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Nissan Launches ‘Free’ and ‘EZ’ Leaf Charging For 2014 Leaf Customers

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Nissan Launches ‘Free’ and Leaf Charging For 2014 Leaf Customers - HybridCars.com
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In response to a question why Nissan isn’t making the free juice retroactive to all Leaf owners, Diaz said the program is along the lines of any limited-offer new car sales incentive.
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The program will be tied to the cars’ VIN numbers and this is to safeguard against anyone attempting to game the system, such also using the EZ-Charge card for multiple vehicles, or loaning it to a friend.
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Free charging that takes forever, from charging stations that may or may not work....for new customers only...
If charging infrastructure were plentiful and reliable, I'd think this was a great idea.

But in most areas there are already too many plug-ins competing for too few plugs, especially considering how unreliable most stations are - even ignoring problems like ICEing.

While this is a great incentive for new owners who will plug in at any chance they get whether they need it or not, this is bad for all other plug-in owners, especially EVs who rely on existing infrastructure to be available when they need it.

Whatever money Nissan is spending on this would be better spent on installing additional charging infrastructure.

If you want to target new LEAF owners specifically with incentives, give them a $100 EZ-Charge card (more than enough public charging for most people to last a couple years, but not so much that they might abuse it frequently) and install more QC and L2 stations at or near existing locations.
 
Hmm, looks like the main PR piece and most news articles left out a bit of crucial information - the free charging is limited - which also limits the bulk of my initial complaints.

Found on AutoblogGreen: Nissan will expand free* charging incentive to 25 Leaf markets

Free charging is limited to 30min on a QC station and 1 hour on L2.

That should limit the amount of plug-hogging that can be done. Hopefully those limits are daily limits.