Furious and ignorant Nissan Leaf driver

That is absolutely crazy. If that note was left by a PHEV/BEV driver, then things aren't looking good for us. Hope you find out who this is, and get to explain the situation to them (but I'm guessing/hoping it's an ICE driver).

This thread shows that while there is an obvious need for educating the public about EVs, but not just regular folks, even EV drivers need to learn what other cars need/use.

With PHEVs becoming more popular, more people who don't understand the difference between CHAdeMO and J1772 will be joining us. It's our job to nicely explain it to them, no matter how wrong they might be. They need to learn somehow, and snapping at them, or using passive aggressiveness doesn't get us anywhere.

I'm a little disappointed that it ended this way. Both of you are driving really nice vehicles, are early adopters, so as wrong as the Prius Plug-in driver was in this case, how about we educate each other.

Whenever I see a fellow EV driver, I try to chat with them, and either help them learn more about their vehicle if they are new, or let them share their experience with me about what they like or don't like about the car, while learning about limitations. If EV drivers are going to start attacking each other, then there is no hope.

 

Ignore the LEAFer, there are morons born every day. Not going to discuss the merits or viability of public charging since it aint going away anyway

but has anyone been thru a major storm? I have back in 96 when it actually shutdown power to 100% of Western WA for a few hours. I lived in an area where 60% of the area was powerless for 5 days (it took 12 days for my house to get power) and there was only one gas station in the area that could pump fuel because they were smart enough to be on a generator.

I put it off as much as I could but eventually, I had to get in line (about a 7 hour wait....7 hours and 21 minutes if u want specifics) and when I finally got to the pump, I was limited to 10 gallons only and was told about 10 cars from the pump that I might not get gas at all. the line behind me was probably a mile long (I started about 2 miles from the station) so my only hope was to fuel up and get out of the area before the shooting started.

Demand is an interesting thing. we can either address it, cover it, or let it blow up.

FYI; in a few days, a car OF ANY KIND at a charging station not charging will do so after the privilege of paying a $124 parking fine in WA State.

This is something that was primarily a grassroots movement started by frustrated LEAF owners. I suggest everyone do the same if there is not already such a law in their area.

And its a good thing, WA has this. Despite being 3rd in chargers per capita (approximately one per 10,000 residents) we barely rank in the top 10 for chargers per plug in vehicles which means the lines are getting longer and longer.

I will say we are still installing chargers but the sales of the LEAF is outpacing them

 

Ignoring is the wrong approach, the whole point is that we need to help each other succeed. If we can't get/work together on a simple issue like this, how do we expect the public to adopt this new technology?

Just need to keep our cool, no reason to go nuts about such a simple issue. Chalk it up to bad communications and misunderstandings, and use it as a learning experience.

 

Why not start by suggesting manufacturers adopt a public charger smart plug standard that senses and delivers what the EV orders? Make J1772 plus P1901 work. No variation. Otherwise you are all marginalizing yourselves and destroying the infrastructure business case.

 

it is the wrong approach but you cannot fix the inherent limitations of Human Compassion. the LEAFer came off too strong causing the OP to shutdown. Now both are in a state of non-communication that will only escalate badly if pushed.

The OP was wrong, dead wrong. that is plain and simple but to admonish him for ignorance is a pathetic display of compassion.

 

I don't know what P1901 is or what that has to do with it. There already is a standard for AC L1 and L2 charging, J1772. It does NOT support DC fast charging.

For DC fast charging, CHAdeMO has been deployed for years and there are at least 2703 stations worldwide.

GM, Ford and a bunch of European automakers decided to come up w/J1772 CCS (aka Frankenplug). See SAE Unveils Combined Charger System | PluginCars.com. My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - SAE Planning vote to formally deny CHAdeMO in US was a pretty true account of the situation at the time. It seems the only reason for this "standard" to be created is to slow down Nissan.

Look at the Frankenplug roll call at My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - SAE combo plug/Frankenplug EV/PHEV car list. There are 0 shipping cars w/this and 0 publicly accessible Frankenplug chargers.

Out of the Frankenplug players, about the company there w/a serious BEV program is BMW, but so far, they've sold 0. They've only had small fleets of lease only test cars (e.g. ActiveE and MiniE). Neither of those has Frankenplug. It remains to be seen how well the BMW i3 will sell and how many will come w/Frankenplug. BMW doesn't sell many cars in the US, so by extension, I doubt they'll sell many BEVs. They'll also have a gasoline range extender version of the i3, so I wonder how useful Frankenplug (DC fast charging) might be for them vs. an engine.

GM even tried to pull these shenanigans over Frankenplug: GM and Nissan trade punches over electric car fast charging.

Let's see. How many cars has GM shipped with J1772 CCS? 0! The Spark EV supposedly can have it as an option but it's not much more than a California ZEV compliance car. They're only selling it in CA and OR.

Given the above and the above roll call, how well do you think Frankenplug cars will sell? Will people want to deploy such chargers if there are no cars (in the US) to use them?

Tesla went their own way. Their Superchargers are proprietary but at least their cars can use J1772 w/adapters for L1 and L2 charging.

China apparently has its own DC fast charging standard.

 

Your edit was wrong. The Leaf driver may have been furious but he sure wasn't the ignorant party.

I already outlined it. OP (PiP) driver:
- broke CA law by not actively charging in the spot he occupied
- seemed ignorant to the above fact
- he was ignorant of charging standards and occupied a spot for a charging station he couldn't even use
- ignored the signage pointing to stations w/compatible w/his vehicle

 

Your post basically illustrates the problem. Fragmentation galore and as a result, no effective standard.

Once again, Why not start by suggesting manufacturers adopt a public charger smart plug standard that senses and delivers what the EV orders? Make J1772 plus P1901 (1901 is a DC charging and car/line/grid communications protocol) work. No variation. Otherwise the marginalizing continues and destroys the infrastructure business case.

So call a cop. Move on.

 

I can't speak to 1901, but J1772 by itself only supports AC charging and the charging stations (EVSEs) are actually relatively inexpensive (from a few hundred to the low thousands of $). Those units are NOT chargers. The charger is built into the car. There are a # of reasons (I don't know them OTOH) for this approach. I don't believe J1772 (cabling and connectors) can handle the amperage DC fast chargers are putting out. Also, the site owner would only need 100 to 240 volt power, as that's all it can support.

However, for DC fast charging, the large unit is the charger and they are WAY more expensive. Cheapest DC fast charger starts at $15.5K (Nissan Quick Charger - CHAdeMO DC Fast Charging for Electric Vehicles). I believe one would also need a transformer or access to 480 volt power. See label on My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Nissan To Install 500 More Quick Charge Stations.

My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Range issues has a rough block diagram.

In the case of Tesla's Superchargers, it's the same deal. L1 and L2 charging uses the car's on-board charger. For Supercharging, they supposedly connected a bunch of the on-board chargers together but they're stationary, at the station location. I found pics of a Supercharger's labels. See SuperCharger Launch - Page 3. It says input current 280 amps @ 200-240 VAC / 160 amps at 480 VAC.

In contrast, I don't think there are any J1772 (AC charging) stations/EVSEs that do more than 40 amps. Toyota Rav4 EV Forum • View topic - Fresno to Gilroy (CA) trip report has a list of some voltages and charging rates. Rav4 EV supports J1772 only and has a 10 kW (Tesla) on-board charger. Has no CHAdeMo.

I sent

to a friend awhile ago, and there was a mention of 255 amps @ 360 volts! (at ~4:40)

In reality, ignoring the Chinese standard, there really are only 2 DC fast charge standards: CHAdeMO and Tesla's Supercharging "standard".

 

Here's J1772 plus P1901: SAE and IEEE call for new J1772 charging standard : zero emission motoring

 

Yeah, that's Frankenplug. So far, it's not going anywhere. Again, look at the roll call list at My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - SAE combo plug/Frankenplug EV/PHEV car list and tell me how many of those companies have serious EV programs.

I'll give you a hint. Look at the number of pure BEV sales and the # w/DC fast charging sold at December 2012 Dashboard - HybridCars.com and June 2013 Dashboard - HybridCars.com. (Remember, Volt isn't a BEV nor can it DC fast charge.)

Per , Leaf sales have passed 65K units worldwide. Most of them have CHAdeMO inlets.

It also doesn't solve the problem of there being no physical space in the inlet side of many J1772 vehicles, including that of GM and Ford (proponents of Frankenplug) to accommodate those extra pins. See pics I attached at SAE vs CHAdeMO - Page 10. From 2013 Toyota Prius Plug-in Pictures | Toyota Prius Plug-in Photos & 360 Views, it looks like the PiP has no room to accomodate those extra pins either. These 3 are not the only J1772 vehicles w/that issue.

Judging by Frankenplug fanboy over there (stopcrazypp), it seems as though J1772 CCS DC fast chargers won't have AC charging capability either. So, even if there were physical room on the car inlet side, there'd be no (L1 nor L2) AC charging from such stations.

 

That's called tampering with the evidence, in this case making it seem like the ignorant and furious PIP driver should get any slack for posting such a dishonest version of events. If the LEAF driver hadn't caught him out the dishonest creeper might have gotten away with it.

The LEAF guy cut the dishonest and ignorant PIP driver some slack, I'd have forwarded the pic with the license plate to authorities and gotten him a ticket especially after trying to blame the other driver.

 

The signs said no parking except for electric vehicles, and, as you said, gave street addresses for other charging stations. That's fine with me.

But...those two blue signs do not explicitly state the following: "No J1772 connection is available at this charging station." I think the blue signs in the picture, as they stand, are very unclear and misleading, since they do not state that you can't use certain chargers. I think that whoever put the signs up should have made that clarification, about no J1772 (or no AC charging, or whatever isn't available), explicitly printed onto the signs.

(Obviously this information was on the black charging station itself... but... the driver would still have to pull up to the spot, park, get out of the car, and walk behind the car to read the print on the station itself, or examine the charging connectors. If the necessary information was posted on the blue signs as well, then a driver could say "Oh damn I can't use this spot" without having to park.)

 

That's called your opinion. Everybody's got one.

If "public charging facilities" are this fragmented, require this degree of user knowledge and type-differentiation, the legislation and regulation are bad and likely as a practical matter unenforceable -- which the original and su bsequent exchanges readily demonstrate. Standardize or die.

 

Maybe they are fragmented, but the infrastructure is still in its infancy. I mean, Leaf sales began like 3 years ago and Teslas, like 5 years ago. Plug-ins (plug-in hybrids rather)...just a few years before that. I have no idea how this will all pan out.
(Edit: don't mind my rant, I just hate getting mislead by stuff.)

 

Car facts aside.. this guy just sounds unhappy and is looking for an excuse to flip out... he also sounds a little simple as well.. If your car were a hybrid why would you be parked there anyway? How would that benefit you.. Just doesn't sound like he put a lot of thought into it before he flipped. I'd write this guy off op. Not worth the time.

 

There was no a-priori knowledge required. Now it could have saved him some trouble but that is beside the point. He got Blink to unlock the station, pulled out the plug and looked at it with his own eyes. There's no special knowledge required at that point. It just ain't gonna' fit. So there's no reason to stay parked there.

Nobody was going to cite him for arriving and trying, but rather for leaving a car there that was not charging or even plugged in. There's no ambiguity that applies to the situation. It's very simple. The spots are there to enable electric vehicles to charge. The car was not charging and wasn't plugged in nor could it plug in. So it was blocking a spot that might have been needed by a driver who did want to use the equipment. At that point it was no different than parking a Hummer in the spot and walking away. Any citation would have been completely enforceable.

We've got competing standards. Well, that happens. I'm not sure whom you're commanding to "standardize or die"? At this point the market will sort it out. As far as fast-charging the two contenders appear to be ChaDeMo, and Tesla. The SAE standard is too late to the party. Based on Tesla's agility and plans for a nationwide network, I'd give them the edge at this point.

 

I'll venture Tesla's becomes the Betamax of charging techniques.

 

What's nice about the Tesla supercharger system is that with an adapter connector (provided by Tesla) that fits in the palm of your hand, you can use J1772 charging stations. I think CHAdeMO is DC only.

 

Put yourself in his (the Leaf owner) place-
Your car is EV only- no charge- no go. You pull up to a 2 port charge station- the one port is down- and a car that can't use the other port is occupying the only remaining charging port and he isn't in the vehicle and hasn't left any contact info to reach him. Now he's wasting my valuable time!
I'd be pissed too...

FWIW- I could have bought a Leaf instead of the PIP- it would have easily made my commute with some range to spare. But I know there are no EV charging station laws here- and I checked the local ChargePoint station every day for a few weeks before I decided between the Leaf and PIP. What I saw was the only charging station in town being blocked all day long by ICE vehicles and there was a very good chance that if I didn't make it to work before 8:30am I probably would have no opportunity to charge at the public station that day. So I went with the PIP and if I get ICE's it's frustrating- but I still make it home that night!