Boone Restaurant Installs First PEV Charging Station
May 3rd, 2012Leaf owner travels 75 miles to participate in Autocross
April 30th, 2012Here’s what Chris Suich, proud Nissan Leaf owner, had to say about taking a recent road trip with his Leaf…to participate in a road race! Even with an unexpected twist, the road trip was a success!
Chris’ Story:
Well, I tested my EV mettle this past weekend by going on an out of town adventure.
I decided to take my Leaf to an autocross. I am a regular autocrosser with the Tar Heel Sports Car Club. Having a new car I wanted to give it a try, show it off and mostly to educate the other club members that EV’s are capable of making the trip and performing well on course.
Friday
I went home Friday and told my wife that we are off to Danville, VA for an overnight stay. There is an Autocross Sunday at the Danville Airport. We live in Apex and I felt confident I can make the 75 mile trip on a full charge. I did plan to stop in Durham along the way to have dinner and get a 1 hour charge while we eat. There are 3 stations near the American Tobacco Complex and I wanted to have a little extra charge for the trip in case of a detour or some other unexpected event. I had also searched the Danville area for Level 2 charge stations and found two. There is a company, Advanced Vehicle Research Center, adjacent to the airport in Danville and there is a Nissan dealership in town as well. I called both to make sure they were operating and available for public use.
Saturday
Well, Saturday came and I had packed the car with all my gear needed for a day of autocross. I can say the Leaf holds a full-size pop-up shade tent very easily when the seats are down. We headed out Saturday afternoon and reached Durham after 20 miles with just 3 bars gone. As planned, I hooked up to the charger on Carr street and we had a nice pizza at Mellow Mushroom while we were there. I got 2 bars back on the RAM and we headed out for the remain 55 mile stretch. I traveled on NC routes, but nothing over 55mph. I used the cruise and A/C (all the way) for the trip. So far all was going well. I approached Danville and the car still had 25-30 miles on the RAM. I noted to myself we could have made in one shot. On the way in to town I wanted to test the charger at the research center so I would be prepared for a recharge after the event the next day. We arrived at the center, I plugged up and swiped my Chargepoint card and … nothing. The charger was not working. I called Chargepoint network and they confirm the charger needed maintenance. Yikes!!! Why didn’t their website tell me that??? Well, that’s why I confirmed the backup charger at the Nissan dealership, conveniently located next to the hotel where we planned to stay. We went onto the hotel checked in, went out for an ice cream and then I took the car for an overnight charge at the Nissan dealership.
Race Day!
The next morning I retrieved the car and off to autocross. Those who recognized the Leaf were amazed that it made the trip. One guy asked, “How do you plan to get home?” I should have responded with a big Doh.
Oh well, a missed opportunity for a laugh.
Before my first run, the announcer called to the course workers an EV car is on course because they would not hear me coming over any other cars on course. I was a little unsure how the car was going to perform. I knew acceleration would not be a problem. I’ve tested the car in normal mode and there is plenty of torque to start. I was able to get 5 runs, each lasted about 50 secs with top speeds of 50+MPH.
The car performed fairly well on course considering that it is 4200lbs. Actually the 600lb battery helped a lot during the slalom portion of the course. The worst part was 2 places where heavy braking was needed. I think the computer didn’t understand what to do about regenerative, so it was a little jerky at times. Overall, I got 4th place out of 20+ drivers in the “street tire” class. These are any cars with street tires. Our times are adjusted based on the car’s actual class. For example a a MINI Cooper S would be expected to do better compared to a Honda Fit, so the cars are rated different. That difference is applied to your actual run by multiplier factor. Well, I was pleasantly surprised the Leaf performed well enough for me to get a 4th place on my first time in that car. After the event I got one comment to the effect that I rocked the gas-engine autocross world (well, OK… for our club anyway).
After my runs, I had only used 3 bars of battery. That included the 4 mile drive from the hotel. I had a friend shuttle me back to the Nissan dealer to “top off” the battery for the drive home. We retrieved the car an hour or so later.
After the event we took a slightly different route through Roxboro but still stopped in Durham for dinner and a charge. I had 23 mile range and 20 miles to go. Again, I probably could have made the trip without the extra charge, but why chance ruining a great weekend.
Chris Suich
Electric Highway Opens in Oregon
March 20th, 2012The first major section of a West Coast Electric Highway opens in Oregon.
“The stretch of 160 miles of Interstate 5 served by eight stations marks the next big step in developing an infrastructure that until now has been limited primarily to chargers in homes and workplaces.”
PEVs Everywhere?
March 12th, 2012What does the future look like for PEVs? Read about President Obama’s EV Everywhere Plan which includes having the U.S. produce a five-passenger PEV that provides enough range AND a payback time of less than five years.
LEAF to Get Software Upgrade
February 16th, 2012A recent article in Consumer Reports talks about the LEAF’s new software update.
Not sure an electric car is right for you? Try renting one!
Charging Station Installation Hanbook Updated to V. 2.0
February 14th, 2012Want more information on installing charging stations? We recently updated our Charging Station Installation Handbook for Electrical Contractors and Inspectors.
Version 2.0 includes specific information on applicable codes and standards in regards to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
EVs in the News
February 10th, 2012It seems as though EVs are in the news more and more! Here are some recent articles we found interesting:
iPhone App Syncs with Electric Vehicles to Track & Share Savings
Myths and Facts About Electric Cars
Hertz to Try Out Wireless EV Chargers
And here’s a post about one of our corporate campus partners!
Biogen Idec Opens 10 Electric Car Recharging Stations with Federal Stimulus Boost
Nissan’s offering a chance for LEAF owners to win a charging dock!
February 10th, 2012Check it out! Nissan is conducting a sweepstakes where you could win one of 50 Nissan LEAF home charging dock with installation. Click here for more information.
LEAFing the Pump Behind Blog is Shifting Gears
January 31st, 2012We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Staci’s 12 weeks with the Nissan LEAF. Going forward, LEAFing the Pump Behind is going to bring you information on Advanced Energy’s 2-year PEV Usage Study, or, as we like to call it, the “Journey of the Electric Car”!
We just celebrated delivery of 40 Nissan LEAF Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) to individuals that purchased the vehicles with financial incentive from a State Energy Office administered, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funded grant program. The ARRA funding for deployment of the 4o PEVs is enabling a 2-year study of plug-in electric vehicle usage and fueling behaviors. The study is unique because of the level of detailed data that will be captured and because it will focus on workplace clusters and primary usage corridors.
"Journey of the Electric Car" Kickoff Celebration - January 28th at North Hills, Raleigh
Special thanks to our program Partners and Sponsors!
Going forward, we’ll be posting information about our study and the data collected, as well as comments from our study participants! Click here to to learn more about the study, and our partners/sponsors. We hope you enjoy reading more about owning and operating electric vehicles!
Stranded!
December 15th, 2011Well, not really. I was stranded, but I did it on purpose. I wanted to see what happens when you run out the battery in the LEAF, so I purposely ran it out. Here’s how it happened.
I started at my office with a full charge and drove the LEAF home. I didn’t charge overnight and the next day, I drove to and from work without charging. When I got home, I was down to 4 miles of range left. I think I was told at some point that you’d get your first low battery warning when you were down to 20% battery capacity, but that wasn’t the case. My first low battery warning came when I had only 7 miles of range left – definitely less than 20%! I was surprised the car lets you get that low before warning you. I was also told that when you get this first warning, the car will start turning systems like the radio and climate control off to conserve battery. This was also not the case – radio and climate control were both still on. The first warning was visual only. A yellow charging indicator appeared on the dash display, along with a message on both the dash display and the touch screen display warning me that the battery level is very low. The touch screen message asked if it could direct me to the nearest charging station, which I ignored.
No, I do not want to search for a charging station.
Headed for trouble...
So there I was with about four miles of range left. I didn’t want to get too far from home so I’d be close to my charging station (aka the outlet in my garage), so I started circling my neighborhood. The range went to 3 miles, I kept driving, and then the range went to a blinking “—“.
At this point, I got another warning. This one was visual and audible. A voice announced that I had very low battery charge. The touch screen display again asked to direct me to the nearest charging station. Radio and climate control were both still going.
It's getting serious now...
So now the car is giving me no indication of how much farther I can go. However, the manual says that when you’re very close to out of charge, you’ll enter “turtle mode”. I hadn’t seen anything to indicate I was in turtle mode yet, so I kept driving. I drove at least 3 more miles with my range estimate at “—“ before I finally entered turtle mode. And yes, an actual picture of a turtle appears on the dash display when you’re in turtle mode.
There's the turtle!
So now I’m in turtle mode. Time to stop driving? Of course not! I went up and down my street a few times to see if I could tell a difference in how the LEAF performs in this mode. The only difference I could see is that turtle mode limits the electric motor output. You don’t even really notice that unless you floor it (which I did). If you’re watching the energy readout display, you’ll notice that the electric motor output tops out in turtle mode at around 30-35 kW. But otherwise, the car drives pretty much normally. And the radio and climate control were both still on. At this point I wanted to make sure I was very close to home, so I turned into my driveway to run the rest of this experiment from there.
I went up and down the driveway a few times and started getting impatient, so I turned up the heat and turned on the windshield wipers to see if that would move things along. Finally, I got an audible warning that the vehicle power is limited. At this time, the windshield wipers slowed and the heat turned off. The fan was still running, but the energy meter was not showing any climate control power usage. It just so happened that I was at the top of my driveway at this time, so I tried to shift into reverse to see if I could still move. I couldn’t. The LEAF would only allow me to shift into neutral. So that was it. Out of charge – kind of. The radio and headlights were still on, and I could raise and lower the windows. So it looks to me like dead battery in the LEAF isn’t quite completely dead. You can’t move any more, but systems that might be handy to have (like your headlights and hazards lights) still function. It could be that these are running off the 12V battery and not the lithium-ion batteries, but in either case, they work.
And, incidentally, when I checked my trip odometer I had gone 73 miles on my full charge.
So that’s it, folks. My 12 weeks with Advanced Energy’s LEAF are over. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it. It’s been fun to see firsthand what it’s like to drive an electric vehicle. Overall, I’d say that it’s not that much different than driving a gasoline vehicle and I really loved not having to buy gas! Thanks to Advanced Energy for allowing me to “LEAF the pump behind!”
