix and asked if I had heard the good news from Nissan yet; that I would be getting one of the very first cars. He said that I will be getting the temporary charger as well and that mine needs to be installed next week.

I guess that means I might one of the December deliveries?

I was told they had to have mine installed very soon (implied by the end of next week) and yes, apparently you and I are in the December delivery list. :mrgreen:

Similar story for me - though no call from Adriene - the contractor called Tuesday and came out today for a site visit - he mentioned the temporary charger situation and was slightly surprised that I hadn't been told about that aspect (SDG&E called Tuesday as well, but only talked about the second meter). Our ecotality email tag was SDR-055 (and that's the token the contractor was superimposing on all his photos) but apparently we're in the first 15 cars in San Diego as well. The contractor is only just now getting certain details from SDG&E and Ecotality.

 

[Jimmydreams]

I just had a similar call as well. I was instead contacted by a gentleman here in Phoenix and asked if I had heard the good news from Nissan yet; that I would be getting one of the very first cars. He said that I will be getting the temporary charger as well and that mine needs to be installed next week.

I guess that means I might one of the December deliveries?

I was told they had to have mine installed very soon (implied by the end of next week) and yes, apparently you and I are in the December delivery list. :mrgreen:

Similar story for me - though no call from Adriene - the contractor called Tuesday and came out today for a site visit - he mentioned the temporary charger situation and was slightly surprised that I hadn't been told about that aspect (SDG&E called Tuesday as well, but only talked about the second meter). Our ecotality email tag was SDR-055 (and that's the token the contractor was superimposing on all his photos) but apparently we're in the first 15 cars in San Diego as well. The contractor is only just now getting certain details from SDG&E and Ecotality.

Interesting! 15 cars in SD for the first batch. My big question is will the meter be a 'smart' meter that can be remotely read by SDG&E or is it a manual read? Also, does anyone in this first batch of Blink's in SD have PV solar??? SDG&E says they're switching out my meter to a smart meter sometime soon.....and I have a big dog, so if they're all smart meters, I'll be a VERY happy camper!!

 

[wsbca]

Also, does anyone in this first batch of Blink's in SD have PV solar??? SDG&E says they're switching out my meter to a smart meter sometime soon.....and I have a big dog, so if they're all smart meters, I'll be a VERY happy camper!!

Yes, we also have a PV system. Our contractor (who not coincidentally did our solar system - we requested them from Ecotality for our EVSE) said there are quite a few solar homes among the evals they have done in San Diego, maybe as high as 20% or more, he thinks...which, we agreed, makes some sense, since many of the very people who would be likely to be early adopters of the LEAF are the same sort of people who would have gone for solar...in fact we pulled the trigger on our solar system explicitly because of the LEAF. Of course this further calls into question the sensibility of the SDG&E rate experiment component of the EV project which clearly was not designed with the possibility of any (much less many) PV users in mind.

 

[sdbonez]

count me as another who pulled the trigger on solar because of a planned future purchase of an EV. The Leaf wasn't in-focus at the time but an Aptera was... and again, more for economics then anything else. Adding some excess capacity to my panels to account for the ability to charge and still stay in Tier1/Tier2 was a no-brainer from an ROI perspective.

(and hence, another who's a little perplexed at why SDG&E didn't plan for this... but hey, then again, they didn't plan for SmartMeters working with SolarPV systems either so at least they're consistent... )

 

[Jimmydreams]

Also, does anyone in this first batch of Blink's in SD have PV solar??? SDG&E says they're switching out my meter to a smart meter sometime soon.....and I have a big dog, so if they're all smart meters, I'll be a VERY happy camper!!

Yes, we also have a PV system. Our contractor (who not coincidentally did our solar system - we requested them from Ecotality for our EVSE) said there are quite a few solar homes among the evals they have done in San Diego, maybe as high as 20% or more, he thinks...which, we agreed, makes some sense, since many of the very people who would be likely to be early adopters of the LEAF are the same sort of people who would have gone for solar...in fact we pulled the trigger on our solar system explicitly because of the LEAF. Of course this further calls into question the sensibility of the SDG&E rate experiment component of the EV project which clearly was not designed with the possibility of any (much less many) PV users in mind.

20% solar? That's a pretty large number!!! But my question remains: any idea if the EVP meter will be manually read or a 'smart' meter that is read remotely?

 

[Anonymous]

Seriously, as big as a PV inverter? That's big. I chose micro-inverters for my PV system. Twenty-two panels, 22 microinverters. Making almost 20kwh a day in the wintertime and that's my yearly daily average, so I'll be rocking come summertime. Tally ho!

(the same size as the SunPower inverter installed a month ago) but it will fit.

I also chose micros, but mine are built in on the back side of each of the 20/240W Honeywell A/C panels, so the installers won't have to run DC wiring. Output is supposed to average about 24 Kwh/day/8640 Kwh/yr.

Wow, nice large system. Mine is 7200kwh per year expected, so it covers my usage 100%+. My micro-inverters, while not factory attached to the panels, are placed one per panel so no DC wires runs FROM the panel. All AC. All shut off via the kill switch, so no hot DC lines from the sun to worry about during daylight maintenance...not that I anticipate any maintenance.

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

But my question remains: any idea if the EVP meter will be manually read or a 'smart' meter that is read remotely?

I'd be really surprised if the new meter isn't just one of the standard (no-Net-metering) iTron meters they've been installing by the thousand. I don't think they would install a new rotor&dial meter.

 

[PDXLeafGuy]

My primary concern with this charger is the EV Project wifi requirement. Sure I'd like a free EVSE but i also like my wired broadband connection and have no interest in adding wifi RF to the homespace here. Anyone else feel the same way?

Anyone know if it is technically possible to wire connect the charger to a broadband line? A cursory read of a spec PDF a while back did not definitively answer this question.

Blue SL Leaf Res: 4/20, Drive Electric Tour test drive 11/2010, inching closer to placing Leaf order.

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

I couldn't tell if hardwire Ethernet was supported either.

If it's not, I intend to get a dedicated WiFi Access Point just for the Blnk charger. That way I can put that WiFi outside my firewall, and let it access the Internet only, not my servers. I'm paranoid that way, I guess.

Also, if your WiFi "goes down" it just reverts to cellular.

 

[PDXLeafGuy]

Back in September i declined the Ecotality charger assessment since i hadn't decided for sure about placing a Leaf order, thus didn't want to waste the resources of the publicly funded EV Project and figured whoever came out to do the assessment might not know whether a hardwire Ethernet connection was supportable.

Anyway your security concern seems pretty reasonable. Do you know about how much the additional Wifi access point would cost?

 

[garygid]

Wireless router is better, at Best Buy, many choices from $25 to $50.

 

[sdbonez]

I couldn't tell if hardwire Ethernet was supported either.

If it's not, I intend to get a dedicated WiFi Access Point just for the Blnk charger. That way I can put that WiFi outside my firewall, and let it access the Internet only, not my servers. I'm paranoid that way, I guess.

Also, if your WiFi "goes down" it just reverts to cellular.

Haven't decided which way I'm going yet... My cable modem supports 3 IPs on my plan (Cox)...so am tempted to just stick a switch straight off the modem and have one go to my main router and another go through a spare router and on to the EVSE.

I will say, though (despite my own paranoia) that my D-link DIR-825 has some really nice 'guest wireless' functions over and above the standard DMZ/isolation capabilities. I've done quite a bit of probing/lightweight pen-testing on my internal network from the guest network and have achieved no success. For what it's worth, I've owned a lot of routers and this one has been the best by far... multi-band w/independent control of each, high throughput, functionality, packet-shaping the kids traffic, etc.

 

[Jimmydreams]

I couldn't tell if hardwire Ethernet was supported either.

If it's not, I intend to get a dedicated WiFi Access Point just for the Blnk charger. That way I can put that WiFi outside my firewall, and let it access the Internet only, not my servers. I'm paranoid that way, I guess.

Also, if your WiFi "goes down" it just reverts to cellular.

I personally don't worry about the security aspects. Yes, EVP might not have the best security protocols and firewalls that a kindergardener could hack through (I'm not saying they DO, just 'might')...but how many EVP participants are there? Enough to really attract the attention of a bunch of hackers? I seriously doubt it. I'd hazard a guess that your mortgage company or bank, etc are much better target for naer-do-wellers.

Blink can talk to my wifi all it wants. If I somehow notice a reduction in bandwidth, then I'll investigate....otherwise, life's too short to worry about EVERYTHING!

 

[sproqitman]

Blink can talk to my wifi all it wants. If I somehow notice a reduction in bandwidth, then I'll investigate....otherwise, life's too short to worry about EVERYTHING!

Sure, you say that now. Wait until your LEAF stays up all night playing World of Warcraft instead of recharging it's battery!

 

[Jimmydreams]

Blink can talk to my wifi all it wants. If I somehow notice a reduction in bandwidth, then I'll investigate....otherwise, life's too short to worry about EVERYTHING!

Sure, you say that now. Wait until your LEAF stays up all night playing World of Warcraft instead of recharging it's battery!

THAT's was funny! But as far as I'm concerned, as long as my Leaf joins my guild, I'm happy. Unless he dupes my character set, that is!
:lol:

 

[TomT]

When I talked to the Blink folks at length in Santa Monica, they indicated that it was WiFi only. That was one of the reasons why the free EV Project questionnaire asked if you had WiFi available where the charger would be installed.

Tom

I couldn't tell if hardwire Ethernet was supported either.

 

[EVDRIVER]

Never buy a cheap router or switch. For switches I only use dell, all the Dlink, netgear, etc is not worth buying if you have more than a couple devices on a network. There is a big difference in performance and anything over 16 ports I use managed switches. DSL modem-router combos are junk, I use apple routers with dell switches and commercial wifi with and access point like Luxul. The performance difference is huge and the wireless is vastly superior to any wireless router on the market. In fact I can do a 20K sq ft house with four floors on one single access point. For low-cost and high performance Ubiquity makes good stuff but you need to have advanced network skills to use them, some of their products would get wireless to an EVSE over a great distance. If you have a Linksys WRT54G, replace it or flash it with http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index

 

[turbo2ltr]

I asked the wifi question to the rep at the tour today and she said it's wifi only but then she said they were looking into putting a modem in it in case you didn't have wifi...which of course makes no sense as you wouldn't put a modem in there. (her word, not mine). Overall I'm pretty disappointed at the knowledge level of people on the tour.