Nissan LEAF

March 2013 sets several records for EV Sales

jpwhitehome — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 00:22:54 +0000

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) set several sales records in March 2013. March was the best sales month ever for the Nissan LEAF which recorded 2236 sales. March was also the best month for the Tesla S electric vehicle with an estimated 1950 deliveries last month (Tesla do not report monthly sales figures). The Toyota Rav4 EV also saw record sales last month thanks to $10,000 pricing discounts by Toyota. This resulted in the highest number of Battery Electric vehicles sold in one month.

More people are driving electric than ever before – Click to enlarge

As one can see in the chart, the cumulative number of electric vehicles placed into service since December 2010 is increasing at an aggressive pace. Both Tesla and Nissan US based plants are now producing vehicles domestically for the US market allowing them to meet demand for their vehicles. The introduction of the Plug in Prius and Ford Energi plug-in hybrids has provided a boost of Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEV) vehicles brought to market. Ford have announced they will increase the number of dealers selling their plug-in vehicles which will make their vehicles more generally available to consumers. We can anticipate much higher EV sales month-to-month the rest of this year. Despite more BEV’s being sold in March than PHEV’s (4553 vs 3079) the number of new PHEV models coming to market suggests that PHEV is the EV car of choice for US consumers. There are over 20,000 more PHEV’s on the road than BEV’s and I believe the gap will continue to widen as we go through 2013.

Click to view a spreadsheet of EV sales

To examine sales of EV’s in more detail I have developed a spreadsheet to provide better analysis of which models and vehicle types are selling well. Feel free to download the spreadsheet to examine and analyze to meet your needs. I have released the spreadsheet under Creative Commons control, so please attribute the work as mine if you post elsewhere and/or modify it for sharing with others.

Hendersonville City Square adds 8 more EV charging stations

jpwhitehome — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 23:08:24 +0000

Hendersonville City Square Solar Center has recently added 8 more Blink EV charging stations to the two they already had for a grand total of 10 charging stations. The total number of EVSE’s in Hendersonville is 20, so the solar center now has half of them!! So if you are waiting on a Roma Pizza or need to visit Vandenbergh Insurance agency, you are in luck as an EV Driver. No shortage of power here. The soar center has more solar assisted stations than a large parking lot close to the Titans stadium in Nashville. City Square boasts one of the State of Tennessee’s largest PV solar energy installations.

I’ve seen gasoline vehicles parked in these spaces; when given that the units occupy an entire section of the parking lot is no big surprise. This addition of EV charging capacity certainly puts Hendersonville on the map in Middle Tennessee. One hopes this will inspire other shopping centers to install EV charging units. Units at The Streets of Indian Lake would be most welcome. Shopping centers and malls have been slow to adopt to this technology; not just in Tennessee but all around the nation. Anywhere a car owners may spend an hour or more is an ideal location for a charging station.

Solar installation companies have been early adopters of this technology. In addition to City Square Solar in Hendersonville, Outpost Solar in Pulaski were one of the first in Tennessee, Integrated Solar in East Nashville and Lightwave Solar in La Vergne have also adopted the technology in the last year. The promise of driving a vehicle on sunshine alone is very compelling; many EV owners also own solar systems.

Gas Stations are easier to find than EV Charging Stations

jpwhitehome — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:46:34 +0000

Blink Claim the Unit is here

We took a trip to Portland TN today. Portland has two EV charging stations, at the City Hall and the city Ballpark.

I dropped my wife off to get her hair cut and had half an hour to spend. I thought I’d plug in and use my iPad while I waited. I set the navigation system to drive to the closest charging station that was according to the nav system about 500 yds. away. I followed directions and the nav system announced that I had arrived at my destination; 100 South Broadway. I looked around, saw a Shell Gas station, but no city hall, and certainly no Blink charging station.

The actual location is 1/4 mile away

I drove around in circles, John Broder style, failing to find the charging station. No worry, I drove to the Ballpark instead to charge there. Same fate, I drove around and failed to find the charging unit. I returned to the hairdressers and parked. I then walked towards where I thought the City Hall should be. Not there. After 5 minutes of walking around I spotted a Blink charging station on a parallel street. By the time I got back to our LEAF, my wife had already left the hairdresser and we set off for home.

When we got home the car announced low battery charge. We made it, but only just. So what went wrong? Part of the problem is that the postal address isn’t necessarily where a charging unit will be located, this is true of large properties like ballparks.

I got online and found out that the city hall isn’t located at 100 South Broadway, it is located at 100 S Russell Street. a 1/4 mile away from where my car navigation system indicated the unit was located.

I found plenty of gas stations in my drive around Portland. They have very tall and very colorful signs. They are located on major routes. EV charging stations can be located any where, and are not advertised by large signs. With navigation systems, we should be able to find these units, but NOT if the address and geo location is inaccurate in the database.

I reported the incorrect address and map marker to Blink Networks, and they very quickly responded they would fix the error. So sorry no photos of the charging stations in Portland, since I never got close to one!!

An Electric Car is like an iPad

jpwhitehome — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 01:51:45 +0000

An EV is to a car as an iPad is to a computer. You can’t do everything with an iPad that you can with a conventional computer, but once someone has used an iPad they tend to use it in preference to a computer. The iPad is compelling and has many advantages over a more full featured laptop or desktop computer system.

In the same way, an EV has its limitations, but once you’ve driven one for a few days one simply doesn’t want to go back to driving a gasoline vehicle again. Despite its limitations the electric vehicle has distinct advantages over a gasoline car, it’s quiet, it’s smooth, it’s quick and it is very cheap to run and maintain. The driving experience is simply superior. You never have to visit a gas station on the way to work, making you late again. In the same way a power computer user may consider an iPad to be a toy not worthy of their advanced needs, many gasoline car drivers consider an EV to be a toy not worthy or practical for them.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s easy to focus on the shortcomings of an EV. High price, short range, long charge times and write the vehicle off as impractical. Even though my wife may get frustrated with an iPad from time to time and ask for the netbook to do something the iPad can’t; next time she needs to browse the web she reaches for the iPad not the netbook. The same applies to an EV, even though you may need to switch to the gas car for that long journey, or to tow something, next time you reach for the car keys, it’ll be for the electric car.

Few people would own just an iPad for all their computing needs. Few people should own an EV only for their transportation needs. EV’s are best suited to multiple car families where access to home charging is possible.

Charging; just like an iPad it’s best to plug the vehicle in each evening and its good to go all day the next day.

An EV is very compelling. You may have done without an iPad for quite sometime, but now you have one you can’t imagine life without one. Expect the same with an Electric Vehicle, life wouldn’t be the same without my LEAF.

Those of you who feel an EV is just not for you or too expensive, consider this. Some of the first EV’s are now coming off two year leases and can be picked up with under 8,000 miles for less than $18,000. I have been watching eBay recently and many LEAF’s are going for less than $20,000. Nissan have announced that in the spring of 2013 they will add a supplemental battery capacity warranty for 5 years or 60,000 miles. With hardly used pre-owned vehicles available for sale, maybe it’s time to check one out and take it for a spin.

BP add an EV quick charge station in Nashville TN

jpwhitehome — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 21:51:38 +0000

BP gets Quick Charge Station

When the EV Project was first announced a few years back, BP were listed as a company that would partner in the deployment of Quick Charge stations. Cracker Barrel were quick to take on the charging stations, however it seemed BP would never get off the ground. Well at last the first BP gas station to offer quick charging for Electric Cars became operational this week. BP is not the first gas station to get a Quick Charge unit, that accolade goes to the Murphy Express station in Chattanooga which was the site of the very first quick charging station in Tennessee. The BP station is located at Bell Road in Antioch just off I-24. Interestingly BP are not shown as an EV Project partner., which may explain the lack of installations in the last 18 months.

I visited the site two weeks ago when I noticed that the charging station had appeared on the EV charging maps. At that time the unit was turned off, but the installation did look complete, presumably waiting on utility activation or planning inspection. The addition of this unit now means that 6 quick charge stations are within easy reach of my home allowing me to go further without having to wait for hours to recharge. All three interstates now have at least one quick charging station, I-24 has three of the six .

Nashville QC unit locations – Click to enlarge

The quick charge stations are to the south and east of Nashville but there are no stations to the west or north of Nashville. I would really like to see one to the west of Nashville to make a return journey to Dickson TN convenient. I-40 at the intersection with the newly opened stretch of I-840 would be a great choice.

Nissan have promised to install 600 quick charge units in the US in the not too distant future. Some at partners, some at their dealerships. One place I’d like to see the next QC unit is in the center of Nashville, the BP on West End would be just fine

Plugshare website shows the BP QC unit is online and available

MyNissanLEAF forums on malware blacklist – site possibly hacked

jpwhitehome — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 20:32:55 +0000

MyNissanLEAF forum blocked.

Sometime during Tuesday afternoon a third party Nissan LEAF forum, mynissanleaf.com got placed on a blacklist for malicious websites. Both Firefox and Google Chrome are advising against visiting the website. Visiting the website using Internet Explorer is NOT blocked, however after arriving at the site Windows asks for permission to install software, lending credence to the possibility that the LEAF forum has been infected with malware. Whatever you do do not install software from this website until the owners have had time to deal with the issue.

Request to install software after visiting mynissanleaf,.com – Don’t do it!!

Update 2013-01-16: The website was cleared of malware later the same day. Apparently it was a victim of the Java cross-site vulnerability. Update your Java to the latest version.

Blink Waive 2013 Membership Fees

jpwhitehome — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 01:17:12 +0000

Click to Enlarge

Last year Blink Waived membership Fees for their services. It was assumed by many (including myself) that 2013 would see fees being charged for membership. I just received a fee waiver for 2013 Plus Membership. So what does that get me? 50% off charging at Blink Stations, so I pay $1 an hour instead of the $2 per hour for non-members.

Click to Enlarge

Sign-up now while they are giving membership away for free!!!

All Electric Garage

jpwhitehome — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 21:28:28 +0000

All Electric Family

This weekend the White family went all electric.

No we haven’t lost our minds, Karen’s Altima is in the shop and was retained over the weekend. We were offered and took a loaner vehicle. A LEAF of course The Altima’s heater core is being replaced. Something that doesn’t require maintenance on an all electric!!

Being without a gas vehicle isn’t a problem at all!! We had no plans for any long trips. We did take the loaner to Nashville last night to eat Indian at the Bombay Palace. Recharging of the loaner LEAF is via 120v which is considerably slower than the dedicated 240v unit we have for our regular LEAF. However we haven’t been left short due to the slower charge times. After retuning with just 1/6th charge left at 8pm last night, the car was fully charged by 9am the next day. A dedicated charging station is a convenience, not a necessity.

LEAF twins at home.

As you can see the loaner has been adorned with a jazzy wrap to better advertise the LEAF. We call it the ‘Pace Car’. It goes back Monday as long as the Altima is ready for pick up. Newton Nissan do a great job offering free loaner vehicles for service customers. This isn’t the first LEAF we’ve had from them, it is the first for us to keep overnight however. The loaner is a 2011 model like our own, its serial number is just a few hundred more than ours. However it has just 1,500 miles compared to our 18,500. Newton Nissan do not practice good charging habits, and allow the vehicle to charge to 100% full at all times. As a result its range is slightly less than ours despite being slightly newer and with considerably fewer miles. Nissan recommend charging to 80% full as a routine, with charging to 100% reserved for when you know you’ll need it. This practice extends the batteries life.

All Electric Garage

Hard to find Charging Stations located at City Square

jpwhitehome — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:58:22 +0000

City Square Hendersonville – Click to enlarge

City Square in Hendersonville now has two electric vehicle charging stations. They are well hidden though.

First indication I got of the stations was when I was driving down main street and saw on my navigation screen a charging station indicated. It was dark and I didn’t spot them. I returned another time and trolled up and down along the city square parking lot, hoping I didn’t attract too much attention, it must have looked like I was casing the joint. I did not find the units anywhere. I assumed it was a mistake on the nav screen.

A few weeks later charging station websites such as Blink Networks, Plugshare and Recargo started to list the chargers at this location and showed them active and online. I returned the day after Thanksgiving on a quest to find them. They were not to be found in the main parking lot, so I decided to go behind the shopping center buildings and there they were, outside the shopping center management office.

Location of ‘Hidden’ Charging stations at City Square.

Not convenient for shoppers, but there they are. A black LEAF with a Davidson County license plate was charging when I stopped by, presumably belonging to the management office or a shop keeper. This shopping center while outwardly unassuming turns out is a major Solar Energy producer! In 2010 this location became one of the largest solar arrays in Tennessee. The arrays produce 87.23kW of peak power, generating approximately 108,750 kWh per year. More than enough to power Papa John’s Pizza Ovens and the other storefronts in the mall. In fact the energy produced can support 30 EV’s traveling 13,000 miles each annually.

It turns out the owner of the shopping center is a Solar proponent. Solar facilities and EV Charging Stations are an ideal match, ensuring that EV’s have a minimal impact on the electric grid and earns the car the right to claim to generate zero emissions.

Black LEAF alongside mine

Smokey the Bear drives a LEAF

jpwhitehome — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 01:40:17 +0000

I came across an interesting video on Youtube. It’s a story of how the black bear solar institute in the smoky mountains in Tennessee have installed 24 EV charging stations at key points around the national park to encourage EV adoption.

The EV charging stations are known as the Green Gateway and are focused predominantly around Townsend TN. The location of charging stations can be seen on the official map of Blink charging stations.

Charging Stations at the Smoky Mountains TN

Pigeon Forge and Gatlingburg have also installed a good number of charging stations, for a total of 46 close to the Tennessee Park Entrance. What would be nice to see is charging stations at the Sugarlands visitor center inside the park and at the Clingman’s Dome parking lot

With quick charging stations along I-40 from Nashville to Knoxville a trip to the park with our LEAF is within the realms of possibility!!