Moving...with or without the LEAF?

[Darren]

Has anyone explored what happens if you move soon after buying/leasing a LEAF (<36months)? This seems to be much more complicated than with an ICE vehicle.

1) Charging. If you have a charger installed in your home, is it as simple as installing a 220v plug in the new location (provided the home can handle the other electrical requirements) and plugging in the charger? What happens if you are involved with Ecotality or some other federal program (Can you keep the hardware?)
2) Taxes and rebates. What happens with the federal $7500 (buy or lease)? What about state incentives (such as the $5000 CA)?
3) Range. If the range no longer works for some reason (lack of infrastructure, longer commute, etc). What is involved with selling the vehicle or getting out of the lease before the end of the 36 months? Is this basically like any other ICE vehicle?
4) Any other issues people can think of.

Thanks.

 

[Boomer23]

Has anyone explored what happens if you move soon after buying/leasing a LEAF (<36months)? This seems to be much more complicated than with an ICE vehicle.

1) Charging. If you have a charger installed in your home, is it as simple as installing a 220v plug in the new location (provided the home can handle the other electrical requirements) and plugging in the charger? What happens if you are involved with Ecotality or some other federal program (Can you keep the hardware?)
2) Taxes and rebates. What happens with the federal $7500 (buy or lease)? What about state incentives (such as the $5000 CA)?
3) Range. If the range no longer works for some reason (lack of infrastructure, longer commute, etc). What is involved with selling the vehicle or getting out of the lease before the end of the 36 months? Is this basically like any other ICE vehicle?
4) Any other issues people can think of.

Thanks.

I'm sure that others will answer with more specific information than I can offer, but here are my off-the-cuff answers.

1) No, you can't just unplug the charging DOCK (it's not a "charger"). If you have a hard-wired EVSE such as Aerovironment, Blink, Clipper Creek, etc, they are hard wired to a circuit that's connected to your electrical panel. You'll need to have it disconnected, but you can take it with you. For the new location, if you have a hard wired EVSE, you'll need to have it connected to a 220V circuit at your new residence. If you have bought the "Ingineer" modification to your Nissan-supplied EVSE, that is portable and you'll just need a 220V circuit at your new house. For the AV Project (Ecotality), they won't allow you to move until the project is over. ( :lol: :lol: :lol: ). Seriously, you'd probably have to talk with them or read the fine print on your contract. Since you got free goods when you signed up, you might be liable for repayment if you opt out of the project.

2) The federal rebate won't be affected. For the CA rebate, I think that you need to keep the car registered in CA for 3 years after the purchase or lease. If you move it out of state, you'll owe a prorated amount of the rebate back to the CVRP in CA.

3) You can sell the car. Right now, there are apparently some anxious people willing to pay more than than MSRP. That may or may not be the case in the near future. For a lease, there is always the Lease Trader option. I guess it's up to the guy who buys out your lease, but he'd have to have someplace to plug the LEAF in, but that won't be your problem.

 

[Darren]

I'm sure that others will answer with more specific information than I can offer, but here are my off-the-cuff answers.

1) No, you can't just unplug the charging DOCK (it's not a "charger"). If you have a hard-wired EVSE such as Aerovironment, Blink, Clipper Creek, etc, they are hard wired to a circuit that's connected to your electrical panel. You'll need to have it disconnected, but you can take it with you. For the new location, if you have a hard wired EVSE, you'll need to have it connected to a 220V circuit at your new residence. If you have bought the "Ingineer" modification to your Nissan-supplied EVSE, that is portable and you'll just need a 220V circuit at your new house. For the AV Project (Ecotality), they won't allow you to move until the project is over. ( :lol: :lol: :lol: ). Seriously, you'd probably have to talk with them or read the fine print on your contract. Since you got free goods when you signed up, you might be liable for repayment if you opt out of the project.

2) The federal rebate won't be affected. For the CA rebate, I think that you need to keep the car registered in CA for 3 years after the purchase or lease. If you move it out of state, you'll owe a prorated amount of the rebate back to the CVRP in CA.

3) You can sell the car. Right now, there are apparently some anxious people willing to pay more than than MSRP. That may or may not be the case in the near future. For a lease, there is always the Lease Trader option. I guess it's up to the guy who buys out your lease, but he'd have to have someplace to plug the LEAF in, but that won't be your problem.

From what I can tell the Ecotality Blink charger does plug into a standard 220v wall plug. I am not familiar with the "Ingineer" modification.

I believe you are correct about the CVRP being prorated although the only way I can figure out that they would want money back would be if you registered the car in another state and CA DMV notified CVRP that the vehicle was no longer registered in CA.

Thanks for the advice on Lease Trader.

 

[evnow]

1) Charging. If you have a charger installed in your home, is it as simple as installing a 220v plug in the new location (provided the home can handle the other electrical requirements) and plugging in the charger? What happens if you are involved with Ecotality or some other federal program (Can you keep the hardware?)

If you have a pluggable charger - all you need is a 220V plug. With ecotality you need to check with them as to whether you can take the evse with you - if they say no, you buy a different one.

2) Taxes and rebates. What happens with the federal $7500 (buy or lease)? What about state incentives (such as the $5000 CA)?

Nothing with 7.5K - but with 5K rebate, it is prorated.

3) Range. If the range no longer works for some reason (lack of infrastructure, longer commute, etc). What is involved with selling the vehicle or getting out of the lease before the end of the 36 months? Is this basically like any other ICE vehicle?

Yes - just like any other car. Except, you can probably sell for a profit. Ofcourse, you can always take this into consideration when you look for the house if you move.

4) Any other issues people can think of.

Cold. If you moving from CA to Minnesota, assume major range reduction in winter.

 

[JasonT]

Has anyone explored what happens if you move soon after buying/leasing a LEAF (<36months)? This seems to be much more complicated than with an ICE vehicle.
4) Any other issues people can think of.

Someone else here may have more details on this, but you could run into service issues depending on where you are moving to. If you move to a state that is not yet slated to sell Leafs, the service centers there might not have all the equipement and training needed for taking care of your Leaf.

 

[palmermd]

Here is somebody who moved days after taking possession of their car. Moved to a non intital-rollout state.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2291&start=0

 

[driveleaf]

I did indeed move to another state after buying my leaf.

I was a little anxious, since I had done all of my range and distance calculations on my So Cal home, and had no idea what I was getting into in Florida, since it's not a roll out state.

A couple of quick notes I've run into:

1. When I bought the new house, I made sure it was wired for 220v, and had appropriate capacity in the panel. I knew I was going to need it, so houses that wouldn't support the car werent' really an option.

2. I also looked for a house with the electrical panel in the garage, just to simplify the installation. Not mandatory, but man did it pay off in spades for install costs.

3. I called a local electrician, he looked at me a little funny, and then said "Yep, I can do that. And I can do that today for $250." He was hired, and did a nice job, within minutes of our moving in, not weeks or months.

4. Watch the permitting process. A city to the north of us refuses is to issue permits for the installation of chargers. I have no real information about why or how they are doing this, but apparently their afraid of us hippies and our electric cars moving in. It's worth a call to the local city to find out. Or even just call a local electrician. In our county, all permits are pulled by electricians as part of their work. They just file anything they do that modifies the house. I knew nothing about this when moving in. Seriously, CALL A LOCAL ELECTRICIAN. It appears everywhere is completely different on this process.

5. Rebates - California will want their money back if you took it, and then took the vehicle out of the state. It's somewhere in their legalese. I didn't even both to file for it, since I knew they'd want it back, and I felt better about leaving it for one of you guys. Enjoy my ca$h. The federal tax incentive is just that. Federal. I have found nothing that says I can't have it if I move. Of course, I'm not giving you any sort of tax advice here.

6. Enjoy your new home. Seriously, the car does just fine without a ton of infrastructure. You quickly get used to odd moments where you are faced with a dirt road, unknown distances, and the perpetual search for 110 outlets because chargepoint hasn't deployed yet. But you also get to enjoy being waved down in parking lots, stop lights, and even your own driveway to answer questions about the fact that yes indeed, you are driving one of those electric cars. And when those chargers are deployed, it's fun to know you're the only one using them.

 

[Darren]

Thanks for all the insights. This is giving me a better perspective of what it would involve. I am not necessarily planning a move at this very moment but I am thinking that it may be a very real possibility within the next 3 years and was a bit surprised that there didn't seem to be much data out there about what happens it that scenario. People move all the time.

 

[Ingineer]

Some of the Blnk installations have 240V plugs (14-50), and some are hard wired.

If you have our EVSE upgrade, you can plug in right away using the 120V adapter, and then get an electrician to add you a NEMA L6-20 240V outlet at your convenience to get you back to level 2 charging. Almost all homes have electrical capacity enough to handle this 20A circuit, and it shouldn't cost much if your garage is near your service panel. You could also obtain an adapter that will connect to your electric dryer outlet (typically NEMA 10-30 or 14-30) and plug in without needing any electrical work.

Note that there hasn't been 220V anything in the US for the better part of a century! It's 240 volts!

(same for 110V; no such thing... it's 120V!)

-Phil

 

[planet4ever]

Gee, Phil, you forgot to add, "and it's not a charger, it's a charging plug."

(The charger is inside that hump behind the back seat.)

Ray

 

[Boomer23]

Gee, Phil, you forgot to add, "and it's not a charger, it's a charging plug."

(The charger is inside that hump behind the back seat.)

Ray

I already took care of that, Ray, in my first response to the OP. Pedantic, what does that mean? :lol:

 

[Kenneth]

I managed to get a waiver regarding the installation of a charging station so that I could then order the car. I therefore have only one way to charge and that will be L1. But after reading some of these comments I'm rather confused. Are you saying that there is available an adapter that allows one to plug into a standard dryer outlet and If one has a charger, say a Blink or whatever, that this would work? In other words a hard wired, elaborate, charging station is actually not necessary? Are there pluggable L2 chargers out there somewhere? My SV arrives in April. Ken

 

[davewill]

Yes, MNL's own Ingineer is selling a mod to the 120v EVSE the Leaf comes with. Here's the thread:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2707

and here's the website to order from:

http://evseupgrade.com

I'll be sending mine off as soon as I get it. It will charge at 12amps, 240v instead of 12amps 120v. So, it will take half the 120v charge time.

 

[Ingineer]

I managed to get a waiver regarding the installation of a charging station so that I could then order the car. I therefore have only one way to charge and that will be L1. But after reading some of these comments I'm rather confused. Are you saying that there is available an adapter that allows one to plug into a standard dryer outlet and If one has a charger, say a Blink or whatever, that this would work? In other words a hard wired, elaborate, charging station is actually not necessary? Are there pluggable L2 chargers out there somewhere? My SV arrives in April. Ken

Hi Ken,

Yes, you could send us the 120V (L1) Intelligent Charge Cord (EVSE) that comes with your Leaf when you get it. We can then upgrade it so it works on both 120V still (L1) and also 240V (L2). Then all you need is a minimum 15A 240V Outlet for charging at home on 240V. The ideal outlet to install is a NEMA L6-20 Twist-lock, which the upgraded EVSE will plug right into, or you can use an adapter for any other outlet type. For instance, if your house already has a 240V dryer plug, you can get an adapter for it that goes to a NEMA L6-20 and you are set.

A typical dryer outlet is usually a NEMA 10-30 or a 14-30 in newer homes.

Hope that Helps! If you are interested in the upgrade program, the website link is just below at the bottom of this post.

-Phil