EV20Questions

 I do one or two trips to France for my Nissan Leaf to have small vacations. In this podcast I cover trips I made to Les Angles in the French Pyrenees and also the trip to Arles. We went to Arles to see a Van Gogh exhibition in a quarry. It was a special light and sound, audiovisual extravaganza. It was like being inside the mind and the pictures of our favourite crazy artist. Mostly I talk about the journey with the Nissan Leaf. On the way there I ran into difficulties with charges and the same sort of thing on the way back. There were chargers which didn't work when there was supposed to. There were rapid chargers which were present in the PlugShare app, but entirely missing in the street. The one really good thing is that the travel was for the most part free. I only had to pay to charge the car to 100% at home before we left. Also had to bring the car back to 100% following the vacation when we returned home. It was a trip of 800 km and really the biggest cost was the price of going through the toll gates at the motorway. It's clear that the infrastructure for electric vehicles is not ready yet. There needs to be a lot more destination chargers at hotels and places for entertainment. Having just one rapid charger in a town is not good enough. There needs to be more charging hubs where more people can charge at the same time. These triple headed charges where only one car can charge had DC rates and maybe sometimes it allows another card to use the AC charger, are not good enough.

 It was lovely to get out and have a drive in my 2018 Nissan Leaf. I went to St Pol De Mar which is just north of Barcelona and I checked out the charging points within the town. There were three of them and in all of the places only the granny charging speeds were available. I could plug into Shuko sockets and get 3.3 kW but it wouldn’t do me any good plug-in into the type II sockets as the Menneke’s sockets weren’t working. It was a good day out and finally I got to come Calella de Mar and I found a Type II socket which worked. I plugged in and had a wander around the town while the car was doing some charging up. I put about 12% into the battery and I was happy with that. I was able to get back home with 61% in the battery and so it was a good cheap day out driving my 2018 Nissan Leaf. Check the Web post which also has a Video.

Had to change my plans due the chargers in the shopping centre not working. Plugged in and it looked like it was charging and when I got back to the car it was un-charged. Very disappointing indeed.

  Driving electric car in France – Adding charge points to the PlugShare app After a week in the house not really going anywhere I needed to get out for a drive my car. My Nissan Leaf electric car had been sitting in the garage going nowhere and she needed some exercise. So we set out towards France to find some Révéo electric vehicle charge points and add them to the PlugShare application. I was easily able to visit five of these EV chargers just across the border in a cluster just south of Perpignan. There were some good views in the French countryside and some pretty little villages. I could see the Pyrenees nearby and it was a good day out. I use one of the chargers in a town near to the coast and was disappointed with the speed of the charging. He came in at a paltry 3 kW and in the 48 minutes I was there added virtually nothing to my battery. So instead of driving all the way to Girona to give one final top up before getting home I pulled into Figueres Nissan dealer. I stayed there until I had sent out present in the battery and then I drove home. The cost of the driving for the day was about €2.50 and it was good to get out in my Nissan Leaf car.

I heard about the new 2019 Nissan Leaf when I arrived back home from a trip to Birmingham. The new car is a bit of an upgrade to the old 2018 car - Bigger battery and faster charging. Not much else apart from a slightly larger screen in the dash. Have a look at EV20Q Website for more details.

Headed for FIgueres for a top up charge while taking a break. Next took the coastal road through Portbou on to Cerberes in France. Used the Révéo  charger while eating pizza and taking advantage of free parking. Moved on to Collioure to wander around the town and the harbour. Came back home via Girona and didn't plug in at the shopping centre because I didn't want to wait in a long queue to get in the parking where the chargers are situated. Full post on EV20Q

I went to Ireland and hired a car. It was a petrol car and was like I have gone back in time to the olden days. Had to do so many things manually which the Leaf does for me automatically. Burning fossils, changing gears, switching on headlights and I even had to dip the headlights for myself. The Gen 2 Nissan Leaf Facebook group is full is helpful users willing to assist new drivers and those who come to look in and kick the tyres.  Or go to the EV20Q Website and see all the blog posts about electric cars.

I got an invite to go and have a look at the Tesla model three. It was being made available to look at in the Barcelona showroom. When I got there there was a model 3 to look at, but only from the outside. I was extremely disappointed I couldn't get to sit inside the vehicle. Difficult to understand why they had a vehicle and show but only limited to viewing from the outside. The salesperson told me the car was being removed later that day. The car looked like it was pre-owned and was not new. The foot wells were dirty and needed to be vacuumed. The car was covered in fingerprints and there was some minor damage to 1 of the wheels. The car still looked great. Even though my Nissan Leaf is just about perfect for my needs I still want the Tesla Model 3. It looked so gorgeous and even sexy. Excellent, sporty and aerodynamic lines. I just love the colour of blue as well. I squinted in through the windows to look at the interior. It's extremely spartan. This does make it exclusive and high-class looking.

The joys of travelling in France in an electric car. There are loads of charging points and it’s not too difficult to charge the car up using either an app or an RFID card. I just got a new RFID card I wanted a tryout for this trip. So I jumped into my 2018 Nissan Leaf and headed towards France. It was necessary to pay for the charging in Ceret. I checked the account on the web when I arrived back home. I paid €4.50 to use a very slow charger which made it quite expensive. It was costly on a per kilowatt basis but for the day of driving it still worked out pretty cheap. I stopped on the way at a Nissan dealership to add some charge while still in Spain. It was a good drive along some pretty French roads in the foothills of the Pyrenees. On the way back I got some more free electricity in the Catalan town of Girona. I love driving my electric car. The 2018 Nissan Leaf is a marvellous car and I think it’s good value for the money. You can buy cars with bigger batteries but you have to pay more for them.

A road trip to Barcelona to hunt for the Chademo's. I found a few that worked and a couple that didn't. At least I had a great day out driving my car and the 248km I did only cost about €1.75. It is so cheap to run an Electric vehicle when you can get the car battery filled up for free.

Went to Barcelona on a Road Trip to check out a few more chargers. Went to Poblenou first then to Mercabarna and on towards the airport. I would have called into another on the way near home but I wanted to get back to see the Apple Event on the TV.

Rosie gets a break. three or four days not going anywhere except for a short trip to an art gallery in St. Feliu de Guixols, She did get a wash though and only slightly caught in the rain on the day after. The Kärcher pressure washer is great for car washing with the foam soap attachment and the pressure spray. Load of rubbing and carressing of my Nissan Leaf.

Rapid charging in Barcelona The idea for this mini trip came from when I first got my car I wanted to make a trip to Barcelona airport. I tried using a charger which was near to the airport but was unable to get it to activate. I had to do some research and asked some questions on Twitter for someone to tell me exactly how to make the charger work with the application. So this is my story of going down to Barcelona to do some testing of the rapid DC charging available in the city. My first port of call was to Mataró there was a charger just by the beach. I got there and it didn’t work. It was completely dead as a door now and out of action. All part of the fun! Got back into the car and headed to a charger which was only 20 minutes away in the same town next to Barcelona. The charging point was easy to find and those only a little bit disappointed by there being a large lorry in the charging bay. I would still have been able to plug-in and get charging.

Why is the horn so weak sounding in the 2018 Nissan Leaf? How accurate is the GOM Guess O Meter A rant about Smelly Dirty Diesels - Do you notice the filthy cars when you are on the road.

Trip to France charging along the way #Rapidgate

Hoped to take control of the car today and drive home. Red tape and inaction by the dealer and Traffic department putting up the road blocks. I sometimes think there is a conspiracy keeping the car away from me. I will overcome these difficulties and get my car. I'm hoping tomorrow is the day. Mind you I said that yesterday.

Norway is the centre of the world for Electric vehicles. Half of all cars sold in the country are electric. Halldor is one of those who's bought and electric car there recently and taken advantage of all of the incentives available.

James just bought a Nissan Leaf 2018 40kWh model and has a YouTube channel on which he tells us loads of great information about how to get the best from the car. He regularly drives the car between Scotland and Newcastle and looked hard at how to charge the car and not get the battery too hot. #Rapidgate doesn't seem to affect him much and he's driven many miles in the New Leaf.

Nissan Leaf owner talking about his new 2018 Nissan Leaf. First impressions of the car from the first few weeks of ownership.

Talking to Mike Ward about running a family of Nissan Leafs. Mike now has the 2018 Leaf 40kWh and is loving it.