Franklin QC

In May of 2012 Nissan installed a new quick charge station at their US headquarters in Franklin TN. I had need to be in Franklin so decided to take the LEAF for a 101 mile round trip from home to work to Franklin and back home. Without a reliable quick charge station at my destination the trip would not have been convenient. Standard 240v charging would take 5 hours to top off my battery at my destination, but not so long with the quick charger!

The quick charge station was busy when I arrived. I was third in line for the charger. I noticed a long line of L2 chargers on the way in all fully utilized by employees. Charging at the QC was Dave Mann who I knew had signed up for an EV meetup on June 16th. Next in line was Nathan an Nissan employee. We were in a similar situation, both down to 2 bars of energy (about 10 miles range). Dave was done in about 10 minutes and Nathan graciously allowed me to go first even though I said I was in no big hurry. Great customer service putting the customer first!

Now that’s FAST.
Beat that for speed Ford Focus EV 🙂

The charger added a two thirds charge in 23 minutes and 7 seconds, going from 31% to 89%. As i was talking with Nathan he shared with me that there are 180 LEAF’s at the Frankiln TN headquarters sharing 30 charging stations. They have challenges sharing those stations amicably at all times 🙂 Nathan isn’t directly involved in the LEAF program but decided to ‘eat his own dog food’ and buy the companies latest product. After sharing details with Nathan I took off and visited Kohl’s and Whole Foods both of which I shopped at and charged at. I figured that a slower gentler charge for the last part of the charge was kindest to the battery.

Note to other retailers, I chose these stores ‘because’ they have charging stations. Whole Foods did not require an RFID card to activate the GE branded EVSE, evidently they intend to keep them free for customers. I used the Level 2 chargers at those locations to top off the battery to 100%.

Good signage at Kohl’s

Great signage at Whole Foods as well 🙂

Everyone needs one of these when in busy LEAF locations.