Money in the Bank: No Charge to Charge
Despite Tesla’s high-profile success and popularity of its pricey electric car among wealthy drivers, sales of mainstream Electric Vehicles, like the Nissan Leaf, have lagged expectations. So Nissan is taking a page from Tesla’s self-promotional playbook, with the announcement of “free electric charging” for Leaf drivers.
The company is rolling out the “No Charge to Charge” program in 10 of its largest EV markets, to be followed by 15 additional markets in the coming year. The rollout cities include San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Ore.; Nashville, Phoenix, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston and Washington D.C.
“Free charging is a great way for Nissan and our charging partners to make Leaf an unbeatable value for the average American driver,” said Brendan Jones, Nissan’s director of EV sales and infrastructure.
Tesla is building a nationwide network of fast chargers that are available exclusively to its customers. However, under Nissan’s program, anyone who buys a new Leaf will get two years of free charging at Nissan dealers and from a network of five private charging net- works. They are ChargePoint, Blink Network, Car Charging Group, AeroVironment and NRG eVgo.
ChargePoint and PlugShare have their own mobile apps pointing drivers to their nearest power plugs, or Leaf owners can go to PlugShare.com or EZ-Charge.com to locate participating charging stations. Leaf owners get access to the charging stations with an EZ-Charge card that enables the free service.
Not all stations in these networks participate in the free charging program. Today, the “No Charge to Charge” program encompasses more than 2,600 public charging stations in the initial markets, with more than 200 of those being quick chargers that can boost the Leaf to 80 percent of its battery capacity in a half-hour.
Here’s where there is an ugly asterisk in the “No Charge to Charge” program: It covers only an hour of Level 2 240-volt charging time (which takes a minimum of five hours to fully charge the Leaf — if you are fortunate enough to locate one of the higher-amperage 240volt charge stations). So it is really a free boost to get the Leaf back to your home charger, and not the opportunity to for a free “fill ‘er up.” Or you get 30 minutes on a quick charger, which will give the car an 80 percent charge. In this case, unless you are on the verge of running out of electrons, the car will get a nearly complete charge for free.
Looking to the future, Nissan envisions a way to make the Leaf literally cleaner: the company is previewing a special paint treatment that repels dirt. The Ultra-Ever Dry paint from UltraTech International Inc. creates a protective layer between the paint and the environment, preventing grunge from reaching the car’s surface.
“This is one Leaf that never needs to stop at gas stations — not even for a car wash,” said Pierre Loing, vice president of product planning for Nissan North America Inc.
Nissan has not officially announced plans to offer the paint yet, saying it still needs testing in automotive conditions. But obviously the perpetually clean car cultivates the right image for a green car such as the Leaf, especially in areas like California that are short of water for washing cars.