Back in the Drivers Seat

Good news. After only about 5 hours after dropping off #250 for my 42,000 mile service and to check out the fan issue I got a call from my service manager Vinnie to tell me the car was all set and ready to be picked up.

Since I was at work and had a busy night in front of me (a party of 50 was booked) I couldn't leave and get the car so I picked it up this morning on my way to work. Vinnie greeted me as he always does, with my keys, an explanation of what services were performed and a smile. Service writers can help to make a usually unpleasant trip to the dealer more bearable by explaining everything they needed to do and simply being personable and Vinny does a good job at both. I am happy I got my MINI-E from Morristown MINI because I am very pleased with the overall job the service department does there. The car is always cleaned and charged when I pick it up. The only criticism I can really offer is that Morristown MINI doesn't have many actual MINI's to give out as service loaner cars and they use Enterprise Rent a Car for this. I know most dealers use this practice (When I had a Mercedes they also used a rental company for their service loaners unless you were a "Gold Circle" customer and probably needed to buy ten cars from the dealer to qualify) In all my service trips for the MINI-E (about ten) I only got to use an actual MINI once and it was a clubman. I really liked driving the car and it even made me think about buying one. I think this is a great way to showcase their products and possibly get their service customers to want to upgrade to a newer MINI or clubman. Oh well, what do I know?

Anyway, #250 is back on the road and I only had to shell out $8.00 for gas yesterday. Not bad, but consider this: The same miles driven in my MINI-E would have cost me about $2.65 in electricity, and that was for just ONE DAY of driving!

I'm Burning Gasoline For a While

One of the unfortunate aspects of the MINI-E program is that I have to bring the car in for service every 5,000 miles. The BMW technicians trained to work on these cars (called the flying doctors) inspect every detail, check all the battery modules and download the data the car has captured since the last service visit.

I recently turned 42,000 and that meant I had gone 5k since my last service so I knew I had to make an appointment soon. Then yesterday I noticed the battery temperature was unusually high, as it was over 100 degrees and this time of year when it's typically 60 to 70 degrees outside I usually see battery temperatures in the 80's so something was off. I then looked (and listened) closely to the battery compartment and didn't hear the usual sound of the fans that pull air from the cabin of the car and blow it across the battery pack. I'm guessing they stopped functioning and the increase in battery temperature is the result. If it were in the middle of the summer, it would be a big problem and probably prevent me from being able to drive the car because the modules would get too hot and the car would shut down. However since it is now cooler outside, I could have probably driven it fora while with no real effects or problem.

I emailed Rob Healey at BMW and asked him if he wanted me to bring the car right in for service or wait until next week when I had originally planned to bring it in for the 5,000 mile service. As I expected, he said being it in as soon as possible, not wanting to take a chance. So this morning I brought it in to Morristown MINI and picked up my 2010 Dodge Charger loaner car.

I got a nice surprise while I was waiting for the loaner car at the dealership as Rob Healey and Hugo VanGeem from BMW just happened to be there. Rob is the Technical coordinator for the MINI-E and Hugo is the head of BMW's electric car sales. It was nice to see them in person and say hello as I usually only correspond with them via email.

It is worth noting that this is the first malfunction I have had since last December, nearly a full year now. I did have a problem in February, but that was caused by me hitting a big pothole and messing up some stuff in the front end, hardly the cars fault. So now I'll be joining everybody else for the next few days. I'll be burning gas, supporting terrorism, sending my US dollars to foreign regimes and polluting the air as I drive. Luckily, it won't be for long.

EV Range Isn't set in Stone

Electric cars like the MINI-E are often gauged by how far they can go on a single charge. It seems that most of the auto manufacturers are focusing on 100 miles per charge as the minimum acceptable single charge range. The MINI-E has been tested to get 156 miles on a single charge using the EPA LA-4 cycle, but this doesn't mean much to those of us driving these cars because we have come to realize the real-world driving range is around 100 miles. Some get more, some less, it all depends on your driving habits.

The slower you drive, the further you can go. That is the simplest way to explain the how your range can vary. This isn't much different from a gasoline powered car. The slower you drive, the better your mpg.  My range varies from day to day, depending on how aggressive I drive. The MINI-E is a lot of fun to drive. The instant torque of the electric drive and great handling that all MINI Coopers have make it easy to want to drive the car spiritedly. Since I record all the data from my daily driving I can clearly see the difference when I drive normally, aggressively and economically. The other day I forgot that I was going to need to drive about 115 miles before I could plug in and was driving pretty fast on the highway, around 75 mph for a while. When I was halfway through my day I realized that I was already down to about 40% SOC and now needed to be very efficient for the rest of my journey.

When I was about 85 miles into the day, my estimated range was at only 10 miles and I still was 32 miles from plugging in. I now needed to be very efficient. I had two choices, get off the highway and drive a route that I knew. This was all secondary roads and I could drive 35mph or so and I would be able to squeeze out the 32 miles for sure. The other choice was much more risky: Stay on the route 80, find a tractor trailer and hypermile by drafting behind the 18 wheeler. Being the risk taker that I am, I decided to go the dangerous route. It didn't take me long to hook up with a tractor trailer, pull up right behind him and begin draft.

This is very dangerous and I don't advocate doing this. You need to be very alert and ready to brake immediately if the truck does. This hyper-miling technique is commonly used by people in gasoline powered cars and hybrids that try to get the highest mpg that they can. They even have competitions on who can go the furthest using the lease amount of gas, so this isn't an "electric car thing". It works because by drafting behind the large truck, your car doesn't have to use much energy to push the air away from its path. This air resistance is the main reason why going faster reduces efficiency because the faster you go, the wind resistance increases exponentially. As I started moving along behind the truck I could see the range indicator actually go up for a while. A few miles and I now had 15 miles of range remaining, up from 10. I followed the truck the entire time I was on route 80 which was about 28 miles. When I got off the highway I still had 6 miles of estimated range. Therefore, I drove 28 miles and only lost 4 miles of range!

When I arrived at work I had driven 117 total miles and had 0 miles of estimated range left. Had I driven the whole day more efficiently, I'm sure I could have done the 117 miles and had 5 -10 miles of range remaining without having the need to dangerously draft behind a truck. I want you to know I do not regularly do this, I don't find it necessary and I really wouldn't want to take the risk of an accident. This was as much a test for the car as it was a product of me having the inexplicable need to live dangerously every now and then. I don't want anyone getting the impression that this would be necessary if you had an electric car because it in no way is. In fact most of the people that do this drive gasoline powered cars. If you look around while your driving on a major highway it won't take you too long to see a car following a big rig a little closer than you would normally do, they are probably doing it consciously to increase their fuel efficiency. 

I've talked to a lot of electric car drivers and many of them have their own way to extend the range. Some hyper-mile, some put the car in neutral and coast downhill, others have ways to use the regenerative braking more than others, and some practice all kinds of hyper-miling techniques. However we all agree the simplest way to go as far as possible whatever EV you own is to just drive a little slower.

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