How Much Electricity Does the MINI-E Use?

One of the questions that people frequently ask me about the MINI-E is "How much electricity does it use?" Sometimes they'll just say "I love the car, but I wouldn't want to see your electric bill!"

When I tell them the car costs between $3.00 and $6.00 in electricity to go 100-120 miles they usually smile and say "Wow, that's great". The reason the range is between $3.00 and $6.00 is because there is such a difference in electricity rates throughout the country. The MINI-E has a 35 kWh battery pack but only 80% of the pack is usable which means it has 28kWh of available power. That 28kWh can move the car between 90 and 120 miles depending on how efficiently you drive. It is less in the winter months because the heater uses a lot of energy, but for most of the year these numbers are correct as an average.

The national average cost for electricity is $.12 per kWh which means it would cost the average person $3.36 to fully charge a depleted battery on the MINI-E. However rates do vary. I pay $.11 per kWh at my restaurant in Montclair, lower than the national average, but it costs me $.18 per kWh at my home in Chester, only 30 miles from Montclair. So if I "fill up" at work it costs me $3.08 but at home it costs me $5.04! Obviously I take advantage of the lower rates and charge at work as much as possible.

Since I have a solar PV array at my home, I sell the electricity back to the utility at the rate they sell it to me ($.18/kWh) so every kilowatt-hour that charge at work saves me $.07. The average person drives about 15,000 miles per year. If they had a MINI-E they would need to use about 4,200kWh to drive 15,000 miles. If you use the national average, you would pay $504 for fuel for the entire year. If you use my rate at my restaurant, it's $462, at my home it's $756. So figure anywhere between a $40/month and $65/month increase in your electric bill if you had a MINI-E and drove it the average of 15,000 miles per year.

One of the great things about electric cars is that you can easily reduce your electric bill by $40 to $60 per month just by being more efficient and therefore completely eliminate your transportation fuel cost! You can't use less gasoline unless you drive less, but you can reduce your electricity usage and still drive as much as you always have. Simple measures like a programmable thermostat and the use of compact florescent light bulbs can make a big difference. In fact, five 100 watt light bulbs left on continuously for a year use the same amount of energy as it takes to power the MINI-E 15,000 miles! Here's how: five 100 watt light bulbs use 500 watts per hour. In 24 hours they use 12,000 watts or 12kWh. In 365 days they use 4,380kWh. What does the MINI-E use to go 15,000 miles? Remember above I calculated it to be 4,200kWh? So five 100 watt light bulbs use 180 more kWh than it takes to power 3,200lb MINI-E for 15,000 miles!

If you take a good look at your home electricity use, I'm sure you can reduce your usage enough to drastically offset the cost of electricity to power an electric car, if not completely eliminate it. Then, every penny of the money you would have spent on gasoline can go right into your pocket!

15,000 miles in 5 months? How can that be?

Battery Electric Vehicles are little more than glorified golf carts that can be used for short trips and local city driving, right?
Battery Electric Vehicles really can't be used by people that do a lot of freeway driving or drive a lot of miles on a regular basis, right?
Battery Electric Vehicles are interesting, but they're not ready for prime-time just yet.

Really???

Then explain to me how I've managed to drive a Battery Electric Mini-E 15,000 miles in five months. I'm averaging over 700 miles a week and most of the miles (about 65%) are at freeway speeds. This glorified golf cart has been my primary means of transportation since the end of June and it has done just about everything my internal combustion engine Toyota can do for me. No it cannot drive 200 miles without stopping for fuel, but during the past five months I have only needed to drive more than the Mini's range about 5 times. I do understand that would pose a problem for single-car families, but I'm not here saying BEV's will work for everyone. I am saying they will work for most. I'm on track to put about 33,000 miles on the car this year, and that's more miles than about 95% of the population drives in a year. Part of the reason I have been able to drive so many miles is that I am able to plug in and charge up while I'm at work and I realize many do not have that option. I figure that has added about 15% more miles than I would have been able to do if I couldn't charge up, so I still could have driven close to 30,000 miles charging only at home, which is also way more than the average person drives in a typical year.

The point here is, BEV's are ready for prime-time. BMW slapped the MINI-E together in a couple of months by retrofitting an ICE Mini Cooper with mostly "off the shelf" parts. Can you imaging how much better the car would be if it was designed from the ground up as a BEV? If they took a couple years of research and built dozens of prototypes to work out the bugs and refine the final product? How much better the range would be if they spent more time improving the battery temperature management, reduced the weight by 500lbs and increased the aerodynamics?

Sure there are challenges, with charging infrastructure at the forefront and battery longevity up there too, but it's time to realize these cars can be made and driven just like their ICE counterparts, and oh yeah, people do want them. I can't believe how many people have stopped me to talk about the car and ask me questions about range, charging locations, cost, battery life, etc. I really didn't expect to find so many people energized about the prospect of being able to purchase an electric car sometime soon. I've been following the progress of EV's for a while now, but I didn't think there were so many others as interested in them as I am.

There has been a lot of talk about just what the MINI-E program is about. Some have questioned the true intent of BMW and the program. Was it only to satisfy the California Air Resource Boards ZEV mandate or was this a legitimate fact finding experiment. I don't know what BMW is up to but I can tell you that my time with the car has proven to me that I can live with an electric car as my daily driving vehicle, even though I drive over 30,000 miles annually. I also know that I have given dozens of test drives to friends, family and even strangers that were interested in the car and virtually everyone left impressed and said they would definitely consider buying an EV if one were available. Hopefully, BMW and the other auto manufacturers will follow Nissan's lead and give us what we want.

Thanks for reading my rant and have a Happy Thanksgiving.