gbarry42,
gbarry42 said:
The EVSEupgrade would be worth considering if for some reason they are going to take a long time to deliver your Blink, but if you can get the garage wired right away. I assume you know that the upgraded "brick" can be plugged into either 120V or 240V depending on what's available.
Blink is giving me a schedule of 1 month for program approval, another couple of weeks for the contractor to come estimate the job, and then another week for installation or so. Ie. almost 2 months. That's about the same schedule that I was told it would take approximately to upgrade the chargers at work to J1772 .
Until then it sounds like I'm going to be stuck with mostly L1 charging at home, and occasional L1 at work due to the very limited 120V outlets. Only one Volt can be plugged in practice, or 1 to 3 Leafs. There is no other combination that is known to work with those outlets.
I'm slightly reluctant to do the EVSEupgrade since I'm leasing and I would have to undo the charger modification at the time I return the car to Nissan. And it will only help at work for the next 2 months until the chargers get upgraded, and only if I can borrow the AVcon adapter for that long.
Getting the garage wired right away would be expensive vs getting it done for free by Blink. My electrician quotes are $500 - $800 for the install to install an L2 charger near the spot on the left, the one farthest away from the electrical panel which is on the right of the garage, further uphill. Those quotes include 80' of conduit from the main electrical panel.
The garage design is a bit odd, it's actually a 3 car garage with only garage 2 doors in the front. The third spot in the right rear, behind the second spot, so no car can really go there unless the second spot is first emptied.
To make things worse, the driveway is not even as wide as the 2 garage doors. It's about the width of 1.5 cars. This means I can only back up the car straight only from the spot on the left. To back up the car from the spot on the right is harder as you have to angle the car. And there is a support in the middle of the two garage doors.
I end up parking my car on the spot on the left as I hate the maneuvering to extract the car from the spot on the right. My partner gets to park his car in that spot.
Maybe I could get a dryer outlet installed on the garage wall on the right, and do the EVseupgrade. I don't know if the cord is long enough to extend all the way to the left. Then 2 months later I would get the Blink installed for free on the left side. I would then have charging capability near either spot.
Charging to 100% is not the best thing for the battery, however, since it's time spent at 100% that counts, you are likely doing OK because with the trickle charge you don't end up being at 100% for very long.
Right. The L1 charger is so slow that I did not even reach 100% charge before I went to work, even though I went very late, I tend to be an afternoon/night person.
And finally, at 100%, you don't get hardly any regenerative braking on your way down that hill in the morning. Half a mile, though, I don't know if that amounts to much anyhow. But see what you can get out of it sometime when the state of charge is less.
Right, it probably wouldn't be much time at 100% at all. Maybe there is a way to charge to 98% ?
By the way, I see you're a Prius driver, so you already know quite a bit about energy use and hypermiling tricks. While driving a Prius I observed a lot of things that affect efficiency...the big one seemed to be the weather. After I got a LEAF I learned about the Speed Thing. Yes, the LEAF is very sensitive to energy use. But I applied that trick to the Prius, and it worked there too! As you say, It's good to know, but you don't have to use it.
Right, my first car was a 2001 Prius, I have never driven anything other than a Prius before, I know very well how they behave and what hurts the mileage to drop. Obviously speed is one.
I have only seen the mileage drop significantly on the Prius driving way too fast at 100 (with the old 2001) and 110 (with my 2007) on a completely empty I-5 at night driving to LA ... The Prius drops to about 20-25mpg at that speed which is still not horrible considering all the Hummers on the road. The Leaf won't reach 100 or 110 anyway, not that I would ever attempt to go to LA with it.
Otherwise I have noticed about 10% lower mileage in the winter vs summer on the Prius as I use the heat about half the time in the winter.
I have yet to figure out exactly the killer mileage speed thresholds on the Leaf.
My second full day, monday, was not as bad. I only drove my regular commute which is 12.7 mile in the morning and 13.3 in the evening according to google maps. My battery was not fully charged when the day started.
On my evening commute, the GOM in ECO mode went from 62 miles from the office parking lot to 29 when I got home to the top of the hill, for the 13.3 actual miles driven. I did not take the car a single mile past 65mph, and I was driving with cruise control on the freeway. I was even driving a bit less than the limit for some time. Most efficient way I have done in a very long time.
It was really disconcerting to see the GOM go from 39 miles at the freeway exit to 29 at home, even though the distance is exactly 3 miles, including the 0.5 mile uphill.
If I didn't put the car in ECO mode the GOM numbers would be smaller all around, but I would also get less efficiency from less regenerative breaking due to less coasting at all the lights on the way home.
