No Charge stations showing up

[DaveinOlyWA]

Nissan is relying on a 3rd party company to collect data from other 3rd party companies. Not always a smooth process.

Verizon is releasing the HTC Thunderbolt. Its first 4G tech phone today.
Yes this the same phone that was announced by best buy for sale by valentines day

 

[GeorgeParrott]

Fellow LEAF drivers,

I commend your efforts to individually and collectively map charging stations, but isn't that a CORE PART of what Nissan promoted with their advertising BEFORE we ordered our cars? Didn't NISSAN consistently indicate that "Carwings" would map charging stations for us?

I certainly believe that is what I expected FROM Nissan. I sure do not think we should have to do this individually and search out charge points personally. YIKES !

So, unless it is me that is hallucinating, I would urge ALL OF US to regularly harass NISSAN for their clear failure to provide the support for this vehicle that they advertised BEFORE we ordered and received our cars. I KNOW that I have been making calls to Nissan "LEAF customer service" at least every other week complaining about this and also about the total lack of currency in the GPS maps in the display (Our home neighborhood has been populated for at least 5 years in terms of streets and NONE of these streets are in the GPS display, so what other freeway changes, etc. that have been done in the last 4-5 years are also MISSING???? My last year TomTom handheld GPS has all these streets and our Chevy Volt also has all these streets mapped. I have also talked directly with the Navteq customer service, and THEIR maps are up to date, but they are telling me that "Nissan personalizes the supplied software and may be 18 months or more behind in formatting Navteq data for their systems.).

 

[EVNation]

My understanding from a Nissan rep is that this data is pulled from the Department of Energy database, which is months out of date in my experience. Could someone with a car in hand check whether the data matches what is on the DoE site?

Doron

NavTeq is the third party handling all the Nissan back end data. That is where you get things like nearby restaurants in the nav. It does seem they have been very slow to the party at getting charge data into their system. Nissan finally put me in direct contact with them as I have been pushing on this issue for a couple of years in the EV community.

Navteq has set up a mechanism to get data into their system now. I provided a fairly large dump of known charge point data to them to help seed their database. I expect that they will build on this with a mechanism to let others who locally know the situation edit and add to this list so it can be more up to date.

But if you, like me, expected that their would be someone at NavTeq or Nissan on top of this issue before this point, we were all mistaken. Nissan made plans for it in software and car design, but the data has been slow coming.

For now, there are several mobile device apps (including my own which have as up to date as possible info on this. Even though I have some skin in this game, I do hope that NavTeq does a good job from now on integrating the data. It will make for a better experience overall. I don't think it replaces mobile or web apps, since if you have used it, it is very hard to search or plan on the car Nav. But it is integrated to the directions well.

-Jeff

 

[EVNation]

Navteq has set up a mechanism to get data into their system now. I provided a fairly large dump of known charge point data to them to help seed their database. I expect that they will build on this with a mechanism to let others who locally know the situation edit and add to this list so it can be more up to date.

-Jeff

In case you want to get involved in adding data to your local area, you can contact Navteq about becoming a local community representative to help add locations to their database. They are setting up a new program for this. I don't know how they will want to handle updates from lots of people with possible cross posting. But if you want to look more into it, this is the website.

http://www.navteqlocations.com/

I will let you know that I am on this issue daily and am working with other database holders including EVChargerMaps, Electric.Carstations.com, and OpenChargeMap to make sure the data gets in there and is valid. It is in all our best interests to make the experience as good as possible for newcomers to EVs.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Not that I like it but I do a cept that microsoft does have a need to release thousands of updates the very day that a new Os is out on the market.

Joe e I find very very few products are ready when released.

They are either unknown issue revealed when released to the public or known issues that are not quite fixed on release.

Either way we have to keep in mind that few of us has given Nissan very little chance to fix it.

 

[garygid]

EVNation,
Thanks for all your good (and continuing) work.
One good, up-to-date database of almost all charge locations will be of GREAT usefulness.

Have you considered adding RV stores, service locations, and parks (with 120v and 240v sockets)?

 

[EVNation]

EVNation,
Thanks for all your good (and continuing) work.
One good, up-to-date database of almost all charge locations will be of GREAT usefulness.

Have you considered adding RV stores, service locations, and parks (with 120v and 240v sockets)?

We have talked a lot about public 120v. But as there are really so many of them with varying legality of public use, it has been something Tom of EVChargerMaps have so far avoided.

RV Parks with 240v and 14-50 connectors are in our data. But as they are not compatible out of the box with the Leaf, I don't think putting them in NavTeq makes sense. But I am open to other thoughts on the issue. In my app, you can just filter those in or out.

Level 1, 120v is usable though. I just wonder if it is really viable for public use due to the time required. But it certainly is worth thinking about.

My current focus is getting all the Level 2 (J1772) and Level 3 where they exist up and accurate.

There is also the issue of there does not currently seem to be a way in the Nav system to filter based on Level 1 or Level 2. So we need to think about that.

-Jeff

 

[ENIAC]

Level 1, 120v is usable though. I just wonder if it is really viable for public use due to the time required. But it certainly is worth thinking about.

I would certainly use a public 120V outlet, if they were available. I've just never seen one. L1 is better than nothing.

 

[DarkStar]

We have talked a lot about public 120v. But as there are really so many of them with varying legality of public use, it has been something Tom of EVChargerMaps have so far avoided.

This has always bugged me a bit, but that's because here in Portland we have dedicated electric vehicle charging stations that are ONLY 120v. No reason to demote them since you can still charge at them.

 

[planet4ever]

Level 1, 120v is usable though. I just wonder if it is really viable for public use due to the time required.

L1 is eminently viable in an airport parking garage, a public transportation park-and-ride lot, a wharf-side fishing boat parking area, an amusement park, a public park trail end, and many other similar places.

Ray

 

[EVNation]

Level 1, 120v is usable though. I just wonder if it is really viable for public use due to the time required.

L1 is eminently viable in an airport parking garage, a public transportation park-and-ride lot, a wharf-side fishing boat parking area, an amusement park, a public park trail end, and many other similar places.

Ray

Definitely, but it is a question of populating the car nav with hundreds to thousands of L1 charge points if the system doesn't give you a good way to filter. I personally would only extremely rarely ever find L1 useful at all other than somewhere like where you mention in very rare cases. I definitely support that stuff in the cases you mention. But having people put every random L1 socket they find in a parking lot at a mall is not that helpful and in fact could mislead people trying to plan a trip. L1 at lunch is just not really going to help you much.

But like I said, I am not set on my thinking on this and will continue to discuss it. Particularly when actual EVs out there find sites that are both legal and useful to them. I personally just want to put my effort at finding and reporting locations at L2+. There are many of those out there still we just don't know about and hundreds of more coming.

By all means, if you have these locations. Let all of us know about them though. I am not the boss of this stuff, it is just one guy's efforts.

Cheers.

 

[rdmoorecs]

I do not hear anyone else talking about this, but the real solution is On The Move Charging. Electrical pickups for this have been around for more than a hundred years (Think electric buses, trollys, and rail locomotives. First I would propose that EV and Hybrid vehicle manufactures agree on charging rates and a standard pickup assembly that could be bolted under or at the rear bumper of these vehicles. Second, build the infrastructure for road bed, overhead, or (I like this the best) guard rail mounted electrical feeds. I think that a right hand or dedicated toll lane (think rear view mirror mounted ID packs) would, once authenticated, deploy your vehicle pickup for an arbitrary number of miles of charging. So for an EV with a range of 100 miles for two cities, 200 miles apart, they would need one or two charging sections of roadway between these two destinations. No trailer, no gasoline. Any EV (or Hybrid who wants to save gas) could use this lane. An autopilot that takes control of your vehicle in the charging lane would be a nice touch. This is all old technology. Automakers always make more profit on options so they should love this. The bolt on pickup would only have electrical connections, electronic connections to the cars computer and some pivot points and/or an electric or hydraulic cylinder to deploy and the rest is electronics with a couple of replaceable contact pads. A continuing source of income for the dealerships! Too poor to buy the pickup? The other side of the rail would be a great place to locate stationary plug in charging stations. But then what do I know? I am just an out of work engineer. Electric freight trucks are in the works. Up hill grades would be great locations for electrical power feeds for trucks. No interchangeable battery packs and no generators needed. Neat!

 

[NullPointer]

In case you want to get involved in adding data to your local area, you can contact Navteq about becoming a local community representative to help add locations to their database. They are setting up a new program for this. I don't know how they will want to handle updates from lots of people with possible cross posting. But if you want to look more into it, this is the website.

http://www.navteqlocations.com/

I will let you know that I am on this issue daily and am working with other database holders including EVChargerMaps, Electric.Carstations.com, and OpenChargeMap to make sure the data gets in there and is valid. It is in all our best interests to make the experience as good as possible for newcomers to EVs.

Thanks Jeff. I am in the DC Metro area and there are not many charging stations out here yet, but the data at carstations.com looks pretty accurate except for recent additions such as the Coulomb stations at 13th and Pennsylvania and the AeroVironment stations at Criswell Nissan Germantown. I didn't check OpenChargeMap, and EVChargerMaps has always seemed to focus almost exclusively on California. I'm more than happy to become a Navteq local community representative and/or add local stations to any of these other sites, but it seems quite silly to have to provide the same data to 4+ independent sites (not to mention DoE). Sorry to thread-crap if this issue of charger station data centralization has already been discussed elsewhere.

Regarding L1, my vote is to include L1 stations as long as they are publicly accessible next to a parking spot, and available for use by anybody without having to ask for authorization (i.e., don't include outlets on the side of the hardware store where you have to go in and ask for permission). There are Coulomb L1-only stations out here next to huge mega-malls which would seem to be convenient to shoppers with EVs. I am constantly on the lookout for such stations for my Vectrix, and a manufacturer-independent database of charging stations should include L1. Even if it is currently not possible to filter out L1 in the LEAF Nav system, hopefully this feature could be added in a software update.

-Doron

 

[garygid]

In your database you can have filters for 120v socket types (at least 3: 5-15, 5-20, and RV 120v) and 240v socket types (there might be RV and several other). Later, one could decide to enter those in the carwings database.

I presume that older charging station types (like large and small paddles, etc.) would/might not be in the CW database, even though they could/might be in yours.

 

[prberg]

Well I can report that unfortunately Carwings still does not have the charging stations in there yet. I tried to update tonight when I drove home and it found none. Pretty frustrating. I am willing to give Nissan a little bit of slack with the March 15th date because of the disaster back in Japan. Do we know how much of that Carwings programming happens back in Japan or if it happens all here in Tennessee?

Time for another call to customer service.

-Peter

 

[AndyH]

Fellow LEAF drivers,

I commend your efforts to individually and collectively map charging stations, but isn't that a CORE PART of what Nissan promoted with their advertising BEFORE we ordered our cars? Didn't NISSAN consistently indicate that "Carwings" would map charging stations for us?

I certainly believe that is what I expected FROM Nissan. I sure do not think we should have to do this individually and search out charge points personally. YIKES !

<snip>

The helping hand we need is on the end of our arms. Are you really suggesting that we can make life better by standing with our hands on our hips, tapping one foot, and holding out for a lolly pop like any other 3-year old? I hope not...

 

[EVNation]

Update on this. I spoke with Navteq and they are working out some kinks in the location editing and submission process. Hopefully once this gets sorted out, locations can be rolled out to the cars.

In the meantime... There are now over 150 J-1772 locations in EV Charger Finder for iPhone (and I am sure many on the other apps). I am trying to verify more of the Nissan dealers locations as well to add a lot more. If you know you nissan dealer has a station active that isn't on this list, PM me.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtpjYvmqsCJcdFVvVEZQZVh4bEVwbG90Y0JobE8ySlE&hl=en#gid=0

I hope to make sure all these points are in the Navteq database.

 

[prberg]

Another update. I tried to update my charging stations tonight and it actually worked this time! Looks like Nissan has entered the 'dealer' charging stations into carwings. I had about 8 charging stations show up when I tried to update 'near current location'. That is a good start. You are able to hit the plug icon and it will give you a little more info. Unfortunately the details don't seem to be too accurate. I pulled up the details for a dealership near my house and it said 'regular' charger (maybe that just means L2) but it said they only have 1 outlet (but I know they have 2 public ones available).

At least I have some base info in case I really need to charge up.

-Peter

 

[garygid]

Great News!

I will try seeing CARWINGS locations at the dealer when I pick up my LEAF early this evening.

 

[GeekEV]

Great News!

I will try seeing CARWINGS locations at the dealer when I pick up my LEAF early this evening.

Congrats and welcome to the club - at last!