Ok to take my leaf home with NO Charger yet?

my car is in.
so excited.
however, i am still waiting to schedule delivery of my free charger from e-tec. is it ok to accept the car without a charger? (dealer says no problem...)
will it hurt battery life or affect anything long-term if i just charge it in a regular wall socket for the first month or so???
please advise and thanks much!

I've been using the 120v trickle charge for the past 3.5 months. I don't think it'll be a problem. I'm getting 6 miles ranage for every hour of trickle charge.

No problem using the Nissan supplied 110 volt charging cable for as long as you wish. Many owners on this board are doing exactly that.

Do recognize that you'll need about 15 hours to recharge to 100% if you use your batteries down to 3 of 12 bars, or so.

40 miles or less roundtrip commute and you're fine. more than that, you better run some calculations and make sure you have time to charge.

at 50 miles roundtrip, using about 2/3 of the pack (8 bars) I did fine as long as I had ~11-12 hours to charge. Also make sure you've got a 110v outlet that can handle it (the Nissan EVSE pulls 12 amps)

Do you have a unused 240V dryer outlet in your garage by chance?

I plan to use L1 for the rest of the year

I'm in a similar situation. Picked up the Leaf on May 5th, and hope to get the free (plus $578) charger installed tomorrow.

Absolutely take it home, unless there are other complications you have not mentioned.

Charging with the included L1 (120v) EVSE is easy and not a problem for the car, just time consuming if you need to charge a large percentage of the battery.

If you have (or can get) a 240v socket available to use, consider Phil's Upgrade for your EVSE, to cut your charging time in half.

Take the car home. The L1 EVSE that comes with the car works quite well. I have been averaging about 30 mi/day, low of 10mi in a day, high of 70mi in a day for the last 3 weeks. I am only using L1 with the 120V EVSE that came with car. I haven't had any problems with sufficeint charging time. I can charge at work and at home. The longest charging session I have had yet is only 9.75 hours overnight. I normally only charge to 80%. I have only used the 100% twice. So far I have spent a lot more time giving interested friends and coworkers test drives than I anticipated. Unless there is a significant drop in the cost of an L2 charger I do not see a need for my driving needs that would justify the cost. I would much rather put the money towards our planned solar installation.

EVDRIVER said:

Do you have a unused 240V dryer outlet in your garage by chance?

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Pardon my ignorance, but what can one do with a 240V dryer outlet in the garage? I have one in my garage and a Leaf on order (but no charger installed yet), so I'd like to know. Thanks in advance.

smilingbee said:

EVDRIVER said:

Do you have a unused 240V dryer outlet in your garage by chance?

Click to expand...

Pardon my ignorance, but what can one do with a 240V dryer outlet in the garage? I have one in my garage and a Leaf on order (but no charger installed yet), so I'd like to know. Thanks in advance.

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You can upgrade the portable level 1 EVSE that comes delivered with the LEAF to Level-1/Level-2 charging for less than $250, plus an adapter plug and charge from that outlet at Level 2.

http://evseupgrade.com/
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3625

smilingbee said:

EVDRIVER said:

Do you have a unused 240V dryer outlet in your garage by chance?

Click to expand...

Pardon my ignorance, but what can one do with a 240V dryer outlet in the garage? I have one in my garage and a Leaf on order (but no charger installed yet), so I'd like to know. Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Get the http://evseupgrade.com/ upgrade and adapt accordingly to your outlet. Its all I have and I don't plan on getting a permanent charge station in my garage until the prices come down. The upgrade will allow you to charge at about 90% of the speed of the onboard chargers full capability. Good enough for me right now.

And to answer the original post, of course you don't have the charger yet if you have not taken delivery of your leaf. They will both arrive to your home at the same exact time.

edit: sorry LEAFer, I did not see your post on page two. Can I change my answer to "what he said"?

palmermd said:

And to answer the original post, of course you don't have the charger yet if you have not taken delivery of your leaf. They will both arrive to your home at the same exact time.

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You shouldn't say things like that to newcomers without explaining them. What palmermd means is that the charger is inside the car. The thing you are referring to, smilingbee, is called an EVSE or charging station or charging dock. It isn't really a charger; it's just a place you can connect the car's charger to house power.

Ray

So, there is a 120v-to-LEAF connection cord (the Level 1 EVSE) included with the car. With it, and a standard 120v plug in your home, you can charge your car 50% in about 10 hours, which is good enough for many people.

If you get that EVSE modified as suggested above (to ALSO work on 240v), using a conveniently-located 240v source (like an unused dryer socket in the garage) you will cut the Level 1 (L1 = 120v) charging times in HALF, doing 50% charging in about 5 hours (80% in about 8 hours). This might be sufficient for most folks, with their overnight charging patterns. Further, you can take it WITH you, and (with the correct adapter plugs) charge your LEAF almost anywhere!

The more expensive Level 2 (L2 = 240v) EVSEs will allow charging the 2011 LEAF a little faster, in about 75% of the time, but usually they are not portable, and the shorter time is not GREATLY significant for most people.

These expensive EVSEs allow the LEAF's onboard charger to use its designed 16-amp maximim current, while the Mod-L1 EVSE allows only 12 amps, just 75% of the 2011 LEAF's "full" charging rate.

palmermd said:

edit: sorry LEAFer, I did not see your post on page two. Can I change my answer to "what he said"?

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No problem And gary probably gets the prize for the most complete -- yet succinct -- explanation I hereby nominate gary ... oh never mind

Took my Leaf home 4 months and 4400 miles ago. Works fine.

Still no charger by the way

LEAF Owner's Manual page CH-7 states "Trickle charging is not recommended for regular use". Trickle here means charging with the supplied the cable under 110-120 volt. I always thought slower charging is better for the battery. Or may be the 7 hours Level 2 charging is slow enough. Can anyone comment on this?

I do have the Level 2 charging station installed. My daily driving range requires less than 80% charge and can go either Level 1 Trickle or Level 2 Normal charging methods.

avos said:

LEAF Owner's Manual page CH-7 states "Trickle charging is not recommended for regular use". Trickle here means charging with the supplied the cable under 110-120 volt. I always thought slower charging is better for the battery. Or may be the 7 hours Level 2 charging is slow enough.

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There have been numerous discussions about this. The consensus as I recall is that the 240v connection is still enough of a slow charge to not adversely affect battery life. I suspect the reason why the manual has this is because they don't want you continuously uncoiling, plugging in, unplugging and coiling back up the 120v EVSE. Even that doesn't make much sense though because the unit seems pretty beefy to me and can hold up to daily use.

smilingbee said:

EVDRIVER said:

Do you have a unused 240V dryer outlet in your garage by chance?

Click to expand...

Pardon my ignorance, but what can one do with a 240V dryer outlet in the garage? I have one in my garage and a Leaf on order (but no charger installed yet), so I'd like to know. Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

The soon to be out leviton 160 only needs a 20 amp circuit and would be easy install using an existing unused 30 amp dryer connection. Other charging docks may also work if the max power is set to 16 or 24 amps. Current Leaf will not ever use more than 16 amps. The standard AV unit is about twice the power needed (30a) for the current Leaf and is just adding complications and cost to the install.

garygid said:

The more expensive Level 2 (L2 = 240v) EVSEs will allow charging the 2011 LEAF a little faster, in about 75% of the time, but usually they are not portable, and the shorter time is not GREATLY significant for most people.

These expensive EVSEs allow the LEAF's onboard charger to use its designed 16-amp maximim current, while the Mod-L1 EVSE allows only 12 amps, just 75% of the 2011 LEAF's "full" charging rate.

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I'm getting over 2800 watt from my modified EVSE. Thats 2800/3300 = 85% of the full charger rating. I don't have an EVSE that can let the onboard charger pull its full capacity to see if it is underrated, but if it is rated to the specification than the EVSE upgrade gives you 85% and not 75% as you noted. Just noting this to help others make a decision. That extra 10% makes a difference.