A guy from Metropolitan electric of SF is coming to do mine within the next hour. I'm surprised they are using someone that far north (SF) instead of someone more local. Maybe this company has the franchise for the whole Bay Area. I'll report when it's over.
Edit: 10:40 am. Steve Passanisi of Metropolitan electric in SF just finished. He seemed very enthused about the Leaf and has registered to get one himself, but not in the first wave. He was pretty down on AeroVironment, saying they were not being fair to the contractors and didn't seem very knowledgeable about the contracting business. They are obviously rushing this through and not prepared to deal with the volume and all issues.
He says my house is probably the hardest of the first seven assessments he has done because the breaker panel is so far from the garage (back bedroom closet for the panel, garage near front door for the charger ~ 100 ft. or more.) He said the existing wiring to the garage appears to be all Romex, not conduit. My panel is 200A and has plenty of room, but the main service is only 125A. It was helpful that he could open up the sheetrock in the closet and said he might have to install another smaller panel there. The charger requires #8 wire. I didn't get much more of the technical stuff.
He said AV's training was two full days. He sent 4 people, including himself, to get certified as assessors and one the first day of signup for the assessments got 600 e-mails inquiring if he could do them. He now wants to get 15 more electricians certified, but wants AV to send the trainer to his company. He services all Northern California, mostly commercial, but plenty of residential, too. His customers are Wells Fargo, Macy's etc. He asked AV if all the people in the assessment class were licensed electrical contractors and they wouldn't answer that. Your assessor may not be an actual electrician. He is, and showed me his photo ID from the state licensing board. The assessors get no money from the $100 we paid for the assessment. They get paid only when the actual installs are done. All these assessments are overhead for him now. AV will charge him to rent their test equipment when installs start, too. AV requires him to wear an AV shirt when doing the assessments, but didn't have sufficient shirts to fill his order until yesterday (he has to pay for those, too). He was wearing one today. He has stopped taking assessments due to the volume of unpaid time it is taking, so he said I was lucky to get in early.
He does not have any charger units in yet. He says they can't be installed now anyway because they are not UL certified. He says no inspector will approve installation of these things until that certification is granted. He doesn't know anything about the tax credits or AMT but he is assuming all the state money will be gone by the time he gets his, so he isn't counting on the state ones. In the class they said PG&E will require TOU rates and charge 3 cents/kwh for off-peak but he wasn't sure of the hours for off-peak and didn't know how it would be metered. He recommended calling PG&E. I was the first customer who asked about that.
He strongly recommended the 15 ft. cord due to the extra weight and cost of the 25 footer, and we found a spot on the garage wall that would allow charging either in the garage or on the driveway using the shorter cord. He says he's going to start bringing a 15 ft. rope to the assessments, but didn't have one with him. We used my tape measure.
He says hard-wiring is NOT necessary by code, but AV is requiring it because they want people to buy more chargers. He says he has a summer house and when he gets his Leaf, he'll rewire his home charger to be a plug-in and take in with him to his other house when he goes there (assuming he can make it the 80 miles in the Leaf). He is hoping they start installing public charging stations and wants that business.
That's all I remember for now.