Cornwall with the 2nd generation Nissan Leaf

Did you know I travelled once again to the UK with a leaf for Holland?
I tweeted my whole story on twitter.com/my_leaf during our trip.
We travelled from province of Utrecht ( Netherlands ) over Breda, Antwerpen ( BE ), Zwevegem (BE) in the direction of Dunkerque (FR) to take our ferry to the other side.
We travelled along the south coast ( which was hard since there were not many chargers ) to direction Lands End in Cornwall. We stayed for 2 weeks, returning over the highway bound London which DID have enough ecotricity quick chargers along the way back home.
All the details are in my tweets.

( Perhaps I will add some photo’s later on to this post )

I am now preparing for my testdrive upcoming friday in the 3rd generation leaf.
Nice: Col de Turini 200km on one charge….. will I make it ?
Follow me on @my_leaf and you will be the first to know.

185 100% charge GIDS for battery replacement

I was just reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf and posted a message on the same topic ”

185 100% charge GIDS for battery replacement ” on mynissanleaf.com

And would like to invite others to join that discussion.

 

Here is a copy of my remarks:

”

I would like to share som of my info / concerns :

Quite misleading that the they say ” 80% guaranteed for the first 5 years.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf :

“The 24 kWh electric vehicle battery (total capacity; usable battery capacity is about 21.3kWh [32][33]) consists of 48 modules and each module contains four battery cells, a total of 192 cells, …”

“The 2011/12 Leaf’s battery was initially guaranteed by Nissan for eight years or 160,000 km (100,000 miles)[40][41] (see Warranty sub-section below under United States for limitations).”

I am now on 17,7kWh according to LeafSpy Pro . missing 1 bar, SOH ( State of Health) according to this app 85%

Calculated from about 21.3kWh usability its 83% so calculation is close enough.

It seems like the Nissan leaf is losing 1% every 5000km. I testdrove a mk2 brand new leaf for >3000km reaching 6k it was on SOH 99%.

I checked my own picture taken from the app and after 5k km I dropped from 86% to my latest 85% SOH.

According to my original though on guarentee I would possibly reach 80% SOH in 25000 km ( 1 year ) reaching over 3 yrs of driving possibly and 90.000km.

So this would mean I get a replacement battery?

Not according to the 9/12 bars ( 70% ) statement here on the blog…

I need to get more information….

With Kind Regards,

Edwin

( End 2012 mk1, 62000km, 11/12 bars)”

 

EV trip to North Wales ( UK )

Preparation
Choosing a nice destination to visit ended up in Snowdonia, a wonderful place as pictures on internet shows. A beautiful nature reserve with many mountain trails to walk.
In order to get there the trip would take us through Belgium, France and a good part of the UK.
A rough 900km, thus many (quick)charge spots would take us in 2-3 days to our destination.

Charging Pass
Driving though the UK is easily done using the quick charge spots placed by ecotricity. I decided to go to North Wales just a week before going. Joe from ecotricity was kind enough to send our pass with express mail to the Netherlands.

Charging in the Netherlands is done using the “Love to Load” pass ( I prefer) issued by “The New Motion” or using the Fastned App on the FastNed charging points. Total’s Plug2Drive in Holland works fine. No charge pass, just pay in the shop ( while open ! ). BP has a FREE quickcharger by the way in Rotterdam close to the ZOO Blijdorp (just in case you get there).

Charging in Belgium, well it’s not that all easy. Better stick to the Nissan Dealers. I have had many problems with Total’s Plug2Drive network ( Belgium). ( Still Waiting for money back from last year and this year: failing to charge while still being charged for it ! )

Tekna

I switched my own white Nissan Leaf mk1.2 2012 against a new tekna for 2 weeks being able to test drive this new generation. ( Thank you Nissan Netherlands ).

The Tekna has many improvements to my first generation leaf, I will mention some through the blogs to follow, but the main ones I will mention now:

– improved radius ( 20-30 km )

– improved (less) consumption when using heater or AIRCO !

– better driving ( sticks more to the road ) More european suspension .

In the next blogs I will add more text and information to the tweets I have posted while making the trip. See http://www.twitter.com/my_leaf

TRIP

1. Netherlands.
Nissan dealer Leendert van de Born in Breda was our first stop.

As you can see, 2 roof boxes fitted next to each other on a Thule roofcarrier.

I am holding the Love 2 Load pass in front to show what is needed to get the quickcharger started.

This quickcharger is outside any gate and works 24/7 using the pass.

In Breda (area) there are 2 more Quick Chargers at THIS moment : ANWB Breda  and one in Oosterhout ( Exit 17 ) A27  ( See website The New Motion, Allego or  leafhebbers.nl  ).

http://www.allego.eu/nieuwsbericht/snelladers/

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z8P6OjVlhVb4.k6WdQhZoLyyo

http://www.anwb.nl/auto/themas/elektrisch-rijden/waar-staan-de-oplaadpunten

http://www.leafhebbers.nl

http://www.fastned.nl

Do you know apps like: THeNewMotion, Fastned, Oplaadpalen, Oplaadpunten, E-rijden , Plugsurfing, MijnLaden, PlugShare, …. which one do you you know and use… i would like to know. Please leave a comment below with additional info.

 

2. Belgium 

Belgium is a supposed to be a breath. With so many Plug-to-drive sites of Total, but let’s go ahead of the story.

The total website of belgium : http://www.total.be/nl/brandstoffen/brandstoffen-station/plug-to-drive/plug-to-drive-finder.html

Finding the Nissan dealers with a chademo connection… well the general chademo google maps helps out.. no information on a website that I can find. The https://www.leafhebbers.nl website has some of the places, but not Dunkerque…later on in the trip. Even http://thenewdrive.be/nl/elektrisch-rijden/snelladen  does not show this one.  On the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Nissanleafclub/posts/1704723016418865  I found a list.

So the first intended quick charge stop in Belgium was a Nissan Dealer just passed Antwerp. Since this was a Nissan test drive, I thought to visit as many Nissan dealers with a quick charge facility as possible, being able to meet and greet the owners and have a chat.

BREDA ( NL ) -> Sint Gillis-Waas   approx. 84km

NissanDealer De Witte nv garage

Sint-Niklaasstraat 92, 9170 Sint-Gillis-Waas, Belgium

With 3 bars left on the tekna we arrived. The owner knew we were coming but the email explaining that the quickcharger has trouble charging the NEW leaf came to late. So we ended up with a very nice gesture of charging on a regular 220V extension cable on which I used my zerocarbonworld 16A mennekes conversion/charging box to crank up the speed on charging since there was no charge pole outside and the garage would close soon after. When we came back from dinner the car was full, we unplugged the car and were also greater by a nice lady of the garage checking on our well being. It was late by now and it was getting dark.

According to a  link http://www.thenewmotion.be/snelladen/  there should be a 24/7 available quickcharger in Harelbeke so that’s where we went.

Sint-Gillis-Waas – Harelbeke

Arriving at 00:30am ( middle of the night ) at the GPS location / address we found NO quickcharger. $#%#^%
This was our 2nd bad experience in Belgium, though it was getting worse.

Since it was late, very late and we were traveling with 2 young kids, we decided to finally search for a Hotel. A nearby hotel in Kortrijk was reachable and available. On our last breath of electrons we arrived at the Hotel. The clerk had no idea where we could charge. The nearby Parking garage was already closed ( just 15 minutes ago ) so we left the car at the street in front of the Hotel. The next morning we would find out a charging location.
The next day, using internet, apps and information of the new office manager we found a charge pole just 100 meters from the Hotel ! Just installed.

Dolfijnkaai in Kortrijk  http://www.elektrischrijden.be/opladen/locaties-elektrische-oplaadpunten-in-belgie-laadpalen-google-maps/ …

Working great. We just needed to charge for a few hours before trying to find out what happened with that quickcharger in Harelbeke. I called Harelbeke Garage to get info. Vaneste motors is no Nissan dealer anymore. The quickcharger was moved to another location. To Servayge in Zwevegem. We got the address and there we went.

Kortrijk – > Zwevegem #Servayge

Stopping at Servayge, Nissan dealer there is no one. Closed for lunch. No quickcharger… Lets have a look around I thought… I found the quickcharger at the other side of the road at the Opel Servayge.
Nicely put in the shade and WORKING. Woo thats great. No gate, no power down. Just working…

Christoff Servayge explained that the showrooms are planned to be switched thus in the mean time the quickcharger is currently at the Opel Showroom, soon to be the Nissan. It’s also the maintenance facility thus better electricity power possibilities to had the quickcharger installed.

I had a nice chat and we said goodbye and see you in a week or so on our way back..
Of we went to Duinkerken. Dunkerque. A Nissan dealer, waiting for our arrival and open till…

Zwevegem (BE) – > Dunkerque ( FR )

3. France

We arrived, just before closing time at Dunkerque where Laurent Waucquier, owner of the Nissan Dealers site came to help us get the quickcharger to work. Was hard to see due to reflection of the sunlight on the LED screen.

Dunkerque Nissan Dealer ( FR )

The next trip is going to Calais, 40km to our boat trip to the UK.

4. UK

The quick chargers in the UK are well organised. Ecotricity supplies a charge pass of the Electric Highway. Though their network is not yet completed it is still impressive.  So let’s have a go..

Website: http://www.ecotricity.co.uk

http://chargemap.com/networks/ecotricity 

Do you know apps like Polar, Plugfinder, ChargeCar, PlugShare, OpenChargeMaps, Plugsurfing, Supercharge, Chargepoints,…

Quickcharger Hollingbourne Roadchef Maidstone will be our first @ecotricity stop in the UK.
Well that worked just fine..

( By the way, the trip on the boat was smooth )

The next stop was Cobham, though one of the the DC chargers was not working, the 2nd was… so all fine. Time to sleep here ( reserved in advance ! )

Waterstock,Peatree Oxford ( since we heard from another leaf drivers that the other Oxford was not working), Warwick, Waitrose,

Stafford North,

Chester.

Chester was our last ecotricity stop on the highway. Now there was a 82km trip still to our end point, the Conwy Holiday Park.

A big camping ground with good distance into Snowdonia by EV.

We had a wonderful stay here at Conwy, charging our car daily on the camping ground. With a bit of sensible driving we could get up the hills to have our walks to Snowdonia Hilltop and back on one charge !

A beautiful stay in North Wales Snowdonia

So now you think we knew all about driving to UK and back… the Next blog will takes us back home quickly… ( we hoped ) If you followed our tweets at http://www.twitter.com/my_leaf you know it was not that easy…

Testdrive Nissan EV-200

Driving the big brother of my leaf, the Nissan EV-200 in Barcelona

I was asked by Nissan if I was interested to testdrive the Nissan EV-200 in Barcelona ( just before the recent ev trip to Wales ).

I posted some tweets before, but I think some more pictures and words might be nice.

I created a new Facebook page to keep all photo’s of EV ( in 3D ) together.

http://www.facebook.com/EVin3D

 

Testdrive

Driving with the e-NV200 is a breeze. The van handles itself nice and of course the electric drive of the leaf is a familiar feeling.

A good view on the road due to the higher seating as a van has is something really new coming from a luxury car.
The only thing you really notice which is due to the higher car is wind sensibility. Over 80-90 km/h it is a bit more working to keep in lane ( both hands on the wheel preferred )  in comparison to the leaf which you steer with one finger. Ofcourse the amount of wind, traffic, trucks etc has a lot to do with the experience we had in Barcelona. Never the less, it’s a nice designed smooth electric van. If I would have use for it on daily basis I would definitely buy one straight away.

Have a look through the photo’s on my Facebook page. and please comment where ever you want. Here or at Facebook.

Edwin

 

Activating the KiWhi Pass as a foreigner.

Did you ask for a KiWhi Pass but you are not living in France?

You might have trouble with activating ( register ) your Nissan ZE Card through the KiWhi website.

Once you start on the http://www.nissan.fr/electrique website and are guided to the KiWhi website.

 

Press the button in the right bottom corner.

 

You will get to the KiWhi website and find in the left bottom lines to register your card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since you don’t have an account yet, click on the bottom line creating a new account..

 

Than you fill in the address as such:

Use the following address ( which is the address of KiWhi headquarters )

Adresse : 10 Allée Louis Vincent
Code Postel : 53000
Ville : Laval

 

The rest you will get through with some buttons ( your phone number will not fit or be recognized etc… you can skip some or make up some other…)

I got until here and thought I would share this with those looking for the answer.

I will let you know when I get money on the account incase I want also to use it to charge on the street in France ( which I heard only a few poles work with… )

 

The New Nissan e-NV200

Het is zover de e-NV200 komt op de markt. Diverse testritten en demo’s zijn door Europa gehouden of worden in de komende gehouden alvorens en na de officiële pers bijeenkomst op 23 juni aanstaande in Barcelona.

Morgen rij ik ook even in de eNV200 en zal mijn bevindingen gelijk met jullie delen.

Heb je vragen Tweet dan naar  @My_Leaf  !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

”

e-NV200

Nissan LEAF-techniek

De e-NV200  is de tweede van vier elektrische voertuigen (EV’s) die Nissan in serieproductie neemt en waarmee het zijn toonaangevende positie op dit gebied versterkt. De e-NV200 Conceptcar combineert de geavanceerde aandrijflijn van de volledig elektrisch aangedreven Nissan LEAF met het laadvermogen, de veelzijdigheid en de praktische inzetbaarheid van de Nissan NV200 met verbrandingsmotor waarop hij is gebaseerd.

Voor meer informatie over de Nissan e-NV200, kunt u terecht op: http://www.env200.com/.

“

Barbeque ( also vegan ) 100% EV drivers NL

Dear EV driver,

(EN)
Thank you all for taking part of a community of ev drivers around the world, we have been feeding valuable information into the web while we all enjoyed driving our ev.

I have been tweeting a little on the subject already, but would like to make this post to keep all remarks, suggestions and possible date discussions together.

This post will continue in Dutch for a most likely dutch gathering.

You may post in English or Dutch.

(NL)
Dank je wel allemaal voor het deelnemen in de social media community van ev liefhebbers en eigenaren. We hebben met z’n allen veel waardevolle informatie toegevoegd aan het web aangaande het rijden met een electrische auto.

In navolging van de de eerder op @my_leaf getweete tweets wil ik deze post graag gebruiken om de discussie en overleg voor de te houden barabeque ( ook voor vegetariers ) waar we met z’n allen gezellig onder genot van eten en drinken met elkaar kunnen bij praten.

Deel deze uitnodiging graag over social media, twitter, facebook,… De meer zielen , de meer vreugde.

De voorgestelde dagen zijn :

– nationale burendag 21 sept.
– ecomobiel Rotterdam 8-9 oktober ( aansluitend )

Graag je naam voorkeur en ideen posten zodat we snel kunnen zien hoe groot de lokatie moet zijn.

Retweet deze uitnodiging graag NU naar al je 100% ev volgers !

Tot spoedig !

De bbqev wordt gehouden op het oude schoolplein van de vroegere Timotheus school. Entree g vd valk boumanstraat 13 te Linschoten.

A12 afr Montfoort / Woerden
Linschoten/ Montfoort
Linschoten Oude Dorp
Bij verkeersdrempel (80m)

Edwin Glaser

Amsterdam – Paris by EV

Summer 2013 was the first major adventure for me and my 5year old daughter driving the 100% electric Nissan Leaf to Paris.
It took some more planning than it would when driving an ICE to Paris. The road trip would possibly take 2 to 3 days, depending on the possibility of quickcharging along our trip.
Fortunately only one charge stop could not be planned with a quickcharge, since there just was no quickcharger around.
It took us 2 days to drive almost 600km to Paris.
In the next blogs that will posted as answer to this initial blog, i will go into detail the ups and downs of this trip. Follow this blog and twitter @my_leaf to keep track of latest updates.