Nissan To Install 500 More Quick Charge Stations

[kentuckyleaf]

Haven't seen any QC installs in Kentucky, almost no L2 outside of car dealerships. There are several Leafs on the road though, we see them all the time. I think installing QCs in Kentucky would sell more Leafs, since there is little L2 infrastructure. It sounds like you have chargers installed on top of chargers in California, what's the point of that?

 

[JeremyW]

It sounds like you have chargers installed on top of chargers in California, what's the point of that?

The PHEVs use the L2 a lot. Nothing attracts volts and PiPs more than free L2... :roll:

We could use more infrastructure, of both L2 and L3.

 

[lion]

1 QC in all of New York State, and it's in NYC of course. Really wish Nissan would allow us to submit locations, so they can at least see where the demand is.

 

[essaunders]

Could have used a CHADEMO in southern NH tonight. Instead of taking the LEAF out for a trip to dinner, my wife took the Prius. It is situations like this that make a volt or a Rex'd i3 look more attractive than a LEAF. But a real CHADEMO network would help nissan's case. Seriously, why isn't there one at every Nissan dealership (at least at every leaf-certified one...)

 

[NYLEAF]

1 QC in all of New York State, and it's in NYC of course. Really wish Nissan would allow us to submit locations, so they can at least see where the demand is.

Not that it matters, but we have 2 now in NY. One happens to be limited to 8.9kW for some reason (and it's signed for max. 10 minutes parking), but hey, it's still faster than Level 2. I'd love to see them outside of the city, I'm itching to take my Leaf upstate!

A line in an article on InsideEVs.com caught my eye today...

Nissan adds that it so far has installed 265 DC quick chargers in the US. The automaker hopes to have 600 installed by the end of March 2014.

Um, what? Where? This has to be some sort of typo or mistake. Chademo.com's last update (from June 5) states that there are 160 CHAdeMO stations in the USA. That's Blink, AV, Eaton, Fuji, Nissan, everyone! No way has Nissan installed 265.

And they want to have a total of 600 in less than a year from now? Even if you include the 160 or so that are currently installed by Blink and others, I'm really doubtful. They'd need to get most of their dealerships on-board this summer for that to happen.

 

[Publius]

1 QC in all of New York State, and it's in NYC of course. Really wish Nissan would allow us to submit locations, so they can at least see where the demand is.

My wife and I had to take our VW for a trip from Rochester to Buffalo and back again today, which makes me sad. Our LEAF would could have made it one way. It would be nice to have a QC between each city (on the thruway) but I understand that there are issues with the contracts. Is it unreasonable to wish for one QC at a dealer in each of the major cities in NY? The local Nissan dealers only sell SLs with QC here but we don't get any love when it comes to the QC stations. Oh well, maybe someday. Sorry for the rant.

 

[lion]

Well with the 6kWh charger, it only takes 4 hours to completely recharge the battery. There are 2 Chili's restaurants in Buffalo which offer free Level 2 charging @ 30A (brand new stations, same deal in Syracuse), so you could make it work if you can find something to do for 4 hours (or split the charging between multiple locations).

My car was actually on a dealer lot in Rochester, and had to be driven to Syracuse when I bought it, so distance wise, it's doable.

QCs on the thruway (or very close to the exits if we can't get around the 'monopoly') is definitely the way to go, and is something I'm trying to get going, but it's a slow process. Just need to get all the NYers together so it will be easier to convince dealers etc to install one (hence my ChargeNY effort).

 

[DaveEV]

Dropped my car off for it's annual service today and see that the Mossy Nissan Oceanside QC is up and operational. Talked to the manager, just went online late last week, it's available 24/7 (no FOB required) and is free of charge.

NICE!

Will test it when I pick up my car this afternoon.

 

[Nubo]

Haven't seen any QC installs in Kentucky, almost no L2 outside of car dealerships. There are several Leafs on the road though, we see them all the time. I think installing QCs in Kentucky would sell more Leafs, since there is little L2 infrastructure. It sounds like you have chargers installed on top of chargers in California, what's the point of that?

To be fair, CA does have the lion's share of electric vehicles on the road at this point. And even in CA, there are hot spots. A large number of chargers are in the SF bay area, which is probably the epicenter of EV adoption at this point. So on a cars-per-station basis it's probably not as lopsided as it might appear.

 

[Valdemar]

Dropped my car off for it's annual service today and see that the Mossy Nissan Oceanside QC is up and operational. Talked to the manager, just went only late last week, it's available 24/7 (no FOB required) and is free of charge.

NICE!

Will test it when I pick up my car this afternoon.

Great, just in time for my delayed Legoland trip!

 

[mwalsh]

Dropped my car off for it's annual service today and see that the Mossy Nissan Oceanside QC is up and operational. Talked to the manager, just went only late last week, it's available 24/7 (no FOB required) and is free of charge.

Ooh! Good to know!

 

[mwalsh]

BTW, AutoNation Nissan was a bit of a zoo yesterday, even more so than Tuesday. All the charging spots blocked again, with the dealer demo in an L2 spot; two customer LEAFs, one on L2 and the other on QC; and an old Sentra in the remaining QC spot (they really need EV Charging Only signage). And then, after I found the guy who ICE'd me out and convinced him we should trade parking spaces, a dude in an ICE Ford Focus got to the spot just seconds ahead of me and I had to (politely) honk at him and yell (as nicely as I could) that I needed the spot for charging. Fortunately he complied rather than giving me the finger, but it just as easily gone the other way.

Meanwhile, the customer LEAF that was already on the QC, but had obviously been done for some time (enough time for the charger to be back at it's default Welcome screen), remained in place for at least the 20 minutes total I was on-site. DON'T LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE AT QUICK CHARGERS FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME PEOPLE! :evil:

And while I was charging quite a queue started to form, with 2 LEAFs and an iMiev behind me. Fortunately, I only needed about 10 minutes to give me enough charge for the journey home, after my side trip to Santa Monica and back. But both LEAF owners behind me needed at least 30 minutes each. In fact, the guy right behind me hits up that dealership EVERY WORKDAY for his charge to get home, explaining that when he got his LEAF he was closer to home (Downtown LA) AND could trickle charge all day at a parking garage outlet. Now, unfortunately, he had to drive further and also had no facility for charging at their new site. He kept a fold-up bike on the back seat of his LEAF to ride back and forth to his office.

As for me...like I said, 10 minutes and I was out of there. Much easier than the ~2.5 hours I would have needed on L2.

I guess the bottom line is that is nice that Nissan is installing these. But we need more of them; need them to be accessible (no brainer, right), which means either keeping other vehicles out of those spots or putting the chargers in less desirable locations; and I think they probably need to charge at least something for using them, to keep the moochers away.

 

[Valdemar]

Both downtown LA and Tustin dealership chargers are preset to stop at 80%, which resulted with me leaving with 8 bars only. Anyone else experienced that? Is there a way to go higher with these units, possible by restarting the charge after it stopped at the preset limit?

 

[timhebb]

A line in an article on InsideEVs.com caught my eye today...

Nissan adds that it so far has installed 265 DC quick chargers in the US. The automaker hopes to have 600 installed by the end of March 2014.

Um, what? Where? This has to be some sort of typo or mistake. Chademo.com's last update (from June 5) states that there are 160 CHAdeMO stations in the USA. That's Blink, AV, Eaton, Fuji, Nissan, everyone! No way has Nissan installed 265.

And they want to have a total of 600 in less than a year from now? Even if you include the 160 or so that are currently installed by Blink and others, I'm really doubtful. They'd need to get most of their dealerships on-board this summer for that to happen.

The 265 number has also been quoted and a source at Nissan cited at "HybridCars.com" on June 25 (http://www.hybridcars.com/nissan-working-to-provide-chargers-for-its-leaf/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. An excerpt below:

Nissan has been essentially greasing the tracks for its all-electric Leaf by working with charging station providers across the country and as part of that effort, today it said it has installed 265 DC quick chargers out of 600 planned by March 31, 2014, the end of its fiscal year.

This news was relayed today by Brendan Jones, director, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, Nissan North America in a conference call held by the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA).

Someone with spare time could contact appropriate Nissan personnel to confirm or deny. The figure does seem higher than I would have expected at this point.

 

[edatoakrun]

[The 265 number has also been quoted and a source at Nissan cited at "HybridCars.com" on June 25 (http://www.hybridcars.com/nissan-working-to-provide-chargers-for-its-leaf/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. An excerpt below:

Nissan has been essentially greasing the tracks for its all-electric Leaf by working with charging station providers across the country and as part of that effort, today it said it has installed 265 DC quick chargers out of 600 planned by March 31, 2014, the end of its fiscal year.

This news was relayed today by Brendan Jones, director, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, Nissan North America in a conference call held by the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA).

Someone with spare time could contact appropriate Nissan personnel to confirm or deny. The figure does seem higher than I would have expected at this point.

Apparently a mistake by the writer summarizing the actual quotes below:

Jones said 265 quick chargers chargers “in ground today” is “a huge increase from where we were six months ago.”

The latest counts and maps linked at the thread:


CHAdeMO QCs 2608+? Japan 1677 Europe 759 USA 227?

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8938&start=80" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Makes ~265 a plausible count for ALL CHAdeMOs in the USA, IMO.

 

[JeremyW]

I guess the bottom line is that is nice that Nissan is installing these. But we need more of them; need them to be accessible (no brainer, right), which means either keeping other vehicles out of those spots or putting the chargers in less desirable locations; and I think they probably need to charge at least something for using them, to keep the moochers away.

Glendale Nissan sounds just like your story, two spots that can L2 or QC but overall even tighter. I came up to two Leaf's charging at L2 blocking the QC the other day. Management didn't seem to have a clue as to the importance of signage or perhaps the idea of moving the L2 to spaces that don't impact the QC. I'm like 2 for 5 on that place. :?

 

[TomT]

I believe, but am not sure, that the level it charges to is determined by your battery charge level when you commence charging...

Both downtown LA and Tustin dealership chargers are preset to stop at 80%, which resulted with me leaving with 8 bars only. Anyone else experienced that? Is there a way to go higher with these units, possible by restarting the charge after it stopped at the preset limit?

 

[Valdemar]

I believe, but am not sure, that the level it charges to is determined by your battery charge level when you commence charging...

Both downtown LA and Tustin dealership chargers are preset to stop at 80%, which resulted with me leaving with 8 bars only. Anyone else experienced that? Is there a way to go higher with these units, possible by restarting the charge after it stopped at the preset limit?

Well, before I plugged in the display of the charger said "available charge level: 80%" or something like that, so there may be a hard limit set on the charger side. Afaik what you say is true for Blink QC.

 

[TomT]

Interesting because when I used the Downtown Nissan unit three weeks ago right after my Program Update it let me go well above 80%... I started at something like 40%... BTW, it read about 8% higher than my SOC meter showed... It stopped at 90% which showed 82% on my meter.

Well, before I plugged in the display of the charger said "available charge level: 80%" or something like that, so there may be a hard limit set on the charger side. Afaik what you say is true for Blink QC.

 

[DaveEV]

I guess the bottom line is that is nice that Nissan is installing these. But we need more of them; need them to be accessible (no brainer, right), which means either keeping other vehicles out of those spots or putting the chargers in less desirable locations; and I think they probably need to charge at least something for using them, to keep the moochers away.

+1!!!