* Questions about Leaf

I have a few questions about the Leaf. Btw, I live in Fountain Valley, CA.
1. How much does it cost to install the 240 Volt Charger and who will do it? Do they have to check my house first and how much is that?
2. How much more do you paid in electricity each month and how many miles do you drive per month?
3. If I charge my car outside and some punks want to vandalize my car by unplugging the nozzle and throw in some water, dirt or sand into my car charge port, would that destroy my car.

theboxer5 said:

I have a few questions about the Leaf. Btw, I live in Fountain Valley, CA.
1. How much does it cost to install the 240 Volt Charger and who will do it? Do they have to check my house first and how much is that?
2. How much more do you paid in electricity each month and how many miles do you drive per month?
3. If I charge my car outside and some punks want to vandalize my car by unplugging the nozzle and throw in some water, dirt or sand into my car charge port, would that destroy my car.

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Come to our local LEAF Branch meetup in Santa Ana on 17th Street at the Hometown Buffet this Saturday morning and all will be explained. See this thread for details: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5418&start=190" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you can't make it, I'm sure that someone will answer your questions online. Check my blog linked below for some of the answers.

Here are some short answers to whet your appetite:

1. A few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, and it's an EVSE, or charging station, or charging dock, not a charger. The charger is in your car. There are a number of sources, and you do not have to get the $100 inspection that Nissan pushes. Quite a few people use only 120v charging at home, so their cost is zero.
2. Your electric bill will tell you what you pay per kWh (look at your highest tier), though you might be able to get a better rate. As a first estimate, assume 3 miles/kWh, wall to wheels. Some people do a lot better than that, some not that well.
3. No. Sand would be likely to prevent you from plugging back in but you could use a blast of air, or even spray the charging port with water, and flush the sand out. Problem solved.

Ray

We are on Southern California Edison's standard residential rate plan, nothing special, and no solar panels. Driving roughly 1000 miles per month, our highest summer monthly electric bill was no more than about $60. So far, our highest winter-season bill was $94. Here are the factors that affect our electric bill:

- I work from home most of the time, and my family is also home a lot.
- Most of our lighting is efficient LEDs, and we have Energy Star appliances.
- We are high up in the San Bernardino Mountains, with slightly different baseline allocations, probably a minor factor, though.
- No air conditioning use. We get lots of shade and don't need AC.
- Our home winter electricity use is higher, due to running a mixture of our forced air heater and our pellet stove to keep warm. The heat itself is not electric, but running the blower fans takes electrical energy.
- SCE's winter baseline allocations are lower than summer, meaning that on average, we pay more per kilowatt hour during the winter.

All in all, the LEAF is very cheap to drive. Not only is it cheap to "fuel", but at 7500 miles, the only maintenance it has needed has been a tire rotation.

theboxer5 said:

3. If I charge my car outside and some punks want to vandalize my car by unplugging the nozzle and throw in some water, dirt or sand into my car charge port, would that destroy my car.

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I've seen reports of people using a standard padlock to lock the piece of the charging "nozzle" (does that thing have a name?) that keeps it fastened to the charging port secure so it would not be possible to take the nozzle out. The 120V EVSE that comes with the car has such a feature, but the AeroVironment charger I got does not, so if you're talking about 240V charging at home, the AV unit will not provide this additional level of security (maybe some of the other brands do). I've also seen some posts that imply that at least some public charging stations have this feature, but I haven't actually seen a public charging station yet myself to confirm.

theboxer5 said:

I have a few questions about the Leaf. Btw, I live in Fountain Valley, CA.
1. How much does it cost to install the 240 Volt Charger and who will do it? Do they have to check my house first and how much is that?
2. How much more do you paid in electricity each month and how many miles do you drive per month?
3. If I charge my car outside and some punks want to vandalize my car by unplugging the nozzle and throw in some water, dirt or sand into my car charge port, would that destroy my car.

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1. If you have a electric dryer, the cheapest thing you can do is have the EVSE upgraded through http://evseupgrade.com/, for around $3-400. the price goes up from there depending on which charging station you want and how clean the install and how far you are going from your breaker box. It does not have to cost a lot, but it can if you are not savvy about finding a good electrician.

2. I pay about $35 a month for about 1300 miles or between 2.2 and 2.9 cents a mile to drive... I am saving a couple of thousand a year on fuel!

3. I would not plug a fowled EVSE into the car, but I don't think it would destroy the car.

GaslessInSeattle said:

1. If you have a electric dryer, the cheapest thing you can do is have the EVSE upgraded through http://evseupgrade.com/, for around $3-400. the price goes up from there depending on which charging station you want and how clean the install and how far you are going from your breaker box. It does not have to cost a lot, but it can if you are not savvy about finding a good electrician.

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If you don't have access to an electric dryer 240V outlet, you'll either have to hire an electrician to run a 240V line to your charging station (whether it be the upgraded evseupgrade.com device or not), OR, you can try to find out if there are 2 unloaded 120v outlets in your garage that are not GFCI protected and are out of phase. If so, you can have another option to buy a Quick220 box that plugs into both these outlets and converts them into a 240V outlet that you can plug your EVSE to. This way, you don't even have to run a dedicated 240V line.

Sent you a private message with my phone number.

What is the grey screw-on cap under the floor panel in the cargo area for? Appears to be for adding some kind of liquid. I skimmed the manual and didn't see anything about it, and there is no glyph or label on it.

It is a manual-release for the parking brake (which is electrically operated). There is a super capacitor under the hump that should power the brake a time or two if battery power is lost, but the manual release is the last resort backup...

There is a crank in the tool kit to "unwind" the tension on the rear drum parking brakes.

Yes, the rear has both disc and drum brakes!

Randy said:

It is a manual-release for the parking brake (which is electrically operated). There is a super capacitor under the hump that should power the brake a time or two if battery power is lost, but the manual release is the last resort backup...

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Wow are you sure? I will have to look again more closely, it looked like it had a little funnel shape and a strainer screen inside, like it was for adding a fluid.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Randy said:

It is a manual-release for the parking brake (which is electrically operated). There is a super capacitor under the hump that should power the brake a time or two if battery power is lost, but the manual release is the last resort backup...

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Wow are you sure? I will have to look again more closely, it looked like it had a little funnel shape and a strainer screen inside, like it was for adding a fluid.

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It's indeed for adding fluid - mine runs on the tears of the little children - no electricty required! Ever!