Leafs Over Texas!

I remember them getting the grant for the research and was so happy! It really would be nice to have something similar to the IH 5 project going in the northwest.

Unfortuantely, the grant was only for research so moving forward with implementation or taking action from their findings will take money from other sources. I do know that eVgo, the current opperators of the level 3 stations in Houston and Dallas do have plans to maybe (hopefully) put charges between their two areas of opperation - DFW and Houston, which would electricfy the IH 45 corridor. Unfortunately you can only use that service with a monthly fee, but if you are already using it in Houston or Dallas, you might as well get the benefit of going between the two!

The difficult part right now is 3 charging companies (4 kindof) and their particular agreements/arrangements:

eVgo has the rights for Houston area and Dallas area for Level 2 and 3 (biggest is of course level 3). Their main focus is Houston from those two. This would probably preclude other partners installing level 3 in those areas (eVgo probably has some kind of deal in place I imagine).

Blink's deal only serves DFW and Houston (it was probably part of their grant) - the focus seems to be more on DFW (based on # of evse).

ChargePoint deal is directly with the City of Austin and the surround areas (including San Antonio) the government grant basicly covers the Austin area. This is why the ONLY chargers you see in the Austin area are all chargepoint. Houston has some and DFW barely has a few.

GE - more independent, its piecemail at best, but they have a few stations in Houston, one in College Station and a few in DFW.

So you can easily see the alignment, there is overlap but not much:

DFW: Blink
Austin-San Antonio: ChargePoint
Houston: eVgo

Now try to get them to communicate to see who would be in charge of the Level 3's on the trinagle? HAHAH. Its going to be a rough road. Here is my guess. eVgo will do the IH 45 route and CCET will accept that as that portion. For the DFW to San Antonio will be the purchase of the Aerovironment level 3 or blink's level 3. I would say chargepoint would do it, but they don't have a level 3 yet. Houston to San Antonio - hmmm probably the same for the IH 35E corridor...we shall see how it turns out!

sn470 said:

I recently purchased my Leaf knowing I was purchasing a commuter car and I was limited by range. However now that I have two weeks in the car, I want to drive it more! Living in Austin we make the trip to Houston quite a bit so naturally I was wondering how I can get involved to help get level 3 locations installed on high traffic routes. Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, etc.

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I'm not sure how useful that would be.. I live in Dallas and occasionally travel to Austin or Houston. I've looked into the distances before and it just not practical.

Distance from DF/W to Austin = 180 miles
Distance from DF/W to Houston = 230 miles
Distance from Austin to Houston = 150 miles
Distance from Austin to San Antonio = 70 miles

OK. Lets assume 50 miles range on highway drives, with quick charge I'd have to stop 4 or 5 times to recharge on my way from DF/W to Houston. That would be 2.5 hours of extra time for the drive. Even from DF/W to Austin is pretty tough needing to stop at least 3 times.

My Leaf doesn't even have a QC port. I've looked into the possibility of driving it to Austin and having to stop somewhere in between. If I stayed off the major highways or drive 55 mph or less I could probably make it with a single charge somewhere in the middle. But I'd have to wait 7 hours to get it.

I could come closer to seeing the trip between Austin and Houston or Austin and San Antonio. The DF/W area is just too darned far.

Maybe in the future with EV's having real highway ranges of 100 miles, it might be more practical.

All this quick charging infrastructure makes sense, only if the a) the range for EVs increases to atleast 150 miles, and b) quick charging can be done in 15 minutes of less that will give us 150 miles range.

Technology will for sure catch up to that, but we are not there yet. So all this excitement of DC QC infrastructure at this time is misplaced. Perhaps we can make a case for having the infrastructure ready, when the EV technology catches up. Neither the Leaf or the Volt is practical to make use the QCs in any shape at this time. Even if if we have a QC in every gas station today, it wont do help the current owners, or increase the adoption rate of the current generation of EVs.

To me, just as a simple commute car the Leaf is a great vehicle. I don't care about the QCs even if none existed, except on those occasions when I planned badly and in risk of getting stranded.

-Jay

San Antonio: There is a free showing of "Revenge of the Electric Car" followed by panel discussion hosted by Texas Public Radio on Tuesday at 7:00 pm. Details at http://www.tpr.org Guests for the panel discussion include reps. from AACOG, CPS Energy, GM - probably alot of Volt people there, and Chesapeake Energy. You have to make reservations, see website.

Ok Texas people, I want to know why I am one of the few Texas people who have lost a capacity bar. Specifically, I want to know if my parking in the sun has been a contributing factor, because other than that, I have been very gentle on the car. Have you counted your capacity bars recently? Do you have more than 13K miles and park in the sun? If you don't want to post on the forum I understand - send me a personal message. Thanks!

San Antonio is not hotter than central or north Texas in the summer, but we probably do have a little warmer spring and fall which may contribute.

ecoobsessive said:

Ok Texas people, I want to know why I am one of the few Texas people who have lost a capacity bar. Specifically, I want to know if my parking in the sun has been a contributing factor, because other than that, I have been very gentle on the car. Have you counted your capacity bars recently? Do you have more than 13K miles and park in the sun? If you don't want to post on the forum I understand - send me a personal message. Thanks!

San Antonio is not hotter than central or north Texas in the summer, but we probably do have a little warmer spring and fall which may contribute.

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I have lost one capacity bar. My daily driving and parking time is no more than three to four hours a day. The car is always in the garage with low SOC. I always charge it to 80% unless I want to drive more than 50 miles ( which is no more than once every week. When the car is fully charged, it will not sit more than an hour in the garage. I drive gently and average 5 m/kw on the dashboard (carwing says 6.7 m/kw). I avoid highways whenever I can in order to maximize my range. I never QCed the car. I feel your pain and I hope other driver won't experience the same issue.

Of course we have Ravi100 from DFW area who lost a bar and said goodbye to the Leaf.

ecoobsessive said:

Ok Texas people, I want to know why I am one of the few Texas people who have lost a capacity bar.

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I suspect that anyone who operated their Leaf in Texas last summer has lost significant battery capacity. No matter what their "bars" say. I took delivery last June and now have 17k+ miles. Last summer (~100 100 deg days) we drove many 90+ mile days dictating 100% charges. The car was driven mostly in the mornings and parked in the shade in the afternoons.

I got my SOC/gid meter a few months ago and was surprised at the indicated low capacity. ~250 (instead of ~280) at 100%. Since the Leaf instrumentation is so crappy (apparently designed to deny crucial information to the owner), the "bars" mean little. I am now at about 238-9 for 100% and 197-199 for 80%. I am being forced to do more 100% charges than I would with a full capacity battery.

I have hopes that Nissan will fix the problem:
http://is.gd/dEKkVE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1077805_nissans-mark-perry-were-investigating-arizonas-wilting-leafs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't have a "quick charge" port and have never seen a "quick charge" station.

I have not lost any capacity bars yet.
Owned car since March of 2011
12,000 miles
Charged to 100% every day
Parked out in hot sun all day at work
Parked in garage at night
Charge in the evenings back to 100% using 240V

Although I haven't lost any bars, I believe I have lost some range. I haven't done any scientific tests to be sure. But it seems like the car as anywhere from 5 to 10 fewer miles than it did last year on the GOM when returning from longer trips.

Adric22,

You have been driving your Leaf for nearly 15 months now and charge to 100% twice a day, but still have only 12K miles on the Odo ?

mkjayakumar said:

Adric22,

You have been driving your Leaf for nearly 15 months now and charge to 100% twice a day, but still have only 12K miles on the Odo ?

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Where did I mention that I charge to 100% twice a day? I said I charge to 100% every day.

adric22 said:

I could come closer to seeing the trip between Austin and Houston or Austin and San Antonio. The DF/W area is just too darned far.

Maybe in the future with EV's having real highway ranges of 100 miles, it might be more practical.

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I recently made a trip to Houston (just beyound Sugarland) from near Lockhart and back in my 150 mile conversion. We charged overnight in Columbus at an RV campground. RV campgrounds are a GREAT charging source! Since that trip I've acquired a 10kw charger which nearly maxes out 50 amp RV connections and charges my car at a rate of 30-35 miles per hour. Before the new charger, my charge rate was only about 10-15 mph. Similar to our Leaf. With the new charger, I intend to make some touring trips. Drive about 3 hours and charge about 4 hours. Just for fun.

adric22 said:

Where did I mention that I charge to 100% twice a day? I said I charge to 100% every day.

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All right. I parsed this to mean that you charge 100% before you start your commute and then 100% in the evening before you start your return trip.


>>> Charged to 100% every day
>>> Charge in the evenings back to 100% using 240V

mkjayakumar said:

All right. I parsed this to mean that you charge 100% before you start your commute and then 100% in the evening before you start your return trip.

>>> Charged to 100% every day
>>> Charge in the evenings back to 100% using 240V

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Ahh.. that's good to know. See, actually I do charge twice a day, but since I didn't actually say that I thought maybe you were stalking me. :shock:

I work about 4 miles from home so I usually come home for my lunch hour and plug my Leaf in for 30 to 40 minutes before I head back to work. Not that I need the charge, just that I always prefer to have extra range should I need it. All in all, including trips to my daughters school and errands I'm usually averaging about 20 miles per day.

Incidentally, since all of this capacity loss stuff has come to light I've begun charging to 80% now. I've been doing that the last 2 months or so. But I didn't mention it since it wasn't relevant to the point I was trying to make. But that means I definitely don't miss any chance to charge since I have less range now charing to 80%. I've also been charging on L1 for the last 2 months since we got the Volt since my Wife pretty much drains the Volt every day and needs the L2 more than I do. So hopefully that will also make life easier on my battery. I still have full capacity bars and I'd like to keep it that way. Although truth be told, the Leaf would probably still work for me even if it could only do 25 miles per charge.

My family of four has been driving our Leaf in San Antonio since March. Ours is black and I've seen a blue one several times, but haven't met any other Leaf drivers yet.

So am I understanding this correctly? Some of you don't fully charge your Leaf each time? You only charge to 80% because that helps the battery? We only use the L1 charger that came in the backpack in the trunk. We always just plug it in when we get home, then unplug it and go in the morning. It should be htting 100% around 4 AM, then sitting plugged in for a few hours before we go. Should we be managing the charging with Carwings, instead of just plugging and unplugging?

WilsonSATX said:

Should we be managing the charging with Carwings, instead of just plugging and unplugging?

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If you dont need the range of a 100% charge, i recommend setting the charge timer on the car to charge everyday at 80%, and set the start AND stop time at 12:00am.

Now, any time you plug in, it will charge to 80% for "long life", and if you need more energy, use CarWings, mobile phone app, or physically press the timer override button (located to the left of the steering wheel, top center black button).

When you press that button, when the car isn't plugged in, the top dash center blue light will illuminate steady to indicate the timer has been overridden, but is not plugged in. If the car is plugged in, it will just start charging to 100%.

WilsonSATX said:

So am I understanding this correctly? Some of you don't fully charge your Leaf each time? You only charge to 80% because that helps the battery? We only use the L1 charger that came in the backpack in the trunk. We always just plug it in when we get home, then unplug it and go in the morning. It should be htting 100% around 4 AM, then sitting plugged in for a few hours before we go. Should we be managing the charging with Carwings, instead of just plugging and unplugging?

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The LEAF owner's manual recommends charging to 80% instead of to 100%, as on page CH-20:
"NISSAN recommends charging the Li-ion battery
using the long life mode to help maximize
the Li-ion battery useful life."
"Long life mode" merely means charging to 0% (edit: I meant to say "80%" not "0%"!!!) instead of 100%.
To charge to 80%, you need to use the charging timer: set a timer to charge to 80% instead of to 100%. I set one of the two timers to start at 2am and to charge to 80%.

There is more info in the wiki: "Nissan's Charging Recommendations".

WilsonSATX said:

So am I understanding this correctly? Some of you don't fully charge your Leaf each time? You only charge to 80% because that helps the battery? We only use the L1 charger that came in the backpack in the trunk. We always just plug it in when we get home, then unplug it and go in the morning. It should be htting 100% around 4 AM, then sitting plugged in for a few hours before we go. Should we be managing the charging with Carwings, instead of just plugging and unplugging?

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Yup. I now have my timer set to charge to 80% from 3:15am to 5:15am on L1. Most days the car stays around 40-50% charged (4-6 bars) and never reaches 80%. Some days I don't plug in since I know I won't be driving. I still find bicycling more enjoyable than driving (well, except maybe in the winter).

Reddy.

Thanks... The wife just got home with the Leaf, and I've already got the timer set to take it to 80% from now on. I spent today reading this forum, and I'll spend tomorrow reading the owner's manual again now that I've been driving it a few months.