10,000 Zero Emission Miles

A few days ago I passed 10,000 on the odometer. I've had the car since June 12th so it took me about four months to hit 10k. That's a lot of driving in four months. In fact, I don't know any other Mini E trial lease participant that has driven more. I know the folks at AC Propulsion, the company that manufacturers the electronics and motor for the car have a car with more miles, but they've had the car longer and use it for testing. I wouldn't be surprised if there are others that have more, but they don't post on the Mini E Facebook group or report on one of the known Mini E blogs so I haven't had the opportunity to talk to them about it.

What does that mean? Well, not really much other than I've been able to drive and enjoy my Mini E more than most others. The car is such a joy to drive and knowing I'm not polluting as I drive makes it that much more enjoyable.

Some other facts from my 10,000 emission free miles:

I didn't have to purchase 555 gallons of gasoline (My Toyota Tacoma gets 18mpg)
At $2.50/gal that's about $1,400. Compared to the roughly $400 in electric I've spent to charge up which is a $1,000 fuel savings.

I didn't have to get three oil changes, a savings of about $180.00 and I didn't generate 18 quarts of used motor oil that needs to be recycled.

I didn't have to stop for gas about 32 times. That would have added up to over five hours of wasted time sitting in my car at the pump.

I did get to meet a lot of interesting people that saw the car and had questions about it. I took many of them for test drives and every one loved the car and wished they had one.

I did start thinking more about energy efficiency both on the road and at home. I recently got some quotes on a 10KW solar electric system for my home and I going to have it installed soon.

I am looking forward to the next 10,000 miles.

With all the positives I've written about I'm sure by now anyone following this blog knows how much I really love the car and the whole "driving electric" experience. That being said the next entry might not be all praise. I, as well as the other Mini E drivers on the East have been experiencing some problems with the cold weather that is setting in. Our range is down, actually way down. So much so that one of us had to be towed home a couple nights ago. He had gotten so accustomed to the usual range he could get and he didn't realize just how much the cold would diminish the driving range. Actually, I don't think any of us thought it would be so dramatic a drop. I've been collecting data on this subject and will issue a full report on my next post.