MNL: How people use Leaf in Europe - QC as needed

Daniel, only a handfull of the 2011 Leaf's came without a big ol' Chademo charge port (in addition to the J1772 charge port). There's a chart on mynissanleaf / delivery dates (actually it's a google spreadsheet link) and folks have a column to post which model they order ... whether it's the SV or SL. Can't recall which is which off the top of my head, but one is the stripped version, and Nissan only delivered about 10%-20% without the QC port. Modernly, ALL Leafs come with the QC port, just like Mitsu's EV.

 

(sigh) I don't know who told you that ... but ok - I'm only gona give you one more guess as to why Chademo is being fought so very very hard (reminder hint ... follow the money) -



Look at a charge map of Japen and you can't see the map of japan for all the Chademo QC's over there. BTW, a UL (underwriter labratories) listing/approval is NOT a U.S. 'requirement'. One of my safest appliances is NOT UL approved, simply because the manufacturer doesn't want to have to pay their ridiculously over priced fee, and doesn't want to have to wait for their constipated process to go through. Lots of folks get zapped by U.L. electric appliances every day. UL is like the good housekeeping seal of approval. You join the UL club (secret decoder ring included) simply because it makes life easier ... sometimes.

But yea - Aerovironment wouldn't be installing a HUGE string of Chademo Q.C.'s right now - from the Canadian border down to the Cali border if it weren't for having U.L. approval ... the AV Q.C. being installed all up and down interstate 5 was already built safe ... and already met federal electrical code standards, and they simply had to wait for UL to get their act together. The string of different Chademo Q.C. manufacturers aren't changing anything about their QC's in order to GET UL approval - because they are already safe. The only delay for Chademo is because UL is a beurocracy.

And for Danial - who didn't realize Leafs had QC capability - here's ours juicing up faster than I can finish a bowel of soup:



If you look close, you can see the little orange cap just to the right of the QC plug. The orange cap covers the J1772 plug - as they're right next to each other. Ok, here's one more fun pic. I took this last time I Q.C.'d ... it's a screen shot off the screen on the Q.C. - showing the instantaneous readout of amount charged, and the time remaining to fill:



When you're used to only charging at 240v ... using a Q.C. feels like what I'd imagine a crack cocain rush feels like - . . . . when it 1st starts up, the readout showed 125amp - and over 400 volts. The charger varries voltage and amperaging based on your battery condition / temps etc. I unplugged early - just enough to get home ... but when I unplugged (about 15 minutes after the pic) the amperaged had throttled all the way down to only 20 amps.

What ... you mean like a gas station does? Why . . . that's CRAZY talk. Hey ... maybe we oughta get all the Arco's and Shell stations to give away free energy too ..

That strickes me strange on several levels.
- Imperfect soluton? - Is it more 'imperfect' than peak oil production, and prices ever spiraling upward?
- Expensive? - Yet folks can afford to pour a $100 bill into their land barge ... lift kits, monster tires ... pulling ski boats ... toy haulers full of quads, wave runners etc. All the while - over 1/2 of the $100 bill goes to terrorist countries trying to destroy the U.S. not to mention the ever increasing trad deficit ... how many trillions?
- Don't go very far? - Maybe for a few, but after tons of studies (and why GM wanted the volt to drive EV mode 40 miles), 80%-90% of folks only commute 40 miles ... or less.
So I guess my point is this. There IS no silver bullet (nor is there on the forseeable horizon) ... there IS no one sollution that'll work for everyone. According to the laws of thermodynamics and entropy ... things are not getting better. We do the best we can. So folks can wring their hands saying, "oh nooo noo noo ... that's just not good enough" - or we can do the best we can with the cards we're dealt.

Is QC perfect? Is 240V at 3kW charging perfect? is it perfect at 6kW? When did we become a society of, "I'm sorry but that's just not good enough" people.
.

 

I knew the Leaf had Q.C. capability. I didn't realize Chademo was the name of a standard for the Q.C. Somehow I was under the impression that Chademo stood for a rival L2 standard. I stand corrected. Thanks.

I do think that crowding at Q.C stations would be an issue if a large number of EVs were depending on it. The fallacy with that argument is that because of the cost of the cars, and the slowness of general public acceptance, and the manufacturing capacity, market penetration will be slow, and infrastructure will have time to keep pace.

But half an hour to obtain 80 miles of range is too slow for a cross-country trip, which is why I expect to keep my Prius for those trips. And why I can understand the appeal of the Volt, though I prefer to have separate no-compromise cars for up to 200 miles (EV) and over 200 miles (Prius). Nobody wants to have to stop for a bowl of soup every 80 miles on a trip from NY to Florida.

 

Saw "Revenge of the Electric Car" in special showing Thurs and had a chance to talk with Tonia Buell who is co-director of the West Coast Green Highway Project. She stated the DCFC's (Chademo DC chargers) are being shipped to WA right now for ground breaking in the next 1-2 weeks. should be online by mid - May.

Chademo is not really a quick charge standard but is the one Nissan and Mitsubishi are using. Tesla has their own as well.

this Project was started to complement the EV Highway Project which was supposed to install 400 DCFC's (run by another company) but the deadline for those installs (although extended) is end of June and it looks like very few of them will be put into the ground.

we can only hope that funding for another project with a better partner for the installs can be negotiated and implemented quickly.

the greatest cellphone in the world is nothing without a supporting network (i phone users in LA might chime in on this...) and Electric Vehicles are no different.

we are lucky in that several businesses have taken it upon themselves to build and install charging stations at their locations and new announcements come in every week.

i can easily do all my charging at home...but then again, have to pay for that...nearly all public charging is free for now so why not?

EV's are right and they will become a large part of most people's lives. it is simply something we need to do. CA just committed to a large charging network. this is just the beginning and it has had several mis-steps but it will happen

Governor Brown Announces 0 Million Settlement to Fund Electric Car Charging Stations Across California

 

Maybe what you need in the US is a charity like we have in the UK?

The charity, ZeroCarbonWorld Home - Zero Carbon World will provide a dumb socket for hotels, pubs, restaurants etc to install at their premises. That way the hotel offers a unique value added service for minimal outlay and the EV driver goes somewhere they wouldn't normally and gets a free overnight charge.

We also have a small (but growing) proactive eco electricity company For The Road - Ecotricity who are installing their own EV chargers at motorway service stations. They hope to significiantly increase the size of their network this year and to include fast chargers (inc Chademo) and all free of charge to their electricity customers. The boss of this company is quite a character in that he built the company from nothing, reinvests profit in building more wind turbines and green electricity generation and also designed his own EV. Dale Vince; [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Vince"]Dale Vince - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

Oh my that soup would have to be good indeed. And that's assuming they have good soup at the charging stops along I-5 in CA central valley. ....

I don't think drivers would want to stray too far off the highway to charge up. After all the farther you go from the highway, the more range you use getting to and from the station.

 

The real Chademo charger that they gave to PG&E, according to PG&E is not UL listed. There are at least 2 american maufacturers that make chademo compatible chargers that are UL listed. I know the NRG evGo chargers are UL listed and Chademo compatible. If Chademo wants to sell or give away their chargers they need to get a listing. I don't think anyone is fighting hard against them, but I can understand companies like Tesla not wanting to pay royalties to the organization, especially since they seem to think its technically inferior to their scheme. After all after TEPCO's problems, the COO of Nisan took over the Chademo Association. And no just because its TEPCO, I don't think they can follow the best nuclear safety protocols either. If a standard was put forth by PG&E, GM, and Carb, and was being run by someone out of GM, I don't think we would be surprised if Japan did not just adopt the standard and tell manufactures they need to license it, with out investigating other options.

There have not been many quick charge EVs sold yet. If tesla or another company has a better solution, and will make it open with out licensing fees, why not investigate it. I mean I don't want to install a bunch of paddle chargers.

 

"I'd love to see the one year battery check report on this Leaf to see if the warnings from Nissan about multiple QC's a day warrant any concern."

"I was going out of my way to use L2 because I want to show support for EV's, but the reality is that I almost never end up getting enough of a charge by the time I'm done shopping to make much of a difference. I'm actually starting to think I should stop using L2 out in the wild so as not to give an artificially inflated sense of their value to the researchers. When I have to pay for L2 it's exorbitant compared to what the electricity actually costs..."

"I went to only public L2 in OK, just to try it. After 20 min I was bored (how long you can browse things that you do not need?) and just few more miles that didn't matter that much. I want to go whatever I want - so does regular car buyer,I will have 80% in 20 min with QC."

"In about one year of EV ownership I've gone from dreaming about tens of thousands of L1 and L2 charging stations to thinking mostly L3. I hope you guys get the message across about focusing on CHAdeMO L3 and dealing with the demand charge issue!!!! (F' the SAE!) As soon as there is a solid backbone of L3, people will buy a lot more EV's and then the private sector will flesh the bones with L2"

"Agree with Chelsea Sexton that public charging at this point won't do a thing to increase adoption of EVs and is a complete waste of resources. That money could much better be used for home charging or even, heaven forbid, a solution for multi-family buildings. Then again the dollars are probably far greater because it's such a sweet deal for NRG."

My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Gov Brown Settles w NRG - $100,000,000 of EVSE's for CA!!!!

 

If GM (ah la SAE) were doing their deeds for the sake of investigating, then that'd be great. But that's NOT their motive. If GM's deeds were for the sake of investigating, there may have been less Volt fires - because they'd have taken more TIME ... and built more safeguards into their flimsy Portable EVSE and they'd have taken more TIME ... so that the Volt's battery box could have initially been built safer. In stead, it's "HURRY! Rush a QC hose into existence!" It's hard to believe that anyone can't find it suspect that a NON-EV building car company puts forth THIS plug design - even though GM has NO plans to manufacture a production EV ... much less even a quick charge version:



The only thing GM left off of this massive sucker was a gasoling hose

As for Japan following the 'lead' of U.S. electrical infrastructure, 'leading' with the best electrical design is not what the good-ol' U.S.A. does - necessarily, when it comes to electrical decisions If that were the case, the U.S. would be running 240v for small appliances like most of the world ... because that's more efficient.



Voltage and frequency:
220-240 V/60 Hz
220-240 V/50 Hz
100-127 V/60 Hz
100-127 V/50 Hz

I do agree that the Chademo licensing scheme may become its achillies heel. But it's highly unlikely Japan will follow U.S. electric standards. They don't even follow the same standards throughout their own country. Half the country runs a completely different phase than the other half of the country uses.

 

I must say the SAE plug has several advantages over the chademo one. First, there is just one extended plug instead of two, and these share communications. The SAE fast charger also provides 90KW of charging as does the Tesla Supercharger, while Chademo only provides a maximum of 62.5 KW. The SAE also provides a little better fault detection.


EV Fast Charging, whether standardized or not - Green Transportation

SAE is far from perfect. It would be much better if DC fast charging was included in the J1772 standard, but they did not. It was tacked on with two extra wires. Still from a technical point of view, the SAE model is superior.

Wow. Do you really think a battery fire 3 weeks after a crash is awful. What do you think TEPCO, did?
The rub against SAE is they are being too slow, because GM is head of the committee. Well pull GM off, and put tesla, or NRG to head the committee, someone that is building cars or chargers, but lets not just throw up our hands. IMHO the two plug solution with what is it 10 things on the chademo looks like a huge kludge that we will be stuck with.

US infrastructure is older. We invented AC, power generation, etc. You know that tesla guy, westinghouse. We didn't stick to the first standard DC. I can't see how you can look at your leaf two charging structures and say its much better than having one. The big deal is you bought it already and have skin in the game. For those without a leaf with fast charger, check out the picture in the link above.

 

While this is true, the idea of having 2 different plugs doesn't make a lot of sense to me. What if its a phev, that means 3 doors 2 for plugs and one for a tank. No 1 is better than 2. The frankenplug is ugly but so what. Nissan has already said they will make an adapter if the sae plug becomes standard. Why not allow 90kw, the normal ac plug allows 19.2kw, although nissan only allows 3.3kw to flow. There simply are only a few qc in america right now.


1 plug means that the driver doesn't need to do anything different on DC charge versus AC.

 

The 3kW 240V chargers are being replaced with 6kW on board chargers on the Leaf for 2013. I think the restriction to 3kW was to molify folks worrying about grid quality - as it already is sorely in need of upgrading. 90kW raises a whole different can of worms among nay sayers. Even with L1 you hear, "oh NO ... the grid! ... it's gona crash the grid!" With L2, 240V charging brings even more people crying out about grid concerns. But 400 volts? Poor grid condition/concerns REALLY start to ratchet up ... and a whole new batch of concerns as well. Not only grid reliability, but for example, california (and other areas) charges a HUGE demand fee for 400 volt capability once you go above 20kW's. The huge monthly demand fee is required even if NO actuall charging ever takes place ... it's just for the privilege for having the power available. Chademo will do 50kW's. And now we want to introduce a 90kW draw? Good luck with that.

 

Its great that the leaf is going with 6kw chargers in 2013. Don't get me wrong, i like the leaf. Its much more affordable and practicle than the ev1. Naysayers are going to be naysayers. Because the utilities can make money on selling electricity in texas, they are all for the smart grid and 90kw chargers. The issue here is peak demand times 3pm-7pm during the summer, but no one expects enough evs to do much to hurt at this time. California is full of politicians on each side. I don't expect quick charging to be a big part of the grid, but if you are going to do it, why not make it 90kw, as tesla wants, versus the 62.5kw max. L2 standard is for 19.2kw, but ac charging at that rate makes more expensive equipment needed on the car. Tesla charges $1500 to go from 10kw to 20kw, and it may be less expensive to put the tech in dc chargers than in ac on the car.

There are some states with very old grids, but really is there a L2 concern in california? The politicians better address that before paying for over 1M ev subsidies. I would say its not really a problem but a point that anti-ev folks use.

Yes, its not harder to do 90kw correctly than 62.5kw. These things are expensive so why not do it right. I'm with chelsea sexton, that very few extra bevs will be sold because of 200 new quick chargers.

California has always bothered me with their ev policy. If the politicians want evs, they need to regulate the utilities in such a way to make TOU easier and high pull at low demand cheaper to switch over from normal metering. Here we have smart grid, where I let the utility cut down my power during times of very high demand. California passed smart grid in 2009, but little of it has been built. Rates are high in California because regulators are regulating against building enough power. That is what led to the black outs.

I would love it if someone would confirm. Nissan said that if franken plug passes, they would make an adapter from franken plug to chademo. NRG will likely try to support both plugs, as the base unit is the expensive thing. That is as long as not too many NRG quick chargers get out in the field before a standard is set, and now it looks like it will be much less than 100.

I do like it that Mitsubishi was the one that proposed chademo to sae, not nissan. That at least did not make it a nissan against gm. The best solution is a plug from scratch like bmw is proposing, but they made it try to be compatible with franken plug. SAE is moving too slowly, that is the big problem with its proposal. 90kw is better. WIth a limited number of quick chargers wouldn't it be better to charge in 20 minutes than 30 minutes. The cost for DC chargers is not much greater for 90kw than 62.5. In fact, I would like it to be 100;-)