I Miss My Leaf!

[Stoaty]

OK, I have to admit that I chose to drive the ICE vehicle to work due to the high temperatures in the San Fernando Valley this week to help preserve the Leaf battery pack. I still could have driven the Leaf. It didn't bother me much the first couple of days, but by the third day I was noticing the engine noise more. However, what really hit home was on the 4th day when I had to stop at a gas station! The first one I passed was way too crowded. The second one had ample room, but the automatic shutoff would kick in after one second of trying to put gas in the car. After half a dozen tries, I got it going, but the speed was 1/2 to 1/3 normal. I didn't want to try to move the car and find a pump that worked better. I must have been there 8-10 minutes to get only 8 gallons of gas. My only consolation was knowing that the weather is cool where I live and I can drive the Leaf this weekend--and that predicted temperatures in the Valley for next week are only around 90. Leaf, baby Leaf!!!

 

[RegGuheert]

The second one had ample room, but the automatic shutoff would kick in after one second of trying to put gas in the car. After half a dozen tries, I got it going, but the speed was 1/2 to 1/3 normal. I didn't want to try to move the car and find a pump that worked better. I must have been there 8-10 minutes to get only 8 gallons of gas.

That's what is known as a Level 1 gas pump!

I have a similar story from our power outage last week: Our LEAF was pressed into emergency service providing electricity to our neighbor's refrigerator and freezer, so I took the HCH out to help my sister get her generator wired up safely. I stopped for gasoline at the 7-eleven on the way there. (That place was PACKED all day as they apparently had their own generator!). Anyway, the pump was running VERY slowly! Finally, after about five gallons, the pump shut off. I was not alone, as everyone started asking around if others' pumps were working. I never did find out what happened, but it seems the station may have run out of gasoline!

 

[ebill3]

Our LEAF was pressed into emergency service providing electricity to our neighbor's refrigerator and freezer, so I took the HCH out to help my sister get her generator wired up safely.

Please, how did you do that - power the freezer and fridge wih the LEAF?

 

[LEAFer]

Our LEAF was pressed into emergency service providing electricity to our neighbor's refrigerator and freezer, so I took the HCH out to help my sister get her generator wired up safely.

Please, how did you do that - power the freezer and fridge wih the LEAF?

+1 ... Curious here too !!

 

[DarkStar]

Our LEAF was pressed into emergency service providing electricity to our neighbor's refrigerator and freezer, so I took the HCH out to help my sister get her generator wired up safely.

Please, how did you do that - power the freezer and fridge wih the LEAF?

Probably just used an inverter hooked up to the DC to DC Converter.

 

[zarwin]

Our LEAF was pressed into emergency service providing electricity to our neighbor's refrigerator and freezer, so I took the HCH out to help my sister get her generator wired up safely.

Please, how did you do that - power the freezer and fridge wih the LEAF?

Probably just used an inverter hooked up to the DC to DC Converter.

I've done that (powered a freezer) for a very short time using a pure sine wave inverter connected to the 12V system (positive battery post and chassis ground) with the car powered on. If you try this never connect anything to the negative post of the battery. Always ground to the chassis.

This is the inverter I used:

http://www.solar-electric.com/exxp12vol11w.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[RegGuheert]

Please, how did you do that - power the freezer and fridge wih the LEAF?

Probably just used an inverter hooked up to the DC to DC Converter.

That's basically what I did. It would be best to put the inverter under the hood and connect it up directly, and I will do that if I can find a place to put it, but I used an approach which was expedient for the day, even if it did have its limitations.

I powered the fridge and freezer from two inverters that were powered from a deep-cycle battery that I had around. This deep-cycle battery was powered by the LEAF in the "On" state through jumper cables. The problem with this approach was that both their refrigerator and their freezer were quite old and were both hard to start and used a lot of power when running.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures:

Here is a picture of the LEAF with the jumper cables attached. Note that I did NOT connect to the negative terminal to the battery, but rather to the grounding point on top of the DC/DC converter per instructions from Phil.

This is the deep-cycle battery with the two inverters attached, the 500-W unit powering the freezer and the 1000-W unit powering the refrigerator. (I have a 2-kW pure-sine inverter around here, but it requires a bit more wiring to use safely, not that this was overly safe!)

The main issue with this approach is that the LEAF regulates at about 13V and that means that you can only deliver current to the remote battery equal to (13V-VRemoteBat)/Rcables. The result is that if the refrigerators draw enough power and they do not ever cycle off, then you will drain the remote battery, which happened in the case of our neighbors.

We had another, shorter-duration outage a couple of days later and I was able to easily start and run our refrigerator using the 500-W inverter and both our deep freeze and refrigerator in our garage using the 1000-W unit. Our units are all much newer than our neighbors'. It was quite nice, since there was no need to use gasoline, drag out the generator, go outside or even open up the garage to keep the food cold. That's handy when it is windy and rainy outside!

Of course, you need to be careful when doing this, because if you damage your LEAF it is not covered under warranty. Here is the wording found on page 9 in the warranty booklet :

WHAT IS NOT COVERED
GENERAL EXCLUSIONS
This warranty does not cover damage, failure, or corrosion resulting from, or caused by:
- Failure to operate the vehicle in accordance with the OWNER'S MANUAL.
- Misuse, such as overloading, using the vehicle to tow, driving over curbs, or using the vehicle as a power source.
...

 

[ENIAC]

I've been ordered to drive our ICE for 100 miles! Actually what happened is that I noticed a few drops of oil under it the other day. I took it to the dealership and they couldn't locate the source. So they put a dye in the power steering, transmission, engine, etc. and told me to drive 100 miles. They could then use a black light and locate the source. I said, "Sounds great! See you around Christmas time." :lol:

 

[ksnogas2112]

Had to leave By-Tor at home to make it to Boy Scout camp. Missed the range by about 20 miles...sigh...

Had to take the wife's Prius so she had my beloved Leaf for 10 days. I gave the Prius back to her yesterday at lunch and when she got home for dinner she was complaining that I broke her new Prius because it was so noisy and slow to respond.

If everyone could have the joy of owning a Leaf for a week (and 10k lower prices) it would sell itself.

 

[DaveEV]

If everyone could have the joy of owning a Leaf for a week (and 10k lower prices) it would sell itself.

With dealers offering up to $5k under MSRP and the $7.5k tax credit, the price is already there...

 

[ztanos]

If everyone could have the joy of owning a Leaf for a week (and 10k lower prices) it would sell itself.

With dealers offering up to $5k under MSRP and the $7.5k tax credit, the price is already there...

Pretty sure he meant 10k off the tax credited price.