Five Feature Improvements

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.

suwaneedad

Active member
Joined
Oct 28, 2011
Messages
34
Location
Atlanta
1. Light the door lock/unlock buttons on the inside of the doors. We're forever fumbling with it as we drop off an pickup kids at their various destinations at night.
2. Enable driver to define a home page setting on the display. I like one of the energy usage screens (right now). Don't make me push 5 buttons to get there (every time).
3. Enable turning off the charger from my iphone, not just turning on the charger. Same for climate control.
4. Enable other than 80% or 100% charge options. 90% for example.
5. Move the handle that opens the cover to the receptacle for charging. No need for it to be down low. It is used daily and should be easily located, and more durable than the existing one appears to be. If the current handle sustains 360x8 pulls during this vehicle's life in my life, I will be incredibly impressed.
 
Wholeheartedly agree with point #2. At the very least, returning to the last-used screen seems to be an obvious omission.
 
#1 is necessary, and not difficult to do. We need it because the car always locks itself. Lighting up the window lock doesn't help, but proves they could light the unlock button instead.
#2 I have thought of but not so sure the programmers are that smart. Maybe have it return to that screen after you fool with the radio or heater, etc.

#6 Wife wants an accurate guessometer. I know that's far beyond their reach. I like this list because it is stuff they really can do. So here's a practical request: The option to just let us turn off the number!
 
suwaneedad said:
2. Enable driver to define a home page setting on the display. I like one of the energy usage screens (right now). Don't make me push 5 buttons to get there (every time).

great ideas. as far as #2, i can do it in 2 button pushes. but that is the screen i wish i could go to as default. the Prius allows you to select the home screen.

another thing i have seen is that the door handle on the outside the way the sleeve slides out. more than a few times, it has stuck partly "extended". not sure this will stand the test of time either
 
#7: create a mode to blow outside air over the front window only. The current foot/defroster mode, although energy efficient. leaves me with cold feet.
 
suwaneedad said:
1. Light the door lock/unlock buttons on the inside of the doors. We're forever fumbling with it as we drop off an pickup kids at their various destinations at night.
2. Enable driver to define a home page setting on the display. I like one of the energy usage screens (right now). Don't make me push 5 buttons to get there (every time).
3. Enable turning off the charger from my iphone, not just turning on the charger. Same for climate control.
4. Enable other than 80% or 100% charge options. 90% for example.
5. Move the handle that opens the cover to the receptacle for charging. No need for it to be down low. It is used daily and should be easily located, and more durable than the existing one appears to be. If the current handle sustains 360x8 pulls during this vehicle's life in my life, I will be incredibly impressed.

Some form of these suggested improvements were presented to Nissan at our Dec. 3, 2011 meeting at Google with the BayLEAFS. Nissan was presented hardcopies listing the suggested improvements, and some were discussed in presentations at the meeting. I have also discussed some of the suggested improvements at other meetings with Nissan. So they have the input, now we have to wait to see if anything happens in response to our requests.
 
lukati said:
#7: create a mode to blow outside air over the front window only. The current foot/defroster mode, although energy efficient. leaves me with cold feet.

yes!

And #8 allow fan to be turned on without the climate control having to be turned on.
 
#9 Sun visors that can extend. The existing ones have *zero* value. I have yet to find a situation where they actually were successful in blocking the glare from the sun.
 
I agree with most of these (though I haven't thought about the sun visors yet) and want to add:

10. Small LED that illuminates the charging connector when the charge door is open and the cord is not yet plugged in. (extra cool points if it is inside the connector itself, but anywhere inside the charge door would do)

Ingineer's idea for an EVSE connector that has an LED inside activated by the handle release button would also fill this need.

The headlights can help, but are not really the right tool for the job. I am thinking of adding a small light (perhaps just a little battery powered one inside the charge door) because it can be really dark where I park.

And of course +1 on option to display remaining charge in percent instead of guessed range.
 
I also agree a small light inside the charge door area would be great so we can more easily see to connect the EVSE.

As for the guessometer. I'd prefer an option to where you could either turn it off, or change its behavior to different styles. One of those styles would be to just show a percent of battery capacity. So if you see 79 then that would be 79% state of charge.
 
gbarry42 said:
adric22 said:
I also agree a small light inside the charge door area would be great so we can more easily see to connect the EVSE.
LEAFers have this one covered: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=2502#p55209 . And if you could get Nissan to do this, it would probably cost you more than $13.

If I understand correctly, about $136 US.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fev.nissan.co.jp%2FLEAF%2FOPTION%2Fdop.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
I used the dealer's advertising plastic card that was in the license plate frame to extend mine. Trim if needed and slip it into the junk strap on the back of the visor. :)

TickTock said:
#9 Sun visors that can extend. The existing ones have *zero* value. I have yet to find a situation where they actually were successful in blocking the glare from the sun.
 
For this oversight, I mounted a piece of aluminum foil backed ridged insulation on the garage wall in front of the car to reflect the headlights into the charge bay. I have my headlights set to go off 1 minute after I close a door which is plenty of time to plug in.

NOT THAT WE SHOULD BE DOING ANY OF THIS STUFF TO ACCOMMODATE NISSANS SHORTCOMINGS!! :x

Really, I love this car!! :)

adric22 said:
I also agree a small light inside the charge door area would be great so we can more easily see to connect the EVSE.
 
Nubo said:
If I understand correctly, about $136 US.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fev.nissan.co.jp%2FLEAF%2FOPTION%2Fdop.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wow, and $40 for a charging nozzle lock? Just got one for $8 last night at the grocery store (I thought people said those were cheap?? Well, I didn't really shop around too hard).
 
saywatt said:
For this oversight, I mounted a piece of aluminum foil backed ridged insulation on the garage wall in front of the car to reflect the headlights into the charge bay. I have my headlights set to go off 1 minute after I close a door which is plenty of time to plug in.

My headlights light up the whole bay reasonably well without any reflectors of any kind.

However, there are times when I don't plug in immediately after arriving home (i.e. didn't end up going out at night when I thought I would) that a motion detector light would really help with. Even when still light outside it's still hard to see in the garage.
 
lpickup said:
However, there are times when I don't plug in immediately after arriving home (i.e. didn't end up going out at night when I thought I would) that a motion detector light would really help with. Even when still light outside it's still hard to see in the garage.
Aw, come on, guys! I could do it blindfolded, and have done it outside on a dark night without the lights on. So long as I can hear the CLUNK,CLUNK ... click ... click ... click that tells me it's waiting for the timer to tell it to start charging.

Reminds me of the clever ad Volkswagon used many years ago (showing my age) for the original Beetles. All the new cars were coming out with optional automatic shifts, but the VW Bug was only sold with a stick shift. Their tag line:

"After a while it becomes automatic."

Ray
 
I had one of those VDubs! OK, You made me feel stupid. . . . . . I'm going to take down my reflective panel! :lol:




planet4ever said:
Aw, come on, guys! I could do it blindfolded, and have done it outside on a dark night without the lights on. So long as I can hear the CLUNK,CLUNK ... click ... click ... click that tells me it's waiting for the timer to tell it to start charging.

Reminds me of the clever ad Volkswagon used many years ago (showing my age) for the original Beetles. All the new cars were coming out with optional automatic shifts, but the VW Bug was only sold with a stick shift. Their tag line:

"After a while it becomes automatic."

Ray
 
lpickup said:
saywatt said:
However, there are times when I don't plug in immediately after arriving home (i.e. didn't end up going out at night when I thought I would) that a motion detector light would really help with. Even when still light outside it's still hard to see in the garage.
Used to be hard for me, too, but that was before the Blink folks "fixed" their abysmal WiFi unit by supplying an Ethernet-over-powerline modem set as a workaround. Each end's modem has about eighty candlepower worth of blue LED status annunciators going all the time, so I pretty much don't need any lights on in the house or garage anymore, just for moving around in the night, anyway.
 
Back
Top