OHIO - Cleveland - Northeastern Ohio / Midwest

jeffberk said:

I live in Aurora and work at Playhouse Square. Back when the Nissan Leaf first came available in this area I took one from Streetsboro (the dealer) to my house, to Playhouse Square and then almost back to Streetsboro with 20 degrees outside. My plan was to see if it could be used for my commute. Keeping in mind that the trip was a little longer than a normal commute and I had the sales lady and my son in the car for extra weight, we didn't have enough juice to make it back and ran out of KW's 2 miles short of the dealership. I tried "gassing" it up at a BP station but the Leaf kept tripping the breaker.

My question for all you NE OH leaf owners, is the Leaf a viable option for me? I installed a charger in my garage anticipating buying one and although I can go with a Chevy Volt, there's something about the Leaf that I like.
Jeff

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Welcome Jeff!

I think you'll find that most Leaf owners love their car (I do) but agree on the same thing (as Ari said) - it would be nicer if range was longer. I also have a 2012 and saw today that the 2014 is expected to get 11 more miles of range than the 2013. If you were to buy/lease one, I'd get a 2014 to be confident in the range.

To answer your questions from my personal experience:
Q1) I have rarely had problems charging but it has happened. The outlet has to be grounded or the car will not charge (ready light will flash on cable if not grounded). The car needs at least 10-15Amps to charge. If it is shared with something else, you'll most likely trip the circuit (sounds like what happened at gas station). I also carry an extension cord with me in case I need to reach a far outlet (as Ari said his friend does in California). I have also had trouble with chargers not working (in Cleveland and Columbus) but usually this information is posted on plugshare (see below).

Q2) I think you'll be completely set with the 240V charge at your house. I only use 120 and it works for me. If you got a Leaf, I think the 2013/2014 (not the S model) charge in 4 hours with 240V from a near-dead battery. You can look on plugshare.com to find all the chargers available to us in NEOhio. If all else fails, every Nissan dealer that I've visited in Ohio has at least one 240V charger to use. I have never had an issue with these.

Q3) As Ari said, you'll do better staying off the freeway. For me however, I use it almost daily. My daily commute is around 31 miles and I usually make it back with half of the range gone (so 60 miles would be max). That includes about 25 miles on the highway. The terrain that you are driving has a noticeable impact on the range as well. Driving to work on the highway (271N) is almost straight or slightly downhill resulting in very little range used (even at 65 MPH). On the way back, it's the opposite. You can plan around situations like this by taking surface streets on the way back (usually more efficient).

I would suggest that you find a dealer willing to let you borrow the car for a night (Ganley let me) and see how the drive is with a full charge from your house. That way you could be sure you and the Leaf would make a good fit.

Ask away if you have any other questions!

Shaka said:

We love our LEAF. It has just over 10k miles and goes in tomorrow for it's first free annual check-up. They test the battery, rotate tires, check brakes, etc. We have had ZERO issues in the first year of our car and would definitely get one again. Our #1 (and really "only" complaint) is the range. In the summer with the windows down and no HVAC we can easily get 75+ miles-- but it would be nice to get even more.

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Ari - Let us know how the visit goes today. How did you know to take your Leaf in? I've passed one year but haven't gone for a checkup besides the first one a few months after getting it.

Thanks!

da119 said:

Ari - Let us know how the visit goes today. How did you know to take your Leaf in? I've passed one year but haven't gone for a checkup besides the first one a few months after getting it.

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Picked the car up last night, but forgot to post about it here. Although we had purchased the car from Collection Nissan (they had the best deal and color we wanted), we live very near to Ganley Nissan in Mayfield so that is who did the work. They have done other work for me (software update, snow tire install) and I've been VERY happy. Noticed a blue Leaf when we dropped off ours, so that is a good sign other Leafs do get serviced there, too.

Our copy of the battery report showed 5-stars (perfect) for all of the various items they checked. They also did a courtesy vehicle inspection which equally showed all items as they should be. I knew it was time for a 1-year battery checkup simply because it was a new year (we picked our car up 12/28/2012, so the new year is an easy way to remember it has been just over 12mos for us). I did not get any "reminder" on the car for this (like we did back at 7500 miles for the cabin air filter, which I replaced myself for lowest possible cost).

Ciao! Ari

The closest dealer in Streetsboro will not let me try it overnight and Ganley Nissan in Mayfield doesn't stock any Leafs so there are none to even test drive. I did find one in Middleburg Hts. that will let me do an extended drive. I need to check the weather report to see when's a nice cold day to try it out.
jeff

jeffberk said:

No luck yet on finding a dealer to let me try it out. The closest dealer in Streetsboro will not let me try it overnight and Ganley Nissan in Mayfield doesn't stock any Leafs so there are none to even test drive.

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Jeff, Not knowing where you are in Aurora and such does leave this to some level of inaccuracy. However, Google Maps shows that taking surface roads from Aurora, OH to Playhouse Square would be 23 miles, and closer to 30 miles if you took the freeway. That makes the round trip journey 46 miles surface, and 60 miles freeway.

Given my experience in the extremely cold weather, 46 miles would be pushing it. However, in the summer time you would have no issues there. But 60 miles on the freeway might be taxing it close too. There are discussions here about how many of the kWh on our battery we can actually use, with figures ranging from 18 to 22 of the 24 kWh the battery is rated at in total. Our car is rated for 2.9 miles per kWh, but that is only 63 miles if you achieve that and get the full 22 kWh access. If you can only use 18 of them, that is only 52 miles. And again, this is all based on ideal temps, flat roads, constant speeds, etc.

But let me get back to the subject at hand. I do not personally think that your drive to work, round trip, is going to be feasible in the winter. In the summer, yes -- however that might be also close to the margin of error. For you to make the Leaf work I would urge you to have charge options that you could use either while at work (ideal) or on your way home (less ideal). Having to stop every day on the way home to charge seems like an annoyance, but perhaps that could work okay for you depending on your lifestyle.

You have options, but none of them are probably great. If you wanted to stop en route home each day, there is a McDonalds on Rockside Road that has a L2 charger. There is also the Bedford Nissan dealer. Closer to work, you have the best option at Baker Electric, at 7100 Euclid -- you could always drop your car there, charge during the day, and ride the bus a few stops to work. If it were me that is probably what I would do, but I'd also probably check with Baker to make sure they are okay with you leaving the car there all day even if it finishes charging. And worse yet, if the spots are taken when you get there, what will do you?

If you want to private message me I'm a huge EV fan and love my Nissan Leaf, so I'd be happy to chat you up on this matter to see what options there are. I don't work for Nissan, just like so many others here, LOVE the car. The more people who buy, the better infrastructure, the more EV charge stations and the easier these decisions can become in the future. Hope this helps! - Ari

Hi there - Just reading through this thread and thought I would introduce myself... another David...haha (Dave A). I live in Erie county (PA), but lived in Columbus for 14 yrs. Just got my 2013 Leaf SL @ Christmas break. Good to hear about the various charging stations in Cleveland area. I had also considered doing the trip to C-bus to visit friend and charging at the 'M's...Mentor, Medina, and Mansfield. Probably would only try in warmer weather, and better to meet in Cleveland area, tho.

Good to hear from local Lake Erie area snow belt EV adopters. I still rely on my 4x4 vehicles for the worse winter days here.

: Dave

Welcome new David and congratulations on your Leaf! So at last count that's three Davids who have Nissan Leafs and are on this page! My question for you new David is what is the charging situation like in Erie? What's the furthest you traveled West? Would you say it's possible to make the drive from Cleveland to Erie and then make it back with the current state of charging is? Thanks!

Ha! Do I need to change my name to fit in here?

Dave A ... if you do want to plan a trip to Cleveland there are a few good charing locations I could suggest for us to all meet over the summer. Beyond my home, there is the Walmart near my house that has 8 charging stations, four of which are near a non-existent (not yet built) parcel. Meaning it would be easy for us to all charge there. We could all meet for lunch there-- or even downtown in Uptown at the Cosntantinos also has 4 chargers which could also potentially be a good place to meet, and walk to MANY fun food spots....

I think a summer-2014 Nissan Leaf Cleveland Ohio gathering is in order!! We need to make it happen!

Hello Ari & David and thanks for the replies. Yeah, I sometimes miss the big city foodie scene, but not the traffic...haha.

Anyway, I think the Mentor Nissan charger and then the one around town, makes a Cleveland trip feasible for me. I am already on the west side of the county. The only public charge stations here are at the Nissan and the Mitsubishi dealers. I found that many Chevy dealers have them, but usually only inside their service shops.

The salesman brought the car in from Indiana, PA with two charges (one 80, one 100%), and ran down to dashes each time. Weather was 30-40s deg F.

I work for GE, but no chargers there that I know of yet. For me, even all the way across town, its ~30 mi round trip.

A future meet up in your area sounds good. Not so easy for me as my young kids take a lot of my time, but I would try to work it in. If we charged while we ate, still a feasible day trip.

Good to meet you guys...

Dave

Hello NEOhioans. Glad to see that there is a NEO group here on MNL. Just stopping by to check in... a family member in the western suburbs recently purchased a Leaf for his commute (about 40-45 miles roundtrip). Sounds like he has been using a good amount of range this past, cold week. Hopefully temperatures will start warming up a bit.

It seems like Nissan has been installing a lot of DC charging stations around the country... hopefully they will install some in OH/PA/MI in the near future.

772 said:

It seems like Nissan has been installing a lot of DC charging stations around the country... hopefully they will install some in OH/PA/MI in the near future.

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They need to, especially if they want to keep up with Tesla. If you follow them, Tesla recently installed a Supercharger station in Macedonia right near I-271 off Rt 82. And they also installed a station in central-PA. Making the drive from Ohio to Wash/DC is viable now in a Tesla -- but they had the range anyhow. Hopefully Nissan steps up soon! Though from what I have heard the fast charge adapter on the Leaf is not standardized enough for other auto makers, which explains the slow roll-out here.

Sort of... although Teslas are supposed to be getting CHAdeMO adapters soon, too. Even though they already have their own network. What other EVs that are on the market right now can use DC fast charging?

772 said:

Sort of... although Teslas are supposed to be getting CHAdeMO adapters soon, too. Even though they already have their own network. What other EVs that are on the market right now can use DC fast charging?

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According to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAdeMO#Vehicle_charging" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
.. pretty much only the Leaf.

Not sure if the MiEV is sold here? And if so, if it has fast charge option.

However, when you compare the number of Tesla on the roads versus the number of Leaf vehicles on the road, you'd expect a lot more CHAdeMO chargers than exist... sad....

Interesting... the Wikipedia page Ari referenced says it was developed with the Tokyo Elec. Power Co. and Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, and later joining the group...Toyota.

So far only Toyota/Scion seems to be the only one not making the QC port available on their vehicles.

Not sure how many are being sold in the States, but this seems to make Tesla and any other US makers (Ford, Chevy) using the SAE format the minority based on # of vehicles sold. Some stations will have both connectors available. Sounds like the next VHS / Beta war. ;-).

On something like this the US mfgrs really should have tried to standardize to the existing Japanese std...I imagine there is some underlying political issue with the connector H/W availability and cost. I wonder how different they really are when the car really just needs the power terminals ... the rest is just a matter of safety and convenience features.

Dave

Shaka said:

772 said:

Sort of... although Teslas are supposed to be getting CHAdeMO adapters soon, too. Even though they already have their own network. What other EVs that are on the market right now can use DC fast charging?

Click to expand...

According to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAdeMO#Vehicle_charging" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
.. pretty much only the Leaf.

Not sure if the MiEV is sold here? And if so, if it has fast charge option.

However, when you compare the number of Tesla on the roads versus the number of Leaf vehicles on the road, you'd expect a lot more CHAdeMO chargers than exist... sad....

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There are a lot more CHAdeMO than Tesla superchargers, but Tesla has done a better job of spacing them out. Very few people will realistically drive a Tesla cross country, and even less so a Leaf, but having an interconnected network is a big selling point. In NEO, if quick chargers were placed on routes to Pittsburgh, Columbus and Detroit, Nissan would sell a lot more Leafs. But dealers don't seem to be interested in paying for installs. When I went along for delivery, the dealer said they only sold 2 Leafs this year. It's really a chicken and egg problem IMO.

As for SAE vs. CHAdeMO, the way things are going I actually think the Tesla adapter will become the most popular one. They are so much more aggressive about installing their proprietary superchargers as well as destination chargers (HPWCs). By the time SAE starts getting its feet wet in installing charging station, Tesla and CHAdeMO will be way ahead. Why develop a new network from scratch when a compatible one already exists?

772 said:

There are a lot more CHAdeMO than Tesla superchargers, but Tesla has done a better job of spacing them out. Very few people will realistically drive a Tesla cross country, and even less so a Leaf, but having an interconnected network is a big selling point. In NEO, if quick chargers were placed on routes to Pittsburgh, Columbus and Detroit, Nissan would sell a lot more Leafs. But dealers don't seem to be interested in paying for installs. When I went along for delivery, the dealer said they only sold 2 Leafs this year. It's really a chicken and egg problem IMO.

As for SAE vs. CHAdeMO, the way things are going I actually think the Tesla adapter will become the most popular one. They are so much more aggressive about installing their proprietary superchargers as well as destination chargers (HPWCs). By the time SAE starts getting its feet wet in installing charging station, Tesla and CHAdeMO will be way ahead. Why develop a new network from scratch when a compatible one already exists?

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Just over a year ago I did research into the CHAdeMO chargers, finding most of them placed around larger cities. So I agree with you there-- it seems like there are plenty of them but only in dense populated areas. Seems a bit silly, but maybe not that much when you consider the largest per capita of them is in the general LA area-- where the EVs typically first go on sale. And having recently visited a friend with a Leaf who lives north of LA, and works in LA ... his car could benefit from quick charging if he wanted to go south of the city, say to Long Beach for example. Even regular 240v charging stations are far more common there than versus say where I live here in Cleveland. Oh-- I agree too that if Nissan (or anyone for that matter) installed CHAdeMO chargers and then advertised them in such a way that it connected Cleveland to Chicago, or Cinci, or Pitt.... yeah that would hugely benefit sales the way Tesla is using that even though many people wont use it. Sort of like Verizon covering the entire USA-- how often do people travel and need that kind of coverage? Sure business folks do, but still they market it to "everyone" because it helps sell phones.

To your second paragraph/point... I'm not sure I agree about the Tesla adapter becoming standard for two reasons. First of all, are they willing to sell off the rights for non-Tesla products? I doubt it... especially because they, like Apple, realize that their car carries prestige. They don't want their customers to brush elbows with common folk. That is why they use a proprietary connector in the first place, because like Apple, theirs is better. (I am a Mac, iPhone, Apple user FYI-- so this is NOT a slam). Second reason I don't think it will happen is because too many car manufacturers already started using the 240v SAE.... so for it to happen the SAE would have to accept the Tesla unit as the new standard. And that seems highly unlikely. For the moment if anything I think that the next SAE standard for EVs will allow either the current plug to be 480v fast/quick... or one that is larger but internall includes the old standard, making migration easier to quick charging. My personal bet is that the Tesla standard will remain just for Tesla, the same way of mini USB versus the Apple lightning connector... but hey, only time will tell.

All I care about right now (for the two remaining years of our lease) would be to see some more chargers in our area, 240v or otherwise....

I believe Ohio is the largest state, population wise, to not have a single CHAdeMO charging station. Nissan doesn't have the same incentive to install them there, since they don't earn CARB-ZEV credits for LEAF sales in Ohio as they do in other markets.

If Tesla stay true to their mission of mass EV adoption, I don't think they will have an issue with licensing out their charging network if it would mean more EV sales. But you are right, we will see what happens.

As for more chargers in this area, we ought to be installing a J1772 in our garage next week. I'll try to convince him to put it on plugshare... I think it would be one of the few (only) on the west side of town, aside from the Nissan dealers. Does anyone know of any other charging stations coming or rumored to be coming to NEO?

772 said:

If Tesla stay true to their mission of mass EV adoption, I don't think they will have an issue with licensing out their charging network if it would mean more EV sales. But you are right, we will see what happens.

As for more chargers in this area, we ought to be installing a J1772 in our garage next week. I'll try to convince him to put it on plugshare... I think it would be one of the few (only) on the west side of town, aside from the Nissan dealers. Does anyone know of any other charging stations coming or rumored to be coming to NEO?

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Our home is on PlugShare (listed under username "Shaka" over in Beachwood). I almost had a Tesla owner stop by once to use it, actually -- but he ended up using the Constantino's market location in Uptown.

As for more chargers, rumor had the zoo and two other locations-- check this article out:
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/01/cleveland_hopes_to_install_3_p.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

However, after that never came to fruition I talked to someone at NPR, who write this article (there is a fun audio clip that goes with it too)-- he came out to my house, and even included our (then 5 years old) daughter in the interview.
http://www.wksu.org/news/story/34306" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For now nothing has happened. I've reached out a few times to the Zoo but received just basic replies with vague details and no set date or goal in mind. The zoo for us would be great as we go there often and spend a few hours at a time. Hope the city adds some options soon!

The zoo is an ideal spot for destination charging. Is there a contact person you had over there? Would be happy to call or e-mail them.