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!

#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!

Fellow MINI-E driver gets some juice

When I asked for a second wall charger to install at my restaurant in Montclair, I told MINI that I would allow anyone else with a MINI-E that needed to charge up access to it. I really didn't expect to see as many people come to use it as I have. I'm fine with it, the electricity cost is minimal, about $3.00 if they completely charged a depleted battery which rarely is needed. More often the person just needs a little juice to get where they want to go. In this case the car that is in use by Saint Peters College in Jersey City needed a boost. They had driven from Jersey City to Montclair State University for a meeting and were feeling a little uneasy about getting back after the meeting. So they plugged in at Nauna's and went to the meeting. When they came back two hours later they had plenty of juice to make it home. One of the problems of using the car like this for a university is that many different people drive it and rarely does any of them drive it enough to get comfortable with the range. They don't have the confidence that someone that drives it every day has because we learn the limits from driving it all the time. The people that drive them every day wouldn't take a trip that we knew is close to or over the range limit. When you don't know the car well, you don't really know it's limits and you can get that dreaded "range anxiety" feeling.

MINI-E gets called into duty!

Well, not exactly the MINI-E, but I was. I have a couple different routes to drive to and from work, depending on the state of charge on the car. If I have a full charge, I take route 80 west to Route 206 south to Chester. It is about 10 miles longer than the other routes, but since it is about 80% highway, I can make it home in about the same time as the much shorter ways as there are traffic lights and low speed limits.
On Wednesday night, I had time to charge up at work so I left with 100% charge. I therefore chose to take the longer, mostly highway route home and I'm glad I did. It was around 11:30pm and I had just got on route route 80 in Parsippany and about 300 feet ahead of me I saw some sparks but I couldn't tell what it was from. As I got closer, I saw a minivan on its side and it had apparently just flipped over as nobody was there to assist. I pulled over and ran over to the van and heard someone yelling "Help" from inside. I quickly called 911, told them what had happened and then told them I was going to try to get the passenger(s) out. Smoke was pouring out of the engine compartment but I didn't see any sign of fire. Still I was worried that the smoke could overwhelm the passenger or that a fire might start. The only way I could see to get the person out was through the windshield so I started frantically kicking and even punching it. Let me tell you, safety glass is no joke, it is really hard to break through it but eventually I did. Just as I started to pull the glass apart and make a hole big enough to fit my hand through a second person stopped with a bat and helped to make the hole big enough to get pull the driver out. By then, about 6 others had stopped and were helping us carry the man off the road to get him out of danger. As we did that, the Calvary showed up and began to spray foam on the van. There were about 15 State Troopers, three fire trucks and two EMS trucks. One of the EMS workers asked me if I was in the car and when I told them no he asked how did I get injured? He pointed to my hands and I then realized they were covered in blood. I hadn't even realized that safety glass from the windshield was slicing up my hands as I was pulling it apart to get the guy out. They took me into the EMS truck and pulled about 20 pieces of broken glass out of my hands and wrapped them up in bandages and I was on my way home. It was really a crazy experience. I know it might be a stretch to post this story here because it really isn't a "MINI-E" story, but my route was dictated by my state of charge. I'm glad I had a full charge that night or I would have taken the short route home. However I bet the guy I pulled out of the car is even more happy I did.

At Least Someone's Charging Up!

It's been two weeks now since I last drove MINI-E #250. I guess the holiday season hasn't helped as the service technicians probably only worked a few days in the past two weeks.

At least my charger is getting some use even if it's not from my car. I had a couple pioneers stop by my restaurant to charge up recently. Jim McLaughlin and his lovely wife stopped by for dinner during a snow storm and topped off their charge while they were eating. They live in Princeton so they would need close to a full charge to get home from Montclair anyway. Then, a couple days ago, David Miller stopped by at lunchtime for a bite and about an hour of charging. He was coming from New York City and was worried if he would make it the rest of the way home so the charge was just enough to alleviate any range anxiety he might of had. Since I installed the charger at the restaurant in October I've probably had 10 or 12 MINI-E pioneers stop by and juice up and just about everyone had something to eat while they waited.

I think once electric cars begin to increase in numbers on our roads, it will make a lot of sense for businesses, and especially restaurants, to have public chargers at their location. Since you can't charge for the energy, you could charge a "parking fee" for the EV parking spot and the electric would be no extra cost. I own the property that my restaurant is located at and I have a 53 car parking lot that Nauna's & my tenant Quick Chek share and I would definitely want to have a public charging stations there if there are cars on the road that will use them. How about franchises like McDonald's? If every McDonald's had high power chargers there would be a network of public chargers that would make charging on the fly very convenient. Plus, they could charge for the parking spot as well as get the additional business as most of the people would likely go in and get something to eat while the car is charging. This doesn't only apply to food establishments though. How about places like Walmart? Charge while you shop! Plus, they might even get the customers to spend more money in the store because they would need to spend more time there because they were charging up. Instead of a half hour in the store they might spend one full hour there. It's already proven that the longer people stay in the store the more they buy. That's why the stores are designed to keep you in there as long as possible.

Anyway, I wish I had #250 back to charge up myself, but as long as I don't I'm happy the charger is getting some use.

Power Hungry

There is one thing that all of us in the Mini E program have faced at one time or another and that's we need to go further than the range of our cars will allow. Some of us on the East Coast are now facing the reality that we can no longer travel as far as we could the first four months we had the cars due to the effect lower temperatures have had on the battery pack. Even with the reduced range the car will still go 75-85 miles comfortably, which is usually plenty for most daily commutes. The problem is what do you do if you need to go further on a particular day? Well basically there are two choices: You can either use your 2nd car that has an ICE, or find somewhere to charge up during your day.
The easy way out is to simply use the other car. Maybe let your spouse use the Mini E that day, given they have a shorter commute. If only it were that easy. I'm hooked on the car, I admit it. I want to drive it every day, not just when it's easy to do it, all the time. Luckily for me, when Mini offered 2nd wall chargers I jumped right on it and got one to install where I work. This allows me the freedom to basically drive the car just about anywhere I want to because I can always charge up, whether I'm at home or at work. Since I got the second wall charger I have been averaging 120 miles a day and range anxiety is mostly a thing of the past.

However others in the program aren't as lucky and didn't have the opportunity to install a second charger where they work so they are basically limited to traveling less than 45 to 50 miles from their home or they won't be able to make it back. In California there are a limited number of public charging stations for EV's but I don't think many of them are compatible with the Mini E plug. Here on the East, public charging stations simply don't exist...yet, but I understand that may change in the near future. Until there are plenty of convenient public charging stations, EV owners will have to be creative if they want to drive for extended ranges. The other option is charger sharing. One of the Mini E trial lease participants created a website where others in the program could register their home charger and allow others to contact them if they were in the area in need of a charge. Don Young of Shelter Island, NY recently used the website to hook up with over a dozen chargers and complete his "Mini E Tour" of 1,019 miles before he returned home! He stopped about 20 times to charge up at various locations and basically traveled to the northern, southern, western and eastern most chargers that are in the program (and plenty in between). He stopped and used both of my chargers on different days to complete his mission. Charger sharing is the most effective way to extend your range, but it's not the only way. I'm obviously not the only one that doesn't want to use their other car on day's they have to drive further than the car's range will allow. That is evident by the fact that some others in the program have found that the car will charge perfectly fine without the wall box and are willing to "break the rules" and have made their own portable charging systems. You won't find any evidence of this on the blogs or the Mini E Facebook groups because it is highly against the rules, but I kind of believe Mini knows this is happening and since they really can't monitor or stop it they have no choice but to look the other way. These "outlaws" have been able to charge on the fly at any location that they can reach a 220V outlet that have a 40amp line and thus enable trips further from home than any of the rest of us can make. RV parks, for example have available outlets like this for motor homes to plug into while they stay there.

It's all about the power, we need power. Not Gordon Gekko or Bernie Madoff type power mind you, it's the juice that fuels our cars that I'm talking about. These cars are so much fun to drive that we want to drive them more than the range will allow and many of us just won't accept it. I know I didn't want to. Before Mini announced that they would provide a limited number of second wall chargers I had already contacted the manufacturer directly about purchasing one or more additional charging units. Back in June when I first got the car and I didn't have a wall charger yet I consulted a friend that is an electrical engineer about building me a portable cable with a 220v plug on the end so I could charge up on the fly, but luckily the wall charger came and I wasn't tempted to pursue that anymore.

It's really Mini's fault here, so don't blame us if you hear about people breaking the rules to get their electric "fix". Mini gave us the drugs in the first place, and now we're hooked. Electric drive is addictive, and I can't wait until the day when we are all "users".

Mini offering 2nd wall chargers while suppiles last!

Last Friday I received an email from Mini USA that said they have a few extra wall chargers available for participants that might want them. I responded immediately so I could get my request in before they allotment was all gone. Even better, most of the extra chargers they have are the 50amp ones, the chargers that mostly went to the Mini dealerships. Most people in the program have 40amp chargers at their homes, as I do. The extra 10amps will make charging even faster, cutting down a complete charge from about 4 hours to under 3. I plan on installing it at my restaurant in Montclair near the rear door where I can pull right up to it. I will also make it known that if any of the other Mini-E drivers need a charge and are in the area they can stop by and "fill up" for free anytime we are open which is 7 days a week 11 or 12 hours a day, depending on the day. I asked Marian from Mini about the availability of secondary chargers at the East Coast meet up we had, and she told me that they were working on it at the time but couldn't promise anything. I guess Mini realized that it would only enhance the program if they could place more chargers in the areas that where the cars were. Until public charging stations are readily available, convenient charging will be a major hurdle for electric cars. Currently there are companies out there now planning the infrastructure for locations of charging stations since so many auto manufacturers have EV's in development stages, but they are still a long way from mass deployment. It's kind of a chicken or the egg situation. Electric cars need public charging stations to become mainstream, but it's difficult to invest tons of money into charging stations if there aren't enough cars that need them. I believe that once electric cars begin to appear in numbers, franchises like McDonalds that have parking lots will install a couple chargers with dedicated parking spaces for them. They could charge you $5.00 to park in the spot and charge your car, plus they know you are probably going to eat at their restaurant to kill the 45 minutes or so you'll need to charge up on their high powered charger. This would be a quick way to get thousands of public chargers available quickly and paid for by private enterprise, not tax dollars. If you drove an EV and you knew that every franchise had chargers in their lot you could easily take trips much further than the range of your cars batteries without worry of getting stranded. The car could have a built in GPS with charger locations programmed in just like current GPS's have restaurants, banks, airports, etc pre-programmed. Well, that's all future talk. I'm happy that I'll be getting my 2nd charger now. It will allow me to drive this awesome car even more than I currently am, and that's a good thing.

East Coast Mini-E gathering was a success!

Today's Mini-E gathering was a great success. I played host at my restaurant in Montclair, Nauna's Bella Casa. We had nine pioneers attend, plus Marian Hawryluk, a representative from Mini USA. She also came in a Mini-E so we had nine of them parked out in front of the restaurant. There would have been ten, but unfortunately one of the cars is in for service. Luckily the owners, John Rathgeb and Alan Chadrjian live on the block behind Nauna's (crazy coincidence) and could walk to the gathering. It was really nice to meet up with other "E" drivers and talk about the issues we have had as well as how much we all love the cars. It was especially nice of Marian to come. She wasn't obligated to be here, but chose to come to answer any questions we might have and to listen to our stories and complaints. There were some complaints, as much as we all love the cars, but most of them were not directly related to the car itself, they were more about the lack of a two-way communication conduit between the people at Mini and us. There was one particular car that has been in service 5 times already and Marian promised to find out what was going on with it and get back to the owners, as they have barely been able to drive the car since they got it. Nobody else at the event had encountered anything like what they have seen and have been racking up the miles for the past two months and driving emission free. I think problems aside we all really love the cars and that we made sure she knew that. We had a nice lunch of fresh mozzarella salad, fried calamari, hotsy totsy shrimp, penne vodka & chicken francese. I think everyone left full and very happy with how the day went. My staff later told me that while we were having our meeting, people kept walking in the restaurant and asking them what was going on with all the cars outside. It looked really cool seeing all the Mini-E's parked in the lot all next to each other. I have to give props to Don Young. He came here from Shelter Island, NY, which is all the way out on Long Island, about 130 miles away. He had to stop halfway at Stu Greenberg's and charge up. Then charge up when he got to Montclair (at Sandy Bondorowsky's) and then halfway home again at Stu's. It must have taken him 18 hours for the round trip, that's dedication! I want to thank Marian Hawryluk, Don Young, Sandy Bondorowsky, Chris Neff, Paul Heitmann, Ken Barbour, David Miller, Michael Graham, John Rathgeb & Alan Chadrjian for coming. I definitely plan on doing this again, probably in 3 or 4 months and hopefully we'll have an even larger group for that one.

Mini-E East Coast get together planned!

Many of the people participating in the Mini-E trial lease program have been communicating online via the Mini-E facebook groups and through blogs like this one to share our experiences, our problems and the excitement we have share about this amazing vehicle. The problem is, other than the one event sponsored by Mini for each the East coast and West coast participants, we rarely get to see or talk to each other in person, and I think most of us would like to do just that. I figured that since I own a restaurant in Montclair NJ, which geographically is an ideal location, I should organize an event. Montclair is only 12 miles west of NYC, and is within 50 miles of most of the NJ participants other than about 15 or so in Southern NJ. They could make it here, but would need a full recharge to get home and that might be difficult. There are two participants with charge boxes in Montclair, but I'm not sure of their availability. You can go to the website for Mini-E charger sharing at: http://www.waterway4.com/mini-e/ if you need to charge up on the way somewhere. We are going to meet at Nauna's Bella Casa at 148 Valley Road in Montclair, NJ 07042 at 1:00pm on Saturday, August 22nd. I know there are at least 25 participants that are within a 50 mile range of Montclair so hopefully we can get a good group here. A few have already confirmed so it's definitely a go, rain or shine. We can all sit at a big table, have lunch and talk about the first few months of driving with zero emissions. I'll reserve a bunch of parking spaces so we can all park next to each other for some great pictures. I also told our local newspaper about it and they plan to stop by sometime. It would be great if we could get someone from Mini to come by also, I'll make sure they know the event is going on and leave it up to them if someone can stop by. Leave me a message if you plan to come!