San Diego Nov 11 Movie "Revenge of eCar" & Nov 12 w/Nissan

[jcesare]

Nov 12, 2011 @ 9am - 12 noon: The Nissan Electric Tour in San Diego. Let's meet and greet potential new LEAF owners with actual cars and owners! Perhaps some hands on navigation or a cruise down the freeway.

Call 1-866-879-3832 to RSVP with Nissan for Nov 12. Quick DC charger may be available.

Del Mar Fairgrounds, O'Brien Hall
2260 Jimmy Durante Boulevard
Del Mar, CA 92014

Heavy rain is forcast for Saturday. Anyone still going?

 

[TonyWilliams]

If it's raining (hard), no!!!!

Otherwise, I'll show up. Gotta get my free t-shirt and try out the DC ChaDeMo. :ugeek:

I should be there at 9am.

 

[cbiwww]

Hey Tony, I saw your other post - did you see my wife get hit in our black Leaf in Mission Valley during the blackout?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Hey Tony, I saw your other post - did you see my wife get hit in our black Leaf in Mission Valley during the blackout?

No, I met her at Balboa Park a few weeks ago. She said it had been hit.

 

[ttweed]

Heavy rain is forcast for Saturday. Anyone still going?

Forecast models are changing rapidly at the moment. The approaching low pressure area is cutting off from the jetstream flow, becoming very unpredictable--there is a chance now that it could wobble, become stationary, or slide south and not come onshore as previously predicted. Keep an eye on the forecast over the next 2 days, as things could change radically. What was once a 100% rain forecast is already down to only 50% on Sat... we might get lucky...

TT

 

[TonyWilliams]

What was once a 100% rain forecast is already down to only 50% on Sat... we might get lucky...

Statement as of 4:30 AM PST on November 10, 2011

... Pacific storm track remains uncertain...

A Deep... Cut-off low pressure center 500 miles west of Eureka...
will be drifting south through Friday and is expected to turn east
over the weekend. Depending on how far south it tracks... Southern
California could get some precipitation Saturday into early Sunday.

A period of moderate rain is still possible sometime on Saturday
west of the mountains... however amounts have been scaled back across
the region from earlier forecasts. Significant snow... if any...
should be above 7500 feet.

The forces driving this storm system are complex... which has made
it difficult to predict. The rain chances and rain totals currently
forecast are subject to change and may be reduced even further. Keep
abreast of the latest updates on this system by visiting the
National Weather Service website at weather.Gov/sandiego.


Jad

 

[jcesare]

If it's raining (hard), no!!!!

Otherwise, I'll show up. Gotta get my free t-shirt and try out the DC ChaDeMo. :ugeek:

I should be there at 9am.

I've decided to go this afternoon (Friday)

 

[Randy]

Im here now...Wben you come, talk yourway into the venue and park right by the Nissan booth...Dc fast charge!!!!!!

 

[TonyWilliams]

Im here now...Wben you come, talk your way into the venue and park right by the Nissan booth...Dc fast charge!!!!!!

I think I'll come by in an hour or so.

 

[Randy]

They haven't started up the diesel gen yet...Cmon down and well get some demand...

 

[gbarry42]

LMW and I are planning to see the movie tonight at 6PM.

 

[cbiwww]

Hey Tony, I saw your other post - did you see my wife get hit in our black Leaf in Mission Valley during the blackout?

No, I met her at Balboa Park a few weeks ago. She said it had been hit.

Oh, I got it now. Thanks for the data sheet you gave her - handy info!

See everybody at the 6pm Revenge show tonight?

Craig & Peggy

 

[TonyWilliams]

See everybody at the 6pm Revenge show tonight?

Craig & Peggy

My spouse and I have given our munchkins away for the evening, and we'll be there about 5:30pm.

Randy said he still has some free tickets from SDGE, and CCSE just emailed that they had some cancellations making more available free tickets.

This afternoon, at the Nissan Electric Tour event at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, San Diego, I got my first ever DC charge, from about 50% to about 95% in about 15 to 20 minutes.

They brought along a little diesel powered help, even with the big transformers right behind the generator:

Three phases and a ground, right?

This is the way the generator was grounded:

And there it is… crack cocaine for EV's. Once you try this, you won't ever want to go back the trickle charger back home:

 

[gbarry42]

We got to the theater, got out of the car and immediately ran into Randy, who gave us two movie tickets. SDG&E had a Plugin Prius, a LEAF, and a Volt there, and Car2Go was there with an example of their about-to-be-introduced Electric SmartForTwo fleet, and taking sign-ups. (Sign up on their web site and get some free driving time). Some Tesla friends were there too. The movie was entertaining, and a good time was had by all.

Inspired by Tony's pictures above, I've decided not to charge the LEAF tonight, and get a Quick Charge tomorrow at the Fairgrounds. Currently showing 3 bars after a trip to Kensington and back, though we'll probably put another bar or two on before we go, just in case it doesn't work out.

 

[Randy]

I was there at the Nissan event this morning, and like Tony, got a taste of the "DC Fast Charge" crack....It raised the temperature of my battery by one bar (5 to 6), but it was sure a lot of fun...I thought I had read somewhere that the DCFC didn't pay attention to the timer...I had my timer set for midnight to 5am, and that seemed to cause a bit of a problem getting the charger to move past the "Linking" process, but the car seemed to connect okay to the DCFC once I shut off the timer. Unfortunately,the Chademo connector is not intuitive to operate, with the lever on the bottom and the button on the top. But with the help of the very nice Nissan staff, we got it going. Once we get to use these connectors more often, it should become easier.

I really needed that fast charge today, with my travels up to Del Mar, back to work and then to the movie premiere and out to dinner afterwards. I started at home at 80%, got the DCFC at Del Mar to go from 45% to 80% and then arrived back home with 17 miles left...

A very fun day, all in all. Tony took some pictures of me as my car was sucking in the electrons.

To all other SD area LEAF owners, try to make it up to Del Mar to check out your DCFC port....You'll like it....Oh, and check it out...No "Cayenne Red" LEAFs by Nissan at the drive event, just me and Tony adding the Cayenne flavor...

Here's some photos....

 

[TonyWilliams]

Edit: Tom gets instruction from a Nissan rep on the use of the EV-60 AeroVironment ChaDeMo DC quick charger:

 

[adric22]

Well, I drove from Dallas to Houston just to watch this movie, since it was the nearest place showing. I have to admit being a little disappointed. I suppose mainly because I really didn't learn anything I didn't already know. Then again, I'm the kind of guy who reads every headline and talks on groups like this. But when I originally watched the first movie, I learned a lot of stuff. I think mainly because I didn't live in California, I didn't understand a lot of the things that had happened there.

However, having said that, I think it would be very informative to those people who have a mild interest in EVs and aren't familiar with the intricate details of everything that has happened over the last few years. I also think 5 or 10 years down the road when EVs are more mainstream, people will be able to use this movie to look back and see how it all got started again.

I had really hoped to see more video showing the development of the Leaf, Volt, and Tesla. There was a lot less video of Carlos Ghosn than I thought there would be.

I also felt that most of the movie was depressing, showing all of the struggle these car makers were going though, and right in the end everything started to look up. I realize that is more or less how you make a movie, but I felt like very little attention was given to the success at the end. Maybe because of the time the movie was finished being produced. Hopefully they'll go back and add another 20 minutes to it at some point so when people watch it 5 years from now they'll be able to see Leafs and Volts rolling out to dealerships and such.

 

[ttweed]

Walter gets instruction from a Nissan rep on the use of the EV-60 AeroVironment ChaDeMo DC quick charger...

Hey Tony--that's me in the pic! Are you maybe getting me mixed up with that other distinguished user from San Diego named "walterbays" perhaps?

Good to see you there, and to have the chance to confirm that the L3 port on our Leaf actually works! It was nice that the rain backed off and gave us a break for the morning hours--I'm sure it effected attendance at the Tour event, though.

TT

 

[TonyWilliams]

Walter gets instruction from a Nissan rep on the use of the EV-60 AeroVironment ChaDeMo DC quick charger...

Hey Tony--that's me in the pic! Are you maybe getting me mixed up with that other distinguished user from San Diego named "walterbays" perhaps?

Yep, genuine screw up !!!

Glad your DC port worked. I drove by on Sunday, just to get another quick charge. About 20 minutes, right up to 98.7%.

 

[SanDust]

I went with a group to see the show on Saturday night. Not many people in the theater which I hope isn't typical. The show was fun and entertaining, at least if you have an interest in electric cars. Here was the reaction to the characters:

1. Bob Lutz -- everybody liked him.
2. Gadget -- everybody liked him but thought he was an idiot for not having insurance.
3. Carlos Ghosn -- no one liked him.
4. Elon Musk -- no one liked him and thought he was out of his depth.

This is definitely not a good film for Tesla. One couple who was thinking about a Tesla said after watching the film there was no way they'd ever buy one. A few reasons for the negative reaction stand out. One is that Elon's personal life -- five kids, divorce, new model wife -- will not win many fans among the ladies. Second is that he doesn't seem like he can manage. The most illuminating scene was where all the Roadsters are sitting in a building, each with something different wrong, and he gets upset and says "you can call me at 3:00 AM Sunday morning if you have to". Huh? How would this help? He seemed completely clueless. Some of the guys had start up experience and they thought the whole operation was imbued with the startup mindset, which is not a good thing when you're producing cars. Third was that significantly raising the price of the cars for people who had placed deposits of $40K for at least a year didn't elicit any warm and fuzzy feelings among potential customers. If a company will do that what else will they do to customers "if they have to?" Of lesser importance was that popping champagne after the IPO and getting the DOE loan seemed excessive given the huge hurdles still ahead.

My favorite scene was when Lutz and the other GM execs were eating the downsized lunch as GM went through bankruptcy. Lutz says "I guess some show of humility is in order" and one of the other execs says "If not now, when?" That had me howling.