Munich, We Have a Problem!

 

That icon you see of a plug with an exclamation mark is what the car is supposed to show if you have the car plugged in and charging and you try to start it up. The car will not start while it's plugged in so you cannot make the mistake of driving off while it's still tethered to the EVSE wall charger attached to your home. That would be like driving away from a gas station while the gas nozzle is still pumping gas into your tank, something that does happen every once in a while and is extraordinarily dangerous and at best only results in a destroyed gas pump and a huge insurance claim. At worst a spark ignites the spilled gasoline and the whole place blows up, along with you and the people working there!

The problem I have is that this icon is coming on and the car isn't plugged in. This means for some reason the electronics thinks the car is plugged in and won't allow me to start it. Plus, if I try to charge it the red protection light on the EVSE lights up which means it has gone into protection mode because there has been a problem detected. So basically I can neither start nor charge it, which leaves me with little choice than to have her towed in to Morristown MINI for the "flying doctors" to take a look at it. 

This is the first time I have had a problem and the car needed to be towed in about a year as the car has proven to be very reliable considering it is a prototype test car and even this time I believe I had a hand in on it's demise. On Sunday night I was charging outside at my restaurant in the rain. We had quite a storm and it was really pouring. When I unplugged the car, I quickly put the cap on the receptacle on the car as to not allow rain to get it wet. What I failed to realize was the the plastic cap had filled with rain water and when I slid it on the charge receptacle it flooded the area with water. 

I drove home without a problem, but when I arrived and went to charge the car, I noticed how wet the plug area was and that there was actually a lot of water inside the plug receptacle. I dried it off as best I could and left the cap off overnight to let it air out. I didn't need to charge the car to get to work the next day so that wasn't going to be a problem. In the morning when I tried to start the car all I would get was the icon pictured above, meaning the car believed that it was plugged in which it wasn't. By now the area looked dry, but I guess inside was still wet so I let the car sit all day and took my Toyota to work. 

This morning I got up and tried to turn it on again but I still get the plug icon. I figure that if it hasn't dried out in roughly 36 hours then the water probably did some damage that needs to be fixed so I called for a tow and it's now off to Morristown MINI. I figure this was 50% my fault and 50% the cars fault. I definitely shouldn't have poured water on the receptacle, but the car should be able to handle screw ups like this, there are plenty of idiots like me out there that make mistakes. I'm sure they could design the plug area better to prevent problems like this from happening and that is exactly what the MINI-E program is about; finding design flaws like this and correcting them so future EV's that actually make it to the showroom don't have them. The more I think about it, the MINI-E program was a brilliant idea. BMW is getting more real world data and information with this program than they could ever get with internal testing, and they are getting us to pay a lease payment to participate! Genius! So I sent Rob Healey, technical coordinator for the MINI-E and Vincent Immerso, MINI-E service adviser for the MINI-E at Morristown MINI an email that detailed the issue and a heads up that they should expect the car shortly.

Within an hour I got a call from Vincent and then an email from Rob to let me know they will get right on it today and get me that car back as soon as possible. Vincent asked me if I needed a loaner car, which I declined for the time being, and Rob informed me that Shaun Gillilan, one of the flying doctors was already en-route to check out #250. That is some great service!

So it looks like there is no need to call and complain to Richard Steinberg, manager of BMW's North American electric vehicle operations or Dr. Norbert Reithofer, BMW CEO to make them aware of this problem. The rank and file have this under control.

UPDATE: The car was fixed the same day and I already picked it up. As I thought, the problem was caused by excessive water infiltrating the plug recepticle. My bad!

Back in the Drivers Seat

Good news. After only about 5 hours after dropping off #250 for my 42,000 mile service and to check out the fan issue I got a call from my service manager Vinnie to tell me the car was all set and ready to be picked up.

Since I was at work and had a busy night in front of me (a party of 50 was booked) I couldn't leave and get the car so I picked it up this morning on my way to work. Vinnie greeted me as he always does, with my keys, an explanation of what services were performed and a smile. Service writers can help to make a usually unpleasant trip to the dealer more bearable by explaining everything they needed to do and simply being personable and Vinny does a good job at both. I am happy I got my MINI-E from Morristown MINI because I am very pleased with the overall job the service department does there. The car is always cleaned and charged when I pick it up. The only criticism I can really offer is that Morristown MINI doesn't have many actual MINI's to give out as service loaner cars and they use Enterprise Rent a Car for this. I know most dealers use this practice (When I had a Mercedes they also used a rental company for their service loaners unless you were a "Gold Circle" customer and probably needed to buy ten cars from the dealer to qualify) In all my service trips for the MINI-E (about ten) I only got to use an actual MINI once and it was a clubman. I really liked driving the car and it even made me think about buying one. I think this is a great way to showcase their products and possibly get their service customers to want to upgrade to a newer MINI or clubman. Oh well, what do I know?

Anyway, #250 is back on the road and I only had to shell out $8.00 for gas yesterday. Not bad, but consider this: The same miles driven in my MINI-E would have cost me about $2.65 in electricity, and that was for just ONE DAY of driving!

I'm Burning Gasoline For a While

One of the unfortunate aspects of the MINI-E program is that I have to bring the car in for service every 5,000 miles. The BMW technicians trained to work on these cars (called the flying doctors) inspect every detail, check all the battery modules and download the data the car has captured since the last service visit.

I recently turned 42,000 and that meant I had gone 5k since my last service so I knew I had to make an appointment soon. Then yesterday I noticed the battery temperature was unusually high, as it was over 100 degrees and this time of year when it's typically 60 to 70 degrees outside I usually see battery temperatures in the 80's so something was off. I then looked (and listened) closely to the battery compartment and didn't hear the usual sound of the fans that pull air from the cabin of the car and blow it across the battery pack. I'm guessing they stopped functioning and the increase in battery temperature is the result. If it were in the middle of the summer, it would be a big problem and probably prevent me from being able to drive the car because the modules would get too hot and the car would shut down. However since it is now cooler outside, I could have probably driven it fora while with no real effects or problem.

I emailed Rob Healey at BMW and asked him if he wanted me to bring the car right in for service or wait until next week when I had originally planned to bring it in for the 5,000 mile service. As I expected, he said being it in as soon as possible, not wanting to take a chance. So this morning I brought it in to Morristown MINI and picked up my 2010 Dodge Charger loaner car.

I got a nice surprise while I was waiting for the loaner car at the dealership as Rob Healey and Hugo VanGeem from BMW just happened to be there. Rob is the Technical coordinator for the MINI-E and Hugo is the head of BMW's electric car sales. It was nice to see them in person and say hello as I usually only correspond with them via email.

It is worth noting that this is the first malfunction I have had since last December, nearly a full year now. I did have a problem in February, but that was caused by me hitting a big pothole and messing up some stuff in the front end, hardly the cars fault. So now I'll be joining everybody else for the next few days. I'll be burning gas, supporting terrorism, sending my US dollars to foreign regimes and polluting the air as I drive. Luckily, it won't be for long.

MINI-E #250 One Year Wrap-Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom

30,000 Zero Emission Miles in Eleven Months

Yesterday was eleven months to the day (June12th, 2009 to May 12th 2010) since I picked up MINI-E #250 from Morristown MINI. Yesterday was also the day that the cars odometer rolled past 29,999 to an even 30,000 just as I turned into my driveway as I returned home from work.

Electric cars have a long way to go before they are accepted by the majority of the public as a legitimate alternative to gasoline burning cars.  There are still many questions and obstacles like the high cost of batteries, the usable life span of the batteries, the effects the ambient temperature has on the range, the unavailability of public charging infrastructure, but most of all the single charge range of the current EV's. Until recently when Tesla introduced the Roadster there were no production cars that you could purchase that could consistently go100 miles on single charge regardless of the whether conditions. 100 miles per charge seems to be the accepted bare minimum for an EV to be really considered a serious player and have a chance to sell in numbers great enough to warrant production by a major auto maker.

Most of the general public has the perception that we currently don't have the technology to build and sell a car, for a competitive price, that could go far enough on a single charge to satisfy their daily driving requirements. If anything, I hope that people that read about me and my adventures with the MINI-E realize that the auto makers can make a car that can be used as a daily driven commuter car and be used for high mileage driving if the circumstances are right. 30,000 miles in less than a year is much more than the average person drives. In fact, the average driver logs about half the miles that I'll have on the car next month when my first year with the car is over.

I know that the car wouldn't work for everyone. There are plenty of people that drive less miles than I do in a year but have the need to longer individual trips, so yeah, a car with a 100 mile range just wouldn't work for them. However, I believe most households that have more than one car could use a 100 mile EV and could save a lot of money doing so. The cost of maintenance of these cars is dramatically lower than that of an internal combustion engine vehicle because there are so few moving parts to wear out and need replacement. Plus the fuel cost (electricity vs gasoline) is dramatically lower. Depending on what part of the country you live in the average cost to power your electric car would be around $2.50 to $4.50 per 100 miles you drive.

Lately I've been interviewed by quite a few journalists that have heard of the high mileage I'm putting on the car and many of them ask me if I know of anyone else that has driven an electric car more than 30,000 in a single year. I've asked around the EV community and nobody seems to know of anyone that has. I know some of the EV-1 drivers put as many as 50 or 60,000 on their cars over a 3 to 4 year period, and that some of the Toyota RAV4 drivers have 150,000 miles on them but they were sold from 1997 to 2003 so they are all 7 to 13 years old. The Tesla roadster is capable of doing it, but I don't know if anyone would buy one for $110,000 and then basically drive it into the ground like I'm doing to the MINI-E.

If anyone knows of anyone that has driven their EV more than this in a year, please leave a comment with the details. The more people see that these cars are capable of high mileage driving, the quicker the public will realize that driving electric is a legitimate alternative to gasoline powered cars.

On The Road Again!

 

#250 is back in action! I got the call from Vinny at Morristown MINI this morning that the car was was fixed and had been towed back from the secret MINI-E repair facility at an undisclosed location. (BMW headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, NJ but don't tell anyone) Evidently I did quite a bit of damage when I hit the pot hole, (my bad!) but hey, that's what we're here for right? Anyway, the service tag said they "changed engine, did all high voltage and ground tests and changed battery system" Sounds like a lot of changing went on in there, but as long as it's good to go I'm happy. While the car was there they did another regular service on the car. We were told in the beginning that we would have to bring the car in for service twice during the year so they could download data from the car. If we drove a lot then we would probably have to come in three times because the car can only hold data from about 5,000 miles. This is my fourth service download and I still have almost four months to go. I don't think the folks at BMW thought anyone would put so many miles on the car, but I and others are doing just that. Vinny said the Flying doctors (the tech's that repair the MINI-E's) were "ecstatic" that I'm putting as many miles on the car as I am. I guess it gives them more data to analyze. That's it for now, I gotta go make more data : )

I Need a Loaner for my Loaner

 

A couple posts ago I wrote that my MINI-E broke down after I hit a big pot hole. Morristown MINI didn't have any of their MINI loaner cars available at the time, and when that happens they use Enterprise Rent-a-Car to provide their service customers with a loaner vehicle. I was given a 2009 Pontiac G5 to use until I get #250 back. I let my wife use it yesterday and I took our Toyota Tacoma pick up truck to work. Unfortunately when she came out of work the car wouldn't start. 

I figured it was a bad battery and just needed a jump and I was quite a distance away so I told her to call AAA. She did and they came and they were able to get it started but it was running really rough, misfiring and knocking badly. When my wife tried to drive it she said it had no power at all and kept stalling in the parking lot. Great. Enterprise was closed for the day so they couldn't help. Now I had to leave a meeting and drive to get her. To make matters worse I had dinner reservations later that night for us because today is her birthday and now by the time I picked her up, drove home and then to the restaurant we were going to be late. It was a lot of rushing around, but we did make it there only a few minutes late.

I went to Enterprise the next day and they gave me a 2009 Toyota Corolla and apologized for the inconvenience. For my troubles I will not be required to refill the car to the half-tank level it was at when they gave it to me which is a nice gesture, I guess. The good news is that I spoke to Vinny at Morristown MINI and it looks like my MINI-E will be finished today. They want to road test it tomorrow and if all goes well it will be back at the dealer by Monday or Tuesday.

Why did I make a post about this mundane topic? Well, I read a lot of various online blog comments from people about why they would never buy an electric car and a lot of the negativity stems from their worry that the car will be unreliable. That it will break down frequently and they fear it will leave them stranded. Yes, my MINI-E is in for repairs from me hitting a big pothole while I was going 50mph, it's broken. The point is, everything brakes eventually, even six month old Pontiac G5's with only 10,000 miles on them.

It was bound to happen at some point

 

Well, when I agreed to "test drive" the MINI-E for a year I knew it was a prototype. I knew (and was warned) that there would probably be problems, breakdowns and other inconveniences to deal with, but I still wanted to be part of the largest deployment of electric vehicles by a major auto manufacturer since GM's EV-1 so I agreed to be one of the guinea pigs driving around in a prototype vehicle. Funny thing is, I really haven't had to deal with any of those problem. Yes, I had to have the car service twice to have battery modules replaced, but both times the car was parked when the warning icon came on so I wasn't stranded anywhere and I simply drove my other car that day while the car was taken in to replace the modules. It took eight months and 21,000 miles of driving for me to actually have a break down and to be fair it really wasn't entirely the cars fault.

We have had a real cold winter so far here in New Jersey and a lot of snow recently. The frequent plowing and salting of the roads results in pot holes developing and some can get really big before they are repaired. A few days ago I was driving to work in the morning and was going about 50 mph and found one of those big, nasty potholes with my front right wheel and broke something in the front end. I'm not quite sure if it's a part that is specific to the electric drive or something that is on a regular MINI but the car made a very loud bang when I hit it and continued to make loud banging/grinding noises so I had to pull over and call the 800 line for roadside assistance. The tow truck came in about a half hour and took me and the car to Morristown MINI. 

 

Vinny, the service rep that is the MINI-E specialist there took great care of me and got me a loaner car from Enterprise (all the MINI loaners were out or he said he would have given me one of them). I'm happy to report that the "flying doctors" that work on the MINI-E's have been feeding more information to the dealers than they previously were, so Vinny is current on what is going on with the cars that have been taken to Woodcliff Lake to be repaired. This wasn't the case in the beginning when we first got the cars. The dealers really had no information about the MINI-E's that were being serviced and the customers were frustrated because they couldn't find out the status of their cars. I talked with Vinny for a bit and he told me that he now gets the information that he needs to keep the customers in the loop and that's a great improvement. I used to feel bad for the guys at the dealers because some of the MINI-E participants would give them a hard time about the lack of information but it wasn't their fault, they weren't getting any info. Vinny assured me that he'll stay on top of it and give me a progress report as soon as he hears something and he did. I got a call from him a couple days after I brought the car in and he told me that they identified the problem and have begun the repairs. He said the pot hole caused considerable damage and it would take a couple more days to complete the repair and bring the car back to Morristown for me and that he'd give me a call when he knows exactly when it will be ready. He then went on to apologize for my inconvenience and told me that I would be refunded this months lease payment for my troubles. Now that's good service! (especially since the repair was kinda my fault)

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.

Another $62 Bites the Dust

Another couple days pass without #250 and it's time for another fill up on the loaner. $62 is the most so far. I've now paid a total of $318.00 for gas and driven over 2,000 miles on the loaner and my Toyota combined in the three weeks-plus that #250 has been out of commission. Morristown MINI did call me and offer to switch me to a MINI loaner car last week and I do appreciate it, but honestly I have been too busy to drive to Morristown and switch cars so I've just kept the truck. Hopefully I'll have #250 back before the end of the week.

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.

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.

Loaner car = Pain at the Pump

With MINI-E #250 in for service, I have the pleasure of driving a Dodge Ram 4X4 pick up provided by Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Morristown MINI uses Enterprise for their main source of loaners while their customers have their vehicles in for service. I've already gone on record as being against this policy so I'm not going to rant about it again, but I do wish they would use MINI's as their loaner cars, I certain their customers would have a more positive opinion on the service experience if they did.

Anyway, I knew the time would come when I would have to go to a dreaded gas station with the truck and fill up sooner or later. As you can see above, It cost me $60 bucks (it is Christmas Day so I had to give the guy $1 tip, right?) for a little over 22 gallons. I got it with a full tank and I drove 330 miles so I got a whopping 14.9mpg! These same 330 miles in the MINI-E would have cost me $9-$10 in electric.

It's kind of ironic that I have such a huge, gas guzzling vehicle as the loaner car while my electric car is being serviced. It was the only vehicle Enterprise had left and they couldn't switch it with anything else, so I guess this week OPEC wins.

I really have enjoyed not going to gas stations in my six months with the MINI-E so far. I certainly don't miss paying $40 bucks or so every 4 or 5 days , but what I really don't miss is giving my hard earned money to the giant oil cartels. I know every time I fill up some small amount of that money is getting sent overseas to some Islamic fundamentalist regime that wants to kill me. Yeah, electric generated from burning coal isn't the cleanest source of energy, but at least the people working the coal mines in Wyoming, North Dakota & Pennsylvania aren't funneling part of their profits to radical groups plotting terrorist attacks on the US.

Merry Christmas!

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?

Free Snow Tires From MINI USA

I recently received an email from MINI USA that announced they would be installing winter tires on the fleet of MINI-E cars in New York and New Jersey (sorry California, but you don't need them anyway) at no cost. I called Morristown Mini a couple days later to set up the appointment and they didn't know anything about it. Seems I was the first to call about them. After waiting on hold for a few minutes while they made some phone calls, I was told that I was right and that they just confirmed it with MINI. They didn't get the tires yet so I made an appointment in two weeks which will coincide with my third scheduled service anyway so they can do both services in the same visit. I'm not sure if MINI is being nice to us or if they just don't want us crashing up their expensive electric cars when it snows. Whatever the motive, I'm happy. Thanks MINI!

It's no Mini-E!

I dropped #250 off at Morristown Mini for the second scheduled service today and was handed the keys to a silver Dodge Caliber. Morristown Mini uses Enterprise Rent A Car for their loaners, a practice that while I'm sure is economically prudent leaves the customer a little disappointed. Many of the other Mini dealerships are partnered with BMW dealers so other Mini-E drivers (particularly on the West Coast) have had BMW's and ICE Mini's to drive during service. I hope the service doesn't take long because the smell of smoke in the Caliber is getting to me. Besides, I'm actually going to have to stop to buy gasoline, and that sucks. I'm not sure when the third scheduled service is but hopefully it won't be for a while. I miss the car already. I know it's going to be tough to give the car back at the lease end, it's the most enjoyable car I've had in a long time.

BTW, I'll have a full report on the cold weather range issues posted tomorrow.