Mallory's LEAF Triumph, Cerritos Branch Meetup and April Delivery?? What the...!?!

Mallory's LEAF Triumph: Getting a LEAF if you Rent your Home

Mallory, a fellow member of the MyNissanLEAF forum, has accomplished something quite remarkable.  An apartment dweller in Santa Monica, Mallory managed to install an EV charging dock (EVSE) to charge her LEAF.

Potential EV owners who live in multi-family dwellings, especially those who rent, face serious challenges in installing charging docks.  Property owners, landlords and HOA boards of directors are often uninterested or unwilling to finance or even to allow the required physical or electrical upgrades to their property.  Since most EV charging is likely to be done at home, these limitations for renters or condo dwellers will likely limit the growth of the market for EVs.  This issue is recognized as significant by EV manufacturers and government agencies who are trying to promote the adoption of EVs.

Mallory used persistence, good manners and enthusiasm as she worked with her property owner, her SCE electric utility, her electrician, the EVSE maker Aerovironment and Nissan to get her EVSE installed.  The property owner shares some of the credit for being willing to allow Mallory to have the electrical work done, but Mallory's commitment and persistence were most responsible for her being able to bring her new red LEAF, "Ruby", home with her this month.  Her success will be a landmark in the early history of the adoption of electric cars.  Congratulations, Mallory!

My LEAF Delivery Date is Now April?  What's Going On?

I announced last week, with much relief, that I had been given a delivery date of March 2011 for my new LEAF.  Well, that relief was pretty short-lived.  Two days ago, my Nissan online "dashboard" delivery date changed to "Month of April 2011".  As you can imagine, I'm not thrilled about that.

What is going on?  Is Nissan having trouble producing the number of new LEAFs that they promised?  Were there quality issues that needed to be solved with the early batch of LEAFs that caused Nissan to slow the production line?  Both of these guesses are possibly true, but Nissan is denying them.  The official line from Nissan executives is that their engineers want to be absolutely sure that the LEAF will be 100% free of defects.  I'm willing to believe this and I'd also like to see the LEAF earn a great reputation for quality and reliability. But the most accepted rumor right now is that Nissan is focusing on delivering LEAFs in the home country of Japan because of the impending expiration of a government tax credit that supports the purchase of new EVs.  If this is true, we expect to see a surge of deliveries in late March and in April, followed by a regular stream of LEAFs being delivered in the US and in other world markets according to Nissan's previously announced plan.

The LEAF Branch Gathers in Cerritos
As members of our Southern California LEAF Branch group receive their cars, the driving range of the LEAF is encouraging some changes in the locations of our popular breakfast meetings.  Last week, eleven of us, including Jimmy from Oceanside to the south, met in Santa Ana.  This morning, seven of us got together at the Home Town Buffet in Cerritos, about 20 miles closer to Los Angeles. The group included Mallory from Santa Monica and Tom ("Sparky") from Pasadena, as well as Kat from central LA, who is a regular at the Santa Ana meetings as well.  We missed Gary's guiding presence, but we knew he was enjoying himself learning to be a community emergency response team member.

Sparky brought his great-looking black LEAF, and it was joined by Mike Walsh's blue beauty and Mallory's red "Ruby".  We had some great conversation that was a bit less technical and revolved more around how the new LEAF owners were enjoying living with their new cars and how the LEAF was fitting into their lives.

Here are some pictures from the meetup this morning.

(Pictures are clickable for enlarging)

Tom (tbleakne), Mike (mwalsh), Tom (sparky), Mallory (malloryk), 

Kat (kataphn), Mitch (1051) with Sparky's car

"Sparky" strikes a pose

Checking out "Sparky's" LEAF under the bonnet

Mallory and Kat arriving, parking next to Mike's LEAF

Mallory and Kat, showing off "Ruby", Mallory's red LEAF

"Bo" Mike Walsh's co-pilot

Kat gave Mallory a "Bo" of her own

More LEAF news soon.

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.