NY Times Reports: MINI-E Drivers Have Bonded With Their Cars!

Yesterday the NY Times published a story on how the MINI-E trial lease participants love their MINI-E's. The story was based on a yearlong U.C. Davis study that found an overwhelming amount of MINI-E drivers love the cars and have found that they are comfortable living with the cars 80-100 mile range.

If you have been following this blog, you know I feel the same way. When the MINI-E program began, we were all sent emails asking if we wanted to participate in the study, I thought about it and since I didn't know how much of my time it would consume I never replied, so my thoughts although broadcast here on this blog, aren't included in the study. However judging from the results, it seems that I wasn't needed and the other MINI-E participants love their cars as much as I do and the big thing is that they don't feel constrained by the range either, a point that I have been trying to get across to non-EV drivers for a long time now: The limited range isn't a big deal! People that don't drive an EV worry about range anxiety more than the people that actually do drive one.   

Anyway, the results of this study don't surprise me one bit. The general public is going to love electric cars, they just need to get past their belief that they won't and give one a try. Another MINI-E driver, Peder Norby once wrote of the challenges facing the transition to electric cars: "Our greatest roadblock is the inertia of the status quo"   and this study further proves that point if you ask me. The people that HAVE had the chance to spend time with an electric car overwhelmingly like them and say they want to continue to drive electric. That's the case whether the car was an EV-1, a RAV4-EV, a Tesla, a Nissan LEAF or a MINI-E. We just need to convince more of the public to give them a chance, the cars themselves will do the rest.