The Super Storm and our LEAFing friends back East

[Boomer23]

Just spent the last 23 hours with no power. Leaf survived unharmed. The rest of the neighborhood, not exactly. I spent the night with the police scanner on, listening to the calls going out for rescues on the south shore of Long Island. The water was so high, the police couldn't get to any of them. I had to eventually turn it off because it became a bit too much to listen to.

My neighbor's garage....

Wow, just wow!

Glad you are okay, thanks for sharing.

 

[cwerdna]

NYLEAF, woah.

Since the boats made it to the houses, does that mean most/all of the houses pictured were flooded, including yours?

The national news earlier today was showing some pretty crazy stuff in the affected areas.

For those who haven't been watching the news, http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-after-landfall/100396/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has a lot of photos.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Wow, just wow!

+3 (additional + due to co-worker appreciation)

Glad everyone's doing ok.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

has anyone had troubles reaching out to people they know on the East Coast? looks like most in VA/DC are ok. one in Queens is Ok, has power did not lose anything but is stranded. he drives but most roads are blocked or closed. he is "telecommuting" because cant make it to work.

few others, no response today and no FB activity over the past couple days...so guessing they are in the dark at best

 

[NYLEAF]

NYLEAF, woah.

Since the boats made it to the houses, does that mean most/all of the houses pictured were flooded, including yours?

I'd assume those houses were flooded, yes. When I was there yesterday, there were still some people living in those homes, but I can't imagine they were too comfortable in there. I live about half a mile north of where most of the photos were taken, so thankfully my house was not flooded at all. Last year during Irene we flooded, but that was from rain water. This time around, it barely rained here. We are too high above sea level at 36 feet (don't laugh at me, all of you folks up in mountains) for the ocean to reach us except in a really bad storm.

Dave, cell phone service here is really bad right now. Most of the towers are still not working, so getting through to people is tough. It's slowly improving though.

 

[rumpole]

In the Washington DC area, several Leaf drivers, myself included, attached 1000W power inverters to our Leaf's, to use as emergency power supplies for vital appliances, like the fridge. I tested my setup before the storm came to make sure it worked on my full-size fridge, which surprisingly only uses about 2A. At that level of power, I could run it for up to 4 days. I didn't loose power for long, but another driver powered his fridge for about 12 hours. Following Ingineer's advice, and using 2 AWG 18" battery wires, I hooked up the inverter positive to 12V positive, the inverter negative to the DC/DC converter body, and the inverter chassis ground to the engine. It was on our local news. You can get the link at http://www.evadc.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . I'm going to brew a pot of coffee with it at our next club meeting.

 

[mwalsh]

As a car guy, this depressed me quite a lot - what I'm sure must have been a pretty nice 190SL.

I also caught view of another rag-top sports car in a TV segment, pushed sideways up against a garage door. Didn't get more than a glimpse of it, but it could have been a Triumph TR6.

 

[lemketron]

In the Washington DC area, several Leaf drivers, myself included, attached 1000W power inverters to our Leaf's, to use as emergency power supplies for vital appliances, like the fridge. I tested my setup before the storm came to make sure it worked on my full-size fridge, which surprisingly only uses about 2A. At that level of power, I could run it for up to 4 days. I didn't loose power for long, but another driver powered his fridge for about 12 hours. Following Ingineer's advice, and using 2 AWG 18" battery wires, I hooked up the inverter positive to 12V positive, the inverter negative to the DC/DC converter body, and the inverter chassis ground to the engine. It was on our local news. You can get the link at http://www.evadc.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . I'm going to brew a pot of coffee with it at our next club meeting.

There are other threads here on MNL that talk about hooking up an inverter to a LEAF but this sounds like a great project to write up for the MNL wiki. That Xantrax inverter is about $250 and I suspect a lot of people would love to pick one up for emergency use, provided we could document the hookup and usage instructions.

Is the idea here that you have to leave the LEAF "on" in order to keep the 12V battery charged? And if so, have you actually confirmed that it will run for four days supplying ~240 watts of AC? I thought Ingineer said (elsewhere) that the base draw of an "on" LEAF would be more than that meaning even if the inverter wasn't drawing anything, the LEAF battery probably wouldn't last four days...?

 

[rumpole]

In the Washington DC area, several Leaf drivers, myself included, attached 1000W power inverters to our Leaf's, to use as emergency power supplies for vital appliances, like the fridge. I tested my setup before the storm came to make sure it worked on my full-size fridge, which surprisingly only uses about 2A. At that level of power, I could run it for up to 4 days. I didn't loose power for long, but another driver powered his fridge for about 12 hours. Following Ingineer's advice, and using 2 AWG 18" battery wires, I hooked up the inverter positive to 12V positive, the inverter negative to the DC/DC converter body, and the inverter chassis ground to the engine. It was on our local news. You can get the link at http://www.evadc.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . I'm going to brew a pot of coffee with it at our next club meeting.

There are other threads here on MNL that talk about hooking up an inverter to a LEAF but this sounds like a great project to write up for the MNL wiki. That Xantrax inverter is about $250 and I suspect a lot of people would love to pick one up for emergency use, provided we could document the hookup and usage instructions.

Is the idea here that you have to leave the LEAF "on" in order to keep the 12V battery charged? And if so, have you actually confirmed that it will run for four days supplying ~240 watts of AC? I thought Ingineer said (elsewhere) that the base draw of an "on" LEAF would be more than that meaning even if the inverter wasn't drawing anything, the LEAF battery probably wouldn't last four days...?

From Ingineer: Unfortunately if you connect this way to the Leaf, there is a very high overhead cost, as you must leave the Leaf in "ready" mode. This means the most you will get out of the Leaf, even at small loads is only a few days. The DC-DC converter, and all the other overhead loads in the Leaf's systems will pull several hundred watts, let alone the idle draw of a sine-wave inverter. It's a shame there is no easy way to pull off the Leaf's pack without the car needing to be mostly powered up. (At least not without extensive modifications)

Also, be warned that pulling much more than 1.5 kW will begin to deplete the 12v battery rapidly, so this can only be done for short spurts.

Yes, you do have to have it "on", and in drive mode (with parking brake applied). i.e. pushing the on button twice without your foot on the brake will not cause the DC/DC to keep the 12V battery charged. The voltage on the battery slowly goes down... When in drive mode, the 12 V battery voltage is a rock-solid 13V.

We're using 1000W inverters, and the longest outage we've ever had, for Hurricane Isabell, I think, was about 4 days. It's nice to know as the storm is approaching that you have your inverter there, ready to go. We were off for about 3 days after the derecho in July? I wish I had had an inverter then, since it was about 85 every day. As it was, the Leaf served as our cooling refuge, since it's A/C is pretty efficient.

What I would like to see, with all due respect to Leaf-At-Home, which is a fine idea, is either a) an easy connection point for an external inverter, or b) an optional inverter built into the car. With the nav screen, you could display the current draw, have green, yellow and red lights to let the user know when they were stressing the battery, have a time remaining display, like a smart GOM, and other useful info, for John or Jane Q. Public, who may only know how to plug in their fridge, and can't really be bolting cables onto their battery terminals, or the DC/DC converter body.

Another sales angle to sell more cars

 

[surfingslovak]

What I would like to see, with all due respect to Leaf-At-Home, which is a fine idea, is either a) an easy connection point for an external inverter, or b) an optional inverter built into the car.

In case you missed the reference upthread, Leaf owners could presumably get the MiEV power Box, which can supply up to 1.5 kW through the CHAdeMO port. It would be nice if Nissan embraced this idea and distributed a Leaf-branded unit. It's an important use case for any EV, and we discussed the very same topic in the BMW owners forum as well.

 

[vrwl]

has anyone had troubles reaching out to people they know on the East Coast? looks like most in VA/DC are ok. one in Queens is Ok, has power did not lose anything but is stranded. he drives but most roads are blocked or closed. he is "telecommuting" because cant make it to work.

few others, no response today and no FB activity over the past couple days...so guessing they are in the dark at best

My in-laws are in NJ, about 20 min west of Newark. So although there wasn't any flooding, they did lose power. Was difficult trying to contact them via phone. Their house phone runs on electricity, and the cell phone lines were continually "circuits are busy". I eventually resorted to texting and that went through ok. Luckily, they got power back on late this afternoon. Even though they are quite a distance from the real devastation, there was quite a bit of tree damage in their area. Big trees across roads and things like that. But we're very thankful they don't live closer to the city.

 

[smkettner]

I keep hearing of fuel shortages and wondering if gasoline supply or electricity will be restored first. Of course gasoline needs electricity to move also.

Incredible pics, glad to hear you are OK.

 

[TonyWilliams]

What I would like to see, with all due respect to Leaf-At-Home, which is a fine idea, is either a) an easy connection point for an external inverter, or b) an optional inverter built into the car.

In case you missed the reference upthread, Leaf owners could presumably get the MiEV power Box, which can supply up to 1.5 kW through the CHAdeMO port. It would be nice if Nissan embraced this idea and started distributed a Leaf-branded unit. It's an important use case for any EV, and we discussed the very same topic in the BMW owners forum as well.

The Chademo port option is perfect. The car won't have to be on, which is a HUGE waste of power. 200w phantom load * 24 hours = almost 5kWh wasted of 21kWh available in a new, warm battery.

 

[surfingslovak]

The Chademo port option is perfect. The car won't have to be on, which is a HUGE waste of power. 200w phantom load * 24 hours = almost 5kWh wasted of 21kWh available in a new, warm battery.

Exactly. Or at least that's what I thought until I revisited this YouTube video. Apparently, the Power Box needs an auxiliary 12V power supply. I would hate to turn on the car for that, but if I remember correctly you can get away by pushing the start button once, which won't start all the dash instruments?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=653AhQUzcGg[/youtube]

 

[RegGuheert]

Exactly. Or at least that's what I thought until I revisited this YouTube video. Apparently, the Power Box needs an auxiliary 12V power supply. I would hate to turn on the car for that, but if I remember correctly you can get away by pushing the start button once, which won't start all the dash instruments?

Thanks for the video! Given the LEAF 12V battery is so small, you could plug that into a separate 12V battery for extended outages at home.

Just an update: As of this morning, our electricty provider shows no outages. So, in our area outside Washington, DC this storm caused fewer people to lose power and the longest outage was shorter than the derecho event on June 29.

 

[kmp647]

Im in Marshall Va and our power goes out a lot

we were out for 48 hours this past storm. My back up generator is gas powered and provides power to the whole house including my EVSE, after I plug the generator in and fire it up. I am using a device called a connection hub that is a safety between the grid and my house and the generator, works well. I have and did charge from the evse during the outage and noted no problems at all.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

I keep hearing of fuel shortages and wondering if gasoline supply or electricity will be restored first. Of course gasoline needs electricity to move also.

The situation in the NE is another reminder that one of the main ingredients in gasoline is electricity.

I gather that while there's a lot of people without power, there's also plenty who still have power but still have to sit in long lines to fight for a few gallons of gas. Most folks in that category are completely unaware they'd really be well served by an EV now.

 

[surfingslovak]

Here’s Why There’s No Gas In The Northeast

On this last point, we heard from a former oil analyst who added some details:
It requires electricity to run a refinery, open ports to offload barges, and electricity to pump gas. Major major infrastructure issue. Generators add to demand but they don't use up high-test. And yes you can't run a gas station without power.

And I thought that most of the electricity used by a refinery was produced from crude oil itself. Apparently, that's not the case.

 

[edatoakrun]

Here’s Why There’s No Gas In The Northeast

On this last point, we heard from a former oil analyst who added some details:
It requires electricity to run a refinery, open ports to offload barges, and electricity to pump gas. Major major infrastructure issue. Generators add to demand but they don't use up high-test. And yes you can't run a gas station without power.

And I thought that most of the electricity used by a refinery was produced from crude oil itself. Apparently, that's not the case.

Correct me if I am mistaken, but I believe most refineries have co-generation capability fueled by natural gas, but they are generally not designed to operate off-grid.

I think a lot of the current demand is "panic buying" by people who now want to top-off their tanks after the event.

Any gas or diesel generator operating off-grid as "back-up" power is also a horribly inefficient use of fuel.

IIRC, I believe my own 5 hp generator burns close to 1 gallon per hour, making it extremely impractical for long-term use.

You simply can't store gas long-term, safely and in quantities sufficient for long term home use.

In a few years, there should be partially capacity depleted used BEV batteries entering the market for emergency energy storage, which will be a real boon for those with emergency energy needs.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

The situation in the NE is another reminder that one of the main ingredients in gasoline is electricity.

I gather that while there's a lot of people without power, there's also plenty who still have power but still have to sit in long lines to fight for a few gallons of gas. Most folks in that category are completely unaware they'd really be well served by an EV now.

This is exactly what I'm hearing from my family. Escalating prices, long lines, many gas stations are pumped dry, others still don't have power to pump what gas they have. Fights have broken out to the point that police had to intervene.

In an attempt to get people thinking, I mentioned that there ARE alternatives available, but I just get condescending remarks about how "real cars burn gas". It's annoying when you read it on the news. It's infuriating when it's your own family.