Philadelphia and Southeastern PA

[tps]

999 miles on my LEAF's odometer as I pulled into the parking garage at the office this morning. This is 3 weeks to the day after my LEAF was delivered with 9 miles on the odometer.

 

[EdmondLeaf]

999 miles on my LEAF's odometer as I pulled into the parking garage at the office this morning. This is 3 weeks to the day after my LEAF was delivered with 9 miles on the odometer.

679 days and my account open today for reservation

 

[tps]

999 miles on my LEAF's odometer as I pulled into the parking garage at the office this morning. This is 3 weeks to the day after my LEAF was delivered with 9 miles on the odometer.

679 days and my account open today for reservation

Reserve today and I bet you get to RAQ tomorrow! Don't waste any time; get in the head of the line for your area... That's what I did.

 

[jms]

679 days and my account open today for reservation

If you don't reserve today they may not have an allotment for you. That almost happened to me. I didn't see the email until later that night. My first dealer was out first thing in the morning. My second dealer still had a couple. By the end of day two they were also out.

999 miles on my LEAF's odometer as I pulled into the parking garage at the office this morning. This is 3 weeks to the day after my LEAF was delivered with 9 miles on the odometer.

I just turned 400 and that's week one. At 9pm it will be one week exactly by then I should have 430 miles on it.

 

[yeswaydude]

I picked up my LEAF last night!!! Hurray!!!!!

I drove it until almost midnight!

Unfortunately, I still only have the L1 (supplied) charging dock and I have a lot of driving to do today, so it's sitting at home in the driveway. :-(

It will just have to wait until tomorrow for its grand debut!

Still no word back from GE Energy on getting a WattStation with a longer (and possibly more brightly colored) cord.

I signed up for a ChargePoint card yesterday.

I've got lots of reading to do to find out about all of the intricacies of the car!

Oh! And I was happy to see in the Quick Start guide that the supplied L1 charging dock only requires a 15A circuit -- I had thought the assessment guy had told me that it required a 20A, and my electrician had only wired it as a 15A. I didn't want to deal with the charging dock in the rain last night, so I'll charge it tonight.

The display says it will take 3 hours on L1 to get back to the 80% level. The estimated miles go down quickly when you're running the heated seats and steering wheel and the defogger all at the same time!

 

[tps]

I picked up my LEAF last night!!! Hurray!!!!!

I drove it until almost midnight!

Unfortunately, I still only have the L1 (supplied) charging dock and I have a lot of driving to do today, so it's sitting at home in the driveway. :-(

It will just have to wait until tomorrow for its grand debut!

Still no word back from GE Energy on getting a WattStation with a longer (and possibly more brightly colored) cord.

I signed up for a ChargePoint card yesterday.

I've got lots of reading to do to find out about all of the intricacies of the car!

Oh! And I was happy to see in the Quick Start guide that the supplied L1 charging dock only requires a 15A circuit -- I had thought the assessment guy had told me that it required a 20A, and my electrician had only wired it as a 15A. I didn't want to deal with the charging dock in the rain last night, so I'll charge it tonight.

The display says it will take 3 hours on L1 to get back to the 80% level. The estimated miles go down quickly when you're running the heated seats and steering wheel and the defogger all at the same time!

Congrats on your LEAF. I've found that many ChargePoint owners charge about $3.00/hr for charging, great for an occasional hour to get you back home, but very expensive if you do it a lot. The other charging network in the area is SemaCharge, they tend to be at Simon Malls and Walgreens, but they may start popping up other places as part of 350green projects. A lot of them seem to be free for now.

The heated seats and steering wheel draw next to nothing, but the front defroster draws 2 - 4 KW (shows up on Climate Control)! The rear defroster draws a few hundred watts (shows up on Other Systems). For my daily routine, there is no problem running climate control and defroster continously, but if I'm making a longer drive I have to watch it.

BTW -- I did the floor-the-accelerator in the parking lot at the YMCA after-hours with one of the guys who works there. His reaction: "Damn, I want one!"

 

[yeswaydude]

Yeah, it really responds to mashing the accelerator peddle against the floor -- whether it's in ECO mode or not!

And thanks for that tip, TPS! I didn't realize there's a Walgreen's with a charger just one block away from where I volunteer in NE Philly. I could have driven the car today and left it there to charge while I was volunteering!?!

I've set a reminder to look for it tonight. I'll keep you posted.

 

[tps]

And thanks for that tip, TPS! I didn't realize there's a Walgreen's with a charger just one block away from where I volunteer in NE Philly. I could have driven the car today and left it there to charge while I was volunteering!?!

I scouted out that charger last night on the way home from work. It's in the Walgreen's parking lot at the corner of Red Lion and Bustleton, on the Bustleton side of the building 3rd space from the end of the building. 1 x J1772 30A, SemaCharge Network. Should be free and will work without a SemaCharge card, at least for now... It's now on my spreadsheet of known public charging spots on the area!

Now that you've got your car, is there anyone else in SE PA we're waiting on before we have the first LEAFers meet-up?

 

[yeswaydude]

I checked out that charger last night too!

I'll be up there for a few hours tomorrow, so I'll try it out.

I met the other LEAF buyer at my dealer on Wednesday evening. I'll keep him posted on the meet-up.

I tried charging my car last night, but I don't think it worked. The timer was set for 0:00 (which I assumed meant midnight), but the readings didn't seem to indicate that the battery contained any more juice this morning than what it did yesterday evening.

I turned on the climate control from my iPhone this morning as I was getting ready for work. The red "Charging" light was lit on the L1 charger when I went out and the 3rd blue light (nearest the driver side) was flashing on and off. When I unplugged the car, the climate control shut off.

So many new things to learn!!!

 

[tps]

I've been setting the charging timer with no begin time and 8:00AM ending time. It starts sometime in the middle of the night and usually finished around 7:30AM. This is using my Leviton L2 at the garage. I've only tried L1 a couple of times, using outlets I found near parking spaces at work. My recollection is that L1 charging ignored the charging time (at least the way I have it set).

Several times I've started the climate control remotely from my Android, usually before I get in the shower in the morning. 20 minutes later, when I go out to the car, it's nice and warm, and I see the charging indications you describe. I'd think L1 charging would lose a little ground when preheating the car, since the climate control uses about 4kW until the temperture comes to equilibrium, after that the L1 probably comes close to keeping up with the 1 to 2 kW required.

 

[yeswaydude]

Thanks for the info, tps!

 

[hellraiser79]

Just an FYI for you philadelphia, pa, and south jersey guys. I am a member of the EEVC (eastern electric vehicle club). We meet every month at the plymouth meeting whitemarsh highschool on germantown pike. We have been around since 1980 and currently have 80+ members. I am however the only one with a Leaf, so why dont some of you come to our next meeting? Its the second wednesday of every month at 7pm. So March 14th is our next meeting. My name is Ken, PM me if you need charging while you are there and ill let you know whats available. Meetings are officially 7-9pm but we usually hang out till 11 or so if you want to bs after the meeting.

 

[yeswaydude]

Thanks for the info, Ken! I'll try to make it.

I used the charger at the Wayne train station over the weekend -- had to talk to someone (in India?) to activate the station for me since I haven't received my RFID in the mail yet.

I tried to use the one at the Walgreen's in NE Philly (at Bustleton & Red Lion), but it was also locked and I didn't really have the time to bother with calling to get it activated. They sent me an e-mail saying my RFID should arrive within a week or so.

I lost ~50 "miles" on my 17-mile trip to work this morning, while at the same time growing 1 3/4 trees!?! The guess-o-meter is pretty much a waste of dash space, as it seems to be meant to induce range anxiety! Fortunately, it seems to be the opposite of an ICE car's gas gauge -- the "miles" seemingly tick by very slowly when it's near the bottom of its range.

I've got 175 miles after 4+ days of ownership! Not too bad, considering I had it on the charger for most of the day yesterday!

 

[tps]

I might be able to make it on the 14th, too. I'm heading out of town on the 15th, but unless I get busy at the last moment, I'll be there. I've got a modified Nissan/Panasonic EVSE and a bunch of adapters for various 240V outlets, in case it would help someone to get a charge.

Continuing to scout out charging locations, it appears we might need Blink cards as well as ChargePoint and SemaCharge; there's apparently a Blink charging point at PECO in Conshohocken...

 

[yeswaydude]

Both the CharePoint and the SemaConnect cards showed up in my mail yesterday.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to try the SemaConnect card at the Walgreen's in the Northeast last night. I'll see if I've got a few minutes to try it out when I'm up there on Wednesday evening -- in fact, I might need the extra juice to get home, as that will be my first attempt at my full 75+ mile driving loop!

 

[hellraiser79]

Of course , I just signed up for a sema card and a blink card to go along with my chargepoint card. Thanks guys! I didnt know about the Walgreens and KOP mall.
Our president will most likely be absent this meeting but there will still be lots of electric car talk and we were planning to watch Revenge of the Electric Car afterwards if most want to see it. Hope to see some of you there. I also have a modded EVSE ill bring in case someone needs it.
Ken

 

[yeswaydude]

I made lots of use of the Walgreen's at Bustleton and Red Lion over the weekend -- especially after I told the Navi system that I wanted to go home and it responded with a message that said, "I'm not sure you're going to make it"!?! So I had nice dinner at Benny the Bums across the street and caught enough charge to safely make it. And did I mention that the charger is currently free?!? I found lots of people -- including a couple of Philly's finest -- checking out the car while it was sitting there charging.

I spoke with Lishan Du (1-860-747-7364) at GE this morning, and she said she thought the GE Wattstation wallmount model was standard and did not offer a longer cord. I expressed my disappointment and asked her to contribute the idea of adding such an option. So, still no L2 charger at my house. I'll keep looking. And I still need to call AV again to give them some more grief and see if they'll sell me the charger for the $720 + $50 S&H.

So far, my biggest disappointment with the car is the driver's seat. Nissans in general and the test model had more comfortable seats with good lumbar support. The climate control heating is also lame. For 1000 watts, they could get a nice blow dryer that could start heating the cabin immediately. As it stands, it takes 3,000+ watts and 15 minutes to start producing any decent heat. Once it catches up, things are cozy. But it still requires 1,500 watts to maintain the temperature. Overall, that's pretty sad.

The timer did work last night with the trickle charger, so I'm not sure why it didn't work the first night. But I'll call that one resolved. And the car is really nice to drive: smooth & powerful. And it has an awesome turning radius that I think even beats my smart car! I love the bluetooth connectivity with my phone. I still need to learn the voice commands so that I can work through the levels more quickly.

Oh, and there was one other thing that scared the heck out of me. Did Nissan get their braking technology from Toyota? I've had a bad habit of watching the regenerative braking bubbles and then I look up to see that I need to stop immediately to keep from running into the car in front of me. Well, one time when this happened, I also happened to hit a pot hole just as I was trying to stop as quickly as possible. Well, the car freaked out and decided it didn't want to stop at all. I had a bunch of kids in the car and, fortunately, kept myself from screaming! And, fortunately, it caught up with itself and started braking in time to avoid hitting the car in front of me. I recall -- I think it was Steve Wozniak -- having the same complaint about the Toyota Prius when running over railroad tracks. Has anyone else been so unfortunate as to experience this same set of circumstances?

I've got almost 600 miles on the car, and it will be 2 weeks old tomorrow. I think I'm averaging about 60-65 miles per (full) charge, which is not the 100 I was hoping to get, but it wouldn't have been an issue at all if I'd had an L2 home charger. It will likely be an issue next weekend when I need to drive to Tabernacle, NJ, via Northeast Philadelphia. But, as the charger network expands, things like this should become less of an issue. So I don't think people's biggest complaint about electric cars is really much of an issue at all.

 

[tps]

Oh, and there was one other thing that scared the heck out of me. Did Nissan get their braking technology from Toyota? I've had a bad habit of watching the regenerative braking bubbles and then I look up to see that I need to stop immediately to keep from running into the car in front of me.

To optimize the regenerative braking, I watch the Ecometer. Since it's up in the eyebrow gauge set, you can watch it without taking your eyes off the road. Maybe not perfect, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the best compromise.

BTW -- doesn't look as if I'll be able to come to Plymouth Meeting tomorrow night... Maybe next month.

Still enjoying the hell out of getting to drive the LEAF everyday. What a blast!

Oh, one last thing: I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. I ended up driving to the office in the morning, home in the afternoon, then to the doctor, back to the office and the home. All on one charge, and I got home with 2 bars left! So I can say emphatically that the LEAF has plenty of range for my daily commute, more than 2X what's needed. Now with the warmer weather I think I might start charging to 80%.

 

[KillaWhat]

Picked up my Leaf yesterday.
Loughead Nissan in Swarthmore, PA

The owner ordered a Leaf for "stock" when I ordered mine, so, as of yesterday....
There is an unspoken-for white one for sale... Just sitting there.....

I waited 2 years for mine, but apparently YOU can just walk in and drive home in one.
Better hurry.
The thing was surrounded by lookie-Lou's .
The sun hit my black one today, and I'm thinking white might not be the worst idea.

I had a long talk with the guy.
Told him what a pain aeronvironment was to deal with, and he said he would order 3 chargers (EVSE's) to keep in stock for customers.

So, if you need a no hassle aeronvironment, there you go.

Did the whole New-Leaf drive.
Up the blue route at 75 ( guess-o-meter didn't like 75)
Stopped at the charger in Media, tested the Blink card, had some lunch...
Drove around aimlessly.

Went home and topped off; drove some more.
Put 100 miles on it.

 

[yeswaydude]

Congratulations, KillaWhat!!!

And thanks for the tip on the AV chargers!