Woosie said:
At the opposite end of the spectrum is Carson Nissan in SoCal, where, when I arrive at the L3 charger, they recognize and come out with the key to unlock that charger. There are four L2 chargers available to, free to Leaf owners and owners of other makes.
That is true with Dublin Nissan too. I have seen them welcome Leaf chargers on several other occasions. The trouble starts when an emergency charge situation co-incides with something seemingly more important to a dealer, like a new vehicle delivery.
The fault does not entirely lie with the dealer either. Nissan does not require them to provide such access, but they are free to use such speech as a marketing language at their desecration. Dealers want to be included in Carwings because they want people driving up to the dealerships (more for sales than service) & Nissan wants to show their dealership network as well as a place to readily get service for the vehicle.
The problem is this whole arrangement, as I said "results in the dealership network becoming an uninviting & unreliable" charging network.
Another thing, I discovered is that "Service" at Dublin Nissan knows little about these charging stations & seem to play no part in it. The stations are strictly owned & operated by "Sales". This tells me, these are strictly sales tools & not service tools. Again, this point could have been clearly explained at the time of purchase, that the EVSE stations are available for service to existing customers only when sales is not in need of them & if, as it seems is the case at all dealerships, there should be an option to turn off dealership stations on Carwings because they are really not emergency access points.
This whole thing doesn't have to be this complicated. If Nissan can assure that 1 or 2 EVSE charging stations will be available at each Leaf certified dealership with 24x7 access in Service for no more than 30 min. top up emergency charge for on road leaf cars & their in-use status will reflect in Carwings, that will make everyone's life easier.
Nissan can now transparently let the sales own their EVSE stations for marketing & delivery purposes.
Nissan can clearly tell its leaf owners that emergency charging access is assured at all dealerships 24x7, but is limited to 30 mins. of charging at a time.
Just as chargepoint & similar charging networks are able to manage all this so seamlessly, it can't be that difficult for Nissan who invented the entire Carwings telematics system for this car to be able to do it.
Else, Nissan can be clear & transparent about it that dealership network is not available for emergency charging - and that makes it clear to the owner from day one not to approach them.
They want people coming in & charge only if it is of any help to sales - it is not a service commitment - why can't they just clarify this upfront in simple terms. Why does every leaf owner have to go through a bad experience once to discover this simple fact.