So how do I refuel my new electrical vehicle?  With an all electric vehicle (EV), you can’t just pull up to your neighborhood gas station, swipe your credit card and refill in a couple of minutes.  You have to recharge the lithium-ion batteries which takes time.   With the limited amount of public charging spots available at the moment, you will have to rely on charging your EV at home.   Here are some of your choices for charging your Nissan Leaf at home:

The Nissan Leaf comes with a basic 120 volt AC, 12 amp charger.  This unit plugs into regular wall outlet.  The Nissan car manual recommends that it be plugged into a dedicated outlet (i.e. no other outlets are connect to that circuit).  I’ve used it with an outlet which is not dedicated but doesn’t have any other major appliance running on it.  This charger is the basic charger, otherwise known as a trickle charger or a Level 1 charger.  According the manual, this charger can take up to 21 hours to fully charge the Leaf.   Although that is a long time, it would only take that long if the battery was fully depleted and you wanted to charge it all the way to a 100%.

The next type of charger is the Level 2 charger.  This charger uses a 240 volt AC circuit which is the same thing that your clothes dryer or electric stove uses.  There are a few different Level 2 chargers on the market which use different amounts of current (i.e. 12, 16, 30 amps).  Depending on which charger you use, a full charge could go down to 7 hours.

Nissan branded AeroVironment Charging Station

Before you purchase a Nissan Leaf, you are required to have a charger installation assessment done at your home.  Nissan’s partner, AeroVironment comes out to your home and figures out how a Level 2 charger can be installed near to where your car will be parked.  This charger is a 240 volt AC, 30 amp type that is mounted on your wall and directly wired to your circuit breaker panel.  This is the easiest and probably the most worry-free way to get a faster charger for your Leaf but it will cost you.  The installed charger is about $1,000 plus labor and parts to install and wire the unit to your house’s electrical system.  The Q&A on the Nissan website states that the average cost for the install should be around $2,000.  I got an estimate of $2,700 for my home but I know a person who had a more difficult installation and was quoted more than $6,000.

Upgraded charger equipment for 240V.  Notice different plug in the center of the photo.

The least expensive Level 2 charger at this point is a unit that modifies the charger that comes with the Leaf.  EVSE Upgrade will outfit your current Leaf charger with a 240 volt AC plug and some changes to the internal circuitry.  This will cost you $239 plus $20 for shipping to a Mainland address (like other things, it cost more to ship it here to Hawaii).  There is a $25 adapter cable that allows you to use the charger on a standard 120 volt AC outlet or the faster 240 volt AC outlet.  There is also another option to modify the circuitry to use 16 amps instead of 12 amps in the standard charger.  This will cost $48 more.  In order to use this faster charger, you still need a 240 volt AV outlet near to your Leaf.  If you don’t have one, then you will need to hire an electrician to install an outlet.  An approximate range of cost for this maybe $500 to $1,000.  So this option may still cost you $800 to $1,300.

EVR-Green 160

Another choice recommend by Wayne Asam at Green Path Technologies is a charger called Evr-Green which is made by a company called Levitron.  Levitron is making a few chargers but the Evr-Green 160 is one made for your home and is ideal for the 2011 Nissan Leaf.  It is a 240 volt AC and 16 amps charger that can be plug into a 240 volt outlet or directly wired to your electrical panel.  I am still waiting for a quote on this unit but the blogs rumor that this unit would be substantially lower than current units on the market.  Since this is an article is for the general audience, I will not go into a technical discussion on the Leaf’s charging system.  Basically, the actual charger (converts the AC voltage to DC voltage that can charge the battery) is built into the car.  The charger in the car is rated for 3.3kW, so providing more power from an external unit will not give any more charging capacity.  If you would like more technical info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf.  Most of the info sounds possible but remember that Wikipedia info is not official or validated by the manufacturer.

Eaton Level Charger with Architect Bryce Uyehara

There are many commercial chargers which are much more expensive but they are overkill for the home. A charger made by Eaton which is used for commercial locations is priced at $2,100 on the Internet.  We also have a Level 2 unit installed at our Oceanic office (see photo above).

Charging port on the Nissan Leaf.  The Level 3 port is on the left and the Level 1/2 port on the right.

There is even a faster charger.  An optional Level 3 charger for the Nissan Leaf can be order with a new vehicle. Photo  A Level 3 charger can charge the Leaf  to 80% in 30 minutes.  However, before you get too excited, this charger uses electrical power usually only available at a business building (480 volt AV, three phase, 125 amps) and the charging station will cost over $10,000.  So as public charging stations become more common place, I would think these will also pop up but probably will be few and far apart. (http://www.coulombtech.com/blog/uncategorized/level-iii-fast-charging-stations-announced/)
 

Level 3 Charger

One last thing to know is that your EV charger is subsidized by the government.  The IRS was giving a 50% tax credit if you installed it before 12/31/2010.  That credit may have been extended but I could not confirm that it was so check this out when you are doing your taxes for 2011.  The State of Hawaii is also providing a rebate of 30% with a limit of $500 (http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/energy/evrebatesgrants/rebates).