What's the latest on L1 charging only?

[LEAFer]

Is anyone that has their leaf using L1 only and if so how is it going.
I am waiting on a 16amp 220 charger and I think that I can get by on L1 only.

Any one else thought this and then scrambled for L2?

Thanks

L1 works just fine, but of course, can be somewhat limiting. It simply depends on your driving habits and time available for plug-in. It's easy to "fall behind" ... with a resultant anxiety the next day or two or three ... but that only applies if you drive 50+ miles per day (my son does). You are "re-filling" at a rate of about 5mph, so if you drive 50 "Nissan Miles" (efficiency better than 4.166 (=100miles/24kWh)), it will take you 10 hours plugged in to get it back. But since we often drive less than 4.166 miles/kWh in terms of efficiency, it will take longer. If you don't get home, or don't plug in until mid-nite (yep, guess who did that :roll: ), then you won't be "full" when you have to leave again at 7am.

Anyway ... it works, but does take more planning and diligence.

 

[Randy3]

I've been using L1 at home exclusively since I picked up my LEAF on 01/11/11. We drive the LEAF about 25-50 miles on most days. One day per week we take it for longer drives. I did 120 miles on Monday, including 2 hours L2 chariging at a Nissan dealer. I arrived home at 7pm with the gauge showing "---". At 11am Tuesday morning, it showed 83% charged.

I'll have to do a test, but I think that the display showing time needed to charge to 80%/100% may be overstated.

L1 works fine for me.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I also do L1 and don't even plug in everyday. And there has been a few times like every sunday morning where I take off with less than a full tank. A few times it was a little as 50 miles range in e o. But sunday I work and its a 20 mile days so no biggie.

It works for us and at this point we have never had to take the Prius because we could not get a charge quick enough. We have been done pretty low a bunch of times like less than 2 white bars lefrt but only need a mile of range left to have an extra mile of range when ipull into my garage at night.

 

[hooptie]

What kind of circuitry is going on inside a EV charger? If I were to open one up what is inside? Transformers, relays, "smarts", etc?

The real question is what is my $1000 to $2000 buying me?

 

[garygid]

There is a lot of discussion of EVSE "guts" in the EVSE section.