Nissan Maple LEAF Blog

Today was the day we went down an picked up the car. It was a great experience all around. There were quite a few people from Nissan Canada, including the gracious and ever supportive Neetika Sathe, Senior Manager, Chief Marketing Management Group for Nissan LEAF, JUKE, Rogue, Murano & Cube. Our salesperson, Mike Poelzer was great, and we also had he chance to meet Jason Morrey whose family runs the Morrey Auto Group. I made a special effort to thank Jason for making the significant commitment and dollar investment in infrastructure and training to get both Coquitlam and Burnaby dealerships certified to sell LEAFs. Very progressive, and I’ll do what I can to ensure it was worth it for them in return.

After the photographer took some corporate and press photos (see below), my wife Nicole did an interview with CBC-TV BC. However, being the first night of the NHL hockey season, the local news was squeezed down to 15 minutes, and she didn’t make it to air - much to her relief. However, she does now know how Peter Mansbridge feels during the play-offs. So no media this day, but that didn’t diminish our experience one bit.

Here’s a few of other pics:

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Two days before we pick up the LEAF, J-M, Matt Hutchings, and Matt’s apprentice from Big Green Island arrive to install our Aerovironment EVSE and the EKM energy meter.

Mat and his apprentice were great - they ran into some unexpected challenges with physically getting the energy meter connected. They overcame them and installed it to their great credit, but I wouldn’t now recommend anything from EKM for that and a second reason I won’t get into here. A better alternative is for measuring energy (kWh) is TED “The Energy Detective” 1000 Series - which is CSA approved (wink wink).

The final install was great - totally satisfied with BGI’s work.

New email from Nissan LEAF Canada today:

Your pre-purchase checklist is now available. This list includes the steps that need to be completed before you take delivery of your Nissan LEAF™. So whether you need to set up a CARWINGS™ account, sort out your home charging dock installation or even review your financing options, all the things you need to do can be conveniently reviewed in one place.

Here’s the screenshots for the checklist:

and the process to setup CARWINGS:

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In my last post, I mentioned that I thought the AeroVironment (AV) charging dock was top of the line, but one problem is the dumb version they offer currently (smart version coming soon) doesn’t measure energy consumption. I’ve also read in the forums that the LEAF isn’t a good source of that information either. So, I needed to find an energy meter and have Big Green Island Transportation (BGI) install it.

After some research, I settled on one that I found through MyNissanLeaf forum: the EKM-25IDS from EKM Metering. This is the dumb version of the meter - they offer smart / communicating versions, but I think it’ll be fine just mounting it near the charging dock. Confirmed with BGI that they can install it, shouldn’t take more than an hour of additional labour. I ordered it express delivery, and it should be at the mail forwarding service I use in Point Roberts, WA on Friday.

As an aside, the forums had initially lead me to choose TED “The Energy Detective” 1000. It has a remote sensor and data logging capabilities for a slightly higher price. However, in going through the installation manual, I noticed you need to have a free 15A breaker to install. In my case, the charging dock 40A breaker will take up my last free spot in my breaker panel.

One process note: BGI phoned today, and J-M let me know that his electrician, Matt, went to Coquitlam City Hall, and received the necessary permit - no multi-day wait. Coquitlam’s permitting is apparently handled by the BC Safety Authority, rather than in house.

UPDATED: After installation, I can’t recommend the meters from EKM. See the OCT 4, 2011 post.

I posted previously about my reservation with AeroVironment’s (AV) other lines of business, but the compressed timeline means I don’t really have too much choice as far as the charging dock goes. I might be able to get the GE WattStation from Washington State in a while, but the LEVITON EVR-Green 320 (30A) unit hasn’t been released, even in the US yet. Technically, my read is that the AV unit is the top of the class when it comes to current EVSE offerings, regardless of availability. So, after talking about it, we decided to go with AV’s unit, but to do what AV calls “cash & carry.” That is, we’ll have it installed ourselves. This means two things:

1. The cost of the AV unit when they install it is $645.58 CAD. If you go “cash & carry”, the price goes up to $990 CAD.

2. If you do the install, you walk away from the 3-year parts & labour warranty, and instead get 1-year unit warranty, but no on-site service to remove the unit and return it to AV.

However, Big Green Island Transportation, our local alternative energy & EVSE installer, offers a full 1-year warranty with their install, and will install the unit for cheaper, so I feel OK about it. Just seems like AV is padding their charging dock price with their installation fees. My suggestion to them: sell the unit for a single price, no surprises.

There’s a few Nissan LEAF blogs out there, and another great Canadian one is by my friend Ricardo Borba (@RBorba) from Ottawa, Ontario and he’s done a great job detailing the experience of getting the LEAF. I can’t top that, so the focus of this blog is mainly to communicate, step by step, what the order process is, including screen shots of everything - to so you can get a feel for the nuts and bolts ahead of time. I’m going to continue in that vein, but its going to be compressed somewhat…

That’s because I received a call from Neetika Sathe, Senior Manager, Chief Marketing Management Group, Nissan LEAF, JUKE, Rogue, Murano, cube (that’s a mouthful). She said that we were number two in the reservation queue after Ricardo, and just ahead of Kelly (mentioned previously), the other LEAF friend I’ve made along the way. Neetika said they received a very positive response to the Ottawa event, and they wanted to do a similar event in Vancouver with our LEAF. I was blown away, and of course agreed!

We should be receiving our leaf from Morrey Infiniti Nissan of Coquitlam - Port Coquitlam and Nissan Canada on the 5th, 6th or 7th of October. We’re totally stoked, but there is a lot to do between now and then.

We went down as a family to Morrey Nissan to meet with Mike Poelzer, our Sales Manager. Had a look at the LEAF that Morrey has (they have another at their Burnaby dealership too - hats off to Morrey Auto Group!) and discussed the options with Mike. We told Mike we were still leaning towards Vancity financing. He said that we could order now and that we could change our choice of purchase, lease or finance right up until we received the car, since the order process was handled through the LEAF portal rather than through the dealership. So, we submitted our order online using my iPad at the dealership (we didn’t need to go down to the dealer at all actually - glad we did though). Screenshots below. Mike has been great in person and on the phone - here’s a pic of him, his leasing colleague Sam Karmali (right) at the dealership with one of their two AeroVironment EVSE’s.

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So now that I’m pursuing the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) installation without Nissan/AV, our chosen installer Big Green Island Transportation has been working over their suppliers to try and see what’s available (which is mostly dictated by Canadian approvals.) Turns out the SPX’s Power Express unit was available in Canada. I’d done some reading in the online forums, but had heard second hand too many times that this unit was fraught with problems, sometime leaving people without a fully charged car. So, based on the fact that I’m not expecting the car for a while, I’m holding out hope for the 30A Leviton EVR-Green unit becoming available before the end of the year (even if I have to zip over to Washington State to get it).

In the meantime, I had always planned to take advantage of the upgrade service from EVSE Upgrade. They’ll upgrade the stock Nissan Level 1 (120 volt) EVSE that comes with the LEAF and turn it into a 16A Level 2 unit for a few hundred bucks. Interesting thing is they can also provide the means to create plugs that will work with dryer outlets (NEMA 14-30) and stove-outlets (NEMA 14-50) as well as RV and welding outlets. Reduces range anxiety while the charging infrastructure gets built. So my thought was as an interim solution (some people do this permanently) is to get this done, and either use the dryer outlet near our garage until the Leviton unit is ready, or have Big Green Island pre-wire everything and just terminate to a NEMA 14-50 outlet temporarily. Not ideal, but it could work for a while. The best part is EVSE Upgrade will even send you a temporary unit while your’s is being upgraded, so you’re never without a Level 2 EVSE - how awesome is that?

Well, no car on the horizon yet so again - things to contemplate….

Hear from Mike Poelzer at Morrey Nissan that had the full range of pricing ready. He provided pricing for the following terms on a fixed interest rate basis:

• Leasing for 36 or 48 months
• Purchase Financing for 60 or 72 months
• Cash Purchase Price

We talked on the phone and I mentioned we asked Vancity for a financing quote. Mike was able to come back a day later with purchase financing at fixed rate that was a bit lower than from Nissan Canada. We were still waiting to hear the official numbers from Vancity, so we held off on ordering. We arranged with Mike to meet up on Saturday to discuss ordering.

While Morrey Nissan was looking into lease, finance and purchase options, I remembered that I’d seen ads for eco-loans from banks and credit unions. My partner Nicole and I had availed ourselves of one when we first moved into our house in Coquitlam, when we installed a air-source heat pump and high-efficiency furnace to replace our circa 1968 gas furnace. Turns out Vancity (our credit union & the first carbon neutral financial institution in North America) at least offers a Clean Air Auto Loan, with rates at prime + 1% for the most efficient vehicles.

I called Vancity, and ran into a minor problem, not surprising for being on the bleeding edge - the Nissan LEAF doesn’t appear on the Canadian government’s fuel emissions rating website - yet. Despite my protestations that this was a zero emissions vehicle, the best I could cajole Vancity into was giving me a lower rate (prime + 1.25%) and they would adjust the rate down to prime + 1% when the emissions rating appeared. I sent a tweet to @NissanLEAF_CAN to hurry up and submit to Natural Resources Canada and as we considered our options.