Ok, so I was gone for half the month and my LEAF did NOT like it one bit! I guess I should feel wanted because she missed me so much but wish she had found a less painful way of showing her love for me.
West Coast Electric Highway
Despite not being here to pile on the miles, I kinda piled them on anyway but did it in the name of science! Although new stations started popping up in June, they really ratcheted up the pace in July. I did blog about my trip to test the Ellensburg, WA charger which was the first of 9 new QCs that will be installed in Central WA. Thursday I attended the ribbon cutting for the Yakima QC which is the 3rd of the 9 that should be completed "this" year! Soon, driving to Spokane with 24 kwh degraded LEAF will be possible! (with a lot of chances to stretch your legs of course) The Kennewick station has been open a while making a Columbia River loop an easy outing now.
The other 6 will be in the general location of Pasco, Connell, Richland, Prosser, Cle Elum and George. I am going to Journey/Def Leppard at the Gorge on Sept 29th so George being up and running is no longer critical but will be a nice option!
Also there will be a special surprise for the Cle Elum location which I can tell you would not be a surprise if I told you now but remember, you heard it here first!
Webasto
A lot of people were really disappointed when they found their brand new LEAF would not charge at most of the Aerovironment stations. Strangely enough, there was a small handful that did work but not enough in the right places. This put an extreme hurting on several road trips that were thought to be easily reachable but I just looked at it as another challenge to conquer but not everyone shared my attitude about roadtripping with minimal support. But Webasto came to the rescue! They bought out the public charging arm of Aerovironment and within days announced a fix was being implemented and that fix is now officially complete. Now all the formerly AV stations in Oregon and Washington are fixed and compatible!
Nissan
We all know that Nissan has been trying to dump their battery manufacturing partnership with NEC for the past 2 years and they have finally succeeded! Envision will soon take over both the R&D facilities in Japan and the battery plants in Tennessee and England.
With Nissan completely out of the battery manufacturing business, this brings up a lot of questions for me. Previously when the plan to sell off AESC failed, I wondered if Nissan would offer two versions of the LEAF with multiple pack sizes. That speculation has ended with this confirmed (and hopefully completed) sale.
There does remain the question of where battery pack replacements for existing LEAFs will come from. Will LG packs be heat tolerant enough in a smaller capacity to be used as replacements or will a sweetheart price on battery packs be part of the sale price? We all know that AESC has not been very effective with improving longevity of the LEAF pack. I love the extra range without the extra size or weight but maybe Envision will be able to increase the cycle life in a way that AESC has apparently has not?
DegradationGate
By now (at least in the EV community) the reputation of the 30 kwh pack is solidified as the worst pack ever put out by Nissan. But the evidence is flowing in that the software fix for the LBC actually "did" fix something. I hesitate to make any definitive statements with barely two months of user reports but the initial comments are very encouraging. I only mention this because I stand by my comment that the 30 kwh pack is BY FAR the best Nissan has ever put out. My experience with the 30 kwh pack, albeit, brief was simply exceptional. A big big big part of the reason I selected the LEAF over the Bolt or Tesla was due to how well my 2016 performed. Granted, the accident changed all my plans...
For the month of July, I traveled 1356.5 miles using 289.474 kwh of public charging which meant nearly nothing used of home charging which would be correct. In fact, other than a few times charging for roughly 80 mins (which is wake up time to leave time on work days) I did a full charge a few times for trips but the SOC was relatively high putting my home charging costs at $3.22. Without the public charging the cost would have been $27.82 or 2.1 cents per mile. Summer time has boosted my efficiency a bit despite my using AC a lot lately due to several heatwaves we are having in the area.
I will soon hit my 6 month anniversary where I will be reevaluating my LEAF decision so stay tuned. I am anxious to hear what I have to say and hope you are too!
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