SoCal LEAF & EV Gathering, Y8 - End - 18 Aug 2018

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garygid

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
12,469
Location
Laguna Hills, Orange Co, CA
Our Eighth Year of Gatherings has Ended here.

A link forward to our Nineth Year thread:
http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=26413

Our LEAF group has become an extended family, with some evolving
with the times, now arriving in other EVs, including Rav4EV, Tesla S,
Tesla X, BMW i3, and occasionally an iMev or Coda.
As with any good family, we welcome and enjoy this "growing up",
since it enriches the group, and provides us all with a better
perspective of the future. So, the LEAF title for the Gathering
evolved to "LEAF & EV" until we think of something better.

Join us for a Saturday morning breakfast buffet at Hometown Buffet, the Golden
Corral, or some other location (see below), ... or for some other special event.

Nominally, we Gather from about 8:00 until about 11:00 AM, and some will arrive
at about 8:00 and some may stay later, if there is enough interest. Some come
for just a while, but have to leave early because they have a "real" life. :D

I usually try to arrive by 8:00, and I am usually among the last to leave.
HTB opens for Breakfast at 8:00, and transitions to their Lunch menu at about 11:00.

Usually, we LEAF/EV-Gather on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month,
but that is often modified to fit the holidays or other events in the month.
Occasionally we have Local Clusters for special events (**) at different locations.

NOTE: Typically, we alternate between the Golden Corral in the City of Industry early in the month, and the Hometown Buffet in Santa Ana later in the month (see addresses below).

------ 97th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #97a: 8 Sep 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #97b: 22 Sep 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

=== Start of our 9th year of EV Gatherings ==
=== End of our 8th year of EV Gatherings ===

------ 96th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #96a: 4 Aug 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #96b: 18 Aug 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 95th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #95a: 7 Jul 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #95b: 21 Jul 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 94th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #94a: 2 Jun 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #94b: 23 Jun 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 93rd month Gatherings ------
Gathering #93a: 5 May 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #93b: 19 May 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 92nd month Gatherings ------
Gathering #92a: 7 Apr 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #92b: 21 Apr 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 91st month Gatherings ------
Gathering #91a: 10 Mar 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #91b: 24 Mar 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 90th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #90a: 10 Feb 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #90b: 24 Feb 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 89th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #89a: 6 Jan 2018 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #89b: 20 Jan 2018 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 88th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #88a: 2 Dec 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #88b: 16 Dec 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 87th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #87a: 4 Nov 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #87b: 18 Nov 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 86th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #86a: 7 Oct 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #86b: 21 Oct 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 85th month Gatherings ------
Special Tony Williams event Saturday 2 Sep 2017, see:
http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=22460&start=150#p501759
Gathering #85a: 9 Sep 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #85b: 23 Sep 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

Start of our 8th year of Gatherings

------ 84th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #84a: 5 Aug 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #84b: 19 Aug 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------------- Links to Previous Years -------------

----- Seventh Year of Gatherings ------
See our Seventh Year thread: http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=22460

----- Sixth Year of Gatherings ------
See our Sixth Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=20453

----- Fifth Year of Gatherings ------
See our Fifth Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=17823

----- Fourth Year of Gatherings ------
See our Fourth Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=14125

------ Third Year of Gatherings ------
See our Third Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=9695

------ Second Year of Gatherings ------
See our Second Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=5418

------ First Year of Gatherings ------
See our First Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1148

------------ Locations -------------

Golden Corral in City of Industry
17635 Castleton St 
City of Industry, CA 91748
Phone: (626) 839-8188

This GC is located just South of the 60 freeway, 4 miles West of the 57 freeway,
about half way between the S. Azusa Ave exit on the West and the Fullerton Rd
exit on the East.  They open at 7:30 for breakfast on Saturday.

From south Orange County, go North on I-5, then North on 57,
and then about 4 miles West on the 60 freeway.

Hometown Buffet on 17th in Santa Ana:
Located just 2 blocks East of I-5 on 17th street in Santa Ana
1008 EAST 17TH STREET
SANTA ANA, CA 92701
Phone: (714) 541-3020
Their "breakfast" hours are from 8:00 until 11:00 (when "lunch" begins").
I usually plan to arrive about 8:00, and stay until at least 11:00.

------------- Misc ------------------
As always, Suggestions Welcome
Thanks everyone for your support and help.
 
September 2017 starts our 8th year if EV Gatherings, typically twice a month ... so that those with busy schedules or a real life have a better chance to attend. The first post of the thread is updated with the suggested dates and locations for our Gatherings, and occasionally other special events.

Note this post about a special event on Saturday, September 2nd, 2017 in San Marcos, in the San Diego area. http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=22460&start=150#p501759

Thanks to all those caring folks who keep this group alive and interesting.
Branch Manager, Gary
 
Tony Williams' event in San Marcos on Saturday was quite successful. He had a food truck serving sliders, tacos, beer available, live band, raffles, etc. Many current and not so current participants in this thread and our EV breakfasts were there. On the drive down I-15 I found Chris Howell at the Temecula SC, on his way to the same event, with his young family in a beautiful platinum Model X. JeremyW, GregH, JeremyW, Phil Childs and his wife, Boomer and Mrs Boomer, were also there.

I had interesting discussion with JeremyW about the need for greatly expanded work place charging. He reports that the Honda facility where he works now has 60 L2 charging ports, which is very impressive. Work place charging is really needed especially by working folks living in condos or apartments, where home charging is difficult to arrange. Even if home charging is available, work place charging is valuable for plugin hybrids whose all-electric range is less than a long one-way commute. Charging in the middle of the day used to be frowned upon, but with the advent of the "Duck Curve," charging week-day mornings will actually help level out the grid load by consuming some of the mid-day solar generation.

Of course there are major issues of level-2 installation cost, businesses that operate out of leased space, concerns with how to pay for the electricity, etc. All of these should be solvable.

I suggest that EV advocates look for opportunities to engage with your local planning commission, urging them to push for installation of conduit for EV hook ups whenever parking lots are resurfaced, or new construction of condos or business buildings.
 
Trip report and photos from my Eclipse trip.

One Tesla surprise: While driving within CA at normal highway speeds, typically 5 mph > speed limit, I can usually match the car's prediction of charge % expected at destination. However, while driving in UT, ID, or NV, under same conditions, the predictions have been consistently too optimistic. In one case, where I started out the drive with 27% predicted at destination, several hours of driving later the expected margin had dropped to 17%, which was unnerving. I started hyper-mile-ing, driving 10 mph < speed limit, and this helped restore the margin. I gradually gained confidence that the margin would not continue to drop. I ended that drive with a margin of 22% which was comforting. My new rule of thumb is to charge until predicted margin at destination has risen to 25%.

The following link should take you to a gallery of 28 photos from my trip, including Zion NP, Capitol Reef NP, Escalante NP, Bryce NP, the Eclipse at Yellowstone Bear World near Rexburg and Idaho Falls ID, Twin Falls, a deer fawn at Lake Almanor CA, the solar farm that uses molten salt to store energy after dark at Tonopah NV, sand dunes at Death Valley NP, and Mt Whitney from my final motel at Lone Pine, CA.

https://tomnature.smugmug.com/frame...transition=fade&transitionSpeed=2&clickable=1
 
Wow. Gorgeous pics Tom!

Where was the Bighorn? Nice use of your long lens. I remember someone trying to point out a Bighorn sheep off in the distance and I stared and stared but couldn't make it out from the rock formation.

Looks like you also got a couple CMEs from the eclipse. Beautiful. Thanks for posting.
 
Glad you liked the pictures from my trip. The bighorn had just crossed the road that goes east through Zion NP to US 89, several miles east of the tunnel. First time I had ever seen one. No time to get the big lens.

The eclipse pictures were taken with a new Sigma 150mm to 600mm f5.6 to 6.3 lens with my Canon 60D. Sigma upgraded this model from 500mm to 600mm about a year ago.

I have discovered that a new SC location in Burbank went live on Sept 14 with 20 stalls.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/supercharger-burbank-mall-live-9-14-2017.93100/page-8

Construction of another SC has begun at San Clemente.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thr...ermit-found-construction-started.94352/page-3

At the breakfast this past Saturday Boomer had very interesting news about a new household energy storage product called iCAN, described here: http://pomcube.com. Only 3 kWh total, 2 kWh usable, but simple, just plug it into 120V outlet. Apparently available now, not like the Powerwall on "Elon time," for about $1K. In conjunction with the 120V off-grid outlet on my SMA solar inverter, this battery should be able to power my refrigerator and keep my cell phone charged through a major loss of grid power.
 
FYI two topics from recent news:
1. Improved Lidar

I see a need for improved radar for autonomous driving to obtain better range and range-rate data than cameras alone. Phased array radar with narrow beam and electronic steering is available in near one-chip packages.

Companies other than Tesla are using lots of Lidar instead. Resolution is great, but Elon cites the degradation of lidar in bad weather as a prime reason he does not like lidar, but another big reason is probably its current cost is too high for immediate deployment. That rules it out for Elon, but other companies with longer timelines can hope the costs drop. Current lidar uses mechanically swept mirrors that are inherently expensive. Current lidar also uses .9 micron near-infrared lasers, which have strict limitations on power to protect against eye damage. This power level is apparently too low for sufficient range for full highway speeds.

Below is report of new lidar operating at longer infrared wavelength at 1.55 microns for which the eye is not as sensitive, so it can operate at higher powers and hence longer range.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that...g/under-the-hood-of-luminars-long-reach-lidar

Several groups are working on small, slotted, phased-array optical arrays with flat solid-state panels,” says Killinger. Last year MIT’s Photonic Systems Group and DARPA described solid-state lidars fabricated on a 300-millimeter chip that they said could be mass produced for $10 each. Three companies announced forthcoming solid-state lidars earlier this year, with projected prices as low as $100.

2. Current and projected Lithium global supply, including maps

We’re Going to Need More Lithium
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...tery-future/&usg=AOvVaw2voSjv94mXPUtVjSPZuE3z

There’s plenty in the ground to meet the needs of an electric car future, but not enough mines.
Current major sources are Australia, hard rock, and Chile, evaporated brine. Small brine extraction in western Nevada, southwest of Tonopah NV.

http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/lithium-tesla-mine-nevada/

Pure Energy Minerals is trying to determine, and prove with its samples and testing, that the lithium brine in Clayton Valley is as high quality and in abundance as the small four-person team thinks it is. The company estimates that there are 816,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent underneath their land claims that stretch over 9,000 acres, or 14 square miles, of the basin.

global reserves of lithium carbonate equivalent—which is the amount that can be economically mined right now—is estimated to be about 75 million metric tons, according to the United States Geological Survey. The U.S. can only claim about 203,000 metric tons of those reserves right now.
 
LA Times story on GM plans to go electric in big way:
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-general-motors-electric-20171002-story.html

So I asked: how much of my trip to ID could Boomer reasonably replicate with his Bolt, using CCS during day and L2 over night at motels, plus some optional L2 at lunch, no use of RV park 14-50 (would need separate portable L2), at present time?

Plugshare now has some trip-planning facilities. He could easily get to Salt Lake City in two days:
one charge per segment, optional charges separate line:
Day 1:
1. his home in OC to Hesperia CA CCS
2. to Las Vegas NV - lots of CCS + Level 2 at restaurants for lunch, such as Tahiti Village, 180 miles.
Also optional L2 in Primm NV.
3. to St. George UT 160 miles, Best Western Plus Abbey Inn, L2 (I stayed here). Also CCS here.
Optional L2 stop at Mesquite NV casino (which I did for early dinner)

Day 2:
1. up I-15 (I went east through Zion) to CCS in Maverick CCS, 150 miles. This is key charge opportunity - nothing else nearby except RV parks. Unusual to see CCS outside major metropolitan areas.
optional detour to Zion NP, L2 at several motels in Sprindale, UT just outside Zion NP entrance. Ride free bus into park.
2. to Salt Lake City UT. Two CCS, one at Thanksgiving point Mall, 120 miles. Stay in Salt Lake City.

Day 3:
1. Beyond Salt Lake City I do NOT see a reasonable path to follow my route to Idaho Falls ID. Last CCS in Salt Lake City on north side of town is Ken Graff Nissan, 34 miles north of Thanksgiving Point.
Pocatello ID has no L2 at motels, only L2 at Nissan dealer or a computer store.
Idaho Falls ID similarly has 3 L2, none at motels, no CCS.

2. Best reasonable option is to leave I-15, go west from Ken Graff Nissan on I-84, stop for L2 at USU Brigham City, 58 miles.
3. on to Twin Falls ID, stay at Blue Lake Inn, ID which has L2, 170 miles. I stayed here, used its L2.

Day 4:
few options. Cannot follow my route into northern NV towards Reno, on I-80. No L2 or CCS short of Reno.
Boise has a dozen L2, but it all appears to be at car dealerships or public libraries, none at motels.
No good way to get to Reno from Boise.

End of this exercise.
 
More Supercharger progress for our area:

Riverside SC under construction, 22 stalls. It will be second closest to me.
SCs under construction Yermo, Lake Elsinore, and San Clemente.
Not so close, but notable for size: SCs just opened yesterday in both Kettelman City and Baker, both 40 stalls.
 
Hi gang.

Does anyone have a spare Tesla UMC with a 14-50 pigtail that I can borrow over the Christmas-New Years period.

We're making our first "long" trip up north to San Jose and beyond to Point Reyes over the holiday break in the Bolt EV. I bought one of Tony's Tesla-to-J1772 adapters that should work well with the UMC.

This would be just a safety net in case we have trouble with charging opportunities using the CCS DCFCs along Route 101.

Thanks.
 
I had Gary send me a photo to help us memorialize Heidi, his beloved dog, who just passed. He sent me this picture from her last day, with her on his lap.

2790.jpg
 
Boomer23 said:
Hi gang.

Does anyone have a spare Tesla UMC with a 14-50 pigtail that I can borrow over the Christmas-New Years period.

We're making our first "long" trip up north to San Jose and beyond to Point Reyes over the holiday break in the Bolt EV. I bought one of Tony's Tesla-to-J1772 adapters that should work well with the UMC.

This would be just a safety net in case we have trouble with charging opportunities using the CCS DCFCs along Route 101.

Thanks.
I am not real familiar with Tony's adapter, so I am confuses as to exactly what you want to do. The UMC goes from an outlet, such as 14-50, to Tesla. Tony's adapter allows you to plug Tesla HPWC into J1772 on your Bolt, right? Oh I see, you want to go from outlet through UMC into J1772, so you could get charge from RV park.
 
The news today, Tuesday Nov 21, is that some regular Tesla customers have been invited to configure and order their Model 3, with delivery estimates of 4 weeks. These are customers who currently own Teslas and who reserved on the first day.

So tbleakne, Garygid and others, did you get an email yet? If not, you may want to monitor your email carefully from here on out.
 
Yep, I received Invitation to Configure in my email a few hours ago. I also called Robert but he has not called back. He did not stand in line last March so his order in the queue is a little lower.

I selected the "hold my place in line" option, specifying that I wanted dual motor drive, and selecting a delivery date of July 2018 from a list.

I am somewhat troubled by the recent reports of :
1. Fit & finish flaws, but these reports are for cars at least partially hand-built, so they don't necessarily mean much.
2. Comment that the initial welding video Elon posted showed robotic progress but poor weld quality. Hopefully robotic assembly can be fine-tuned by next July. Bad welds would not be good.

There are recent reports https://electrek.co/2017/11/10/tesla-autopilot-data-gathering-effort-new-computer-vision-capability/ that Auto Pilot 2 is getting slowly better, with a major improvement coming "real soon" (Elon time). I have stated I will not get another Tesla unless it has hardware and software good enough for near autonomous highway driving for both city traffic and inter city driving.

I am also thinking an alternative choice to getting a Model 3 would be a late 2016 CPO MS 90 with AP 2 that I could get a year from now if AP 2 software was working well. Not sure what the price difference would be. For this choice I would probably give up the dual motor.
 
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