Finding the chase and cutting to it

The Leaf has come into its own this summer, not least because of the heat.  Many people think high summer is the perfect time to be on a motorcycle but for short journeys through urban areas it’s a recipe in self roasting.  There are some leathers that provide armour with excellent air conditioning, of course, but they don’t offer much protection if it does rain.

Cars of course have air conditioning and the Leaf has a low powered version running off the main batteries.  In practice, this means the days I charge the car, I have the cooler on: on the days I don’t charge, I don’t.  I have found that the fan can be operated for next to no drain on the battery which means I have almost got my charging down to twice a week.

Unfortunately, though, this has coincided with a couple of Friday’s where charging at work has been unavailable and I have had to run errands on the way home from work.  Both times, I have taken extra steps to make it home.

Going the long way round

To be honest, there were alternatives but I had offered to take my son to his friends for a sleep over and was keen to do it in the Leaf.  The plan was to drive to work in the morning, charge the car and get my son before taking a trip down the other side of the A12 to get to his friend’s party.  Then head back in to town to meet up with my husband.

Charging at work didn’t happen, thankfully I had a good charge in the car, but I hadn’t been that careful getting in to work that morning and there was no time to charge it at home.  I looked at the sat’ nav’ and thought, no problem.  Any way, I could charge it at the new high speed charger in Colchester football club’s car park.

Getting to the postcode position was easy but I did manage to go past the building three times before calling for help.  I had missed it.  Parked up, dropped off the kid and headed for the A12.  To get to the charging point, I’d be heading away from my home town but I’d be coming back with a Leaf at 80% charge.  Happy days 🙂

Of course, mostly I charge the car off Source East/pod point chargers.  I have paid £10 to get a card which unlocks the charging ports and enjoy what has been power for nothing extra.  I have an ecotrocity card for use on the electric highway (these cards are currently free and there seems to be no charging for the electricity either) which is the largest network of high speed DC chargers for electric vehicles.

So of course, I didn’t think to check what the Colchester’s football ground charger took.  It wasn’t a source East nor ecotricity but a Charge your car unit.  It should be added that at this point, I had just enough charge to get home if I didn’t use the A12.  But it would be cutting it fine.  I also had very little phone charge.

One of the things that really needs to be worked out is using one schemes RFID cards with different charging points: I did try all my cards before realising I was going to need to ask for help.  The receptionist was very helpful and found someone who had a card.

The thing to realise is that Charge your car is a variable charging scheme – the owners of the units have the facility to recoup their infrastructure costs and make a profit if they wish or they may be free.  Nowhere on this charge unit are any prices listed.  CFC have decided to charge for this unit: £5 for a 30minute charge.

Remember, we did the sums last week: that equates to £5 for 14 units of electricity or more than twice what I would pay if I got the electricity from home.

So, back in the car I got with a lean 17 miles on the clock and the knowledge that going the slow way home would be 19 miles.  I headed for the Nissan garage.

Nissan have installed free rapid chargers for its customers and I was hoping to get to the garage in time to get 10% or so before Glyn Hopkin closed.  No such luck and while I could physically get to the charger it, asked me for a code to unlock it (again, none of my cards provided access).

Heading further in to Colchester had taken another 2% off the battery (for 5miles driven) so I popped into the local Waitrose which did accept my source East card.  30minutes, time for a quick shop, a phone call, a coffee and a full 25% on the clock meant I should be able to get home easily.

I was careful, I had everything off that I could think of and some.  The display being off save around 2% of use for a 10 mile journey for example.  The air con was off, though I had to use the fan to keep the windscreen demisted.  I drove gently and used braking harvesting where possible.

I did the 20miles with less than 12% of the battery (that’s 2.4kW/hs or 38p) or the magic 8.3mile/kW.  I got home in less than 35minutes.

This all means I could have got home straight from the  football ground.  Mmmm.  It also means I got nearly 90miles off an 80% charged battery for the week.

A week later

Once again the plan was to charge at work.  We’d used the car the night before and it had been a while since the last charge (Tuesday).  But it was Friday and I was early enough to park up and enjoy the walk to my office and my desk.

The charge point wouldn’t unlock.  This seems to happen on the odd occasion, so I dropped an SMS to the charge point owner on site.

There were other issues on site, unbeknownst to me, so there was a major pause before I had an apologetic reply.  I had an estimated 20 mile range, so I assured him that there was no issue.  Of course it put the kibosh on the plans I had for the evening but I could get home and get it charging.  In fact I got home with 18miles left on the range and didn’t need to charge before heading out.

Lessons learnt?

Well, with some consideration and careful driving, I can do much better than my usual 4.4mile/kW and it really isn’t much of a hassle to do that.

When I was a student, I often had to make a tankful of petrol go as far as possible.  The Leaf uses many of the same principals.  And Waitrose is always a backstop if you need it.

I have also worked out how to turn off the daylight running lights.  That saves an extra 0.25kW, if I ever need it.

Oh, and I should charge on Thursdays.