Anyone else using off-grid solar to charge their EV? What's actually working?

Been running a 400W roof array with a Victron SmartSolar MPPT into a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 and I'm wondering if it's even worth trying to trickle-charge my Nissan Leaf from it. The Leaf's onboard charger wants a minimum of about 6A at 230V before it'll even start charging, which is roughly 1.4kW — more than my whole array can do on a decent day.

Has anyone actually cracked this? I've seen people mention using a Victron Multiplus to invert and then feed into a Type 2 EVSE, but the maths seems grim unless you've got a proper big bank. Wondering if a DC-DC approach direct to the Leaf's 12V system is even worth considering, or whether I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely.

Ideally I'd want to at least top up range a few miles a day when parked up at my off-grid plot. Even 5–10 miles would make a difference for local errands. What sort of array and battery sizes are people running to make this viable?

@CopperSparky the maths is the rough sticking point here. My garden office setup runs a similar 400W array and on a decent summer day I'm pulling maybe 1.5–1.8kWh through the Victron. The Leaf's battery is 24 or 40kWh depending on your year — you'd be topping up the equivalent of a teacup into a bathtub.

What I've seen people do successfully is run a dedicated larger array (think 1–2kW minimum) purely for EV charging, separate from house/office loads. Otherwise you're just robbing your own storage.

The other angle worth exploring is a Type 2 EVSE that accepts variable input — some folk pair these with a Victron Multiplus and feed excess solar intelligently rather than brute-forcing it. That's where the real gains are, not straight battery-to-charger trickle.

Been there with the "is this even sane?" calculation — spoiler: it's marginal but doable if you add a proper DC-AC inverter big enough to feed the Leaf's onboard charger (minimum 2kW, realistically 3kW), otherwise you're just heating wire.

The real gotcha nobody mentions: the Leaf won't accept a charge below ~10% state of charge on your supply-side battery, so your 200Ah Fogstar Drift is basically your buffer tank, not your primary source — you're solar-filling the Drift all day then dumping it into the Leaf at night.

On a decent UK summer day your 400W array might net you 1.5-2kWh realistically — that's roughly 6-8 miles of Leaf range. Not nothing for a cabin runabout, but don't cancel your driveway EVSE subscription just yet. 😄

@CopperSparky I've been doing almost exactly this with a slightly larger 600W array and a Type 2 EVSE running off a Victron Multiplus. The key thing nobody mentions is that the Leaf accepts charge beautifully at low power — you can set a 6A charge rate which is roughly 1.4kW, so you're not fighting the car's minimum draw.

What actually works for me is using a Victron DVCC setup so the inverter only pulls what the solar is genuinely producing rather than hammering the battery. On decent summer days I'm adding 8-10 miles range, which sounds pathetic but over a week genuinely adds up.

Worth checking your Leaf's onboard charger minimum — some earlier models get a bit unhappy below a certain threshold. What year is yours? That changes the conversation quite a bit.

@CopperSparky worth flagging that the Leaf's onboard charger won't accept less than a certain minimum AC draw, so trickle-charging via a small inverter can be fussy — some units will flat-out refuse to start if the available power looks unstable. I had similar grief before I started using a proper buffer approach: let the battery bank build up during the day, then dump a controlled charge into the car in the evening when solar's dropped off. You get a more consistent AC supply that the Leaf's BMS is happier with. Also worth checking your inverter's transfer switch behaviour if you're on any mains backup — last thing you want is it pulling from the grid without you realising. What inverter are you running currently?

@DawnJones74

Great thread! One thing nobody's mentioned yet — timing is everything with this setup. I run something similar and I've found syncing charging to your MPPT's peak output window (usually 10am–2pm on a decent day) makes a massive difference rather than just leaving the Leaf plugged in all day drawing from a depleted bank. I use a simple timer plug on the EVSE so it only fires up during those hours. Also worth keeping an eye on your battery SOC before you start — I won't begin a charge session if I'm below 60%, otherwise you're just hammering the bank for minimal range gain. @ThistlePaul raises a fair point about minimum draw thresholds too, so a decent pure sine inverter is non-negotiable here. Not glamorous advice but the boring stuff genuinely works! 😄