New free eTEC charger survey?? (ECOtality for SF Bay Area)

[Brian]

I just got the "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" message too.

Funny thing is is that I never filled out a survey on the dashboard.

Is it possible they're using the data that I entered when I signed up on the EV Project website?

 

[rclams]

I just got the "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" message too.

Dang, just got the bad news myself. :shock: (zipcode 94061)

BTW, I was never offered the eTec survey in my LEAF dashboard (although I completed it at the ECOtality website some time ago) and the "you don't meet the criteria" words were right above my old AV Assessment info.

Even though I punted on the AV EVSE months ago, I did have an electrician upgrade us to a 200 A panel and extend a 240v/40A dedicated line over 100' to my garage.

Could the eTec criteria have booted us because they thought I still needed that $4,000 of work?

Bummer.

 

[Ready2plugin]

I just got the "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" message too.

Dang, just got the bad news myself. :shock: (zipcode 94061)

BTW, I was never offered the eTec survey in my LEAF dashboard (although I completed it at the ECOtality website some time ago) and the "you don't meet the criteria" words were right above my old AV Assessment info.

Even though I punted on the AV EVSE months ago, I did have an electrician upgrade us to a 200 A panel and extend a 240v/40A dedicated line over 100' to my garage.

Could the eTec criteria have booted us because they thought I still needed that $4,000 of work?

Bummer.

I don't think that would have booted you from the program since they cap their cost at around $1,200 for installation. You would still be on the hook for the other $2800.

 

[DeaneG]

I don't meet the criteria either in Cupertino 95014. I'm "Month of March".

 

[ElectricVehicle]

My dashboard now says "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" Well, that is complete BS and here's why. I had a friend with a reservation change his address to my house on his order, as soon as he did his dashboard changed and the survey came up. He has April delivery and I have March. I'm going to bet they disqualified people that had earlier orders (need to confirm with other march order folks) or the assessment reason since he had a waiver pre-order. I'm really tired of Nissan lip service because they can't get their data right.

Did he also use the same response you used for all the other data / questions?

It's also possible that ECOTotality might be merging our survey responses with other data sources, like the Electric Utility based on your home address, etc. That doesn't seem to be the case here, but it's posssible there's data sources used beyond what we submit in the survey. It does seem likely that they merge our survey response with some of our Nissan LEAF order data. (Reserved, ordered, EVSE status, delivery date, etc...) Even when we go to the http://www.theevproject.com/ website, they might use our home address to look up our order in Nissan's order data.

I don't know what the dashboard survey collects since I didn't see it.

Here is the survey data collected on the http://www.theevproject.com/ website. "*" indicates required fields, of course.
Name*
Phone Number
E-mail*
Address
City
State
Zip Code*

Select one of the following:
I would like to stay up to date on news about The EV Project, please add me to your electronic distribution list.
I am a consumer interested in purchasing a Nissan LEAF and having a charging station installed in my home.
I am a consumer interested in purchasing a GM Chevrolet Volt and having a charging station installed in my home.
I am a fleet owner/manager interested in purchasing a fleet of Nissan LEAFs and having charge infrastructure installed at my place of business.
I am a fleet owner/manager interested in purchasing a fleet of GM Chevrolet Volts and having charge infrastructure installed at my place of business.
I am a business owner who would like to have a charging station installed at my place of business.
I represent a government entity, utility or organization interested in becoming a Project partner or participant.

> Selecting:
I am a consumer interested in purchasing a Nissan LEAF and having a charging station installed in my home.

> And clicking submit causes this question to appear

Would you like to provide us a little more information so that we can respond to your interest?

> Selecting Yes, and clicking submit goes to a page with these questions:

Please fill out the next few questions to help qualify you for the program.

Do you have a garage at your home? Yes / No
Can you park your car in your garage overnight? Yes / No
Please provide us the zip code of your place of employment.
(This information is used to calculate distance from your home to work.)
On average, how often do you drive to local restaurants, shopping malls, theaters, etc? Once per month / Once per week / Every few days
When was your home built?
Has it been remodeled in the last 15 years? Yes / No
Is your home air conditioned? Yes / No
Do you know what size electrical panel you have for your home? Yes / No
Address
City
State
Zip Code*

May we send information about The EV Project to the mailing address that you provided? Yes / No

You know, maybe they disqualified me because I know the size of my electrical panel!! Or the age of my house, even though I've already had my main panel replaced.

 

[planet4ever]

I also have the "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" message on my dashboard, added to (actually above) the the AV home assessment messages I've been seeing for the last six months. In my case zip code (95037) could well be a legitimate reason, since I'm 10 miles south of the southern edge of San Jose. I did fill in the survey on the ECOtality web page, and things there might also have eliminated me: low daily mileage, parking outside, not a commuter, older home.

Ah, well, I knew it was a long shot. Back to my SV and L1 plan.

Ray

 

[Glenn]

I had the AV assessment and qualified for the EVP about two months after I ordered.... I suggest you call / email the NorCal EVProject rep. I did that down here and it unstuck the logjam.

Unfortunately, Sparky, that doesn't work, at least not yet. I spoke with both Ecotality and Nissan's ever-helpful CS today and came away actually more impressed with Nissan! Ecotality, by their own admission, doesn't have an EV Project rep for the Bay Area yet, even though the parent company's headquarters are in San Francisco. They have no idea when that may happen, and "suggested" I direct all my questions to Nissan.

Hilary, at Nissan CS, seemed to actually know what she was talking about, even if she was reading from a script. She noted that Ecotality was running the EV Project, with government funding, on their own with little input from Nissan. In other areas where the Project is up and running, when Ecotality notifies a customer that they've been selected for the project, they also notify Nissan who in turn updates the customer's dashboard.

So I have no idea where all these "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" messages are actually being generated, but it's my feeling that it's not coming from Nissan, and Ecotality is not being responsive at this point. I'm sure they're hustling to catch up and that patience would be highly recommended on all our parts, but that's a hard sell to those of us scrambling to get EVSEs in place before April, especially if we'd *really* like some financial assistance from the EV Project.

Breathe, breathe...

Glenn

 

[planet4ever]

So I have no idea where all these "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" messages are actually being generated, but it's my feeling that it's not coming from Nissan, and Ecotality is not being responsive at this point.

Hmm, maybe they're coming from AV, in a final desperate attempt to get us to accept their quote.

Nah, that's just another conspiracy theory.

Ray

 

[LakeLeaf]

I don't meet the criteria either in Cupertino 95014. I'm "Month of March".

I just can't understand why Tahoe doesn't meet the criteria either. Most folks here just say they live in the East Bay Area

 

[EVDRIVER]

My dashboard now says "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger" Well, that is complete BS and here's why. I had a friend with a reservation change his address to my house on his order, as soon as he did his dashboard changed and the survey came up. He has April delivery and I have March. I'm going to bet they disqualified people that had earlier orders (need to confirm with other march order folks) or the assessment reason since he had a waiver pre-order. I'm really tired of Nissan lip service because they can't get their data right.

Did he also use the same response you used for all the other data / questions?

It's also possible that ECOTotality might be merging our survey responses with other data sources, like the Electric Utility based on your home address, etc. That doesn't seem to be the case here, but it's posssible there's data sources used beyond what we submit in the survey. It does seem likely that they merge our survey response with some of our Nissan LEAF order data. (Reserved, ordered, EVSE status, delivery date, etc...) Even when we go to the http://www.theevproject.com/ website, they might use our home address to look up our order in Nissan's order data.

I don't know what the dashboard survey collects since I didn't see it.

Here is the survey data collected on the http://www.theevproject.com/ website. "*" indicates required fields, of course.
Name*
Phone Number
E-mail*
Address
City
State
Zip Code*

Select one of the following:
I would like to stay up to date on news about The EV Project, please add me to your electronic distribution list.
I am a consumer interested in purchasing a Nissan LEAF and having a charging station installed in my home.
I am a consumer interested in purchasing a GM Chevrolet Volt and having a charging station installed in my home.
I am a fleet owner/manager interested in purchasing a fleet of Nissan LEAFs and having charge infrastructure installed at my place of business.
I am a fleet owner/manager interested in purchasing a fleet of GM Chevrolet Volts and having charge infrastructure installed at my place of business.
I am a business owner who would like to have a charging station installed at my place of business.
I represent a government entity, utility or organization interested in becoming a Project partner or participant.

> Selecting:
I am a consumer interested in purchasing a Nissan LEAF and having a charging station installed in my home.

> And clicking submit causes this question to appear

Would you like to provide us a little more information so that we can respond to your interest?

> Selecting Yes, and clicking submit goes to a page with these questions:

Please fill out the next few questions to help qualify you for the program.

Do you have a garage at your home? Yes / No
Can you park your car in your garage overnight? Yes / No
Please provide us the zip code of your place of employment.
(This information is used to calculate distance from your home to work.)
On average, how often do you drive to local restaurants, shopping malls, theaters, etc? Once per month / Once per week / Every few days
When was your home built?
Has it been remodeled in the last 15 years? Yes / No
Is your home air conditioned? Yes / No
Do you know what size electrical panel you have for your home? Yes / No
Address
City
State
Zip Code*

May we send information about The EV Project to the mailing address that you provided? Yes / No

You know, maybe they disqualified me because I know the size of my electrical panel!! Or the age of my house, even though I've already had my main panel replaced.

Simply put. I got rejected before entering any anything at all, they all got the survey to complete. I could not do the survey and every other person in my zip code could. There is not cross data base merging, that is far outside Nissan's and ECOtality expertise. Nissan can't even manage a spread sheet or my phone number.

 

[ElectricVehicle]

Simply put. I got rejected before entering any anything at all, they all got the survey to complete. I could not do the survey and every other person in my zip code could. There is not cross data base merging, that is far outside Nissan's and ECOtality expertise. Nissan can't even manage a spread sheet or my phone number.

Now, now boys, be nice.... Remember your last call to the cable company, phone company, cell phoine company, or about your health insurance? The Nissan lines are pretty helpful, fairly well informed and their pretty good at telling you when they don't know something. Now Nissan should have partnered with Best Buy like Fird did or somebody besides AV, but they've been pretty good. At least when I call them, I find the people know something instead of automatically having to ask (scream) for supervisor. Besides this isn't about say an overbilling, service failure or whatever, this is about the opportunity to particiapate in data research for the rollout of EVs that can mean up to $3,000 in savings depending on your situation. ($700 for Quick Charge port, $1195 for Blink SMART EVSE, $1200 towards installation) Not too shabby if we get it, and if we don't, well that's disappointing but we're just where we started.

This is also still very early in the process even though our delivery dates are coming soon. By comparing notes here in the forums, we may get this figured out pretty quickly.

Course that doesn't mean I'm going to give up trying to get it until all reasonable avenues have been exhausted!

 

[EVDRIVER]

I just tested my exact address on other peoples account and the survey pops up for my address. On my account it says I don't qualify, funny because I do AND I don't. It appears March deliveries were skipped as they were too early. Anyone here have a March Delivery with a survey?

 

[rclams]

Anyone here have a March Delivery with a survey?

No survey with a "week of March 09, 2011" delivery.


Worse, my Dashboard says (in the Home Assessment Area, just above "AV Quote Ready" (which I declined; I also asked for a waiver, but that never was offered IIRC)) ... "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger".


Really?

SL with DC port ordered, 50 mile daily RT commute into the heart of Silicon Valley; garage; 200 amp panel with 240v, 40A circuit already run to garage ... :?:


rclams

 

[Spies]

It appears March deliveries were skipped as they were too early. Anyone here have a March Delivery with a survey?

March to early? I got the survey and filed it out. My dashboard currently shows

eTec application pending*

and I already have my Leaf :|

 

[EVDRIVER]

It appears March deliveries were skipped as they were too early. Anyone here have a March Delivery with a survey?

March to early? I got the survey and filed it out. My dashboard currently shows

eTec application pending*

and I already have my Leaf :|

Did you do a waiver before order?

 

[ElectricVehicle]

I just tested my exact address on other peoples account and the survey pops up for my address. On my account it says I don't qualify, funny because I do AND I don't. It appears March deliveries were skipped as they were too early. Anyone here have a March Delivery with a survey?

VERY interesting!
You answered all the questions identically?
What's your distance to work and work ZIP Code?
Can you please post the list of survey questions from the dashboard?

Did you enter addresses you know are ineligible for EV Project to make sure they didn't pop up the survey?
Since it's integrated with the Nissan Dashboard, is it possible they ignore the entered address and use an address from Nissan for the order?

DashBoard shows: "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger"
Delivery date: April
ZIP Code: 95120

Maybe I should find someone to test my address in their dashboard?

Thanks for the information!

 

[ElectricVehicle]

This is a bit off thread, but is weighing into my decision as to whether to EVProject and get the Blink EVSE charger or not and SF Bay area ECOTotality EVProject Public Charging....

In the way back machine, 10 years ago, Public EV chargers were deployed by Edison EV and there were people you could call who would give you straight, no BS answers and not hide behind "Proprietary Data". CoulombTech is getting chargers installed. Each day that goes by with ECOTotality's opaqueness and lack of public chargers installed by them makes me think less of them. There are around 100 LEAFs on the US roads now, in a month it will be close to a 1000, and in 3 months, it will be 3,000 - 5,000. For mass consumer adoption and those who have range anxiety, the charging stations have to precede the purchase decision and the cars. After a few weeks with an electric, their range anxiety fades and the develop "Gas Anxiety", the dread of having to drive in a gasoline car with all the noise and refueling hassles. When was the last time you asked a date out to go to the gas station?

Ok, I digress, but I'd use the public charging on occasion if it was there. Monterey Bay Aquarium, Filoli Gardens, Half Moon Bay, San Francisco, the mall, Trader Joes, Costco, Whole Foods market, etc.

As early adopters and ambassadors, we will often answer questions from the public. When they ask where can I charge in public, what do you say? "Oh you can charge at Nissan Dealers and _TRUST_ ECOTotality will have thousands of public chargers in May at undisclosed locations."

Forward thinking would be a list of suggested sites for level 2, with a way to count how many people suggest that site, along with an indication from the coordinating organization of the likelihood of that site happening. Seeing the sites publicly is very important so we have a coordinated list of good sites that support mass adoption of EVs. Then when you have situations like 5 site suggestions within a block or say 1000 feet, you pick the most useful site of them and the public helps you do that by rating them. Some places you'd only put one site in, in others like multiple shopping mall complexes you might go for three or all 5 but you 3 chargers at each site instead of 10 at a single site.

ECOTotality's opaqueness and lack of deployed public chargers along with uncertain pricing for charging is not inspiring confidence. I guess I'm just recovery from what I learned in the other 45 page thread I just finished on EVProject so far. The Blink charger with it's 12W standby power, consumes 0.288 kWH/day - that's the equivalent energy to drive about a mile. In a home setting, that means the Blink charger is burning the energy equivalent to driving 365 miles a year, just standing by. Ironically, my commute to work has been as short as 3 miles round trip, so in that situation, 30% of the power used by the EV would be standby power for the Blink charger - that's HIGHLY atypical.

A more typical case of someone driving 30 miles a day would have 3% of the energy used wasted by the Blink on standby. (roughly 1 / 30 miles for standby or 288 Wh / 30 miles * 300 Wh/mi = 288 Wh / 9000 Wh = 0.033 = 3%) Definitely need Blink residential V2, with an average standby power of 1W or less. No point in squandering the efficiency and lower emissions of an Electric Car on a charger with excessive standby power. Mind you, to put this in perspective, the cable TV box uses 35W (at least mine does measured with a Kill-A-Watt) whether it's power on or off! But you expect that from the cable company. For an electric car, we expect a higher standard than the cable company for energy efficiency and emissions reductions!

Apologies for going astray, but I've learned a lot about the EV Project and the Blink charger from reading these forums and other sources in the last 24 hours. And this is where my thoughts over that time took me...

 

[ElectricVehicle]

No survey with a "week of March 09, 2011" delivery.

Worse, my Dashboard says (in the Home Assessment Area, just above "AV Quote Ready" (which I declined; I also asked for a waiver, but that never was offered IIRC)) ... "you don't meet the criteria for the free eTec home charger".

Really?
SL with DC port ordered, 50 mile daily RT commute into the heart of Silicon Valley; garage; 200 amp panel with 240v, 40A circuit already run to garage ... :?:

Spot on! It's hard to believe they are filling their stated mission to BAAQMD, DOE, etc. without providing the reasons for legitimate ineligibilities. Looks a lot more like sloppy data collection and sloppy interpretation with no accountability. We should at least be able to make sure that the eligibility decision is based on ACCURATE, verified data. Or all the press announcments should say "We are randomly and arbitrarily picking study participants." With a sub text of "...our selection process is based on a data set that contains a significant percentage of unverified, uncorrectable data."

Maybe they are thinking, "We (ECOTotality) are not prepared to install any EVSE (chargers) before May, so we won't include anyone before that time. And so we should not include anyone whose delivery we might delay."

But in my case and probably a few others, 120V charging is fine for a while, since in the 12 hours or so over night, you'll get around 60 miles range, and most people drive less on average than 40 miles a day and some people drive much less. So 120V is perfectly reasonable for some people for a few months while waiting for ECOTotality to get prepared for installation. But we have no way to find out if that's the issue and "Sign The Waiver" to overcome what is a minor issue or non-existent issue for some that may be blocking them from EVProject eligibilty, an opportunity to contribute data that they need subjects for not to mention a benefit of up to $3,000 depending on your situation.

In my case, I've already ordered my QC port, they think AV is going to install me, NOT!, and I have a trivial install of swapping out an existing RAV4 EV charger that is fully permitted and uses the identical circuit that can be used for the Blink. The install time would be less than an hour, so I'm a cheap subject - just the cost of the EVSE ($1199) and an easy install ($500 - $1200) - less than $2,400, maybe $1,700.

The install could be done in 30 minutes by trained personnel. Bolt new charger to wall, wire into existing junction box that is the right circuit 240V 40A, already permitted for an EV. They ight have to spend time getting a permit for the swap of an existing EV appliance, but when my new electric cooktop replaced my old one on the existing circuit the install charge was $100 from the appliance store and no new permit was needed - and that was harder than my EV charger install because he had to trim the tile slightly!

 

[Spies]

Did you do a waiver before order?

I am not exactly sure what you mean but Nissan did not have the waiver in place before I ordered so I signed up for AV, placed my order and then canceled AV. A couple days later the waiver was in place and I checked it.

 

[trentr]

I got a call from a lady at Nissan( private caller ID). She said that my application/survey is under review by eTec and will contact me in about 1-2 weeks. Also, since I got the survey it means that I'm in the zip code that is being considered for this project( makes sense). I asked that some folks got denied without taking the survey. She said the reason is because these folks have contacted AV or did an assessment with them. She said that the system will automatically deny them of the survey. Apparently, Nissan is going through one by one enabling the survey manually if you didn't deal with AV. She also said that they are going through the list and calling people one by one. I'm not sure if that list includes people who did not take the survey. I had to end the call.