Charging - what's better for the battery?

Yep. Those readings (e.g. voltage) might only be reliable w/open-circuit voltage.

If anyone cares, one can compare charging graphs for Leafs via the PDFs at My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - How to mitigate a badly out of balance pack?. The '13+ Leafs have an optional 6 kW on-board charger instead of the 3.3 kW (which pulls up to 3.8 kW from the wall) that was on the '11 and '12 Leafs.

There's also been chatter about shunting of cells to balance the pack on Leafs. Google for site:mynissanleaf.com shunt balance. I haven't paid close attention as I don't care that much and don't have the right tools anyway. (Long story.)

 

I just don't want to waste a grand or 2 on an L2 just to find there is a new L3 next year which uses different parameters - garrrrrrrr

 

I don't think the L1 and L2 chargers were ever designed to provide the optimum charging rate for the battery. They were designed to work within the limitations of the 120V and a 240V circuits. Tesla is implementing a Supercharger for their cars which can ram 120 kW into the battery, and half-charge it in as little as 20 minutes.

 

tesla also plans a battery manufacturing plant to open in the next few years making them the only competition for panasonic. I believe from what I've read that panasonic is the only current manufacturer with a substantial customer base of batteries for ev an hev.
tesla from what I've read is also partnering with panasonic for sharing of technologies in much the same way as tesla partnered with toyota for the inital release of the rav ev.
Probably not the most interesting subject for most pip drivers yet, but who knows what kind of batteries they will be using in future ev's and hev's or how far we'll be able to drive in ev within the next couple of years.

 

I knew it!!

(yeah I know what you mean, but couldn't resist)