OHIO - Cleveland - Northeastern Ohio / Midwest

772 said:

The zoo is an ideal spot for destination charging. Is there a contact person you had over there? Would be happy to call or e-mail them.

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My email was just to a general help desk email. The reply came back from someone that had "Public Relations" in their title. That is all that I recall, and sadly I do not appear to have saved a copy of the email, sorry. If you do reach out to them please do let us know what you find out!

Shaka said:

I think a summer-2014 Nissan Leaf Cleveland Ohio gathering is in order!! We need to make it happen!

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Ari - I know this is a little far back in this thread now, but I'm all in for a spring/summer meetup! I only have my Leaf until November (2 year lease).

I think Constantino's Market is a good place to go and support the EV charging that parking lot has!

As a side note, I've called different parking operators in downtown (Standard Parking and Ampco) but they offer little help with future potential for stations. They have said that the garages are (basically) independently operated and although their sign is outside, the owner can choose whether to have charging stations. They even said owners were afraid of the cars blowing up while charging. MRN owns the Uptown property but standard parking was uncertain how exactly the chargers got there in the first place.

Besides the Walmart, there's been little activity with new installs besides the McDonalds in Garfield Heights and the not-sure-if-they-are-working UH garage...if only we could charge at the Tesla supercharger!

Sent an e-mail to the zoo, I'll let you all know what they say.

Has anyone had any luck with contacting malls/shopping plazas about installing EVSEs? Crocker Park on the west side would seem like a nice location.

Just bumping this to say I added the L2 EVSE to plugshare. Located close to Crocker Park on the west side (~15-20 minute walk in the summer). Message me here or through plugshare and I will check whether it will be available.

Awesome! We are 0.6 miles (less than 15 min walk) to Legacy Village and I'm on plugshare too. Sounds like you're the west-side version of us! Glad to see even more people locally adding their chargers..

Got a chance today to drive my family around on a trip in their Leaf... 3 adult passengers, 75 miles (65 highway) roundtrip, front and rear heated seats on, and cabin heating turned on for about 40% of the time with outside temps ~40F & fairly windy. Started with ~95% SOC and ended with ~10% SOC. Based on what I had read about the Leaf's winter performance, I was pretty impressed with what we got since most of that trip was on the highway. So far, the car is working out great. However, I would like to see more elaborate setting for charging timers/climate control timers on the base S model. Would like to be able to set different times for different days of the week. Along with being able to set SOC targets for different days, too. That would be ideal.

Aside from that, looking at the Eastern section, it sounds like the PA Turnpike and NYS Thruway are both planning to install DC quick chargers at service plazas. I am considering e-mailing the Ohio Turnpike Commission to urge them to install DC charging as well.. hopefully I can do this next week. Has anyone here contacted them before about this? It would be nice if other NEO EV drivers/enthusiasts could e-mail them as well.

772 said:

Aside from that, looking at the Eastern section, it sounds like the PA Turnpike and NYS Thruway are both planning to install DC quick chargers at service plazas. I am considering e-mailing the Ohio Turnpike Commission to urge them to install DC charging as well.. hopefully I can do this next week. Has anyone here contacted them before about this? It would be nice if other NEO EV drivers/enthusiasts could e-mail them as well.

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I've never emailed anyone beyond the Greater Cleveland Area but I would never really consider taking a trip that far/long. We go out to the east coast often, but never in an EV. You aren't supposed to use the quick charge often in our cars (on contrast to the Tesla), not to mention that on hot days it would scale back that "half hour" number you've seen over-published. Meaning 80% charge could take as much as an hour on a humid 95-degree day from what I've read elsewhere on these forums. But I may be mistaken.

While we would benefit more from being able to drive across town (Crocker Park, the Zoo, Akron, etc)--- I do personally still want to see more EV stations added across the globe-- even if we wont use them ourselves. (Sidebar: we have a 6 year old-- sitting at a rest stop for an hour is not usually ideal). Bottom line: if you email any places and want a 2nd/supportive email just let us know I'd definitely be on board to add another request for more EVSE!

Just received my 2014 Leaf SV on Wednesday. I have not seen many Leaf's in the Akron/Canton area. Have found and started using PlugShare only a couple of places in the area with public charging. (Dealers/Walgreens and parking decks) does anyone know of any other locations. Any advice for the upcoming winter my, commute is 36 miles round trip, do distance should not be a problem. Have not decided on a home charger yet, but eventually I will.
Does anyone know if Ohio Edison had any programs for EV's.

Brett

mossburg145 said:

Just received my 2014 Leaf SV on Wednesday. I have not seen many Leaf's in the Akron/Canton area. Have found and started using PlugShare only a couple of places in the area with public charging. (Dealers/Walgreens and parking decks) does anyone know of any other locations. Any advice for the upcoming winter my, commute is 36 miles round trip, do distance should not be a problem. Have not decided on a home charger yet, but eventually I will.
Does anyone know if Ohio Edison had any programs for EV's.

Brett

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We've had our 2012 Leaf since Dec2012 and it has been great. Even at 36 miles you may find if that is a lot of freeway driving that, during the winter, you're pushing the range limits. We do only around-town driving here in Cleveland but on the coldest of cold winter days it wasn't uncommon in surface roads to see only 40 miles of driving. Just be careful--- use the heater on the car less and the heated seats more (not sure if SV has those or not).

Congrats and welcome to the fold. Not sure how many you'll see in akron/canton as we are Clevelanders but we see a LOT of Nissan Leafs these days. Probably see at least a half dozen a week just in work commute. There are more and more chargers popping up but you already said you're using PlugShare-- that is the best way to find them. Lots of them downtown Cleveland and around--- hope you're able to utilize some.

When we got our EV we called the local electric company, no special programs. Our total cost of electricity went up MAYBE $30/mo at most.. we pay actual not budget.... but it is always worth a call maybe they've added new programs for EVs who knows... ciao!

mossburg145 said:

Just received my 2014 Leaf SV on Wednesday. I have not seen many Leaf's in the Akron/Canton area. Have found and started using PlugShare only a couple of places in the area with public charging. (Dealers/Walgreens and parking decks) does anyone know of any other locations. Any advice for the upcoming winter my, commute is 36 miles round trip, do distance should not be a problem. Have not decided on a home charger yet, but eventually I will.
Does anyone know if Ohio Edison had any programs for EV's.

Brett

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Don't count on much infrastructure being installed in this part of Ohio in the near future. My part-time employer is willing to install a L2 EVSE for employee use and make it available to the public so I contacted a few of the networked charging station companies to check options. Only Blink retuned my call. They were completely disinterested unless we purchased their L2 EVSE (at $2000+), incur all the install expense, provide the electricity, and pay their monthly network & credit card fees. The commercial return is so low it would take several years to recoup the investment (if ever). It was clear that the now expired Federal tax credit was the only reason any networked EVSE's were being installed in this area.

Installing this station is not completely dead, but will likely become a simple non-networked EVSE with a power disconnect inside the building. Office staff would have to be present to turn the power on and make payment arrangements for non-employees to charge.

The best advice is finding a few contingent places to charge along your daily route. Then, learn the % battery consumption rate between waypoints on your route. Consumption will be relatively predictable within a few % of battery any given day. I charge entirely at home and run 37 miles each direction into Cleveland every day without recharging. Adequate range has not yet been an issue but temperature conditions have been perfect thus far. I pass 2 Nissan dealers with L2's and have a few other locations within a couple miles of my full-time job location that I have used on rare occasions.

Hi, Brett and congrats on your 2014 Leaf. As mentioned by Shaka, the temperature and highway speeds can significantly affect range. I noticed the most difference in single digits of last winter. I have a ~30 mi round trip commute, and would be sometimes down to 10 mi on the dash meter by the time I got home. Optimum temp range is ~60-80degF, and the Leaf declares 'low outside temp' at 38 deg F. The 2014 has a slightly higher range than my 2013. I avoided running the heat at all when possible, and just modulated the steering wheel heat as needed to keep my hands warm. If employers would invest in charging stations more, it would not be an issue. You also learn to drive most efficiently in those situations - it makes a big difference.

As for electric, you can request a 'time of day' meter to take advantage of off peak rates.

Don't want to concern you, the Leaf is awesome and one of the best decisions I've ever made. Now I pay about 1/10 of what I paid in gas for my previous vehicle.

Good luck and have fun!

Dave

EDIT: Look into getting a JuiceBox for $150 if you have any confidence in electrical/mechanical assembly. It was a Kick starter project by a Google engineer in CA. It works great for me, and the owner is a great resource. I just reused the EVSE J1772 cable from the stock Nissan charger. Link: http://www.emotorwerks.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;