Nissan adding quick charging at 100 dealerships

[RegGuheert]

The preliminary list of markets where you can expect to see some of the quick chargers come on line before next April are:

...
Washington DC/Baltimore
...

Thanks for the list of regions! And I found the one that interests me in there!

 

[DaveEV]

I had a look at the map drees has created, and there does not seem to be any other dealer QC in the greater Sacto area as of this writing.

Keep in mind that I don't go out searching for dealers with QC - I rely on others to report on the forum to update the map (and a little bit of PlugShare).

 

[thankyouOB]

Brian,
can you answer my question on the first page?
thankyou,
thankyouOB

 

[TomT]

It's too bad that they didn't put one at Mission Hills Nissan since they are near the junctions of the 405, 5 and 118 freeways AND there is not one anywhere near there, the north valley, or the Santa Clarita Valley. It would be an ideal location.

 

[mirko]

For what it's worth, the only location that I would be able to take advantage of a DCQC is...

NAPLETON NISSAN
3870 Blue Heron Blvd West
Riviera Beach, FL 33404

Once a week I have an 80 mile round trip that is 99% highway speeds. Napleton is the only Nissan dealer that I pass and it is just off of I-95.

IMHO, locations just off of major highways are the most useful locations to extending the range of a trip. If I have to go 5 miles off of the highway to get a charge, I've wasted 10 miles of range (about 5 minutes of the time that I just spent charging).

 

[thankyouOB]

my use of this would mostly be in the late evenings, so it is pretty much useless -- cause dealers close.

 

[rslatkin]

I want Nissan to do everything they can to ensure the fast chargers are available 24/7. These are a game changer in making the Leaf capable of road trips. They will be tremendously useful if they are available and reliable.

One of the Leaf drivers in the recent EV rally from Canada to Mexico arrived in the early morning to use a DCQC, and was stuck because the facility didn't open their locked gate until 9:30am.

It doesn't have to be free, but the payment system needs to be standardized and the prices should be reasonable.

 

[Valdemar]

It's too bad that they didn't put one at Mission Hills Nissan since they are near the junctions of the 405, 5 and 118 freeways AND there is not one anywhere near there, the north valley, or the Santa Clarita Valley. It would be an ideal location.

Hopefully they will get one this time around. I can vote for it if needed

 

[JeremyW]

Ahh that must be it. I was thinking of like the Auburn Blvd dealer.

I had a look at the map drees has created, and there does not seem to be any other dealer QC in the greater Sacto area as of this writing.

Nissan of Folsom Lake, Roseville Nissan, or even better, Shingle Springs Nissan up hwy 50 would be good.

 

[TomT]

Frankly, they seem to be lukewarm at best about selling the Leaf so that might have had something to do with it...

I also wonder how Connell with their $5 fee for charging is going to fare... I suspect that will scare a number of folks away...

It's too bad that they didn't put one at Mission Hills Nissan since they are near the junctions of the 405, 5 and 118 freeways AND there is not one anywhere near there, the north valley, or the Santa Clarita Valley. It would be an ideal location.

Hopefully they will get one this time around. I can vote for it if needed

 

[Valdemar]

I also wonder how Connell with their $5 fee for charging is going to fare... I suspect that will scare a number of folks away...

Most likely. Is it enforced now btw? I charged there a couple of weeks back with no questions asked. I could even get a free hot dog but decided not to abuse their hospitality I'd still use it for my extended southbound trips as it would still be cheaper than to drive my 22mpg SUV.

 

[NYLEAF]

Thanks for posting the list of metro areas that are in the running.

My big concern is that a lot of those areas listed are already home to sizable Quick Charging networks. I know everyone wants more QCs in their neck of the woods, and I don't mean to disparage anyone's community, but wouldn't it be a better use of Nissan's resources for the stations to only go to places that do not already have a number of publicly available QCs? Places like Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, and soon Washington DC/Baltimore all have/will soon have a lot of QC stations available. Yes, some of them are only available if you pay a monthly access fee, but they're there. (And to be honest, who knows what sort of accessibility we will see with these Nissan QCs...)

My second concern is about how many or how few stations each metro area will wind up getting under this program. How will this be decided? Will Portland get 20 out of the 100, because they've been a huge Leaf market? Would that be to the detriment of, for example, the NYC area? (which despite its large population, hasn't been a huge Leaf market, perhaps because of the lack of infrastructure) Or, is Nissan planning on just putting 5 or so in each metro area and hoping for the best? Will it be first come/first served based on which dealers respond that they are willing to have a station installed? What sort of thought is being put into which dealerships qualify? My fear is that some really poorly placed dealers will raise their hand for the "free" station and the better, more useful locations will miss out.

My final concern is the one that has been voiced a number of times already. Nissan really needs to find a way to get the dealers in line as far as station accessibility. What good is a well placed QC station if it's blocked by a Murano all day? What good is it if it's behind a locked gate at 8pm? And what good is it if a dealer feels he can charge $60/session because that's what he pays to gas up his ICE? There needs to be some sort of incentive for the dealership to allow as much access as possible. The easy choice is encouraging dealers to charge for use, so they can see it as a revenue stream; but dealers need to understand that this isn't a gas pump and that comparable pricing means it'll never be used. Hopefully Nissan will be providing some assistance in this area.

At the end of the day, my hope for this program is that it plants the seeds needed to get a lot more infrastructure in the ground in a lot more places. In NY, for example, having a bunch of QC stations installed would help Nissan sell more cars. More cars in the area would hopefully prove to Blink or eVgo or whoever that the NY area can support more QC stations. Those additional QC stations would go further towards helping Nissan selling more cars, and so on and so forth. I just don't see Nissan getting quite as much return on its investment by installing these stations in markets that already have a decent number of QCs.

 

[hyperlexis]

For what its worth, the Evanston Ill Nissan dealer I have dealt with said they are getting an L3 charger in a few months and that it will be avail 24/7 and free for use to Leaf owners who bought from the dealer (which from a practical standpoint I think basically means it's an open Chademo station that anyone with a compatible car can use for free....)

So I don't think the fretting is warranted, aside from the fact only a limited number of dealers will get the chargers. It's a great marketing tool for the dealers and should spur Leaf sales for those dealers lucky enough to get one.

 

[davewill]

... I know everyone wants more QCs in their neck of the woods, and I don't mean to disparage anyone's community, but wouldn't it be a better use of Nissan's resources for the stations to only go to places that do not already have a number of publicly available QCs? Places like Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, and soon Washington DC/Baltimore all have/will soon have a lot of QC stations available. ...

It has sounded to me that it mostly has to do with which dealers are willing. I suspect the people to talk to would be the local dealers you'd like to see one at.

 

[NYLEAF]

It has sounded to me that it mostly has to do with which dealers are willing. I suspect the people to talk to would be the local dealers you'd like to see one at.

From the post listing the metro areas that will be getting QCs, it seems like Nissan Corporate (Nissan North America?) has a say in which metro areas are getting them. As for which dealers in those specific metro areas, yes, it does sound like it is whichever dealers respond positively. My bigger issue is which metro areas qualify, especially in light of the fact that the whole program is for 100 or so QCs.

 

[Newporttom]

It has sounded to me that it mostly has to do with which dealers are willing. I suspect the people to talk to would be the local dealers you'd like to see one at.

From the post listing the metro areas that will be getting QCs, it seems like Nissan Corporate (Nissan North America?) has a say in which metro areas are getting them. As for which dealers in those specific metro areas, yes, it does sound like it is whichever dealers respond positively. My bigger issue is which metro areas qualify, especially in light of the fact that the whole program is for 100 or so QCs.

This is just nuts. I look on the Plugshare map and it appears the Phoenix area already has 14 QC stations. And Minneapolis has none, and Jacksonville has none. I peeked at Google Maps to make sure it's still there. Some place called Ohio none in the entire state and not on your list.

You should be making sure that the 100 largest metropoliton areas get at least 1

 

[walterbays]

You should be making sure that the 100 largest metropolitan areas get at least 1

It seems likely to me that Nissan decided to concentrate them in regions where they can make a big difference, removing range anxiety, changing LEAF from a city car to a regional car, and increasing sales. A single QC in one city wouldn't do much to change buyers' calculations of whether or not they could live with LEAF's range limitations. A network of stations so you're never far from one, as the Netherlands is building, would make range, battery size, and battery degradation minor issues.

That said, even if Nissan was thinking about the utility of QC locations as I do, it would seem prudent for them to test their assumptions: try a single QC in a couple of cities which are not now big LEAF markets and see if sales increase dramatically. I suppose Nissan is installing these in order to make money, and believe they will find their money well spent.

 

[Valdemar]

Nissan Sumitomo units are rated to -10C, at least the ones I saw in California. Can this be the reason some places with cold winters are not getting them?

 

[cgaydos]

Thanks for providing this announcement and also for the preliminary list of metro areas. I was pleased to see Denver on the list. We'd heard that Colorado wasn't going to be possible in the near-term due to issues with high altitude certification of the QC units - hopefully this means that has been resolved.

Please do send us updates as you have them regarding details (which dealership, dates, etc.).

Also, it's very critical, as other posters have noted, that Nissan get dealerships to establish a standard policy for access to their L2 and QC stations. The current situations is chaos, with dealerships frequently blocking access to or shutting off their exterior chargers. If these QCs are to have the intended effect of increasing adoption of LEAFs they will need to be fully available all the time.

Finally, thanks for sticking with this forum despite the brutal response given to your announcement on the battery replacement program.

 

[NYLEAF]

I made a map with my suggestions for QC installs in the NYC area. All the dealers on the map are already Leaf-certified and I tried to pick ones that have large parking lots and are known for being happy to charge cars that weren't purchased from them. I had to break these rules for a few locations, simply because they are very well placed (close to a number of highways, etc). I did stray a bit into the Philadelphia area with the stations in NJ, but I wanted to show a possible route to Atlantic City (a common road trip from NYC).

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