Trickle or Phil It?

There are many things to consider if you decide on getting an all-electric vehicle, among them is where to charge the batteries. The Nissan Leaf is not a hybrid vehicle. It uses batteries to provide energy to an electric motor, so you can't pull-up to a gas station and fill up with fuel.  Your fuel is the charge stored in your battery.


This is both, the best thing about the Leaf, and the worst. Potential EV manufacturers have all probably had nightmares about this issue. With the advent of an increasing amount of manufacturers joining Nissan in the electric car business; cities and municipalities are all planning to provide charging stations all around the US. San Francisco already has charging stations up and running. For free, for now.


Nissan partnered with AeroVironment to provide an easy solution, a home EVSE (charging station).  During the process of ordering a Leaf you are encouraged to purchase one of these "level 2" EVSEs. The cost; over two-thousand dollars. I don't know about you, but I don't like spending money unless I have too.

If you read the forums for the leaf you'll find many people like me. This sort of sentiment always leads to American ingenuity, ergo what people are calling "Phil's Upgrade."

Up till now a few manufacturers are promising lower priced alternatives to the $2K+ home EVSE. I've scoured the internet looking for info on availability and prices only to be disappointed by the fact that no one knows when they'll be available nor what the price will be.

Enter Phil, he has a solution available today.

The Nissan Leaf comes with a trickle charger. This thing is capable of charging your Leaf at a very slow rate, and allows you to use a common household outlet.  Problem is, it will take you close to 20 hours for a full charge from empty. Not very practical for daily use.

Phil will upgrade your trickle charger to run on 240v allowing you to charge at a much faster rate. Plus it will still work on 120v household current. Cost $264 including a 120v adapter.

Phil is in Berkeley and today I'm shipping my trickle charger to Phil so he can have it upgraded and back to me by Thursday of this week. I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime you can check-out his website

http://evseupgrade.com/

There's plenty to read at Phil's site. Be sure and read before you buy. Don't take my word for it. Oh yes I almost forgot - you're going to need a 240v outlet to take advantage of the upgrade. I'll probably address this issue in another post.