NC Leaf Owners

They're trying, just waiting on the city to inspect them at this point. They said it should be done next week.

EdmondLeaf said:

Make them accessible now, which will generate Christmas traffic for the mall.

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I bet they would if they could, but it sounds like they are waiting for inspections and electrical contractors.

rnkepler said:

Yeah, I just asked him to do the same for me and told him we'd be going to North Hills instead of Crabtree for the time being because of them.

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I have nothing for or against either North Hills or Crabtree, but from my unofficial survey of the shopping centers in the area, Crabtree did also indicate that they are installing chargers "soon" (in 2012). So it sounds like they are at least moving in the right direction. They ought to at least be politely encouraged and thanked for doing so.

Great info (the Burlington sites will help)

BTW, aside to the mods - is there a way of combining this thread with the other North Carolina thead?

Why aren't there any charging options in Chapel Hill or Carrboro? Seems to me being the home of UNC that they would be leading the way.

I had my first opportunity charge at Whole Foods in North Raleigh yesterday. See my recent blog post for the full rundown. The net is that it worked out pretty well, despite having showed up to the 4 spots designated (and fairly well marked) as EV only were all ICEd.

A friend of mine who is now apparently on the lookout for charging stations for me told me that he spotted one at Optimist Park. I'll have to investigate that. Odd that it doesn't show up on any maps anywhere. If true, I wonder how many other "undiscovered" charging stations are out there?

I went on a charging station scavenger hunt yesterday with mixed results.

First I went to Optimist Park in North Raleigh to check out the alleged charging station there, and sure enough, a new GE ChargeStation was installed there recently (based on new cement poured at its base):



Here is another view of it:



It has two ports servicing 2 parking spots, and a 120V plug in the back of the unit. While this unit looks similar to the one at Whole Foods, this one had an RFID card reader and the instructions are different. It looked like you needed a card to make it work, but I plugged in anyway to see what would happen. As expected, it told me to wave my RFID card to validate the charging. I looked around the station for a web site or phone number of any information that would indicate who to contact to get such card, but no luck. After about 2-3 minutes, I got my phone out to take some pictures and it suddenly started charging! Maybe if you wait long enough it just starts, or perhaps someone was remotely monitoring the unit, detected a vehicle was plugged in and decided to override the card check and let me charge! This one had an LED display that showed how long I was charging and the kWh consumed. I charged for 8 minutes but the kWh stuck at 0.000kWh. I definitely did get some charge, so not sure what the deal there was.

The approximate address of this charging station is 5800 Whittier Dr, Raleigh, NC 27609 for those in the area (by the way, my car auto-updated the charging station once I unplugged--is CARWINGS sophisticated enough to have that uploaded to their server so everyone gets it or is it just on my car?)

After that I headed down to North Hills again to do a little more shopping and check on the progress there. There was someone working around the charging stations, but it looked like they might have been doing some landscaping work. They were not operational yet.

When I see this I can't believe - public charging stations!!!!. Now we have 5 Leaf in OK (still waiting for ordering) and have to count only on our home chargers. My employer still contemplating how much to charge for use of power, but it looks like I will be much better of using my own evse.

lpickup said:

... (by the way, my car auto-updated the charging station once I unplugged--is CARWINGS sophisticated enough to have that uploaded to their server so everyone gets it or is it just on my car?) ...

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It's just your car. Otherwise we'd all end up getting everybody's home EVSEs in our NAV systems.

I'm hoping the Whole Foods in Winston Salem and Greensboro installs an EV. Then I can make to Raleigh. Stop off in WS top off and grocery up. (my wife loves Whole Foods.) Top off Greensboro, More grocery's. Stop at the Burlington rest stop.top off. Then on to the Umstead Hotel in Cary and spend a day or 2. I called them 2 weeks ago and they do have a charger for guest only.
Hey you guys and ladies in Raleigh. come on up to the mountains, you should be able to make it to Boone, Blowing Rock. The Nissan store's in Boone and North Wilkesboro have charger's and there is a Whole Foods there. I will be checking on it. We drive up to Boone and Blowing Rock (ICE) and shop. I have 100% this morning and I thank its time for a trial run up the mountain.
35 miles and all uphill. 2300 ft to climb. Guess I could stop off in Deep Gap and top off at Doc Watson's.

Happy Leafing :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
9 Trees saved so far.
Mule

harryjpowell said:

Why aren't there any charging options in Chapel Hill or Carrboro? Seems to me being the home of UNC that they would be leading the way.

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Found a station here in Carrboro
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=aMO&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1526&bih=823&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=charging+stations+in+carrboro+nc&fb=1&gl=us&hq=charging+stations&hnear=0x89acd965f7016e75:0x1308afb599e6c145,Carrboro,+NC&ei=xCXzTqikIubl0QGo0PmVAg&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=image&ved=0CBEQtgM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mule

They must've removed whatever you were looking at. Your link only shows the usual charging stations around Raleigh, Durham and Cary.

A friend of mine who works for SAS let me know that the Umstead does have chargers, but the way he put it was this:

The Umstead has 2 level 1 charging stations for the general public.

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Now, maybe they have card-activated L2s for guests and the public can use only L1s, which is the likely scenario, but I would make sure in case you were going to count on an L2 being available.

My understanding is that the Umstead has 2 L1 chargers available for the general public, including SAS employees and guests. I believe they got them as part of a grant, so the general public can use them. There are no L2 stations there. From what I have been told, they should allow anyone to use them, not just registered hotel guests.

There are a couple on SAS Campus proper, but those are restricted to employees and visitors (you could meet your friend for lunch and charge while eating with him/her).

There is a new L2 charger at the McDonalds on Kildaire Farm Road, near Cary Parkway. It had just a L1 unit for the longest time (and the spot was never available when I drove by). Now it has a single L2 unit, with a well-marked space, and it has been free the last two Tuesdays (12/13, 12/20) when I have done some opportunity charging. The McDonald's chargers are on the Chargepoint network, but are free. I went ahead and paid for the $4.95 keyfob that let's me release the plug and connect my vehicle. Seems to work well.

I love my LEAF!

We made it from Raleigh to Winston Salem with a stop and charge at the Rest Area on I40 just past Burlington. The rest area is very nice and clean and ChargePoint network charger was free and worked great. Here are a few shots






These shots were on the West bound rest area and we charged at the East Bound rest area on the way back...Worked Great!

How long did you charge, before continuing on your trip?

The trip was mapped to 87 miles and our furthest 100% to turtle was 86.5. On the way out I was a bit loose with the speed and we tried a back road which looks like the stop lights and hills hurt us. Also our destination is a bit up hill from Raleigh (800 feet ish). It was looking tight on the way out so we stayed 58 minutes on the L2. GOM showed 45 and the remaining was 36 actual miles, I think we got the low batt at 8 and arrived with 4. On the way back we stayed all hwy but ran at 50 mph for quite a bit and only spent 30 minutes, 5 of it was for heat. Speed up toward Durham as we had the extra juice, ended with Low batt at 8 and parked with 6 miles on the GOM
Outside temp for both started around 35-37 and ended around 47-50 deg.

First time I've ever driven that slow on a hwy and it was kinda funny to watch people get upset .. lol.. but heck it was Christmas day so traffic was light

Here's a pic of the still wrapped up L2 chargers at Six Forks/North Hills Mall


Hopefully the signage will keep the ICE vehicles out of the spots. Anyone have a printed card to tell ICE drives politely not to park in EV spots?

Harry: Thanks for the poat on the trip to WS.
My trip to Boone, NC. Distance to Boone 35 miles,. 2300 ft climb. left home with 92 mile echo mode. Arrived there with 24 miles remaining. Plugged in at Nissan store and charged 240 v for 1 hr. charged to 47 miles. I arrived at the underpass Blueridge Parkway and 421 with 46 miles ( I had traveled 5.5 or 6 miles. From there it was all downhill for about 4 miles when I got to the bottom of the Mountain I had charged back to 72 miles. I arrived home with 35 miles.
Mule :shock:

I asked SouthPointe Mall's info desk where their chargers were. The person there said they USED to have one, but it was vandalized and so they took it down.

So I said I hoped they would get one soon again because they were being left behind and the rest of the malls in the triangle either had them or were getting them.

It made me wonder if other existing shopping mall/store charge stations across the country are often vandalized and if they could be designed to be more vandal-proof...if not, we're likely to see more of them get taken down over time....which would be a big bummer!

sarahnc said:

I asked SouthPointe Mall's info desk where their chargers were. The person there said they USED to have one, but it was vandalized and so they took it down.
...
It made me wonder if other existing shopping mall/store charge stations across the country are often vandalized and if they could be designed to be more vandal-proof...if not, we're likely to see more of them get taken down over time....which would be a big bummer!

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Should have known...charger vandalism has it's own topic here... http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3330

NEW OWNER!!
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7425

I didn't realize we had this many owners in NC already. Very exciting! Has anyone done any driveway parties with Plug-in-America or EV get togethers? Would love to see a LEAF/EV rally to show of our electrics to the community and raise awareness or do a group visit to establishments who have installed chargers such as whole foods or North Hills just to let them know they didn't install nearly enough charging stations! You would not believe how many people have stopped and asked me about the car or friends and neighbors who didn't even realize there was a such thing as an EV. Looking forward to seeing you guys on the road. I've already seen several of you just in the last week!

PS. I also sent an email to North Hills thanking them for the new chargers installed there.