If you are going to sell electric cars, you need to know how to service them.
This past week Nissan has opened a facility to do just that; as well as giving us a little update. According to Nissan rep, the reservations for the LEAF, which goes on sale this December has eclipsed 14,000 hand raisers and continues to grow daily.
While Nissan does have nine other training centers throughout the country. The training center for electrics, which is located in Livermore, California, is the first of its kind in North America for Nissan, another facility is also expected to come online in the fall to service the further needs of the country as the rollout widens.
The Livermore building is 23,000 square feet and boasts three classrooms, a component repair area, a 10,000 square foot Vehicle Demonstrations Area featuring wheel service and alignment areas, 16 service bays, and eight vehicle lifts. According to Nissan, “it will provide courses in heating and cooling systems, chassis integrity, diagnostics, emissions and other areas.”
“Providing support to our retail partners via this new, state-of-the-art facility is a critical component of our efforts to ensure a quality ownership experience for our customers.”
The center will service all of Nissan Northwest, which includes northern California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming…and the very distant Hawaii (I hope Nissan picks up the tab for Hawaiian dealers looking to sent techs on this one).
Also, for the first time we are seeing some disclosure on the geographic location of the customers who have made a reservation, as Tim Gallagher (Nissan NA’s communications manager) divulged some new details:
“For dealers, that part of the country (Northern California) is where we are seeing hand-raisers for the Leaf. Those are hotbeds for EVs.”
While this type of news is not the most exciting to hit the wire over the past month, it is exactly the kind of news that makes the LEAF more and more real to those of us anxiously awaiting to plug one in ourselves.
Source: Nissan
Disclaimer on picture: That is not the training center, but I thought a picture of the Nissan GT-R, a 370z Nurburgring edition and a Euro-spec GT-R/Spev V in a “Nissan Sportscars Shop” in Nurburgring, Germany was better than a shot of a plain building.
The electric AC should require very little service.. does it still use rubber hoses?
Herm Perez(Quote)
“it will provide courses in heating and cooling systems, chassis integrity, diagnostics, emissions and other areas.”
Emissions?! (Or do they mean annoying sound emissions?)
Tibor(Quote)
This makes perfect sense.
Build the plant where your customers are going to be.
Tibor, the emissions thing threw me at first also.
But this Plant most likely is for all Nissan vehicles, not just the EVs.
Rashiid Amul(Quote)
How can we as customers find out if technicians at our dealer have been to the Nissan Leaf school? No doubt all dealers all the time will say their techs are well trained, but do we look for the certificate? or should we ask how they adjust the bomfrazzlesnitz? Or the secret handshake?
I joke of course, but I really would like to know. For example, maybe Nissan has a list of graduates and the dealers they work for, or some other mechanism. I ask remembering the saying “Trust, but verify.”
But I am very glad to see this post. Yes, it is the nitty-gritty of real cars, not just ones in video games.
RB(Quote)
Post says The Livermore building is 23,000 square feet and boasts three classrooms, a component repair area, a 10,000 square foot Vehicle Demonstrations Area featuring wheel service and alignment areas, 16 service bays, and eight vehicle lifts. According to Nissan, “it will provide courses in heating and cooling systems, chassis integrity, diagnostics, emissions and other areas.”
Interesting that it says nothing about main battery evaluation, charging failures, or intermittent metering problems. Perhaps these components have reached perfection.
RB(Quote)
I would guess the pack itself keeps track of its condition.. and if it goes bad it will be removed and shipped to a central depot for repair by specially trained techs.
Total kwh put into the pack during recharge should be a good do-it-yourself indication of pack condition.. but you have to discharge the pack down first. Perhaps park it in the dwy, run the AC all day then recharge it.
Herm Perez(Quote)
Where is the center for Southern California?
Stan Stein(Quote)
Also, I thought that San Diego was the primary are for Leaf not Northern Ca
Stan Stein(Quote)
Re. inclusion of emissions and omission of battery functions, I suspect that PR folks may not be attuned to technology details and tend to re-use what they’ve written before without a good appreciation of how well – or not – it fits the current situation.
If the statement had come from someone in Nissan’s training organization, rather than the broader “According to Nissan …” (indicating, to me, Nissan’s PR organization), I would be more concerned.
JEff
JEff(Quote)
Hi Stan,
Qood question. I guess I should have filled in the rest of the details in the piece; this was just a announcement/PR wire release of Nissan showing off the ‘first’ of its kind. In fact, there will be two centers open this year.
The second one opens in September/October-ish and will be in Ontario, California, and that is where San Diego and the like (southern California, etc) will get their training. So it is all good.
Jay (Statik) Cole(Quote)
Does anyone know if the Infiniti M35 Hybrid scheduled for a 2012 launch date a plug in hybrid?
James(Quote)
No plug. It is part of the “Direct Response Hybrid” lineup for Nissan. It has a HO 1.3 kWh Li-ion battery pack…so capacity (and expected return) is not large enough to warrant a plug anyway.
The sedan is different from your typical hybrid set-up because the system is used to both improve efficiency, and/or to increase performance, and also the pack is recharged using standard regen tricks, but also by the ICE itself if the situation warrants.
Jay (Statik) Cole(Quote)
Herm said Total kwh put into the pack during recharge should be a good do-it-yourself indication of pack condition.. but you have to discharge the pack down first. Perhaps park it in the dwy, run the AC all day then recharge it.
Simple, straightforward, nice. We drivers will learn new tricks.
But how will we measure “total kwh put into the pack during recharge”?
RB(Quote)
“But how will we measure “total kwh put into the pack during recharge”?”
I asked a similar question a few days ago, which was, in effect “how are we going to know the total kwh that we paid for to charge the car, including the kwh that were consumed by the charging unit and didn’t make it into the pack.” The losses are probably quite small, but what are they? 1%, 2%, as much as 5%?
Anyway, the answer I got was that the photvoltaic industry has meters that could be installed on the 240v line feeding the charging unit.
JEff(Quote)
Jeff: Anyway, the answer I got was that the photvoltaic industry has meters that could be installed on the 240v line feeding the charging unit.
What does that mean? Go to RadioShack? There’s got to be a regular standard way, but what is it?
RB(Quote)
“What does that mean? Go to RadioShack? There’s got to be a regular standard way, but what is it?”
Or e-bay, or, as I found out when I tried it, any number of places that can be found with a quick query to our good friend Google.
What’s irregular or not standard about a kwhr meter?
JEff(Quote)
jay, i just wanted to say, awesome site. I check this thing everyday. lol.
Thanks.
john(Quote)
Jeff: Or e-bay, or, as I found out when I tried it, any number of places that can be found with a quick query to our good friend Google.
Thanks.
RB(Quote)
john said:
jay, i just wanted to say, awesome site. I check this thing everyday. lol.
Thanks.
I really appreciate that john, that kind of validation that is really fufilling…I was just hoping it could be a place where some people can hang out for a couple minutes a day, get the ‘new’ news, and chat with other people that are pulling their hair out waiting for a EV.
Now that the site is up and going full steam, we are trying to get a overhaul done on it, and add some more functionality. So if you check in and it is a little disjointed in the next few days, you will know what is ‘up’
/crosses fingers
Jay (Statik) Cole(Quote)
You can get one of those small plug-in devices to see how much electricity your fridge consumes, this one handles 15A :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Electronic+Gadgets-_-P3+International-_-82715001
Note the charger in the LEAF is not 100% efficient and it will probably consume about 5%, but it will be consistent. Try to do your test when the temperature is the same, and dont do it too often or you will ruin the battery
Herm Perez(Quote)
Herm: You can get one of those small plug-in devices to see how much electricity your fridge consumes, this one handles 15A :
I was looking at different ones found by Google. Metering at 120 V is simple enough, as the device just plugs in between the receptacle and the car. 240 V is more of a challenge, it seems.
RB(Quote)
http://www.promolife.com/household/energy-monitors/efergy-e2-energy-monitor-with-pc-software/prod_2351.html
This one will monitor 240VAC and will even allow you to track it on your PC, wireless and can also be used to monitor the whole house. You could track several months of charging with this.
The complete line, pretty cool:
http://www.promolife.com/household/energy-monitors/cat_90.html
“Why energy monitoring?
Customers help electric utilities reduce numerous high bill complaints.
Will measure your “total home” energy cost.
Will monitor your energy usage areas such as airs conditioners, electric water heaters, refrigerators, stoves, etc.
Sub-metering of efficiencies, apartments, or home additions.
Sub-meter usage of your home or office to enable income tax write offs.
Sub-metering of boat slips in marinas.
Sub-metering of vacation homes.
Sub-meter energy usage at apartment buildings without individual meters.
Sizing of an emergency generator”
Herm Perez(Quote)
A store dedicated to power meters..
http://www.powermeterstore.com/index.php
If you get a cable with a 240VAC RV plug, for using at campgrounds:
http://www.powermeterstore.com/p5650/metermaid_power_meter.php
Herm Perez(Quote)
FYI Herm,
The site bounces (or rather holds in moderation) any comment that has more than one link in it. If I am ‘in the neighbourhood’ I will of course make sure it gets up here, but sometimes that might take awhile. (It keeps the spammers down)
…just didn’t want you to think there was ‘mod-ing’ of what you are writing going on here, (=
Jay (Statik) Cole(Quote)
Herm,
Nice links, thanks for providing them.
JEff(Quote)
Hi, is this center specifically for mechanical/electrical training? is there any training avail for Body Repair technicians and what to do to repair one of these vehicles? Thanks
David(Quote)
I am looking for some basic training for my technicians just so we do not do anything to hurt themself or damage the car. We have 3 Leafs that we are leaseing. Does anyone know of anything like that.
Doug(Quote)