After More Than 57,000 Miles, a 100 Mile Trip is Still No Problem

The other day I needed to go to a meeting at an office that I had never been to before. As always, I checked Google maps to see how far it was for two reasons: how much time will I need to drive there, and can the MINI-E make it or do I need to take my Toyota Tacoma that day. It's not often when I need to take the truck because I'll need to drive further than the MINI-E range will allow, but it does happen once every couple months or so.

When I checked Google maps it was exactly 50 miles away, and about one third of it was highway driving. My initial reaction was that I wouldn't take the chance, it's cutting the range too close and why risk having a problem. A big part of my reasoning because it has been unseasonably cool and rainy here in NJ and the difference of driving in 50 degree temperatures in the rain from 70 degree temperatures might be 10 miles of range or so.

Anyway, I then checked the weather channel and learned that the day I was to go to the meeting we were supposed to have a perfect day, clear and in the mid 70's. So then I started thinking about it, and it didn't take me long to come to the decision to take the MINI-E and take my chances. The plan was to drive there as slow as I could do safely, meaning 55mph on the highway, and the speed limit on the secondary roads using regen as much as possible, even trying not to use the mechanical brakes at all.

As my journey progressed it didn't take me too long to realize I wasn't going to have any problem. In fact, I arrived there, 50 miles later with 60% SOC. I had only used 40% to drive 50 miles! I did drive as efficiently as possible, and drove slower than I normally would, but this guaranteed me that I would make the 100 mile journey and I could even drive any way I wanted to on the return trip without worrying about being extraordinarily efficient.

So I the trip home I drove 70mph on the highway and didn't concentrate on using the regenerative brakes as much as I possibly could. I arrived back at the restaurant with 15% charge remaining which would be good for at least another 25 miles and if I really wanted to push it probably even 30.  I then plugged in and in under three house I was fully charged and ready for more another 100 miles if necessary.

When you add the 62 miles I drove to and from work that day, I drove the MINI-E 162 miles, not bad for a electric car with roughly a 100 mile single charge range. Anyway, the good news is that after more than 57,000 miles and over 1,100 charging cycles, the car still has the same range it had when it was brand new. This is significant because there are a lot of concerns about battery degradation in electric cars. It's going to start to happen at some point, I know that, but it is a bit surprising to me that I have been able to drive and charge the car as much as I have without noticing any decrease in range or battery capacity. This is good news for all electric cars in my opinion. 

Winter Has Officially Arrived

#250 charging in the first snowfall of the season. By the next day we had 26" of snow, that's almost as high as the charge port!

The East Coast got clobbered with one of the biggest snowfalls in a long time. We had 26" on snow in Montclair where my restaurant is (the car is charging near the back door). I drove home that night when there were only about 6 inches on the ground. The MINI-E with it's new snow tires did a fine job getting me home, even though I passed about ten cars stuck on the side of the highway on the way. The roads weren't that bad yet, I just think many people drive like idiots sometime and refuse to drive a little slower and more cautiously when there is snow on the ground.

So the next three days I drove my four wheel drive pickup truck to work. The restaurant was closed (along with the entire State of New Jersey) the first day after the storm, but I still had to go there to plow the parking lot and get it ready to open the next day. I put a plow on my truck in the winter so I can keep my parking lot clear without having to wait for a plow contractor to get to me. I also use it for my driveway at my home which happens to be 350 feet long and all uphill. My wife drove the MINI-E to work for a couple days while I used the truck to clean things up. It was so much snow I had to plow the lot about ten times and then use a snow blower to create giant mounds of snow about twelve feet high! One day I followed my wife for a awhile as our paths to work are the same for the first ten miles. I think it was the first time I followed anybody driving #250 so I had to take a picture of the car from the cabin of my truck following it.

EF-OPEC piloted by my lovely wife, and driving through "The Green" in Morristown, NJ.

So winter is back and along with it comes reduced range and a cold cabin, not exactly my favorite time with the MINI-E. However it still beats burning gasoline, spewing all kinds of pollutants as I drive and sending my money to OPEC. More on the cabin temperature in my next post!

#250 Gets a New Pair of Shoes

One of the great things about the MINI-E program is that everything is included in the $600/month payment. Everything includes all service and repairs (even if you caused damage or excessive wear) new tires when needed, even wiper blades and windshield  wiper fluid! No matter what breaks or is worn, it is fixed for free.

The East Coast pioneers (drivers in NY & NJ) also get free snow tires installed in the fall and then new all season tires installed in the spring. To make it easier for the dealers, the tires come mounted on new wheels so every 6 months I get a new set of tires and brand-spankin' new wheels. While the California drivers do get tire replacement as needed, they don't automatically get new ones every six months like we do on the east, and they certainly don't get new wheels every six months either. I'm on my fourth set of tires and wheels now in eighteen months with the car

Then again they don't have to deal with the problems the cold weather creates as we do so I guess BMW is throwing us on the East a bone for putting up with the reduced range and freezing interior(because the heater really doesn't work at all in cold weather) but that's a story for another post... stay tuned.

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.

Guest Post on Edmunds Inside Line

 
Edmunds Automotive is one of the most respected automotive authorities. For many years they have offered guidance for purchasing new and used cars in print and online. They also have a site that tests cars for long term durability. They buy the cars and drive them for a year or two and report on their time with the car. They call this site Edmunds Long Term Road Test. Occasionally at their request, I write guest blog posts for them about the MINI-E. Donna DeRosa, managing editor for Edmunds contacted me recently and asked me if I could write another post, this time about the effects the extreme heat we have had this summer has had on the MINI-E. Hit the link below to jump to the post I did.

http://blogs.insideline.com/roadtests/2010/09/guest-mini-e-blogger-the-heat-is-on.html

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!

Front Page News Story on Me & #250!

Recently I was contacted by Mike Frassinelli, a reporter for the Star Ledger, New Jersey largest newspaper with a daily circulation of over 300,000. He wanted to do a story on me and the fact that I'm driving an electric car and also charging the car with electric that I generate myself from my home solar array. Being the media hound I am, I happily agreed and he came over to my house with a photographer about a week later. We talked for a while, took some pictures and I even let him drive the car for a while. Mike is a great guy and a good journalist, asking all the important questions and even following up my interview with a conversation with Richard Steinberg, head of BMW's electric car division here in the US.

A few days later I heard from Mike and he told me that it looked like the story would run in Sundays paper but that was tentative. Then on Saturday, the day before it was to run, he called me back again and said he had good news and bad news. The bad news was that it wasn't going to be in Sundays paper. He then went on to say the good news was that the paper liked the story so much, they want to put it on the front page and Sunday wasn't possible. Wow, front page ink! That was good news.

So on Tuesday, August 31st, I started getting text messages from friends early in the morning. . The first one came at 5:50am  and said "I'm staring at some goof-ball on the front page of my morning paper, you really out did yourself this time". That was how my day was to be. I had dozens of telephone calls, text messages and emails. Also just about everyone that came to the restaurant that day had the paper in hand and wanted to talk to the "celebrity" some even had a pen and joked about wanting my autograph.

It was a fun experience and hopefully I got some people thinking about electric cars and solar electric. The combination is really great and hopefully a model for future personal transportation.

You can read the entire article from this link.

Prius Gets Schooled on Efficiency

When I pulled into the Quick Chek parking lot this morning that I sometime stop at to get a cup of coffee I parked next to a brand new Toyota Prius. When I came out a few minutes later the owner of the Prius was looking at my MINI-E. As I walked over I said "It's probably not often you're parked next to a car that uses less gasoline than you do". He quickly said "I get 50mpg, I doubt this does" He then said he's never even heard of a MINI hybrid. I told him that MINI doesn't make a hybrid. Now he was really puzzled and asked "What is it then?" When I explained to him what the car was and that I'm in a pilot program to test the cars out and gain real world data to be used on future electric cars he seemed disappointed. Not disappointed about the car, but disappointed he didn't have one or even know about it. He asked me how much it costs in electricity to run the car and when I told him it cost me about $3.50 to go 100 miles(I pay .11 per kwh) but others pay between $3.00 and $6.00 (depending on their electricity rates). He did some quick math and realized he wasn't the most efficient car on the road as he thought he was. Sorry to ruin your day buddy...

Private tour of the MINI-E repair facility BMW headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, NJ

Rob Healey is on the far right with the "Flying Doctor" Crew    (Sorry guys, I don't remember everyone's name)

This morning I drove to BMW's North American headquarters to attend the kick off of the "MINI Takes The States 2010" tour across America. It is basically a MINI road rally that starts on both coasts and ends up in Denver, Colorado. I don't think too many people are actually driving the entire route(maybe I'm wrong) but lots of MINI owners are going to drive specific legs of the rally and today it started with about 100(or more) cars leaving the Woodcliff Lake, NJ headquarters and heading to the first stop in Philadelphia. Obviously, I wasn't going to try to participate in the road rally since Philadelphia is a little out of my single charge range, but I wanted to attend the event to offer my support as well as say hello to some of the people in the MINI-E program that I know.

I arrived at around 8:30am and there were already a lot of people there. They had a new MINI Countryman on display which was nice to see. All of the cars that were going to participate in the rally were lined up three cars wide and looked to be about 30 cars deep. Since I wasn't participating, they directed me to a parking lot close to the gathering of people and right in front of the main entrance. As I approached, I saw about 6 MINI-E's parked in a row so I parked right next to them. When I got out, I realized that these were corporate cars that were being used to give test drives to the people there today. I was surprised how good they all looked, like they were brand new, but I'll get to that later.

I signed in, got a bag full of MINI goodies and some food and the first person I saw was Nathalie Bauters, communication manager for MINI. Nathalie contacted me a few months back and arraigned for me to have press credentials for the NY Auto Show because there were journalists from Germany that wanted to interview me about my experiences with the MINI-E. I then ran into Richard Steinberg, the manager of BMW Electric Vehicle Operations & Strategy. Richard and I have communicated via email and by telephone, but never met in person. It was nice to say hello in person and talk for a while about the MINI-E and electric cars in general. 

I then took a walk around of the facility as they were letting people see some of the vehicle testing rooms. There was even a MINI-E in one of the rooms with a AC Propulsion motor and PEU out for display on the counter next to the car. There was nobody there to talk about the MINI-E though. When I walked outside, Richard had a reporter there that wanted to do a short video interview with me and talk about the MINI-E. He also introduced me to Rob Healey who is the technical coordinator for the MINI-E. After I did the interview, Rob asked me if I wanted to take a private tour of the MINI-E repair facility where the "flying doctors" work on all the MINI-E's from the East Coast. You know I wasn't going to turn down this opportunity.   

First, he took me to an area where there were no complete cars, just parts. Everything from MINI-E's were on shelves from seats to battery boxes. There was even a huge vice there where he explained they put battery modules in to squeeze them to test that they can withstand the pressure. We then went to a parking garage where there were about 6 MINI-E's that were in various states of dissemble.  One of them had the entire interior including the batteries removed. It looked strange to see the car in that state. Then there was another that was really torn apart. So much so that I wondered why they even kept it. Without me saying anything, Rob offered "That one is used for parts" so that made sense. Sorry there aren't any pictures of the "inner workings" of the facility, but I didn't even ask if I could take pictures there because it was obvious to me that wouldn't be allowed.

We then walked over to the area where all the MINI-E's come to be repaired. There are two lifts dedicated to the MINI-E's and one of them even had a car on the lift being worked on. As when I first saw the cars in the parking lot when I arrived, I noticed how new and clean the car looked, like it was brand new. When I asked Rob about it, he said that all the cars that were returned after the first year lease were completely reconditioned. They had new front and rear bumpers installed, repainted as needed, new side view mirror covers, completely cleaned and reconditioned and anything that looked worn at all was replaced. Also, all of them got the giant plug decals put on the doors which was optional for us when we first got the cars(I declined). So that explained why all the MINI-E's I saw outside looked brand new. Before they ship them to France, China, Japan & the UK to be re-leased they really reconditioned them well, so much so the cars looked brand new. Actually I'm a bit jealous, maybe they'll spruce #250 up a bit the next time she's in for service. ; )

So the event went better than I expected. I had really went to show support for the rally and say hi to some of the MINI-E people and I ended up getting a private tour of the inner workings of the MINI-E program. I'd like to thank Rob for taking the time to show me around.

130.1 Miles on a Single Charge

After hitting "----"miles left at the 120 mile mark, I was able to push 9 more miles out of the battery pack before I got the warning icon that means you are just about done!

Today was a perfect day, 75 degrees and clear. I had gone for a short drive with my wife in the morning, then I drove to work. When I got there I realized I had to run some errands so I did and as I was driving back to work I looked down at the range meter and saw that I had already driven 96 miles and had 18% SOC left which is unusually high. The driving conditions were perfect, the temperature wasn't hot enough to need A/C and I had driven about 90% of the 96 miles off the highway at speeds under 45mph. These are the perfect conditions for driving electric and the range was the proof.

Since I wasn't in a rush to get back to work I figured I'd continue to drive and see how far I could go without needing to plug back in. I drove an 8 mile loop around the restaurant a few times before I reached 120 miles which is when the range meter finally displayed "----" which means zero.

I continued to forge on, driving about 35mph until I got to 129 miles which is when a large battery icon appeared. This is your final warning in the MINI-E. This means "Get to where you are going ASAP because you're about to shut down" Only a few MINI-E pioneers that I know of have even seen this icon as they dare not push the car to the point of needing to be towed. The car goes into reduced power mode at this point and you can only go about 25mph which was fine because I was only about one mile from Nauna's and the speed limit on this residential street is 25mph. I'm not sure how far it will go in this mode but I don't think it's much further than a couple miles.

This was a new record single-charge distance for me, besting my previous 128 miles. I have heard or some other MINI-E pioneers getting into the 140's on a few occasions and I do believe it's possible. If I drove the car all day with the intention of saving the battery and going as far as possible, I bet I could have gotten at least another 10 miles out of it. I did drive about 12 miles on the highway, going 65-70mph and I'm sure that cut some miles off my total, and I really didn't try to conserve energy until I realized I was going to try to push it at 96 miles. 

I keep saying that one day I'm going to set out with the intention of driving the car the most miles I ever have on a single charge. I'm sure I can beat 130 if I keep my speed down and the outside temperature is right like it was today. But for now, 130.1 will have to stand for MINI-E #250's personal best.

MINI-E stars at the Green Transportation Expo

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a representative from Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company and asked if I could come to their Green Transportation Expo in Jersey City to display the MINI-E and talk to people there about the car and my experiences driving it. I agreed and headed out to the event early this morning. 

The Expo was held on the top floor of a parking deck in Jersey City, NJ very close to the Hudson River. Other than the fact that it was a very windy day which caused havoc for the tents and tables set up there, everything went well.

There were about 20 vehicles there, mostly hybrids but there was also a natural gas Honda Civic and a hydrogen fuel cell Chevy Equinox. The MINI-E was the only pure electric car there(a Tesla that had committed had to cancel) so it generated a lot of interest. In fact when the Mayor of Jersey City came(with the press in tow) the first car he walked over to was the MINI-E and he and I had a nice conversation about it as the cameras snapped pictures and a local television crew filmed. I was later asked by the TV crew to stand in front of the car and talk about it and the Trial Lease program I am participating in.

The highlights of the day for me were talking to the Clipper Creek representative Michael Paritee, about his products( the MINI-E uses Clipper Creek charge stations) and the possibility of converting them to use the new industry standard SAE j1772 plug.   The picture above is the j1772 plug attached to a Clipper Creek CS-40 charge station, the same one I have at my home to charge the MINI-E, except is has a plug specific to the MINI-E. All future electric cars in the US will use the j1772 plug so all public charging stations will have this plug. I also has a good time arguing with the Chevrolet representative who was there to show the Hydrogen Fuel cell Equinox. He was telling people that GM will have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in their showrooms for sale within a couple of years. I told him he was nuts and that either he is uninformed or flat out lying. Hydrogen as a fuel may sound great (It only emits water as exhaust), but realistically we are decades away from being able to use it as a fuel for transportation, it's just too expensive to make, compress, transport and distribute. Plus, it takes more energy to make it than you eventually get from it. If you just use the electricity that it takes to make the hydrogen to charge a battery for an EV, you eliminate the whole process necessary to create hydrogen, plus there is already an electric infrastructure and it would take billions of dollars to build out a national hydrogen supply chain. When anyone suggests to me that Hydrogen is the ultimate fuel, I refer them to this informative article on Hydrogen. It's a long article, but full of facts that point to hydrogen being nothing more than a red herring to keep up addicted to oil for as long as possible.

MINI-E #250 One Year Wrap-Up

Wow. I really can't believe I've had my MINI-E for a year now, but it's true. When I picked up #250 from Morristown MINI on June 12th of last year I honestly had no idea what to expect. Questions crossed my mind like: Would the car break down all the time? Would I be left stranded on the roadside waiting for tow trucks to save me? Would the car lose power the longer I had it? Would the range be adequate for my needs? But most of all: Would I regret doing this?

I got involved with this trial lease program by accident really. I was dong some online research about the recently announced Chevrolet Volt concept car. An electric car with an on-board generator to allow continuous driving albeit not emission free. At the time Chevrolet just announced they were going to move forward with the car and bring it to market in the end of 2010. This being years away I did some searches to see what other auto manufacturers were developing electric cars. I was really an EV newbie and knew little about the industry and the politics that have repressed electric cars to date. That would change.

As I was searching, I  happened upon an online application to lease an all electric MINI Cooper. I really just filled it out for the fun of it, and never thought I would be one of the people selected to participate in the trial. After all, they were only going to deploy 100 of them in New Jersey and I was sure there would be lots of applicants. Low and behold about 4 months later I received a call from a MINI rep that said I was one of the selected few and if I would like to continue they would need to inspect the electric service at my home and make sure I qualified financially for the lease. All of that went fine and on June 12th, 2009 I was driving this amazing car home.

I'm not going to go into specifics about my experiences in this post, there are plenty of them if anyone wants to look back at my prior posts from thorough the year. I will say that every expectation that I had about the car had been exceeded and that I am extraordinarily happy that I was chosen to be in the program and drive this great car for the past year. I am now completely convinced the future of the automobile will be electric. The technology is there, the driving experience is fantastic and now that significant investment is being made, advancements are coming at a fast pace. One of the great unexpected bonuses I have had is that I have met so many great people, both industry experts that have been EV advocates for years now, as well as everyday people that see my car and ask me questions about it. I even have let many of them test drive it, so they can experience what it is to drive an electric car. I must have let over 50 people drive the car and given rides to many, many more. I'm sure I've made more than a few believers.

I have also received a lot of attention along the way, which has been quite interesting. I have been interviewed by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Toronto Financial Times. Been written about on AutoGreenBlog, and All Cars Electric. There have been full length articles written about me in the Montclair Times and the Observer Tribune, both local papers where I live and work. I have been featured in a New Your Times Video and was filmed for three days by a production company from Germany that is making a documentary on the transition the auto makers are making to electrics. It will be a 90 minute documentary that will be complete in a few years but there was a short video made from some of the footage for BMW that you can see here. I was also interviewed by Thomas Geiger of Der Spiegel in Germany which is an enormously popular magazine in Europe. When the article was written, Thomas mentioned this blog and I received about 5,000 new visitors in the next week, mostly all from European Countries.

I wasn't sure about starting a blog at first, but I'm very happy I did. I have receives so many emails and comments from visitors that had questions and also wanted to offer support. Many even thanked me for being an early adopter and doing this to help electric cars advance quickly.

Well, as many of you know, I have accepted BMW's offer to keep the car for another year so the one year experiment has now turned into two. However I do not view it as an experiment any more. I view it as an opportunity to be part of the future, an hopefully be someone that is helping to shape it.

Thank you all for reading this blog and I hope to have lots of great stories to write about in the next twelve months. Stay tuned!

Tom

MINI-E #217 stops buy Nauna's for a charge!

 

Gordon Miller drives MINI-E #217 and before his year lease is over and he has to give the car back he wanted to see how far he could drive the car in 24 hours so he set out this morning from his Rockland County, NY home and drove about 100 miles before he needed to "fill up". He decided to make his first stop at Nauna's for some juice and some lunch. We talked for a while about the trial lease program, about how we both love driving an electric car, about times we needed service and about how we both agree electric cars are here to stay. Once the general public gets to experience what we have for the past year we're convinced people will want them, especially as range becomes bigger and public charging stations become available. We both consider ourselves lucky to be involved in this program and to hopefully play a role in the advancement of electric drive vehicles. He and his friend Scott had sat down to some eggplant parmigiana and then took a nice walk around Montclair before heading back to a fully charged car and another 100 miles of road. Gordon is one of the MINI-E drivers that I have been in frequent contact with during the year we have had our cars. I have met a lot of really nice people from the MINI-E program and become friends with many of them and Gordon is definitely one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. The plan is to drive the car 400 miles today; good luck guys!

Nice Day, Nice drive, Great Range..

 

When I woke up this morning it seemed like a great day leisurely drive around North Western New Jersey so my wife and I hopped into #250 and took it for a 54 mile cruise through the country. We drove on all rural, secondary roads so it was mostly low speed driving, the kind of driving the MINI-E loves most. The temperature was in the low 70's so the battery was very happy also. It was a very enjoyable drive, as there were no other cars on the road to spoil the relaxing peacefulness of the quiet electric drive of the MINI-E. When we arrived home about two hours later we had driven 54 miles and still had an estimated 70 miles of range left. 124 miles, pretty good if I do say so myself.

#458 Gets a Charge out of Nauna's

 Jim McLaughlin lives in Princeton, NJ and drives MINI-E #458. His daily commute takes him into Pennsylvania to his job every day and has a round trip of around 130 miles. Like me, Jim is able to charge while he is working, although it's at 120V, 12amps so it's a slow charge. Still, it adds about 20% to his state of charge while he works so he doesn't have to worry about the long 65 mile drive home. Because of his long commute, Jim has over 26,000 miles on his car and is second only to me in total miles out of all the 612 MINI-E's made. Over the weekend he and his wife stopped by Nauna's for some lunch and to top off #458 as they continued to their destination in New York City. The round trip was about 135 miles and slightly out of the MINI-E's range although Jim has made himself famous for getting exceptionally long single-charge driving range. He regularly gets 120+ miles per charge, but 135 mostly highway miles might be even too much for him to squeeze out of the MINI-E's 35kwh battery pack. Why take that chance when there is a friendly restaurant on the way in Montclair willing to let MINI-E drivers "fill up" for free? I've probably had a few dozen pioneers stop by and use the charger so far. I'm fine with that, I've let everyone know the charger is there and ready for anyone that needs it. Hopefully next year they'll be some BMW ActiveE's stopping by to get some juice because that would mean I'd have one parked out there too!

MINI-E: Errand Boy

I spend a lot of time talking about how the MINI-E is a very capable commuter car. Primarily because most of the driving I do is commuting, but also because many perceive EV's as city-only cars and not really capable of long, highway speed driving. Today's electric cars are very capable of highway driving and since I do a lot of it, I want to make sure everyone that reads this blog knows.

But that doesn't mean the car isn't also great for scooting around town and running errands. Yesterday was just that kind of day. I had a million things to do and a million different places to go. I had to go to Town Hall to pick up a permit, I had to go the the bank, to Costco, to A&P, to Rite Aid, to the Post Office, to the Home Depot plus a few other stops along the way.

By the end of the afternoon I made about ten destinations, drove 65 miles and still had 49 miles of estimated range left. The MINI-E is really a great little car for a lot of reasons, but zipping around town at low speeds like I did yesterday really reminds me how versatile the car can be. I even had plenty of room to load an over-sized Costco shopping cart full of stuff in the back with plenty of room to spare.

I'm closing in on one year with the car now, and I have to say it's been everything I could have expected it to be and then some.

Electric Street, Metuchen, NJ

I was driving in Metuchen, NJ the other day and saw this street sign. I had to stop and take a picture on the corner of Electric Street!

So it got me thinking, I wonder how many Electric Streets, Avenues, Roads, Places, Way, etc there were in New Jersey. Maybe it would be fun to drive to them and take pictures of the car in front of the street sign and post them here. So I pulled up Google maps and did a check. I was really surprised to find there were no other streets at all in New Jersey that were called "Electric". I just happened to stumble on the only one in the state, go figure.

So I guess I won't be humming an Eddie Grant tune as I drive along Electric Avenue anytime soon.

Nice trip to the Delaware Water Gap

Yesterday morning my wife and I got up early and headed up to the Delaware Water Gap. It's a beautiful area with lots of scenic views of the Delaware River plus places to picnic and hike. It was about 45 miles from our home so I knew we could make it with the MINI-E, I just didn't know how much driving around we could do once we got there since I wanted to head back home with 45-50% charge.

We made it there with about 55% charge left so we took advantage of the extra juice and drove around for a while. The roads were empty and the MINI-E was at it's best in my opinion. Driving along country roads with the windows down and all you could hear was birds and the occasional sound of the tires rolling over gravel in the road. We didn't even want to turn the radio on it was so peaceful.

After a while we stopped at an Appalachian trail and went for a short hike. We didn't have the time to go too far but it's definitely a place that we'll return to when we have more time for a longer exploration.

We headed back home and finished the trip of 100.7 miles with 7% charge left which would be good for at least 10 more miles before I would have needed to use the 15 or so miles of "reserve" that the car has. The MINI-E is good for most driving environments but in my opinion, there is nothing better than driving it on winding country roads with the windows down and listening to the tires on the road, the slight whine of the regenerative braking and the sounds of the environment outside the car that you normally don't hear over the engine of an internal combustion engine car. I can't explain it, you have to experience it to know how much more enjoyable it is.

I had to do it at least once

Ever since I picked up MINI-E #250 I have had the urge to stop at a gas station and say "Fill er up". Here in New Jersey it's against the law to pump your own gas (crazy I know) so there is always someone there to pump the gas for you. I always thought about doing it, but I really never pull into gas stations any more so the right opportunity never presented itself. The other day I pulled into an Exxon station to get a cup of coffee and instead of pulling in a parking spot I pulled up to a pump got out and walked to the convenience store to get coffee. As I walked away, I said to the attendant "fill please". I was out in a minute or so with my coffee and the guy was looking at me like I had two heads. I quickly told him that he's not crazy and I was just messing with him. He laughed and said he loved the car(especially the license plate!) and wished he had one. He had a bunch of questions about range, the electricity cost, etc; all the usual questions I get all the time. I asked him if I can take a picture of him and he happily obliged. OK, now I can cross that off my list.

MINI-E #250 Is Now Truly a Zero Emission Vehicle

My new solar electric system is up and running so I'm now "charging on sunshine" as some of the others in the MINI-E trial lease program that have a PV system like to say. My system will generate enough electricity to charge my car plus provide about 90% of my home electricity needs. I know of three others that have a MINI-E and a solar array at their home. Peder Norby drives MINI-E #183 in California, Don Young drives #364 in New York as does Gordon Miller with  #217. There are probably more since many that are involved in the MINI-E program are definitely "energy conscious" individuals.

I'm still getting familiar with the system but one of the great features that SunPower, the system I went with, offers is online monitoring. It's a really cool feature that allows you to access your systems production from any computer. It gives you real time production figures and you can look at the daily, monthly and yearly production from the system so you know exactly how much electricity it has produced. I will soon have an link on this blog for anyone that wants to see these figures (as soon as I figure out how to). Maybe Peder can help me with that as he had it set up on his MINI-E blog since he has a Sunpower system also.

Finally, I can now say the car is really a zero emission vehicle(or at least as close as you can get). One of the arguments that electric car detractors always use(because they have little else to fight with) is that electric cars that charge off the grid aren't zero emission vehicles because the power plants that provide the electric burn coal and other things so electric cars are no better than gasoline burning cars are. This is called the "long tailpipe" argument whereas the electric cars tailpipe stretches all the way to the electric producing power plant. There is some truth to that argument and we need to find alternative ways to produce cleaner, renewable energies. However, the pollution generated from drilling for oil, transporting it across the world, refining it and then transporting it to gas stations where you have to drive your car there to refuel, then have carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, sulphur dioxide and particulate matter constantly spew from the rear of your car everywhere you drive, is much worst than the impact from driving an EV that is charged from a coal burning power plant no matter how you look at it.

Plus, you CAN generate your own electricity from a clean, renewable source. Which is something you can never say about gasoline.