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bps88

Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2014
Messages
17
Hello everyone,
i just leased a new 2015 leaf SV and will be picking it up this friday! I have been trying to do some research on charging etc. and there seems to be so many opinions, i suppose i have to wait and see what works for me the best. Here is an overview of what I will be doing:

commute:
how-work-remote location-gym-home-work-home is a typical day at about 42km (as per google maps)

parking
on driveway year round - my concern is the charge door freezing!?

Charging
planning on leaving fickle charger on and set form 7pm to 7am. I am unsure if I need a level 2 just yet!? I see it;s also hard to find a quick charge level 3 station, other then cost is there a reason for this?
If i do get a level 2 I will buy a portable unit as I am renting at the moment and can easily take it with me.

any thoughts ?

thanks,

BPS
 
bps88 said:
Hello everyone,
i just leased a new 2015 leaf SV and will be picking it up this friday! I have been trying to do some research on charging etc. and there seems to be so many opinions, i suppose i have to wait and see what works for me the best. Here is an overview of what I will be doing:

commute:
how-work-remote location-gym-home-work-home is a typical day at about 42km (as per google maps)

parking
on driveway year round - my concern is the charge door freezing!?

Charging
planning on leaving fickle charger on and set form 7pm to 7am. I am unsure if I need a level 2 just yet!? I see it;s also hard to find a quick charge level 3 station, other then cost is there a reason for this?
If i do get a level 2 I will buy a portable unit as I am renting at the moment and can easily take it with me.

any thoughts ?

thanks,

BPS


Also....what is the "upgraded" EVSE and how much faster does it charge then the one that comes with the leaf?
 
I also just started driving a 2015 SL (418km on the odo right now).

I installed a 220V charging station, hard-wired into a 220V set of breakers in my electrical panel. It takes about 3 hours to go from <15% to full charge.
I've never used the 110V charger that comes with the car, but if you have 12hrs+ per day, you should be good given your commute.

The charge door on the front of the car has a pretty good gap all around it, so I'd not be too concerned about freezing so you can't operate it, and it provides a pretty good shield from rain when cord is plugged in, but I guess depending on how bad the weather is you could always toss something over top of it to shield it a bit more. It is all waterproof and pretty rugged.

The upgraded EVSE's that I'm aware of require a 220V outlet, like you would have for a stove, or dryer. They are portable, but you need to have access to such a plug. So depends on what you have available near the car as the cords are not terribly long (seems like around 20 feet give-or-take).

You also ask about level 3.. this requires 3-phase 240V power which is not provided to residential houses in Canada. Usually you only see this in commercial buildings.
Because of this, I don't think you'll find any "small" level 3 DC fast chargers.. they are all large systems designed for public installation.
 
thanks for the reply, I was thinking to do as you suggested and put something over the charge port when snow is heavy etc. I currently only have an outdoor gfi 110v outlet close by that i was going to try to use or run an extension cord from inside the garage for the trickle charge. If i find a speedier charge is needed then I'll consider the L2 unit.
 
You will probably run into issues with L1 charging if you plan to preheat in the winter. You are planning to leave your car outside which will result in even colder temps and longer preheat times. If you don't preheat you are going to use lots of battery just warming up the car. L1 will not be able to provide enough power to warm up the car. Now with a 42km average day you should have lots of juice even on the coldest days so this may not be an issue for you.

Where are you located in Canada? Depending on what province you can get a rebate for the l2 EVSE and install. In Ontario you get half back up to 1000 (so a 2000 install). In my case I needed to replace the fuse panel to a breaker and that was included so I got half of that paid for. Had to do it at some point so it was a good deal.
 
kaikara said:
You will probably run into issues with L1 charging if you plan to preheat in the winter. You are planning to leave your car outside which will result in even colder temps and longer preheat times. If you don't preheat you are going to use lots of battery just warming up the car. L1 will not be able to provide enough power to warm up the car. Now with a 42km average day you should have lots of juice even on the coldest days so this may not be an issue for you.

Where are you located in Canada? Depending on what province you can get a rebate for the l2 EVSE and install. In Ontario you get half back up to 1000 (so a 2000 install). In my case I needed to replace the fuse panel to a breaker and that was included so I got half of that paid for. Had to do it at some point so it was a good deal.



thanks for the input, I was wondering if the L1 would be enough for winter! As I am renting I want to find the easiest way to do the L2, I was thinking to see if I could install a dryer outlet /220/240 v in the garage and then just use an extension to connect the leaf and L1 charger.
 
So long as there are 2 adjacent free slots in your breaker panel, installing a line and plug is straightforward.
You probably know this, but BC electrical code doesn't allow piggybacking of more then one 200v device on a single 220 circuit, and I'd assume that is the same for all of Canada.

So, to follow code you couldn't use an existing breaker to wire a socket, you'd need to have a brand new double-breaker installed. (or piggyback out of code - not a great idea and the 220V charger pulls 30Amps; my 40 amp 220v breaker gets noticeably warm when charging.).
 
You will probably run into issues with L1 charging if you plan to preheat in the winter. You are planning to leave your car outside which will result in even colder temps and longer preheat times. If you don't preheat you are going to use lots of battery just warming up the car. L1 will not be able to provide enough power to warm up the car. Now with a 42km average day you should have lots of juice even on the coldest days so this may not be an issue for you.

As long as the car can be plugged in for most (not usually all) of the day, preheating isn't a problem. You preheat about 10-15 minutes before you leave, preheat while plugged in, and you only lose about 5% of charge. 2 minutes preheating, which is what I used in Upstate NY last Winter, only takes 1-2% net charge away, while bringing the interior up from "frigid" to "cool" or "lukewarm." Battery cooling isn't an issue for me, either: with the car plugged in most of the time in frigid weather, the battery heater only came on twice, all of a frigid Winter, both times after the car sat unplugged for days. The charging itself acts as a battery heater.
 
Another thing about L1 is that if you use up a significant portion of the battery then the 12 hours you are charging between 7pm-7am won't be enough to get you a full charge. If you are choosing to charge between that time for cheap electricity then you may have to charge during peak hours to get a full charge (if you need it). A full charge on L1 will take 20 hours or a better way to look at it is it will give you roughly 8km of range per hour. In winter you will be using more of the battery capacity to go the same distance too so the charge times will be longer. Also using L1 to charge is less efficient then L2 so you will use more electricity to do the same charge because of energy losses.
 
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