Battery Charging

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
As a supporting example:

Currently Pennsylvania has no plans to support charger or charge point installations. The two closest charge stations I can identify are in Washington DC, 125 miles south of me, or Long Island, NY, easily over 200 miles east from here. It is going to take a long time to fill in those gaps. The good thing is that we are starting.
 
It appears that the states, cities, and utilities who were willing to donate (CA $5000 incentive?), faciltate, and cooperate (and had good numbers of potential Leaf customers) were the areas selected for the initial rollout?

Also, it now seems rumored that the 2012 Leaf will have the 30-amp L2 charger built-in, and that one could upgrade the 2011 model for some $$
 
mitch672 said:
That is only is the 10 cities "The EV Project" is involved in. The vast majority of the country will get nothing. The EV Project has a 99.8 million $ grant to do this. In the rest of the country, A few companies will install chargers (I expect the more progresive companies like Walmart or COSTCO to do this), there will be a handful here and there, but nothing like what is going on out West, that will take YEARS to happen in most of the country.

I think it'll be better than this, Mitch. I know, for example, that Houston isn't one of the 'early 10' and is not covered by The EV Project, yet Nissan has already made contact with the city and electric company and has forged a partnership to increase the charge point infrastructure.

"In Houston, for instance, Japanese-based Nissan Motor Co Ltd has signed a deal where the city and power provider Reliant, a unit of NRG Energy Inc, will build a handful of public-charging stations to allow electric car drivers to recharge their cars."

Nissan's papers (see links in the newcomers section - October 09 pages 17 and 29-33) show that they are working on agreements with power companies, lobbying to streamline the EVSE permitting and inspection process, helping to develop infrastructure plans, etc.

So yes - The EV Project is limited in scope, but they're not the only game in town - and Nissan is doing plenty of legwork in advance of car deliveries.

Andy
 
AndyH said:
mitch672 said:
That is only is the 10 cities "The EV Project" is involved in. The vast majority of the country will get nothing. The EV Project has a 99.8 million $ grant to do this. In the rest of the country, A few companies will install chargers (I expect the more progresive companies like Walmart or COSTCO to do this), there will be a handful here and there, but nothing like what is going on out West, that will take YEARS to happen in most of the country.

I think it'll be better than this, Mitch. I know, for example, that Houston isn't one of the 'early 10' and is not covered by The EV Project, yet Nissan has already made contact with the city and electric company and has forged a partnership to increase the charge point infrastructure.

"In Houston, for instance, Japanese-based Nissan Motor Co Ltd has signed a deal where the city and power provider Reliant, a unit of NRG Energy Inc, will build a handful of public-charging stations to allow electric car drivers to recharge their cars."

Nissan's papers (see links in the newcomers section - October 09 pages 17 and 29-33) show that they are working on agreements with power companies, lobbying to streamline the EVSE permitting and inspection process, helping to develop infrastructure plans, etc.

So yes - The EV Project is limited in scope, but they're not the only game in town - and Nissan is doing plenty of legwork in advance of car deliveries.

Andy

Yes of course, but until Nissan has an "MOU" (Memorandum Of Understanding) signed with each state/city/utility, the EV charging infrastructure rollout will be very slow in most places. thats what I was saying. The EV Project lit a fire under several progressive states and utilites, and that's great. Now we need it to carry accross the entire US.
 
mitch672 said:
Yes of course, but until Nissan has an "MOU" (Memorandum Of Understanding) signed with each state/city/utility, the EV charging infrastructure rollout will be very slow in most places. thats what I was saying. The EV Project lit a fire under several progressive states and utilites, and that's great. Now we need it to carry accross the entire US.

Absolutely!

And Nissan has asked us for help with this effort.

They've also given a $25,000 grant to Plug In America.
 
While Nissan has an interest in getting public chargers installed, and while the presence of those chargers may have a positive effect on public perception, the reality is that before you can count on getting a charge when you need it, there needs to be a sufficient number of charge stations that at any given spot there is a vacancy much more often than not. Say you had a 50/50 chance that there would be a slot open when you need it; you could not count on making that trip without significant delays.

You have to crawl before you can walk. It is going to be impractical to drive an EV farther than its own range at first. There will be a few charging stations, and if you can grab an opportunity charge that's nice. But the real change will happen when there are enough EVs on the road that there is a significant market for charging. At that point, businesses will appear to meet the demand, and like gas stations now, you will be able to count on getting a fill when you need it. I dream of the day when I can sell the stinker and make my road trips in an EV. Until then, I will use my Leaf (if I can get one) for trips of less than 80 miles round trip, or less than 80 miles one-way if I know there is a charger at the other end that will be available for me to use, as for example at a friend's house.
 
I think we need an update to the electrical codes that will plug-in charging at any available 220/240 volt source.

Also, the car itself should allow the user to set not only the charging start time and the % of usable charge that would end the charging, but also be able to select a lower charge rate, to be used when a the user knows that the lower rate would be better.

For example, the stove, dryer, and oven are on, and in spite of the 30-amp capability in the car and the 40-amp "EV-charge" breaker (so the EVSE is offering 30 amps to the car), the car should only draw 20 amps to avoid tripping the Main Service breaker. This would better handle the situations that the EVSE cannot know about.

Or, if the EVSE is portable (it should be), there could be a user-setting on the EVSE to lower the "max" amount offered. But, since some EVSEs might not be "adjustable", it is better to be able to set the car to "sip" more slowly, I think.
 
daniel said:
You have to crawl before you can walk. It is going to be impractical to drive an EV farther than its own range at first. There will be a few charging stations, and if you can grab an opportunity charge that's nice. But the real change will happen when there are enough EVs on the road that there is a significant market for charging.

Absolutely Daniel. I mean - stop and look at where we are. Our clothes are a bit different these days :) but we're back a bit more than 100 years ago when there were gas and electric cars and no chargers or fuel stations. And yet - we really aren't. How many charge points do you folks have down the I5 corridor? And you know that's where Nissan will start. There are already plans for Tesla to convert to the J1772 connector - and that opens up the Tesla charge points to us. There will be more voices in the request for chargers when the Volt starts to ship, and the PHEV Prius lands. And camp grounds and...

I realize it's a bit soon to be talking about hacking the car, but the beautiful thing about EVs is that voltage is voltage - add-on battery packs aren't that 'out there' an idea (batteries on a trailer, anyone?). Neither is tossing a Honda generator in the back or pulling a genset.

These are exciting times and we're very near the 'bleeding edge' or 'pointy end of the spear'. And it's GOOD! :D
 
Back
Top