60,000 Zero Emission Miles Later...

 

Today the odometer turned 60k just as I pulled into the parking lot of my restaurant. It's been two years and seven days since I picked up MINI-E #250 now and the car is still running perfectly. Other than a couple of faulty battery modules very early on and the time I hit (well really was engulfed in) a huge pothole and needed front-end repairs, the car has been virtually maintenance free. 

That's not unusual for electric cars. They really are basically maintenance free. When you buy one, the dealer isn't reminding you to bring it in for your regularly scheduled maintenance like oil changes and tune ups. These regular maintenance items add up, but you really don't think about the cost when you buy a car, because you know it's just part of automobile ownership and there's no way around it. 

But there is...

Electric cars are extraordinarily simple compared to their gasoline burning counterparts and don't have hundreds of parts constantly moving and rubbing against each other causing friction and heat, and friction and heat are a cars worst enemy as they cause parts to wear out and need to be replaced. That's why you need to constantly keep fresh lubrication(oil) in your car to reduce the friction on all the moving parts and hopefully make them last longer.

EV's like the MINI-E have a simple brushless electric motor that will in most cases last longer than the car will, and that's really the only moving part of the drivetrain other than some small electric fans. Of course anything can break, especially electrical components, but by removing just about all of the moving parts in a car you are drastically reducing the mount of things that will wear out and need replacement.

So here I am at 60,000 miles and all the car really needed was a couple tire replacements and wiper blades. The range is surprisingly consistent, and just as good as when I first got it. There has been virtually no battery degradation after 60,000 miles and over 1,100 recharges.  Take a look at the picture above, I just drove 76.7 miles and still had 26% state of charge. I could easily drive another 30 to 35 miles(and probably 40) with 26% SOC since I could drive at least 10 miles even after the meter hits zero. Even the brake pads are the original ones. With the regenerative brakes, I bet I could get 100,000 miles on a set of brake pads so even the brakes will cost you less with an EV.

It's cost me about $2,500 in electricity (actually less because I have solar electric, but I like to figure what I would have paid) to drive 60,000 miles. Take a few moments and figure out what you have paid in gasoline to drive the past 60,000 miles. Then add up all the oil changes, tune ups, vacuum hoses, belts, exhaust pipes or whatever else you've done to keep your gas car running along and maybe you'll start to think about giving an EV a try the next time your shopping for a new car. After two years and 60,000 miles of zero emission driving I know I'm sold and I'm never going back.

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. 

1,000 Charges and Still Going Strong!

Recently I passed the 1,000th recharge milestone with my MINI-E. That's considerable when you realize I have only had the car about 660 days so far. I've put 54,000 miles on it so that's over 80 miles per day, every single day I've had it. Obviously I haven't driven it every single day, so the days I have driven it I've probably averaged above 90 miles per day. That's a lot of charging, more than 1.5 times per day actually. Actually, the car is such a pleasure to drive, I find myself using it for everything I can, whether it be personal or for business use.

Those of you that follow this blog know that I occasionally write posts about my experiences for sites like Edmunds, AllCarsElectric and most often, Plugincars.com. I was talking to Brad Berman, editor of plugincars recently and he asked me if I would write a post on my range throughout the year in different temperatures. I was actually working on just that to post here, and planned to post it once I hit my 1,000th recharge. So instead of a full post here about it, I put it up on the plugincars website, that way it will reach an even greater audience than here, and give more people a chance to see how the car has performed. You can jump to the full post HERE.

A lot of people ask me about the range in extreme heat and cold, and whether or not I am beginning to notice battery degradation now that I have over 50,000 miles on it. I really haven't noticed any degradation, but my data seems to show that it is beginning to happen, as the second year data shows slightly less range that the first year throughout almost all temperature ranges.What the real usable life of a EV's battery pack is still debatable. There just aren't enough of them out there that are using the newer lithium ion chemistries that have been driven enough miles and charged enough times to have reliable data on, so I'm sure a lot of people are interested in the data that I've accumulated over the past 22 months.

Remember, the MINI-E is a prototype test car, and does not have a sophisticated thermal management system. The passive thermal management system it employs is really primitive, making this car particularly vulnerable to weather extremes. BMW will be using an active thermal management system on both the ActiveE and the i3, based on lessons learned from the MINI-E trial lease program: Here's what I've observed: