"EF-OPEC" has a Canadian Brother!

I get a lot of attention from other motorists while I'm driving around in MINI-E #250. However when I first got the car that wasn't always the case. BMW really didn't do much to announce that the car was a 100% pure electric car. There are decals of plugs on the car, but nothing actually said "electric". Many of the MINI-E drivers like myself complained about that and some of us added "electric" chrome emblems like I did to the side and back of the car. Some took it a step further and had vanity license plates made that further proclaimed our freedom from oil. My choice (and fact that I actually got it approved) of "EF-OPEC" has really drawn a lot of attention to me. Newspapers like the NY Times, the Star Ledger, the Daily Record and even the Wall Street Journal have noted my license plate.

So when Joerg of Vancouver, BC, one of the people that follow this blog saw the above picture in the Vancouver Sun, he knew he had to forward it to me. Joerg has been following this blog for a while now and occasionally emails me EV related articles. Joerg lives in Vancouver but is originally from Germany and has helped me translate English to German in the past.

I have never seen an EF-OPEC plate on any car other than mine before and I wonder if this person had it before I did. Perhaps they read about me and MINI-E #250 and got the idea there. I guess we'll never know. Anyway, it's great to see others have the same feelings I do even if it's on a car that does burn gasoline and need frequent oil changes. Maybe they just wanted to reserve the plate so when an electric car is available they can transfer it. Judging from the license plate, I bet this person will be one of the first in line to buy an electric car when one is available in BC. Don't worry buddy, you won't have to wait much longer...

Another Day, Another Interested Motorist

I've frequently written about how often people stop me and ask questions about the MINI-E. Is it a hybrid? Is it really all electric? How do you charge it? The final question is often: Can I buy one?

I had another "electric car moment" this morning on my way to work. As I pulled up to a traffic light in Morristown I noticed the person behind me holding up their cell phone to take a picture of the back of my car. This happens all the time since I got my EF-OPEC vanity plates. Usually once they get a picture, it ends there but today was a bit different. Once the traffic light turned green and I started moving I noticed that he moved into the lane next to me and sped up to get even with me. He then lowered his window and motioned to me to lower my window. We were pulling up to another traffic light so I really didn't mind.

Once I lowered my window he quickly asked "I hate to inconvenience you, but do you have a minute, I would really love to talk to you about your car" I really wasn't in a rush to get to work anyway so I agreed and told him to pull into the Dunkin Donuts parking lot that was right up the street. It turned out that he read the article on me in the Star Ledger a few weeks ago and knew all about the MINI-E from reading about it but he had never saw one in person. He had lots of questions about range, charging, temperature management and even wanted to know if I had noticed any battery degradation yet so he knew the right questions to ask. He said he has a deposit on a Nissan LEAF and is waiting for it to be available in New Jersey.

After about a ten minute conversation he thanked me, I gave him this blog address and we parted ways. Encounters like this have been one of the most interesting part of being in the MINI-E program. I have met so many people that are interested in electric cars, much more than I ever expected. With cars like the Chevy Volt and the Nissan LEAF coming to showrooms in a couple months we will finally have a choice.

MINI-E Vanity Plate Poster

A few months after the MINI-E trial lease program started last year, I noticed some of the participants had applied for vanity license plate to proudly proclaim that they were driving a car that doesn't need gasoline or oil. I'm not a big vanity plate fan and I generally like to blend in with the crowd rather than stick out, but I thought if ever I would want one give people a reason to look at my car this would be it so I applied for, and received "EF-OPEC"

Most everywhere I go people love the plate and take pictures of it all the time. I also get a lot of "Does that mean what I think it does?", to which I just smile. I few months ago I asked some of the others in the program to send me a close up picture of their vanity plates and I organized them and sent them to my printer and made up this poster. I then sent copies to the people that contributed their plate and also to some of the BMW employees in the electric car division. I never got around to posting it here and I have had a few requests to see it lately so I thought I would put it up for all to see.

Gotta go now, I have a reporter from the Star Ledger, a newspaper in New Jersey, coming over to interview me about the car and my solar electric system. I'll post a link to the article when it comes out.

A Rolling Political Statement

When I first agreed to lease the all electric MINI-E, I really did it because I thought it would be interesting to drive a car so different than everything else on the road. I thought electric cars might be a viable alternative to internal combustion cars but I wasn't really sure if they were ready to take on the established oil burners just yet.

Driving the car for a year taught me a few things, not the least of which that we have the technology to build these cars now, not ten years from now, and that they can compete head to head with their ICE counterparts. Of course there are things they do not do as well as gasoline powered cars can, like drive long distances between refueling and this will make a lot of folks hesitant to buy one until the single charge range increases. However there are a lot of things these cars do well and even better than gas burners like the simple fact that they do not use oil for fuel.  I proudly display that fact in more than one way on #250 and it garners a lot of attention from passers by.

I always see people taking pictures of the car, the emblems and the license plate, sometimes even with their cell phone while they are driving. A wave and a thumbs up usually follows. Recently, I ordered some new magnets from TwistyBitz.com. Robert at TwistyBiz offers all kinds of t-shirts and magnetic badges for all MINI Coopers, and he has a whole line of MINI-E specific stuff like the badges you can see in the picture above (No Oil, No Gas, Plug in & Powered by Sunshine) which would be good for any electric car.

Somehow over the past year I turned from someone that thought driving an electric car would be a fun thing to do to someone that advocates energy independence for financial, environmental and security reasons. How'd that happen?

Car Wash Small Talk

My wife Meredith and I went for a leisurely drive to Princeton this morning. On the way back I noticed there was a car wash open and #250 was looking less than perfect after driving in the rain a few times this week so I pulled in and ran it through.

Ever since I added the "ELECTRIC" chrome badges, the no oil magnets and the EF-OPEC license plates I get stopped all the time when I'm in parking lots and even sometimes sitting at traffic lights by curious people that have questions about the car. However whenever I go to a car wash, it's just about guaranteed that someone will ask me about the car and today was no exception. Just as I walked to the counter to pay a gentleman walked up to me and asked if it was really 100% electric. I said yes but before I could tell him it was a pilot program he quickly followed up with "How much?" and "Where can I get one?" He didn't even know the range, how long it takes to charge...etc, he just knew he wanted one. Then he saw my plates. A huge smile came across his face and he said: "Those are awesome, it's just how I feel"

Once I explained the program to him and promised him that he will be able to buy an electric car soon, perhaps as soon as within 12 months he was even more enthusiastic. I told him about the Nissan LEAF, the Chevy Volt and that BMW would have an EV on the market, possibly in 2013. I know I've said it here many times before, but the more I drive the car and the more people I meet and talk to, the more I realize the time has come to begin the transition to electrics. The technology is ready and so is the public.

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.

Filming the MINI-E

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Ulrika Ingold of TVT Media in Munich, Germany and was asked if I would participate video shoot for a documentary on the electric mobility and MINI-E. There was very little details about what they would need me to do and how long it would take, just that the film crew would be coming here from Germany the first week in March and needed to film me with the car at home, at work, in New York City and driving in between those points. They were given my contact info by BMW and as an early adopter they wanted my thoughts on the car, my lifestyle, energy and any savings I have enjoyed since getting the MINI-E. I agreed to participate without asking any questions mostly because I do believe in these cars and would like to offer my experiences and opinions for others to see.

On Wednesday morning I met up with Christine Burgmeier, Franz Stepan and Andreas Kickel at my restaurant, Nauna's Bella Casa in Montclair. They had spent the past two days shooting in New York without the car so they were anxious to start the interviews with me at home, work, and while driving the MINI-E.

It took about twenty hours in all between traveling and shooting on Thursday, Friday and Saturday which was much more than I expected. Christine, Franz and Andreas were such nice people I really wanted them to get all the different angles, environments and soundbites that they wanted, but honestly it turned out to be a lot more of an effort than I expected it to be.

Driving around a busy midtown Manhattan is difficult enough, but doing it while someone is driving next to you hanging out of a taxicab window trying to get in perfect position to film you driving is nerve-racking. We did it for about two hours when they either got enough footage or realized that I was beginning to get very anxious and wanted to finish the driving portion of the day.

I'm not supposed to get into much detail about what we discussed so I won't. I can say that they were very interested in my opinions on my energy usage, lifestyle changes and philosophy, maybe even more so than they were interested in specifics about the MINI-E car itself. The one problem I had was that they needed my answers to be brief and full of content. I found it hard to cut my answers down because I had a lot to say about each subject we discussed.

Christine, Franz and Andreas were all very gracious and professional so I hope I was able to give them all the video and sound bites that they were looking for.

Quoted in the Financial Post

Last week I was contacted by Rebecca Walberg of the Financial Post in Toronto, Canada. She was doing a story on the MINI-E and somehow found this blog. She wanted permission to print the lettering on my vanity license plate and had a couple of questions for me. I granted her permission and happily answered her questions. She had promised to send me a copy of the article or a link to view it online, but I guess she forgot. A friend came across the article and sent me the link. That's it for now. My next post will be my comments on passing 20,000 miles with #250.

Update: Rebecca emailed me on Monday 2/1/10 to tell me the article ran earlier than she expected and she sent me the link, so she didn't forget me!

MINI-E Program Extended, Will Transition To The ActiveE!

While the trial lease participants haven't yet been notified, it appears as though BMW has announced what we all expected, they are going to extend the MINI-E leases beyond the one year we all agreed to. How many of the existing participants agree to continue will depend greatly on how much the monthly payment will be. We are currently on the hook for $850.00 per month which does include all maintenance and collision and comprehensive insurance. I think most of us agreed to be in this program because we wanted to be part of something that we believe in, not because we think the car is worth an $850 per month lease payment. I know that's way I got involved. I wanted to offer my help and support in the hope that I could help prove that there is a market and demand for electric vehicles. That many people are sick of polluting the air we breath and paying outrageous amounts of money for gasoline while we send billions of dollars for imported oil to radical regimes that are no friend to the US.

I would definitely like to continue and extend my lease for another year, provided the second year lease payments are much lower than $850. I do think BMW will be reasonable here since it is in their best interest to keep many of the same participants involved. We all have installed and inspected wall chargers and that was probably the biggest hurdle for BMW in getting this program off the ground. (Follow this link to read Richard Steinberg's MINI-E program overview.) To now remove all the chargers and install them in new locations just makes no sense at all as the cost would be about $2,500 per participant. Removing that cost alone should knock $200.00 off the monthly payment. I'm going to go out and say I expect the lease offer for the second year to be $450 to $500 per month. I think if the cost is in that range most of the participants will re-up and be happy about it.

Finally, the real carrot in continuing the lease is that BMW is planning on offering a similar lease program for the ActiveE and it's scheduled to begin mid 2011 which is when our lease extensions will end and they are planning on offering us the option to transition into an ActiveE. Now that's what we all have been waiting to hear. The only question I have is "Why another trail lease?" How much data and research do they need. Other auto manufacturers have already announced that they will sell EV's and extended range plug in hybrids in the near future. BMW needs to get out there and announce that they will be selling these cars soon, not only testing them. I believe we will hear a similar announcement soon because I do believe they are committed to selling an EV soon, and that they are just waiting for the right time to announce it. For now we'll have to live in the "research" stage. I'm up for it, the only question is: can I transfer my license plates to the ActiveE?

My vanity plates have arrived!

Just in case driving an electric car isn't a strong enough statement, I thought I'd make my feelings clear. EF OPEC just about says it all...