Saturday, January 15, 2011

A Rustle on the LEAF Branch and When Should I Charge?

The LEAF Branch
This morning was the fifth meeting of the Southern California LEAF Branch and the FIRST meeting that included actual LEAFs!

Our group of about a dozen highly geeky electric car lovers who met online at www.mynissanleaf.com meets one Saturday morning a month at the Hometown Buffet in Santa Ana.  There we eat cheap and fattening breakfast foods washed down with mediocre coffee and grin and chat with each other about our LEAF obsessions.  We discuss home charging docks, electric utility rate structures, brake regeneration, battery capacity, Nissan dealers, Nissan Corporation, and any number of intimate EV details, as well as our kids, our grandkids, and the weather. Our Branch Manager is Gary (garygid), who found the venue and who apparently has been thriving on HTB food for some years.

This morning, Mike (mwalsh) and Omkar brought their brand new LEAFs to show off.  Mike gave rides on the freeway to several of us, even "flooring it" at the request of one speed freak.  Jim (Jimmydreams) came up from Oceanside by hybrid car for the first time, his new LEAF needing to stay at home and charge up for his next commute, and it was great to meet him finally.  His LEAF emailed him while he drank coffee to let him know that it was charging.  Omkar was proud to talk about welcoming his first new baby daughter into the world last Monday.  He seemed sleepy, unsurprisingly.

Here are a few pictures of the group talking and enjoying the cars in the HTB lot.  There will be another Branch meeting for some of the more northerly-based members at the HTB in Cerritos next Saturday, January 22.

(Pictures are clickable for enlarging)
Mike's blue LEAF Draws a Crowd of the Well Informed

Omkar's and Mike's LEAFs Enjoying a Reunion

LEAF's-Eye View of the Gathering

Gordon, Kat (kataphn), Gary (garygid), Omkar, Mitch (1051), 
Mike (mwalsh), Jeanine (JPVLeaf), and Tom (tbleakne)
(Golden Arches Tastefully in the Background)

Kat is Tall, But She Was Comfortable in the "Stadium Seating" in the Rear of Mike's Blue Beauty

When Should I Charge my LEAF?

Here in Southern California Edison Country, many of us have been discussing the fascinating topics of which rate schedule we should choose and when we should charge our LEAFs.

When I began looking into SCE's rates, I found that their online rate sheets were so complicated that I couldn't understand the first thing about them.  With help from several members of the MyNissanLeaf forum and from an analyst at SCE, I can now predict my costs with some degree of accuracy.  That's no small feat.  Especially with the added complexity of solar power generation, you're in for some head scratching.

One confusing fact that we learned was that, when calculating which of two pricing tiers to charge our electrical usage to, SCE actually ADDS our net solar power generation to our power usage, instead of subtracting it.  I was curious whether I should then, against logic, charge my car during the Peak daytime hours so that SCE's meter would never see the solar generated power.

So I did what I usually do, I built a bunch of spreadsheets.  Without boring the reader further, I found that my best bet is to request the electric car charging time-of-use rate schedule TOU-D-TEV and to charge the LEAF at the Super-Off-Peak times, between midnight and 6 am.  The reason is that, though SCE's billing methods push us into Tier 2 pricing more quickly, that also gives us a bigger savings from the extra solar power we make in the summer. 

Nissan on the Defensive for Delivery Delays


Nissan is being widely criticized among the group of waiting customers for delaying deliveries after the first few, very few cars, and for providing no information to the rest of the customers except "Four to 7 months after you ordered, thank you for calling".  After many of the customers, including me, who placed orders in September were notified that they have March or April delivery months, some of the pressure is off.  But there is still widespread suspicion about why there are very few deliveries in the second half of January and almost none scheduled for February.  

Nissan execs deny that there were quality problems in the first batch of cars and say that the engineers were simply concentrating on getting the first LEAFs right the first time.  Given the high profile of this first mass-produced electric car, and the number of people (and companies) who would like to see it fail, I'm inclined to agree with Nissan that it needs to be right from the start.  But I do think that they needed to be more open with their faithful first customers.  I know that I just described quite a PR tightrope that they need to walk, but that's Nissan's problem to solve.

That's enough geekiness for now.  More LEAF news next time.