Diary of an electric commuter (review of Nissan Leaf)

[phantom power]

FORTUNE -- When an argon-blue Nissan Leaf, the first production all-electric, zero-emission family car to hit the U.S., whispered into my garage last month, I knew instantaneously that it was a game changer. New relationships come with hopes, fears, and surprises, and ours -- the Leaf's and my union -- went quickly from blind date to a marriage of convenience.

...

Nissan uses an average cost of 11¢ per kilowatt hour to calculate that a Leaf owner will spend roughly $400 for 15,000 miles of driving in a year. The gasoline equivalent for a Honda (HMC) Civic Si that gets 24 mpg is $1,875 (see table). The Leaf has a higher sticker price, but it also is eligible for tax breaks, rebates, and other incentives. My guess is that it'll take the Leaf 3½ years to make up the difference in fuel savings. Nissan says the first thing you'll have to pay for is a new set of tires -- so traditional maintenance bills can also be subtracted.

...

After three days of stalled movement on the I-10, the I-405, the 101, La Cienega Boulevard, and other major surface roads, I finally realized I had taken my assignment seriously -- in the wrong direction. Stop and start traffic is what the Leaf eats for breakfast. That is where "hypermiling," the practice of range-preserving driving, kicks in. The slower you go, the less you brake, and the more you coast, the more range you not only preserve but regenerate. There's even an "Eco" mode option that further counteracts battery drain by increasing engine breaking and retarding acceleration.

...

Then came the day when my growing contentment with Nissan's deeply green machine came to a Leaf-blowing halt. I had discovered an iPhone app that mapped all EV charging stations by zip code. Oh, joy! The Ralphs supermarket around the corner had two. I hustled to Ralphs, eager to expand my recharging repertoire, and pulled into one of the two EV-only parking spaces. I jumped out and grabbed the cord. Whoa. What was this aging, black plastic pancake doing where my sleek new J-plug charger should be? It took a moment for the Beta vs. VHS horror of it all to sink in. I drove to every one of the 12 listed public chargers in Santa Monica and discovered that none was Leaf-compatible.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/03/autos/electric_car_commuter_diary.fortune/index.htm

[ret5hd]

1. Sounds like there might be a market for some type of plug adapter.

[wtmusic]

2. There is, but not for long.

"California is the only state with any real significant number of Avcon charging stations, over 600 of them there. They are all in the process of being upgraded to J1772 by ClipperCreek, which got a grant from the state for that. But this will take over another year to complete, through the end of 2011. In the meantime, lots of new J1772 charging stations are being installed in California.

The only EV left on the road today that *natively* uses the Avcon connector for charging is the Ford Ranger EV, but there aren’t that many of them left, less than a hundred in the entire state of California, I believe. The National EAA received a grant from the state of California to develop a J1772 inlet to Avcon claw adaptor for use by the few Ford Ranger EVs left on the road, so that they can charge from J1772 charging stations. So they are going to be taken care of.

The largest user of the 600+ Avcon charging stations in California today is the fleet of Tesla Roadsters. They do so using two adaptors in series: 1) an Avcon to NEMA 14-50 adaptor (made and sold by the National EAA, on their merchandise webpage), and 2) the Tesla 240V Mobile Charge Kit (MCK) adaptor that Tesla sells (on its website).

Existing Tesla Roadsters (with the legacy, proprietary Tesla charge connector) will just as easily be able to charge from J1772 charging stations by using the following two adaptors in series: 1) a J1772 to NEMA 14-50 adaptor (which are already available, now on the market, being sold online), and 2) the Tesla 240V MCK adaptor.

Now that ITT has achieved UL certification on both its 75-Amp J1772 connector/cable set and 75-Amp J1772 vehicle inlet, it’s only a matter of time until Tesla transitions its new production of Roadsters over to using the ITT 75-Amp J1772 vehicle inlet. I gather that is supposed to happen in early 2011."

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?5241-Old-Avcon-to-J1772-adapter

onedit: the Magne-Charge inductive large and small paddles, also common at charging stations, are no longer manufactured

[diane in sf]

4. thank you! very informative!!!

[wtmusic]

5. .

:hi:

[Kolesar]

3. 20 hours to charge at 120 VAC

Nonetheless, good for Nissan Motors!

[wtmusic]

6. All of the CA stations currently carry 240V (7-hour charge)

A 50-mile commute is viable if one with the new cables is installed near your workplace.

[Kennah]

7. I think it's 8 hours at 240 VAC ...

... but that assumes the battery is COMPLETELY discharged.

[Gregorian]

8. Charging is one of the birthing issues that will be gone shortly.

I believe the solution is battery exchange. They're testing it now in areas. Isreal will have a country wide series of stations. The San Francisco peninsula is utilizing it for an electric taxi service test.


I've been shocked at how slow we have been to adopt electric cars. I could tell stories about the amazing electric car revelations I've witnessed over the years. Talk about high performance. The torque curve is insane. Once Americans get their hands on electric cars they're going to wonder why they didn't do it sooner. And that's strictly from a high performance standpoint. I detest the term "green". I discontinued my engineering magazine the month they began doing it back in the early 90's. It's highly misleading. But I doubt anyone here would understand. More thermodynamics is needed in order to get that one.

Standardized batteries, and exchange stations. Then we're off and running. Sort of. All we need to do is knock off military spending, and put it into battery research. Then we will be on our way.

[tinrobot]

9. More chargers and slightly bigger batteries will address most issues.

With 100 mile range, 75-80% of people won't run out of charge on a typical day. When charging stations become common, then people can extend that range quite a bit by charging when they stop for lunch/shopping/work/etc.

Electric cars will most likely get 150-200 mile ranges within the next decade or so, and charging stations will also be ubiquitous. 30 minute chargers that are already in production (the Leaf has it as an option) and they'll also become more common. With that sort of infrastructure in place, there will very little need for battery swaps because 90-95% of people will not need to swap during any given day.

I seriously doubt manufacturers will standardize batteries. Too many competing technologies, plus it constrains design and makes any vendor's car less unique. Plus, easy swapping of a $10-20,000 battery brings up a lot of issues. The financial cost of the batteries makes them prone to theft. Also, any company doing the swaps exposes itself to significant liability. What if they swap a fresh new battery for one that is defective/old/substandard? Who is liable for the difference in value? Will consumers be able to trust just any battery? Will they be willing to pay for the service in 10 years when they get plenty of range and charging is cheap/free?

I can see swaps working for a taxi fleet or a company such as UPS, who have standardized fleets and only have to own up to themselves, but I doubt you'll ever see retail battery swapping.

[Gregorian]

10. There is already a battery standardization in progress.

Shimon Peres jumped on the bandwagon when given a chance, and is funding some expansive enterprise. This was on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago.

I've also been wondering how the battery geometry would eventually end up. I also don't think batteries will be standardized in size. It may just be an interim thing while we are still using horrible battery technology. I mean, there's a car utilizing the Porsche 911 that other than battery weight would be one of the highest performance cars out there. 700 lb-ft of torque at 0 rpm. That would make most sports car owners abandon even the most expensive cars.

I'm a little pissed off about all of this. There were Chinese engineers walking through the labs of Applied Materials in the early 80's asking to get custom chips made for their electric car controls. My guess is they are already deep into battery research. They're smart enough to know this is where we're headed.

I'm presently doing a timing belt replacement on my car, and after 40 years of being a mechanic, this was the one time when I just felt like putting my tools down and saying the hell with it. I mean the energy we put into mining, refining, heat treating gears, grinding and machining parts, valves, castings, and just tons of garbage where there would be a rotor and a stator. We're stupid.

[tinrobot]

11. Here's an article that mentions Tesla's battery swap technology

Relevant text (Tesla employee talking):

I wouldn’t give a direct correlation of a battery-swap to an engine swap. Compared to an engine, the battery-pack is quite large & unwieldy. Most of the people doing engine swaps at home are swapping V8s, which generally go in from above, with a hoist. So you’re only lifting the weight of the engine (300-700lbs). (Here, we’re completely ignoring the fact that ppl who spend Mercedes-money on a car are not the type of ppl who do engine swaps in their driveway… :^) ).

If you wanted to swap a battery pack at home, 1st, you’d need to be able to receive something that weighs over 1000lbs., and has a footprint of something like 6ft x 8ft – not realistic in most ppl’s homes. Then you’d need to support both the battery pack & the body – separately, of course, since you’re removing it – the body weighing in at over 2000lbs (thanks to lots of Aluminum). Then you have to roll one or the other away – now, using three times the footprint of the vehicle. Then do it all again, in reverse.

You really need a vehicle lift to remove the pack. It will be interesting to see the possible infrastructure develop around swappable packs. If you want to mirror the ICE infrastructure, then this is the way to go. But, I think we need to evolve from that allegory. I’m not going to postulate on what that could be – I work in process & internal logistics planning, not power-train engineering – but I joined Tesla to be part of this exciting future.

http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1053175_tesla-employee-model-s-alpha-prototype-up-and-running

[Gregorian]

12. Thanks. That was my first argument against swapping.

Before I watched the 60 Minutes segment, I was discussing this with someone. I had just driven to San Francisco for the first time in 12 years. I left the Bay Area to get away from cars, to be honest. I was remarking about how outrageous it was for me to see literally hundreds of thousands of cars from Santa Rosa to SF, where I had been on the road almost alone the last time. And how on earth we could be swapping out that kind of battery volume, even with advanced batteries.

We have a mess. A population mess. And it is making every facet of life difficult. I hate to be pessimistic, but when I mentioned how incensed I get when I hear "green" this and "green" that. Nothing is "green" in these quantities. So we'll see where this all goes. I still have my fingers crossed that we can convert over to renewable energy generation before the planet melts. The electric car is only one little fraction of what has to happen. And all of it is happening too slowly, as our numbers grow exponentially fast. I find it hard to be optimistic. Sorry about that.

[tinrobot]

13. The greenest car is the one you don't build.

While electric cars are preferable, we're not going to build/invent our way out of this mess completely. We're also going to have to cut back on our rampant consumption.