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. 

I Create a Bit of a Stir With a Challenge!

I few day's ago I received an email from plugincars.com editor, Brad Berman. Brad sent me a link to a Washington Post article written by Charles Lane titled "Cold truths about electric cars' cold-weather shortcomings" that pretty much slammed electric cars and basically said that they were useless in the cold and actually even dangerous because you will get stranded and freeze while you are waiting to be rescued. Brad knows I'm driving a MINI-E here in Northern New Jersey and I have mentioned to him in the past how I drive it in the snow and freezing temperatures all the time so he thought I would find Mr Lane's article rather amusing.

After reading the article I sent Brad a response that I asked him to post on his site which he did. I also attached some nice pictures on my MINI-E in the snow for effect. In the article I explained how I have been driving in the snow and freezing temperatures all the time and I have never been stranded, never got frostbite and never ran out of charge. At the end of what I wrote, I even offered a challenge to Mr Lane. I offered for him to come up to New Jersey and drive with me and my car for a few days in February, the coldest month of the year, so he can see for himself that an EV is perfectly fine for personal transportation in the cold, snowy north.

The article I wrote was very well received, and lots of people commented that they appreciated that I wrote it and how great it was to hear from someone that is actually living with an electric car instead of journalists guessing how it may be. Then a bunch of other websites picked up the story, like Engadget and Autoblog an I started receiving dozens of emails thanking me for sticking up for electric cars.

Then to my surprise, I received an email form the Washington Post journalist that wrote the story, Charles Lane, asking me to give him a call. I did and he said he would like to take me up on the challenge. He felt that it would be make for a good story, and I agree. The only issue is that he now needs to convince the Washington Post to give him an allowance for the trip. I am now waiting to hear back from him. When we talked he was very clear that I'm not going to change his opinion on electric cars. That they are basically a waste of time and we would be better off just continuing to improve the internal combustion engine to make it more fuel efficient. He said he could provide me many, many studies that would support his stance but he was willing to come and do the story anyway.

So now I'm waiting to hear back from him. I do hope he can get it approved. I welcome the chance to help change his mind. If not completely, maybe I can at least make him see why I love driving electric and how others will also. Please leave comments on what you would like me to ask or tell Mr Lane, should this actually come to fruition.

Here's the link to the article I wrote for plugincars.com: http://www.plugincars.com/electric-car-owner-challenges-washington-post-ev-critic-106755.html

UPDATE: The trip to NJ and the story have been approved by the Washington Post so it's going to happen!
I have a request though, it seems that many people have been emailing Charles and prodding him to accept the challenge I laid out. So much so that he asked me to ask people to stop emailing him and blowing up his inbox!!! He has agreed to do this, so I see no reason to bother him with emails so if you were going to , please don't. There will be plenty of time to get involved in the story as it unfolds here. Thanks

#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.

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!

35,000 hard miles: No reduction in range yet

It's been thirteen months now that I've been driving MINI-E #250 and I just passed 35,000 on the odometer driving home from work last night. Long gone are the days that I would worry if I could make a destination, if the car had it in it to make a certain range. Once I had the car for a while and I understood it's range and the relationship between speed and range, I very rarely have to wonder if I can make a particular destination. Recently I started thinking how I haven't noticed any reduction in the cars range yet, but I wanted to take a quick look at my trip logs to make sure. If there were any reduction that I didn't notice myself, it would be there in the recorded numbers for me to see.

I drive the car hard, I don't pamper it at all. Actually I drive it harder than if I owned it because after all, I don't own it and I get to hand the key's back to BMW next June and I'm really not responsible for the condition the car(or the batteries) are in. One of the first thing I looked at was how many times I charged the car since I picked it up June12th, 2009. That would be 623 times in 396 days. Since I charge at work, many days I plug in when I arrive at work even if I don't need the extra juice, just to top it off. This was especially true in the cold winter months when I plugged in just to help keep the batteries warm. I also noticed that I plugged in when the cars state of charge was at or below 5% 52 times. I mention that figure because it is commonly accepted that deep discharge is not a good thing for these lithium ion batteries and below 5% would qualify as deep discharge. Additionally, 52 times in 13 months would also definitely constitute "abuse" and I would not want to do this if it were my $25,000 battery pack. You should know, although I keep talking about how I'm abusing the car, I'm not driving it hard to be spiteful or malicious, I'm test driving this prototype vehicle to find the problem areas and help BMW recognize what works and what need to be improved so I'm doing exactly what they want me to do with it; beat it up and find the weak links.

So, after taking a thorough look at 35,000 miles of trip data I can conclude there has been no recognizable reduction of range, even though I have charged the car way more then would be expected in 13 months, driven about double the miles you would normally drive and had frequent deep discharges of the battery pack. The only pattern to range reduction I can see is temperature related. Both extreme heat and cold weather cause the range to drop. I believe it's primarily due to the extensive use of the heater and the air conditioning because they both use a lot of energy, however the extreme ambient temperature does have it's own direct effect on the batteries also.

So thirteen months in the car is still performing as well as it did when I picked it up. It will be interesting to see it this continues or if the excessive driving and charging that I do with the car starts to get the better of it. Stay tuned...

Hot in the city tonight

I have often written here and on other blogs that the biggest flaw of the MINI-E isn't the lack of a back seat as others complain about, it's the lack of a thermal management system to keep the batteries at optimal operating temperature.

The cold weather seems to have a worse short term effect than hot temperatures do, since the range is dramatically reduced when temperatures drop below 30 degrees. However, I think the long term effects of overheating the batteries would be a concern if I actually owned the car and planned to keep it for 10 years of so. Supposedly, the life of these lithium ion batteries will be shortened if they were exposed to high temperatures (over 100 degrees) frequently.

Yesterday it was about 95 degrees outside with high humidity. I had a 50 mile drive that was mostly  at highway speeds. I had the A/C on and wasn't paying much attention to the temperature gauge until I got the warning icon that has a cog with a temperature symbol in the middle(see above). I think it showed 112 degrees at the time. When this icon comes on it means that the battery temperature is getting too high and the car in going to reduce the amount of regenerative braking that the car uses. I saw this icon last summer a few times and noticed the regen was less aggressive. As the temperature continued to climb the regen was less and less apparent until the temperature climbed up to 116 degrees and then the regenerative braking completely disengaged. It was the first time that has ever happened to me and it was really strange driving the car without regenerative braking at all. Having the car coast like a regular car does when you lift off the accelerator was strange after driving it for almost 13 months now with the aggressive regen that the car usually has. The reason the regen lessens and then completely disengages when the battery temperature get too hot is because charging the batteries causes them to get even hotter. This is good in the winter when I'm trying to keep the batteries as warm as possible, but when they are overheating like they were yesterday you don't want to do anything to make them even hotter.

The good news is that BMW realizes that the thermal manage system is necessary and the ActiveE and the Megacity EV's that they are making will both have sophisticated thermal management systems like Tesla has to keep the batteries within a certain range of temperatures (something like 80 to 95 degrees). This will help keep the car's performance nearly the same in the cold as they are in the hot weather, while also prolonging the life span of the batteries.

It's Snow Problem For The MINI-E

It's been exceptionally cold this winter here in Northern New Jersey with temperatures regularly in the low twenties and even the teens. We haven't had too much snow but I have had the opportunity to get the MINI-E out on snow covered roads a few times to test the effects of the regenerative braking and the traction control in extreme conditions.

One concern I have had from the beginning is how will the car behave on slick and icy roads when you use full regenerative braking. If the regen was too strong I was worried that the car would start to skid without the driver even touching the brakes and would really have no way to control the car other than to steer out of the skid. Full regen really holds the car back, enough to produce a skid on snow covered roads if there were no secondary safety controls in place. Luckily there are with the traction control system in the car. If the car senses the front tire slipping, the regenerative braking will be momentarily disengaged to allow the front tires to gain traction.

I live in a rural area with lots of roads that have steep inclines so I was able to do extensive testing the other day. I drove up and down a very steep street going as fast as 40 mph and engaging full regenerative braking to observe the results. Overall the car handled pretty well. I slid around a lot and even ended up in a snow bank once, but that was to be expected with how I was driving. The roads had 5 inches of snow on them and I was driving like a teenager the first time he drove in the snow, doing doughnuts in a mall parking lot! When I was driving normally, I had no problem keeping the car under control and preventing it from skidding or sliding. With any car, even four wheel drive vehicles, you need to drive slowly and with extra caution when the streets are covered with snow.

Final thoughts: The car behaved about the same as any small, front wheel car does and I put to rest my concerns that the regenerative braking would be hazardous on icy and snow covered roads.

BMW Photo Shoot

About two weeks ago I received an email from Susanne Meis who works in BMW's communication department. She asked if I would like to participate in a story for BMW's 2009 annual report. She further went on to explain that they want to feature one MINI-E pioneer from the East Coast group, one from the West Coast and one from the group of participants in Germany. This story will be in the annual report to highlight BMW's commitment to future alternative fuel vehicles and to show a few of the actual people involved in the trial. I happily agreed and was told that I needed to have a telephone interview with the writer and then a photographer would be flying in from Vienna, Austria to basically follow me for a whole day and photograph me posing with the car in various locations that I frequent (home, work, stops along the way)as well as live shots of me in the car driving as well as out of the car at work.

The photographer, Peter Rigaud arrived from Vienna on Tuesday, January 26th and stopped by my restaurant in Montclair at night to go over the schedule for the next day's shoot. He & two assistants arrived at my home the next morning at about 8:50am and we spent about 2 hours shooting at my house and picking out different clothes to bring for other locations throughout the day. Peter was extremely professional and really knew how to get great shots. I've never modeled for anything and I don't suppose I'll ever need to again so it was kind of uncomfortable standing in so many positions and smiling as I leaned on every angle of the car. I can still hear him say "Remember za joy of driving!" with his heavy accent as he would remind me to put on a smile. After we left my house, we drove the route I usually take to work and he sat in the back of a minivan with the hatch open so he could take pictures of me all the way to my work. Then, as my staff watched and laughed, he had me leaning all over the car in front of the restaurant while he yelled "Tom, za joy of driving!!!!" We then drove to Liberty State Park in Jersey City to get some shots with New York City in the background. With rush hour approaching, it would have taken too long to drive into the city, take pictures and leave so we elected to get the New York skyline in the background. Peter must have taken 300 pictures(to get about 5 for the story) of me and other than it being freezing and windy outside the day went off without any problems.

I can't say enough good things about Peter and his assistants. They were real professionals and even managed to make me look good in the pictures, and that's not as easy as it sounds.

What a difference 20 degrees makes!

It was a beautiful day in Northern New Jersey today, a good 20 degrees warmer than we've had for a while. The outside temperature gauge in my MINI-E actually read 55 for a while. I don't know how accurate it is, but it sure felt nice out. The MINI-E batteries liked the warm weather also. My range shot back up to heights I haven't seen in months. I drove 79 miles and still had 12% charge remaining, which would be good for at least another 10 to 15 miles. I haven't gotten over 90 miles on a single charge since November as I have been averaging in the mid-seventies to mid-eighties per charge lately. I believe the biggest difference is that I didn't use the heater at all and that's probably the main culprit with the range reduction in the cold weather, more-so than the temperature drop itself. Well, we're only a couple months away from spring and I'm looking forward to my range going up just like the temperature.

MINI-E #250 Back With 2 New Modules

Finally! After 24 days I finally got the call from Morristown MINI that #250 was fixed and I could pick it up. Evidently, there were two battery modules that needed to be replaced. I'm pretty sure part of the reason it took so long to fix was because I had it towed in the week of Christmas. MINI had specialized engineers that repair the MINI-E's, they don't use the mechanics at the dealerships. MINI calls these technicians the "flying docs" probably because they fly from coast to coast to repair MINI-E's in California, New York and New Jersey. I bet they flew home for the holidays so #250 just sat and waited for them to get back to work after the New Year. This is only the second time I had a problem with the car. The other time is was a bad battery module also and it was fixed in eight days. I had that problem three weeks after I got the car and at the time I was worried that it was going to break down every couple weeks or so. I remember thinking to myself "what did I get myself involved with?". That turned out not to be the case at all. I had six months of trouble free driving until this problem so I really can't complain. After all, this is a test vehicle, a prototype that will never be produced for sale. BMW made the MINI-E purely for research so I'm not at all surprised that there will be problems. But for now I'm back in the saddle of #250. Perhaps the best news is that nobody has to hear me complain about buying gas for a while.

New Garage Heater Installed

Mini-E #250 is still in for service but when she comes home it will be to a warm garage. I had always planned on installing a heater in the garage because I do a lot of work in there and it gets really cold in the winter, but this incident with the car made me do it now. I suspect the problem with the car was brought on by sitting for two days unused in the extreme cold. I live in Northern New Jersey and even though the car is kept in the garage, it gets cold out there when the outside temperatures are in the teens as they were when the car wouldn't charge. I can now keep the garage at about 50 degrees even when it's really cold outside and I suspect that will be all the MINI-E(and maybe an ActiveE in the future?) needs to maintain an acceptable battery temperature even in the coldest nights.

Now all I need is the car! I got a call from Morristown MINI yesterday and they told me that they figured out what was wrong but that they haven't fixed it yet. Evidently, a couple battery modules need to be replaced and the whole battery pack needs to be removed to change them. The service department also said they now have a loaner MINI for me to use so I don't have to spend so much on gasoline! I wonder where they got that idea from? Perhaps someone there reads this blog? Hmmmm. Anyway, after two weeks with the Dodge Ram truck I think I'm ready for a MINI but the problem is I just don't have the time to drive to Morristown and swap the cars. I wanted to do it this morning but I had to attend an early morning meeting so I couldn't get there. Hopefully I can go tomorrow because 1,500 miles is enough in this huge thing.

Not Again!

Yes, I had to fill the tank of the loaner Dodge Ram truck again as my MINI-E is still in for service. It's been in for over two weeks now and when I called Morristown MINI yesterday to see if they had any info on when I will be getting it back I just got " Sorry, we don't have any information to give you" This is not unusual since the MINI-E's get towed to an undisclosed location(Woodcliff Lake, NJ) to be serviced. The service reps in Morristown are really nice, buy they can't provide any info because they don't know themselves. Anyway, I've now logged over 1,000 miles on the loaner truck and spent almost $200.00 in gasoline which really sucks. Hopefully I'll get #250 back soon, I'm starting to have EV withdrawal.

Another Fill-Up

Unfortunately, It's taking longer than hoped to get #250 back. I Haven't driven it in 11 days now and I had to fill up the Dodge Ram loaner truck again last night. Another $55 bites the dust. Hopefully the Mini-E "flying Doc's" (their description, not mine) can diagnoses the problem and make the necessary repairs. I'm sure the technicians that repair the MINI-E's are more engineer and less mechanic and have been involved in the MINI-E process from the beginning so they should know the car inside and out. I'm also sure that my problem is cold temperature related and this might be the first time they had to deal with problems caused by low temperature. I just hope that once I get the car back there aren't constant problems until the temperatures here get above 45 degrees or so. For all the great things about this car, the obvious weak link in its design is the battery temperature management, or lack thereof. I'm sure this was addressed in BMW's ActiveE. I'm really curious to see what they did and how much better it performs in the cold. This is a major hurdle for electric cars to overcome is the ever want to be sold outside of Southern California or Florida where it's warm all the time.

The Grinch Stole Christmas!

Look at him. All green and hunched over. Chuckling at himself as he loads up my MINI-E and whisks it off so it won't be in my garage on Christmas morning.

Well, he's not exactly the Grinch, but as far as I'm concerned he might as well be. Unfortunately MINI-E #250 needed to be towed to Morristown MINI this morning. The red battery icon came on last night when I was trying to charge it. I hoped that it might reset itself overnight, but it wasn't to be so I had to call the Grinch and let him do his dirty work.

I believe I am partially to blame for the problem which I think was caused by allowing the batteries to get too cold. During the past three weeks it's been really cold and I managed to keep the batteries above 50 degrees at all times, except for one time when it went down to 49 degrees. It wasn't much a problem because I drive a lot and I charge frequently, both actions bring the battery temperature up significantly. As long as you don't let the car sit in the cold for a long time (24 hours or so) without using it I believe the temperature will stay high enough that it won't cause any problems. The battery pack is very dense so it will retain heat for quite some time. The problem is that I didn't use the car since early Friday morning. I drive the car a lot ( I have 17,700 miles on it already) but the past two days we had a big snowstorm so I was driving my truck that has a plow. That, plus it's incredibly busy at the restaurant so I've been working 15 hour days and I didn't have time to make sure the car had some use. When I came home from work at 11:45 pm on Sunday, I turned the car on to check the charge status and record some data. Everything seemed fine; the car turned on and the state of charge was at 55%. I did notice the battery temperature was 43 degrees. I had never seen it so low, but since the car started, I figured I was in the clear. I then plugged it in to charge it up overnight. It started charging fine but after about a minute shut off. I was still in the garage so I realized that it stopped charging. I unplugged the cable and plugged it back in. This time it only charged for about 5 seconds and shut off again. This time the dreaded red battery icon lit up on the charge gauge and I knew I was in trouble.

When I woke up in the morning I checked it again and the red battery icon was still lit, just for kicks I plugged in the charger again but again, nothing happened. I then popped the hood and closed it. I understand that by raising the hood, the high voltage system shuts off so I thought by opening and closing it I might reset something, but nothing changed. As a final attempt, I bought out a portable electric heater and placed it in the cabin of the car, blowing directly into the air vents to the battery compartment. After about two hours, the cabin was as hot as a beach in Aruba but the red battery icon was still lit and I needed to call the Grinch. He arrives in about 35-40 minutes and whisked #250 away.

During the afternoon I got a call from Morristown MINI. They wanted to know if I was charging or parking the car outside. I told them that the car has been in the garage since I last drove it. Evidently, they had two other MINI-E's towed in for the same problem as mine but they were both parked outside that past day or so. My garage does get cold even though it's attached to my house. I recently bought an electric garage heater but I have not had time to install it yet. It has a built in thermostat so I can set it at 45-50 degrees. I think this will alleviate any future problems like this from occurring.

By now anyone following this blog knows I love the car and I'm very glad I applied to be in this trial lease. The one reservation(well two reservations, the other being the ridiculous high cost) was that I was concerned with how the cold weather would impact the batteries. I can live with a reduced range since I have two chargers, but hopefully I can keep the battery temperature high enough to avoid another incident like this. For all the great aspects of this car, the one glaring deficiency I have found so far is the battery temperature management. The car simply doesn't have one, (except for a fan that blows cabin air across the battery pack) and it would be a fatal flaw if they actually planned on producing and selling these. They don't, so it's not a problem except for the trial lease participants here on the cold East Coast. I know Tesla spent a lot of time and money working on the temperature management system in their roadster and GM is also paying a lot of attention to it while designing the upcoming Volt. I'm anxious to see what BMW has planned for the ActiveE they recently announced, I'm sure they have had their engineers working on this issue for quite some time now. They wouldn't make the same mistake twice now would they?

MINI-E passes the icy road test!

On Sunday, December 13th, as I was driving to work at 9:45am, I drove through a rare occurrence where the conditions were perfect and the roads iced up almost instantly without any warning. During my 31 mile drive, I witnessed about 10 accidents but drove by at least 40 cars that had skidded off the road before I got there. Shortly after I made it through the troubled area, the NJ State Police closed the roads that I was on for a short period until the ice melted. Let me explain:

Every once in a while the conditions are just right for this to happen and when it does, all hell breaks loose and there are literally hundreds of accidents within minutes. It happens when the temperature is right around 32 degrees and it starts raining. The temperature up in the air must be warm enough so the rain doesn't freeze but then a quick temperature drop at ground level freezes the water on the roadways without warning and the roads become treacherous. My journey began from my home in Chester. I drove 10 miles on route 24 through Mendham and Morristown without incident as it was raining and the roads were just wet. When I got to the exit ramp for route 287 I eased off the accelerator and allowed the regenerative braking to slow me down as I always do but the car sensed the wheels slipping and quickly disengaged the regenerative braking. This probably saved me from sliding off the road and into a tree. I instantly realized what was happening and just steered the car through the turn since I wasn't going fast. Anyone that has the displeasure of driving on icy roads knows the worst thing to do is panic and hit the brakes.

My first thought is wow, these new snow tires aren't as good as I thought they would be, I almost lost it there. But it didn't take me long to see I was in the middle of something big, not just a typical patch of ice. As I drove down route 287 the instrument light that tells you the tires are slipping kept coming on so I slowed down to about 40 mph. A big black Chevy Tahoe came up behind me and since I wasn't going fast enough for him he started to pass me. As he passed on the left, I slowed down even more to let him get by and as he got in front of me, the Tahoe slid sideways right in front of my path, off the road and into the trees. As I looked at his car, I heard a horn beeping and I looked up just in time to see a car sliding quickly behind me and about to hit me from the rear. I quickly turned into the fast lane without even looking and the car slid right by me and also off the road. Now I knew exactly what I was in the middle of so I slowed down to about 20mph, put on my flashers and continued along. I was afraid that if I tried to stop someone would just slide into me.

People were sliding of the road and into each other the whole way. I counted 8 cars on their roofs off the side of the road and at least 40 damaged cars along the way. After a while I figured I should take some pictures or nobody will believe just how bad it really was. I felt like I was John Cusack in the movie 2012 as I was driving and avoiding accidents all around and watching car after car slide off the road or into another car, some sliding off the road and rolling multiple times. The next day I was talking to a customer that was on route 280 about 10 minutes after I was and he was in the middle of a 15 car pileup as the cars just kept sliding and crashing into each other.

I made it through unscathed but I'm sure that it was just as much luck as it was the fact that I quickly realized what was happening and acted appropriately. I must say I was really impressed with how the car handled this extreme event. When the entire road surface suddenly ices up it is much worse that when it's snowing because most people don't realize what's happening until it's too late. I haven't seen that kind of road conditions for a few years and I hope I don't have to drive in it ever again.

Yeah it's THAT cold

The temperature gauge read 19 degrees when I left for work today. The battery temp was 49 degrees which is just about as cold as I've seen it so far. After about ten minutes of driving the battery temperature got up to 65 degrees which is still low, but not so low that my range will suffer too much. My garage is insulated and it is always much warmer than outside but it still gets pretty cold when the temperature is this low outside. I just bought a garage heater that I will install sometime in the next couple weeks. I always wanted to get a garage heater, but it was never a pressing issue until now. I'm worried that when the outside temperatures get down under 10 degrees the battery temp will drop under 40 degrees overnight and that will really diminish their strength and thus cut further into my range. I'm not even sure the car will start if the battery temperature drops below 40. I vaguely remember a BMW representative telling me that 40 was basically the limit and anything lower than that is uncharted waters and they don't know what the car will do if the batteries get that cold. I'll set the thermostat to about 45 -50 degrees so the garage will never get colder than that. That should keep the battery temp above 60 since it will be charging overnight and that raises the temp a little. I suspect this will help keep my range from taking such a beating in the winter. So far I have seen my range per charge drop from 100-110 miles to 75-85 miles in this extreme cold so I want to do whatever I can to help the batteries maintain as high a temperature as possible. Even taking the car out for a short drive during the day rather than letting it sit in the parking lot all day without use can make a difference. The trick is to try to not let the batteries get too cold because they will lose the ability to accept a charge and even a short drive can raise the battery temperature 10 to 15 degrees. Parking the car in a sunny place is also helpful because even in the winter when it's cold out the cars cabin will be noticeably warmer if it's parked in the sunlight. I knew this was coming, and all I can say is that it's going to be an interesting 3 months..

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Looks like I had the free snow tires that MINI offered put on just in time. Less than a week later I'm getting to test them out. There isn't much accumulation, but the roads are slippery and so far the car is doing just fine. I haven't noticed any difference from a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle at all. The regenerative braking hasn't presented any problems as it disengages when the car senses the front wheels slipping. As with any vehicle regardless of the propulsion system, when the weather conditions are less than optimal, you need to drive with caution and be extra alert.

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".

What's up? Not our range.

Range. After cost, it is perhaps the most important feature of an EV. The range you can drive between recharging will determine if you can even consider buying an electric car. One of the the problem with range is it's not constant and there are many variables that can effect it. The Mini-E trial participants on the East Coast like myself are beginning to realize just how fickle range can be.

The temperature is dropping in the NY/NJ metro area and unfortunately so is our range. During the summer when many of us were using the air conditioning in our cars we noticed a small decline in the vehicles range, maybe 2-3%, but it was so small none of us really complained and many didn't even notice at all. That's not the case now. One of the participants (#486) had to be towed home recently. After 87.8 miles, he could go no further. He was driving the same route to and from work that he did all summer with his "E", why now couldn't the car make it? The car couldn't make it because it was in the 30's most of the day here in NJ and his lithium-ion batteries were freezing their kilowatts off. Another (#304) realizes he'll be driving the car much less during the winter months just to make sure he doesn't need to be towed. I think most of us knew the cold weather would have an effect on our range, but just how much was the question. The fact that the weather dropped so quickly also made it more surprising to see how much less we could go on a single charge. I've done a lot of research on EV's so I knew going into this that the winter months might be challenging, but even I was caught off guard by how quickly my range dropped. As I've posted a few days ago, I had a second wall charger installed at my business so I'll be fine. I can charge up any time I need to at work or home, but I'm the exception here as most of the others do not have that luxury while they are working. The reduced range has some of the participants worried that they may not be able to continue to use the car to commute to work and one person even told me that although they love the car, if they can't use it to drive to work they might as well give it back.

When I signed up for this I expected there to be problems. I new this was new technology and that Mini themselves really didn't know what to expect. I decided to do this to help advance the technology with the hopes of actually being able to buy an EV sometime in the near future. I had no idea how much fun the car would be to drive, that's been a pleasant suprise. I'm sure Mini knew there would be problems like this on the East coast. That's why they put 200 or so of us on the road here in the Northeast, to see how the batteries would fare in cold weather climates. If they are to eventually sell EV's, they can't just sell them in warm climates. The California participants are still driving around without any range issues, why would they, it's always freaking nice in Southern CA! Back here on the East though, some of us are getting worried. Perhaps Mini should have talked to the participants a little more about the potential issues before they issued the cars, just so everyone knew what to expect. While I knew there would be range issues in the cold, it seems that some of the others didn't and are really surprised and concerned now. I think an email to the East Coast participants a few weeks ago as a warning before the temperatures dropped would have been appropriate.

The Ugly Truth:
I have been keeping data on every trip I take since I got the car and I can see just when my range started dropping and just how much so. Up until October I had been averaging about 105 miles per charge. During that time I had single-charge trips of 120 & 123 miles and frequently drove over 110 miles. Since the beginning of October, I'm averaging 88 miles per charge, and only once hit 100 miles. On the day I did 100 miles, I drove the last 12 miles after my range indicator hit 0%. I thought for sure I'd be calling a tow truck myself, but luckily I made it home in reduced-power mode. On the colder days (those under 40 degrees) I'm only getting about 80 miles of driving range. That's almost a 25% reduction! What's going to happen when we get down under 20 degrees? I'm starting to wonder if the car will even work. Well, I'm in it for the long haul, regardless of how the cold punishes the batteries. I hope that whatever we go through this winter helps pave the way for better battery temperature management in future EV's. I'm confident I'll be able to make it back and forth to work now that I have a second charger at my disposal, and as I've said before, anyone in need of some juice can charge up whenever they need to at my restaurant, Nauna's Bella Casa, 148 Valley Road, Montclair, NJ.

Christmas came early!

I received my 2nd wall charger today that I am installing at my restaurant in Montclair, Nauna's Bella Casa. This is really good news for me as it will significantly increase my daily range. I can "fill up" anytime now during the day so I don't have to allow for my 31 mile trip home every night. My round trip from Chester to Montclair is 63 miles so that left me with about 40 miles of driving during the day. Now I can drive to Montclair, top off, drive 100 miles or so and then charge up for the 31 mile drive home. I have agreed to allow any of the other Mini E trial lease participants use of the charger during business hours at no cost, so if anyone is in need of a charge and is near Montclair come on over, I'll have it installed in a few days.

The only bad news I have to report is that with the cold weather starting to set in, I am seeing a noticeable reduction in driving range. The second wall charger may be more of a necessity than the luxury I originally thought it would be. Up until recently, I could expect to get 100 to 120 miles on a single charge, and I needed it because I drive about 95 miles a day. Lately, I'm really stretching it to get 90 -95 miles, and driving the last 5-8 miles with the cars' charge indicator at 0%! I have to bring it in next week for the second scheduled service and I plan to ask them to look into the range issue. I'm hoping there is a problem they can fix, and that it's not just the cold weather that's causing the reduction in range. I'll write a post about this issue once I get the car back from service next week and by then I'll have more range data to examine.