Quick Charge L3 in LA, San Bernardino, Riverside Counties

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

tbleakne

Well-known member
Leaf Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2010
Messages
988
Location
Claremont, CA
Now that the L3 Eaton DC Quick Charge at the San Bernardino 7-11 is operational, this region deserves its own L3 thread.
Discussion of plans for other L3 DC QC installations in LA and SB are welcome here. There are multiple independent reports from reliable folks that another L3 DC QC is coming soon to AQMD in Diamond Bar.

The L3 at Mitsubishi HQ in Cypress, OC has its own thread:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=4841&p=177984#p177984

All folks who charge or plan to charge at:
7-11 DC QC
3993 N. Sierra Way
San Bernardino, CA

are invited to post here. Take the H-18 Waterman exit from I-210, drive N. 1.5 miles, turn left onto E. 40th street, and proceed W. .5 miles to the 7-11 on the SE corner of 40th st. and Sierra Way. The unit is unlocked and free for now, and the unit currently has no hardware to support collecting a fee. You might wish to thank Gill inside while you are charging.

Earlier discussion of the long delay in getting this site operational is posted at the following thread, which now can be dedicated to announcements of L2 charging in the same areas.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=7253&p=183295#p183295

Here are some photos from the Eaton repair day, Tuesday, March 20. The Eaton engineer in the blue shirt is Donovan Grey, who endured a long series of weather-connected flight delays from NC to Ontario. He left home at 7AM Eastern time and arrived ONT at about 9PM PDT.

After confirming the faults with my Leaf, he captured the fault code history:
IMG0814-M.jpg


After switching off the unit's dedicated breaker in the meter room, he opened up the unit and replaced a controller board:
IMG0815-M.jpg

IMG0818-M.jpg


The unit has 5 power drawers, each rated at 10kW.
You can see the surprisingly small input transformers, one per phase.
IMG0820-M.jpg

IMG0822-M.jpg


The repair required leaving the bottom drawer off-line for a total derated capacity of 40kW. Here you can see my Leaf charging near this rate. It started at about 44% SOC.
IMG0828-M.jpg


After returning from lunch, we found asharpleaf with his son charging their matched Leafs. They had been alerted by abasile whom I had called.
IMG0838-M.jpg
 
I am toying with the idea of trying this out tomorrow early morning, it is 67 miles for me, from my house to there. Figure even if there is a fault I can make it back to some L2 chargers and watch a movie or something.

-Matt
 
My wife QC'd in San Bernardino yesterday evening, her first time, guided by our older son who had watched tbleakne use the Mitsubishi QC. She started at 24% (according to the Gid-o-meter), went inside for a Slurpee treat for the kids, and the charger stopped at 75% (presumably the car's "80%"). Very nice!

Interestingly, she restarted, and got the SOC up to 85% before the charger stopped again. She restarted one last time, and the charger stopped at 86.4% (per the Gid-o-meter) with the car indicating 12 bars (?). After subsequently shopping in Redlands, she still had 79%, and made it home with 30% (!), ~10% more than I had expected. I'm wondering how accurate the reported gids (units of 80 stored watt-hours) actually were. Perhaps the car actually had closer to 100% upon final completion of the QC.
 
abasile said:
Interestingly, she restarted, and got the SOC up to 85% before the charger stopped again. She restarted one last time, and the charger stopped at 86.4% (per the Gid-o-meter) with the car indicating 12 bars (?). After subsequently shopping in Redlands, she still had 79%, and made it home with 30% (!), ~10% more than I had expected. I'm wondering how accurate the reported gids (units of 80 stored watt-hours) actually were. Perhaps the car actually had closer to 100% upon final completion of the QC.

We had the same thing on my car in Anaheim a few weeks ago. Quick charge stopped at about Gid 86% +/-2%, but the battery was full. I even plugged into 120v, and it wouldn't charge any more. It was full.

Don't get too wrapped around that 80 watt-hour figure. Just remember, Nissan told you the car goes 100 miles. That's not what you'll measure coming back out... closer to 73.

So, Gid count not so good for QC fill ups.
 
TonyWilliams said:
We had the same thing on my car in Anaheim a few weeks ago. Quick charge stopped at about Gid 86% +/-2%, but the battery was full. I even plugged into 120v, and it wouldn't charge any more. It was full.
That's good to know. I still find it interesting that the car indicated a full charge with only ~242 gids. Do you remember the SOC display on the Quick Charger showing a full 100%? (I don't think my wife checked for that.) Perhaps this is another reason to want to look at the SOC as reported by Ingineer's new device in addition to the gid count/%.
 
abasile said:
TonyWilliams said:
We had the same thing on my car in Anaheim a few weeks ago. Quick charge stopped at about Gid 86% +/-2%, but the battery was full. I even plugged into 120v, and it wouldn't charge any more. It was full.
That's good to know. I still find it interesting that the car indicated a full charge with only ~242 gids. Do you remember the SOC display on the Quick Charger showing a full 100%? (I don't think my wife checked for that.) Perhaps this is another reason to want to look at the SOC as reported by Ingineer's new device in addition to the gid count/%.

Yes, it was the same... I think 244. Gary was watching it. I don't have an SOC meter yet on the LEAFscan, and the reported value by the car to the DC charger that is displayed on the charger? Ya, don't recall exactly, but it was way higher than 86%.
 
Successful trip today, I ended up doing 170 miles today which was mainly freeways at 60-65mph in my Leaf. Started From Sunland with 100% charge to San Bernardino where we arrived at exactly the "low battery warning" after 69 miles, I could have gone slower and made it with more charge, but I had a lead foot :mrgreen: then we filled up to 11 of 12 bars with the quick charger, then 71 miles from San Bernardino to Helms Bakery in Los Angeles, where instead of getting the Level 2 charge we were hoping we found a BMW Active-E meet up, from there level 1 at a friends house for several hours then the 29 mile ride home via the 405 freeway.

The quicker charger was nice, thanks for the instructions write up in the cypress DC charger thread. We stopped in the 7-11 and got snacks while we waited. I did find that the quick charger would not charge the car if I had it turned on to see the gauges, it would let me turn the car on during the charge though. I'll post a couple pictures eventually.

Several of these in the LA area could really be a game changer for electric cars!

-Matt
 
There seems to be growing evidence that a QC, at least into the higher-third of "fullness", can (at least sometimes) get the car "confused", at least about its GID value.
 
It's great to see a functioning DC fast charger in Southern California that doesn't belong to Mitsubishi. :)

In all seriousness, a network of these will do far more for the adoption of the EV than putting 1,000 Level 2 chargers at malls, grocery stores and restaurants in the greater LA, Orange County, Inland Empire area. For people that have been driving cars for years or decades, the idea of a limited range EV is too restricting. The fact that they don't actually drive beyond the useful range of the vehicle is immaterial. The idea that they can "top off" their car in a few minutes is the psychological safety net that they need to even consider making the move to an EV. I am greatly looking forward to the result of the eVgo/NRG Energy settlement with California that will put 200 plus fast chargers in California from San Francisco to San Diego.
 
With this government "subsidy" to install these QCs, will this "utility" have almost a monopoly, or at least enough of a strangle-hold to make private competition very difficult?
 
garygid said:
With this government "subsidy" to install these QCs, will this "utility" have almost a monopoly, or at least enough of a strangle-hold to make private competition very difficult?

I would have thought the same about Ecotality with $100 million of you tax dollars. I don't think it'll end up that way.
 
I drove to this qc today. 69 miles with 2 bars left at arrival. Freeway all the way at 55 on cruise. Qc in use by ohm gurl silver leaf so I plugged in L2 and waited. Met Gill. Bought snacks there. Thanked him. Ohm gurl and spouse returned and we had good chat. Gill came out to thank us for using it. Handshakes all around. My experience: very good. I had 2 faults which I was able to resolve easily. Advice for others: nozzle insertion requires finesse. Read typed instructions paper clipped to inside of nozzle cabinet. Thanks to whoever did that. I hope they survive. If it was someone here, I'd really like a copy sent to me so I can keep it in the car in case the one there goes missing. Please pm me for email. This qc will make it possible for us to go to palm springs in the leaf.
Thanks again to Tom and Jeremy for getting it fixed.
 
I could not resist making a pilgrimage to the qc, though the trip pretty much did me in for the day! Seeing all the beautiful snow on the mountains made it worth the trip.
 
Kataphn said:
I could not resist making a pilgrimage to the qc, though the trip pretty much did me in for the day! Seeing all the beautiful snow on the mountains made it worth the trip.
It is soooo tempting! We could likely make the trip to Arrowhead to meet/visit Abasile by taking the SR138 back road to Cajon Junction and then coasting/regen'ing down I15 to the 7-11 for the QC. The return trip would be the trick, however, because even leaving the QC with 100% would be unlikely to get us 75 miles back home after clawing back up the Cajon grade. Now, if the McDonalds or next-door gas station at Cajon Junction at the top of the pass put in a QC, life would be great -- the return trip would be possible AND the extra 40-mile round-trip to the 7-11 QC would be unnecessary.
 
Well, with (fairly) new snow in the mountains and a new L3 QC at the base of the mountains, I couldn't help myself! Had a nice half day skiing at Snow Valley today and couldn't have made the 210 mile journey if not for the 40kW charger. As you've heard it was derated from 50kW to 40kW but for most situations this only means an extra few minutes as most of the charge time is after ramping down from full power. So here's how it went:

60 mile drive from Irvine at 62-64mph landed at the QC with about 20 miles on the rangeometer.. Todd Warden from the AQMD was there charging his Leaf and we talked while his car charged. I plugged my scantool into his car to watch the charge. I plugged into the L2 EVSE in the meantime. He said he was there yesterday as well and there were two other Leafs in front of him in line for the charger! He also said there were two more QCs being installed nearby.

At about 75% SOC the QC stopped on his car which seemed odd, but he offered me the QC and he moved to L2 for a while. At about 75% the QC stopped on my car as well! (about 220gids) At this point we tried swapping again and lo and behold the QC took off and kept going... When he got down to about 12A (1.5x L2 speed) he took off and I tried the QC again on my car. Again it worked fine and I watched it ramp all the way down to 4A at which point I switched to L2 where I got 8A for a while but then it too ramped down... I was pretty full even though only 264gids 11/12 bars (as others here have observed). Just as with L2 charging, the Leaf does not allow the pack voltage to exceed 394V (4.1v/cell) under the QC.

Drove 27 miles up to Snow Valley and landed with 95gids (~31% SOC) 2.1mi/kWh.
"Dan" the electrical guy at the ski area let me plug into 110v for an L1 charge while I went skiing.
Finished L1 charging after 4 hours with 152gids (~52% SOC). Driving down the mountain got as high as 184gids (64%) from regen! Capped at 8mi/kWh on this leg.

Plugged in again at the QC and without stopping (like in the morning) went straight from 59% to 89% where I stopped the charge and drove back to Irvine.

Other than the spring conditions on the slope, it was an excellent day and I'm thrilled at the prospect of having more of these quick chargers available to us.
 
Thanks to this QC, I just set a personal daily mileage record of 187 miles (the previous record being 172 miles), with an average efficiency of 5.2 miles/kWh. I had an appointment in Pasadena and plans for lunch with a colleague nearby, plus evening commitments up here in the mountains.

On the way out to Pasadena, my first stop was the Park and Ride lot in San Dimas, which has two new Clipper Creek units, neither of which were ICEd despite the lot being otherwise full. I was very impressed with the signage and the proximity to downtown San Dimas. While charging for under an hour, I walked/jogged 0.7 miles each way to the Lowe's store where I picked up a few needed supplies.

The next stop was our rental property in Pasadena, where I charged at 12 A / 240 V for three hours while taking care of business. Then I picked up my colleague for lunch, and let him drive the LEAF. After leaving his house later in the afternoon, I had 58% SOC.

With careful driving, I pulled up to the QC in San Bernardino just after getting a "low battery" warning. After charging to eleven full bars (the SOC/gid meter read 86.1% when I hit "stop", though the QC's display indicated almost 100% SOC), I drove up the mountain and made it home with about 35% SOC(gids).

We then charged to 41% at home before heading out for 30+ miles of shuttling around Lake Arrowhead, to two different places. This included a service at a different church that we've started to attend. The pastor was very kind when I informed him (after the fact) that we found an outlet and were doing 40 min. of L1 charging at church. He told us to take as much electricity as needed, and applauded us for setting a good example by driving electric. (A breath of fresh air.)

After some hypermiling, we made it home with 18%, just shy of another low battery warning.

Owing to the San Bernardino QC, I was able to accomplish all of my goals for the day using the LEAF, and really didn't have to do much waiting around. I made sure to purchase some goodies and thank the 7 Eleven cashier. Gil was not around.
 
HighDesertDriver said:
We could likely make the trip to Arrowhead to meet/visit Abasile by taking the SR138 back road to Cajon Junction and then coasting/regen'ing down I15 to the 7-11 for the QC. The return trip would be the trick, however, because even leaving the QC with 100% would be unlikely to get us 75 miles back home after clawing back up the Cajon grade. Now, if the McDonalds or next-door gas station at Cajon Junction at the top of the pass put in a QC, life would be great -- the return trip would be possible AND the extra 40-mile round-trip to the 7-11 QC would be unnecessary.
I live in Arrowbear, which is actually next to Running Springs and the top of the 330, and at 6100' is about 1000 feet higher than Lake Arrowhead. I tell people that we are on the way to Big Bear.

For you, I'd second the idea of taking the 138 to I-15 / I-215 / CA-210 to the QC, then CA-210 / CA-330 to my neck of the woods.

After charging to ~70% at my house, perhaps you might be able to make it home without further charging if you drive (gently, picking up regen) west through the mountains on CA-18, then down to Crestline on Lake Gregory Drive, then pick up CA-138 to Cajon Junction and onward. To play it safe, rather than using the QC on your way home, you could detour a bit and stop at the Nissan dealer in Victorville for some L2 charging.
 
Kataphn said:
Did you go up to snow valley via the 18 or the running springs way (330)? Great report!
Thanks, it was fun! I went back down to the 210 from the QC and drove up 330. Todd from AQMD implied there would be another QC even closer to the 330 put in by the same property owner as the current unit.
 
Back
Top