March 2018 Drive Report; 100% Electric!

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the Corolla's role has been shrinking in direct correlation with the increasing range of the LEAF.  With the 30 kwh LEAF, the Corolla's contribution dipped below 4,000 miles a year with probably a quarter to a third of that usage simply to keep the car from sitting too long.

Well, this month I gassed it ZERO miles.  The Corolla is now being used daily by someone who needed it and simply could not afford to buy a car and maintain the expenses. My original plan to give it to a co-worker, a single mother, didn't work out as she realized the additional expense of insurance simply wasn't in her budget.  The thought she would be able to work more and make more money simply was not clear enough to her but I had another co-worker in the same boat who has a work ethic beyond anyone I have ever known.

He was also without a car in a job where 100% of the work is done at client locations so the efforts he put in to making meet times at the office or directly to the store's location was simply awe inspiring! So off the Corolla went!

So for the month the LEAF solo'd it  for 2527.2 miles costing $15.73 in combined home charging and public charging fees or .6 cents per mile.  NCTC contributed "a bit" at  478.185 kwh which at  "home" market rates would have put my cost at $60.20 or 2.34 cents per mile, still a very good way to travel!  But that is "home" rates. Even with EVGO's new reduced rates, the cost would have been a "bit" higher.  Thank you Nissan for that wonderful program!  (Now if you could get that AV situation squared away...)


LEAF Spy STATS

Since the weather is still cool enough, I am ok with full charges overnight at home but still don't have a lot of them but the ones I do have are not consistent. The randomness is getting a bit better though

Looks like a likely baseline would be GID count in the mid 490's,  kwh available somewhat above 38 with SOC in the 97% range.  Still a bit high for my liking.  Its ok now while garage is still in the 50º range...

As mentioned several times before, my ahr and SOH continue their downwards trend while my HX has apparently not hit its ceiling posting a new high this morning of 115.75%  Again, no alarms yet as the drop in stats is hardly steep or alarming as of yet.  If I were to extrapolate my SOH loss over the 44 days I'd had the LEAF, I would be losing 3.85 % a year. I guess the big question becomes is my loss faster on a new pack or would it slow down? My previous packs sat at full stats anywhere from 8 months to 1½ years before showing any decline.  The diverging SOH/Hx issue is also a bit strange.  Stay tuned.

Aerovironment  AV
As mentioned, the AV QC is not compatible with the 2018 LEAFs... well, sort of.  We now have confirmed reports that Lincoln City, OR,  Bellingham, WA and Castle Rock, WA do work! So does this mean AV has started the fix?  Probably not.  It would appear that the AV network is simply inconsistent.  So this means we need a call to arms!  We need volunteers to go to each AV QC on the network and test their 2018 LEAFs and report back here and on Plugshare!

Quick Charging


Lots of talk over "QC Gate" where the LEAF is slowing its fast charge rate way way down as temps rise.  We even have one in Arizona already seeing 22 KW charging speeds on her first QC stop and its only April!  This Summer will not be good for her!  As for me; temps seem likely to play a part and determining the effective range of the LEAF with public charging come this July should be interesting. I am guessing 250 miles with one fairly decent QC.  I did a QC on Friday starting with batt temps at 105º and got a respectable 109 amps (of 124) and over 20 kwh in 30 mins. That is something I could easily live with.   My bigger concern is the early ramp down.  I only got 20 kwh due to very low starting SOC.  On LEAF it was "_ _ _"  but LEAF Spy said 8%...

Yesterday, I hit the QC and started at a full charge of 124 amps and got 22.4 Kwh but still saw the ramp down at the end of the session for the last 3 mins. Not the end of the World but with my pack at 112º, I needed a few hours of parking time to be able to get another QC at a decent speed.  Now the pack does seem to cool off when its real hot but the cooling rates drops off considerably in the mid 100º range.  This makes it a 50-50 chance of another decent QC.

This will add another level of trip planning to the mix. Now, estimated battery temps along with SOC will be critical if a tight schedule is needed.  I don't do trips IN ANY CAR with a strict time schedule. Traffic is simply too unpredictable here. So yeah, I arrive an hour or two early..."sometimes" but I am ok with that.  Being on time has been a lifetime priority for me.

I have started collecting data on QCs for another blog entry.  I am waiting on a chance to do more of a continuous run.  Right now,  my driving pattern is mostly drive 40-90 miles, park it to work, then return.  Too much time to cool off in all that.  I have a trip I do to Salem OR area every year and the extra range of the LEAF means I can ignore AV and just do Blink and EVGO for the trip quite easily. I think I am going to wait for a warmer Sunny day for that. I hope to do that trip within the next few weeks though.

Random Observations
Anyone notice Blinks are working?  Guessing most of you don't since you wrote them off a few years ago like I did.  Then Blink changed their name... again.  Kinda wrote that off as well.  But things started happening.  The Hoyt Road Walgreens QC, broken OVER 2 YEARS...maybe 3, was fixed!  In fact, nearly every Blink QC is working now.  Well, I happened to run into Rick and Julie from Durst Energy at Tahoma Market last weekend. They are the people hired by Blink (and other public charging companies) to maintenance the stations.   They said the calls from Blink are on the uptick!  This couldn't have happened at a better time.

EVs are quickly moving up to a newer and wider level of acceptance which means competition for that plug is set to get intense!  Our planned QC buildout is slow, underwhelming and is already insufficient to handle what I see as a banner year for EVs in WA.  The VW settlement is looking to be too late and too little when it does get here to matter.  We need someone to step up big.  One or two stations is not going to work here anymore. We will soon be way beyond that.

Its Baseball Season again and did you see that catch Ichiro made to steal that home run? It ended up being the game winning play!   Now the reason I mention it is because my previous LEAFs when quick charging, created too much interference on AM radio. But now I can charge and listen to the game!! Life is good.