Nissan Leaf

[NeilBlanchard]

It is programmed to a 30A max by default. I have it on a 50A breaker and I am using 6/3 plug ground cable - three 6ga conductors plus ground; which is rated at 55A actually.

I was told last night by someone on the Leaf Forum that the way the JuiceBox Premium measures voltage is what leads to the higher kW readings. It apparently only samples the voltage when it is plugged in, and does not resample in real time. Since the Leaf can only take a maximum of 6.6kW, this possibly leads to charge totals that are 3%-4.5% too high. I will try to confirm this with Electric Motor Werks and if its a known error, then I will lower the kWh charge totals accordingly.

As it is, the charge I posted this morning was the second best, so far, at ~234Wh/mile. This is with the (still!) slightly high reading on the odometer (+0.5%) corrected (86.68 miles), but with the charge total at what the JuiceBox indicated (19.6kWh).

[NeilBlanchard]

I posted a fill up on my Scion xA after the longest period of time: 34 days! Typical times between my fill ups has been 12-15 days. And considering I typically only drive our Leaf 3 days a week, I'd say that is a darn good thing.

[Cobb]

You own an electric car, but only cut your gasoline usage in half?

[NeilBlanchard]

You didn't read what I posted: my spouse drives Forest ~4 days a week (Monday through Thursday when she works) and I drive it the other 3 days a week.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Cobb

You own an electric car, but only cut your gasoline usage in half?

Two drivers in the house substituted one of the gas cars for one electric car. It makes perfect sense that the gas use would be cut in half at best.

[Cobb]

I guess a better question would be is it cheaper to drive the electric car vs buying the gas it saved? May have to wait a bit longer for him to get a bill in the mail showing electrical usage.

I use to try to compute our bill, but we get charged twice. A per kw fee and a "usage"fee thats a % of the kw usage, but it also has a minimum charge. Cheap as I had my power bill was 20 bucks.

[NeilBlanchard]

Nope, we can't save more than we're buying the car for.

The point is not burning as much gas. And making it possible to produce some of the energy we drive on.

I posted earlier in this thread what I estimate the increase in our electricity bill is. It worked out to a bit less than 5¢ a mile. We pay a lot for electricity here - it was 19.2¢ / kWh and it is now 18.6¢ / kWh.

[Cobb]

Yeah, I read that, but it would still be interesting to see the bill incase they find a new charge for your ev and stick it to you. Im use to surprises in my life, nothing can be calculated, banked or assumed.

[NeilBlanchard]

Um, they can't / don't know how I am using electricity. And we actually still use an average amount of electricity. I'll look again this coming month, but the total usage for my family of four with multiple computers is less than 700kWh / month. Granted, we use gas for heat, hot water, cooking, and clothes dryer, but none the less, we use a fairly small amount of electricity.

Eventually, we will be putting a solar PV array on our roof, and will be heating with mini splits, and using a heat pump water heater, and maybe an induction stove (about 90% efficient, I think) and an electric clothes dryer. A solar PV array will likely pay for itself in about 10 years - without any of the incentives.

I want to totally leave fossil fuels behind, in say 4-5 years. And having an EV is the best first step.

[Astro]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

...Eventually, we will be putting a solar PV array on our roof, and will be heating with mini splits, and using a heat pump water heater, and maybe an induction stove (about 90% efficient, I think) and an electric clothes dryer. A solar PV array will likely pay for itself in about 10 years - without any of the incentives.
I want to totally leave fossil fuels behind, in say 4-5 years. And having an EV is the best first step.

The only thing i regretted with my solar installation was only being able to fit 4.5kW worth of panels on my equator facing roof.
I installed a Flukso energy monitoring unit to gather detailed information on my household energy use and our solar production.
So far 2 years at 30% annualised return on investment.
We have already recouped the depreciated value of the set up, one more year and we will have recouped the entire outlay.
A side benefit is that because our gas and electricity are with the same company, any excess solar credit pays for our gas bills. So two years with no gas or electricity bills, very happy.