Solar Today Magizine Highlights EV's: Uses Me as an Example

Solar Today, a magazine dedicated to the solar electric industry, highlighted electric vehicles in this months issue. Unknown to me though, they used a picture of me and my EV+PV story in the issue. I wouldn't have even know about it if a friend didn't send me a link to it. Then, a few days later I got a call from the owner of the company that installed my solar pool heater a few years ago and he even sent me a copy of the magazine. I figure my solar electric installer, Geogenix, must have sent the magazine the picture and information because I recognize the picture as one I took to send to Geogenix a few months back.

They asked me for the photo because they wanted to enter me in the New Jersey Garden State Green Awards, and as it turned out I was one of the winners and was recently recognized at an awards luncheon at Kean University.

Here's a link to the story in Solar Today:
http://www.solartoday-digital.org/solartoday/201106/?pg=32#pg32

60,000 Zero Emission Miles Later...

 

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

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

But there is...

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

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

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

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

Two Years of Driving Electric

Yesterday was two years to the day that I picked up MINI-E #250 and began a journey that would alter my life in many ways.

I had no idea I'd grow to enjoy electric drive as much as I did and I really had no idea I would become such an outspoken proponent of battery electric vehicles. The past two years have been a great ride, both figuratively and literally. The electric driving experience I have had with the MINI-E has been so great it has convinced me that I'll be driving electric cars from now on. The great news is that it is now possible, and that wasn't the case in 2008 when I filled out the application to take part in the MINI-E trial lease program. Back then you either had to buy a $100,000+ Tesla Roadster or build your own EV if you wanted a real, highway capable electric car.

Since I didn't have a spare $100k lying around or the time necessary to do a full conversion, I signed up to participate in the MINI-E Field Trial, not knowing at the time this program would take me off gas for good.
The program was initially supposed to be a one year, closed end lease. At the end of the year I would hand back the car and go back to gas, since there would still be no electric cars available for purchase at the time. However BMW offered one year lease extensions and now offered another six month lease extension, effectively making the MINI-E Trial Lease program 30 months for those who wish to remain in the program.  Six months from now, I and the other MINI-E pioneers that stayed in the program can transition directly from the MINI-E into the BMW ActiveE, the final test car before the 2013 BMW i3 hits the market. The ActiveE is a 24 month lease and when it ends, the i3 will already be in showrooms. The significance of this is that BMW has offered me a clear uninterrupted gas-free path, from the day I took possession of my MINI-E two years ago to the day they will offer the i3 for sale. No other car major auto manufacturer (that isn't named Tesla) can claim they have done that for any of their customers. I know the MINI-E group was small, but I think BMW deserves credit for this program. Sure we have to pay to lease the cars, and they are getting valuable information form these field studies, but no other major car maker took any of their customers off gas for good in 2009.

Being in the program has made me more aware of my energy usage, both in the car and at home. I installed a solar array, bought Energy Star appliances, changed all my lighting to either compact florescent and LED bulbs, adjusted my programmable thermostats, replaced old drafty windows and are generally more aware of reducing wasted energy. In doing so I have reduced my home electric usage about as much as I need to charge the car, effectively eliminating my personal fuel expense and the solar array eliminates 90% of my homes electric cost. I even drive more efficiently, using the regenerative braking as much as possible and I definitely find myself driving slower, even when I'm not driving the MINI-E.

I have driven the car 59,500 miles so far. That's about 30,000 miles a year or double what the average American drives and the MINI-E handled it without any problem. So much for electric cars being only good for low mileage drivers that only drive short trips! Oh and another thing, I've never been stranded on the roadside because I ran out of charge. Something that everybody that hasn't driven an EV seems to be worried about. The car has been extremely reliable and has required very little maintenance at all. Another thing that I'm really impressed with is that I have now charged the car over 1,100 times and it still has virtually the same range it did when it was brand new. I know at some point, there will be battery degradation, but I can tell you for certain, it isn't measurable yet and I have the data to prove it.

Somewhere in an underground storage tank at the Lukoil station I used to go to before I got the MINI-E, there are about 3,300 gallons of gas that wouldn't be there if I never applied for the program. You see, I always went to this one gas station to fill up as it was conveniently located on my route from home to work. It I had continued to drive my Toyota Tacoma for the past two years and 59,500 miles, I would have needed to buy about 3,300 gallons of gas as the Tacoma gets about 18mpg. This would have cost me about $10,000. I would have also needed about a dozen oil changes and would be looking at a major (recommended) tune up for the truck. Electric cars like the MINI-E require virtually no maintenance and after driving 60,000 miles you would probably only have to replace the tires and wiper blades.

So yeah, it's really been a great run so far. I really look froward to the BMW ActiveE, but I'm going to miss the minimalist attitude of the MINI-E. Small, great handling, fun to drive and still the feeling of  "efficient basic transportation" that I like. Electric drive in a MINI Cooper platform works and BMW would be foolish not to bring it back in a series production sometime in the future.

I always believed electric cars might be our future. They reduce our dependence on foreign oil, keep our energy dollars in local economies, improve our country's national security and are much better for the environment. The past two years in the MINI-E program proved to me that I was right.

How Much Electricity Will An Electric Car Use?

With all the talk about electric cars lately, one thing that I keep hearing is people wondering how much electricity will an EV need? Are they simply ditching the gas pump only to pay just as much in their electric bill? I made a post on this subject last year and I think it's important enough to re-post it again for anyone that hadn't seen it last year. With gasoline prices north of the $4 mark now and electric cars in the news, I have had a lot of new followers lately and I still get emails from people that ask me just how much does it cost to charge the MINI-E; so here it is, again....

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. So basically for what it costs for a gallon of gas today, you can drive an electric car like the MINI-E or Nissan LEAF about 100 miles.

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!

Solar Energy Directory Runs a Story on My EV+PV Combo

You can check out the story from this link.

Where do You Want Your Personal Transportation Energy To Come From?

  This is a question I ask people frequently when we are discussing the future of electric vehicles.

Do you want to give him your money?

You can continue to buy gasoline, and send about 70 cents of every dollar you spend on it out of the US. That's right, about 70 cents of every dollar you spend on gasoline leaves the US economy. It's true not all of it goes to the radical Middle Eastern countries you hear me crowing about. Actually, Canada is our biggest supplier of oil and they are far from radical and threatening to the US. However, I don't want ANY of my money going to regimes that hate us and funnel some of that money to sponsor terror groups.

EV + PV is a great combo!

After a hundred years of having no choice but to use gasoline, we finally will have a choice. You, as a consumer will have the power to decide for yourself what kind of fuel you want to use for your personal transportation. One of the most satisfying things about driving an electric car and having a solar array is knowing that I produce my own energy for my car. It's something that you would probably never think about unless you had an EV and a solar array, but it's really liberating. We have all become so conditioned to think that when you need fuel for your car you go to a gas station. It can't be that bad, everybody does it right? Well, if you think that sending a billion dollars every day out of the US economy isn't that bad then yeah, I guess it's not that bad.

I'd rather he get my money than OPEC

Even if you don't use solar electric to charge your EV, using domestic electricity is cheaper, cleaner and it keeps every penny of what you spend on electricity here in the US. Your money goes to the coal, natural gas or renewable energy supplier that supplies the fuel to the power plants. It goes to the power plants that employ local workers, and it goes to your local utility that again employs local workers.

Just about every major auto maker is currently working on electric cars that they will be selling in the near future. The first BMW EV to be sold will be the 2013 BMW i3 which is what the MINI-E program was designed to gather information for. There are already cars like the Tesla Roadster, the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt on the market that can completely eliminate your need to purchase gasoline or in the case of the volt, drastically reduce it.

Today's electric cars are basically the first generation production EV's and will have some limitations like range and charge time so they will not work for everyone, just yet. However a good percentage of Americans could live perfectly fine with a 100 mile BEV as one of the household cars and I suspect many will embrace the opportunity to buy a car that can be powered either the sun or a domestic energy source. At least we finally now have a choice.

Gasoline Cost to Jump $700 for Average Household!

According to Reuters, the cost of gasoline will jump $700 for the average US household in 2011!

Lucky for me, we're not the average household. I do 80% of our household driving with MINI-E #250 and I "fill er up" with sunshine, not gasoline. That's right, I drive on clean, renewable energy that rains down on my house just about every day. My wife drives a Chevy Equinox that is supposed to get a class leading 32mpg, but we haven't quite been able to achieve what the EPA claims it can get. Still for a compact crossover, it is very fuel efficient. I look forward to the day a plug in hybrid crossover is available, we will certainly buy it. She doesn't drive too much so I doubt the increase in gas costs will add up to more than $100 for the year. The last time I checked with the sun, he said he didn't plan on raising his price for sunshine for at lease a few millennium so I think I'm good there. 

There is a better way people, we just need to take it.

50,000 Emission Free Miles

On February 12th, exactly 20 months to the day that I picked up MINI-E #250, the odometer turned past 50,000 miles. That's 610 days of driving this wonderfully unique car, and averaging 82 miles per day, every day I have had it.

Every day I drive down the road I look around at all the cars around me and realize I'm driving the only car in sight that's not spewing pollutants out the back of my car for the people behind me to breathe. Soon I'll be joined by Chevy Volts (at lease while they are in charge depleting mode), and Nissan LEAF's, but I've yet to run into one while driving yet.  It won't be long before there are then Ford Focus EV's, the Tesla Model S, Toyota RAV4 EV's, and the BMW ActiveE which I'll be driving in about seven months when I have to turn #250 back over to BMW.

No doubt the electric car renaissance is happening, and just about every major auto manufacturer has an electric car in development, and many are near production. That wasn't the case back in June 2009 when I took possession of my MINI-E. The only real electric option at the time was a $100,000 Tesla Roadster, no doubt an awesome car, but a bit out of most people's price range.

So I'll keep driving and charging my car with electricity I produce with my solar PV array on the roof of my home. I'll continue to drive by gas station after gas station, unconcerned about the current price of gasoline. (What does a gallon cost nowadays anyway?) By my account, I would have had to buy about 2,800 gallons of gas for my other car, a 2009 Toyota Tacoma if I did not get selected to be in the MINI-E program. I would have also needed about 10 oil changes, replaced my brake pads at least once and would now be due for a complete 50,000 mile tune up in addition to a litany of regular maintenance items like air filters & fuel filters. I figure I've saved at least $5,000 in fuel and maintenance, and it's probably really closer to $6,000.

Electric cars are extremely low maintenance, which is one of the main reasons the auto manufacturers haven't been really keen on building and selling them. They generally make more money maintaining and fixing your car than they do when they sell it to you. That's won't be the case with EV's. The one big maintenance cost is a replacement battery pack and that won't be necessary for 100,000 to 130,000 miles and 6 to 10 years after the purchase. Even then, they won't profit from it nearly as much as they would have from all the maintenance needed for an internal combustion engine car.

So honk and give me a wave if you see me out there driving around New Jersey. If the "EF-OPEC" plates or the "Starve a Terrorist, Drive Electric" bumper sticker aren't enough for you to tell it's me, just look for the MINI Cooper without the tailpipe sticking out of the back, there aren't that many of us around.

Little Car, Big Impact

The MINI-E is a physically small car. You don't need to park it next to big trucks to realize that.

However, the cliche "Big things can come in small packages" may never have been more appropriate to say about any other automobile than the MINI-E. Flash back to 2008 when BMW first decided to make the MINI-E. Other than the Tesla Roadster, there were no options for a highway capable electric car, and the Tesla really wasn't an option for 99.9% of the population. The only choice a person really had to drive an electric car was to build one themselves, which again, isn't much of an option for most people. When I came across the online application to test drive an electric car for a year, it was such a unique opportunity I went for it.

Honestly, I don't think BMW had any idea the car would be as successful as it has turned out to be. They originally offered only a one year, closed-end lease because they didn't know how good the car would be, if people would like driving them or if they really wanted to make a serious commitment to electric vehicles. The MINI-E was truly a litmus test to see how the public would react to e-mobility. Now, about two and a half years after BMW decided to conduct the Trial Lease program, they have offered second year renewals, expanded the program to six countries, announced the MINI-E successor(BMW ActiveE) and have announced plans to sell a purpose-built electric car in 2013, the BMW megacity.

The MINI-E has also made believers out of many of the lessees who, like myself weren't really sure that they could live with an electric car. Well, this little car proved without a doubt that we can and in fact prefer to. The smooth acceleration, instant torque, and quiet drive of the MINI-E give it an exceptional driving experience. The fact that I can use domestically generated electricity (or electricity that I make myself with my solar array) make it even more enjoyable. Energy independence is an important issue for many people. More and more people are realizing the effects our addiction to foreign oil has on America. The cumulative effects of spending (borrowing really) over a billion dollars a day on foreign oil is crippling our economy and the powerful oil lobby spends hundreds of millions of dollars to influence policy in our government. People are beginning understand how dangerous it is to rely on foreign regimes for our energy needs and want options. They want to be able to choose the fuel that they use to power their automobiles and the MINI-E came along and showed us what EV advocates have been saying for years now; that electric cars are a viable option and that there is a demand for them.

Recently autobloggreen.com posted an article titled: "How BMW created electric vehicle advocates through Mini E program" which basically said that the people that have leased the MINI-E love it so much they want to tell others how great it is. They are definitely right in saying this. Many of the MINI-E drivers like myself have become active in advocating electric cars, bringing our MINI-E's to green car events and even speaking at conferences and expo's about their experiences with the car.

About a month ago BMW announced they would be investing 560 million dollars to upgrade their Leipzig assembly plant to build electric cars and another 180 million dollars to build electric car components. That's nearly three quarters of a billion dollars! One thing is for sure, they wouldn't have made such a grand commitment to e-mobility had the MINI-E program been a failure. I'm pretty sure BMW had no idea how much this little car would effect the future of their company when they first proposed building it.

Plugging In Beats Filling Up Any Day Of The Week

November 12th was my 17th month anniversary with MINI-E #250. I have driven it almost 45,000 miles and I am approaching my 800th recharge. I keep detailed records of every time I drive the car as well as every time I charge up so I know exactly how many times I have plugged in, and that would be 791 times so far.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? I often hear people say how they wouldn't want an electric car and one of the reasons is because it's so easy to drive to a gas station and fill up. When you do so, you're generally good for 300 to 400 miles of driving as opposed to only a hundred miles or so for an EV.

The thing is, it's really no work at all to plug in, and only people that have lived with an EV can honestly attest to that. When I arrive home at night, it takes less than ten seconds to walk over to my EVSE, grab the cable and plug in. The car charges while I'm sleeping, it's that easy. When you need gas, you have to drive to a station and wait for them to fill your car up before you can continue on your way. My other car, a Toyota Tacoma can go about 325 miles between fill ups so I would have had to fill up at least 140 times, and most likely would have done so about 150 times.

So what would I prefer to do?  Make 150 trips to the gas station or just pull into my garage like I always do every night anyway and take a few seconds to plug in my electric car? Continue to suck on the oil nipple that we have all been conditioned to believe that we need, or tell OPEC to shove their black gold up their a** and charge my electric car with clean renewable electricity that I make myself with my solar PV array.
Hmmm, let me think about that one for a while.........

New Article on me in the Daily Record of New Jersey

Photo by John Bell

I was featured in a story that ran on the front page of the Daily Record this Saturday. It was written by Laura Bruno and was about the MINI-E, my solar electric system and my desire to see the country reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Click HERE to jump to the full article.

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!

Phil Blackwood and #411 stop by Nauna's for a Charge

Ever since I got a 50amp EVSE installed at my restaurant, Nauna's Bella Casa in Montclair, I have posted on the MINI-E facebook page and here on this blog that any other MINI-E driver that needs a charge can come over and "fill up" as needed. Many have taken me up on the offer. Actually much more than I expected, which is fine with me as I get to meet some of the others in the program, chat MINI-E, and then sell them a dinner or lunch while their car is charging.

This past Saturday Phil Blackwood stopped by with #411 for some quick electrons. Phil had driven from his home in Central Jersey to New York City to attend the Solar Road Trip rally, a movement to get the White House to re-install solar panels on the roof. Phil needed a little extra juice to make it back to his house and Nauna's was in a perfect location to stop off at on his way home.

Phil and I had a nice conversation, he had a late dinner and after about an hour charge he had more than enough juice to get home.
Thanks for stopping by Phil, it was nice to meet another MINI-E pioneer!

In the past year that I've had the EVSE at Nauna's I've probably had two dozen or so MINI-E's stop by to charge up. I'm thinking I need to talk to BMW about the installing a real public charging station in my parking lot when the ActiveE program begins and they can tell the ActiveE participants in the NY/NJ area that the station is available for them to use at no charge. We can get the press involved and advertise how BMW is committed to a sustainable future with alternative fuel vehicles... Hmmm

Nothing Like the Smell of Toxic Fumes in the Morning....

As I drove to work this morning for a while I was driving behind a pick up truck that I believe was diesel. Whatever the fuel used, the truck was leaving a huge stream of smoke as it drove down the highway. Even the picture above doesn't do it justice.

I passed the poison-belching behemoth as quickly as possible but started thinking, what did I really accomplish?  All these other cars that I'm following are spewing hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, sulphur oxides just like the truck was except I couldn't see it. That's one of the problems with tailpipe pollution, it's mostly invisible so people don't really realize how bad it is to breathe or just think it dissipates in the air. I think if all tailpipe exhaust were visible, like it was on the truck, then people would be more concerned with it and demand change. Just because we can't see the poison doesn't mean it's not killing us.

Electric cars like the MINI-E aren't necessarily emission free. Sure there are no tailpipes but the electricity that was used to charge the batteries was probably generated from burning coal so there is pollution created which will come out of the smokestack of the power plant instead of the tailpipe of the car. However, it is much less than the pollution that you get from burning gasoline. Plus, if you really want to factor in the entire cradle to the grave environmental impact from oil as compared to coal then the difference becomes even more pronounced in the favor of the coal generated electricity. Then there is the fact you CAN make your own electricity like I do with my home solar PV array. This combination makes an EV a true zero emission vehicle. Lets hope the EV + PV combination becomes common in the near future now that electric vehicles will finally be available for sale here in the US. I'm looking forward to seeing less and less tailpipes in front of me as the shift to battery electric vehicles begins.

Front Page News Story on Me & #250!

Recently I was contacted by Mike Frassinelli, a reporter for the Star Ledger, New Jersey largest newspaper with a daily circulation of over 300,000. He wanted to do a story on me and the fact that I'm driving an electric car and also charging the car with electric that I generate myself from my home solar array. Being the media hound I am, I happily agreed and he came over to my house with a photographer about a week later. We talked for a while, took some pictures and I even let him drive the car for a while. Mike is a great guy and a good journalist, asking all the important questions and even following up my interview with a conversation with Richard Steinberg, head of BMW's electric car division here in the US.

A few days later I heard from Mike and he told me that it looked like the story would run in Sundays paper but that was tentative. Then on Saturday, the day before it was to run, he called me back again and said he had good news and bad news. The bad news was that it wasn't going to be in Sundays paper. He then went on to say the good news was that the paper liked the story so much, they want to put it on the front page and Sunday wasn't possible. Wow, front page ink! That was good news.

So on Tuesday, August 31st, I started getting text messages from friends early in the morning. . The first one came at 5:50am  and said "I'm staring at some goof-ball on the front page of my morning paper, you really out did yourself this time". That was how my day was to be. I had dozens of telephone calls, text messages and emails. Also just about everyone that came to the restaurant that day had the paper in hand and wanted to talk to the "celebrity" some even had a pen and joked about wanting my autograph.

It was a fun experience and hopefully I got some people thinking about electric cars and solar electric. The combination is really great and hopefully a model for future personal transportation.

You can read the entire article from this link.

Closing in on 40,000 Zero Emission Miles

I looked down at my odometer today and realized that I am closing in on 40,000 miles on my MINI-E. I suspect I'll get there in a couple weeks, right around the time I pass 15 months with the car. I drive a lot more than the average American does, partly because I live about 32 miles from my job and partly because owning a restaurant means frequent trips during the day to get supplies, visit off-site catering jobs and sometimes even deliver food myself.

The time has gone by very quickly and I have enjoyed the car much more than I ever thought I would. I've met so many interesting people along the way, most total strangers that stop and ask me about the car. Many of which tell me they are interested in the same things I am; energy independence, national security and the environmental benefits of electric cars. I have also met a whole legion of electric car enthusiasts online, many of which have found me through this blog, and others I have met from electric car websites like PlugInCars.com, a site that I occasionally write articles for. In fact, the editor of the site, Brad Berman, recently asked me to attend the Bay Area Green Drive Expo in October to sit on a panel of experienced electric car owners and answer questions from the audience, which I accepted.

It's hard to simply describe the great feeling of driving a zero emission vehicle, you have to experience it. The good news is that soon many others will get the opportunity with electric cars like the Chevy volt and the Nissan LEAF both going on sale in three months, followed by the all electric Ford Focus by mid 2011. I really think the public is going to love these cars, and I'm really thankful I have had the chance to experience it before most others have.

One thing that's cool to think about is there is about 2,200 gallons of gasoline that I didn't have to buy, currently sitting in an underground storage tank at the Lukoil gas station in Morristown that I used to go to. That gas would have been burned in my Toyota the past fourteen plus months if I wasn't in the MINI-E program.

Some other facts at 40,000 miles:

I didn't have to purchase 2,200 gallons of gasoline (My Toyota Tacoma gets 18mpg)
At $2.65/gal that's about $5,800. Compared to the roughly $1,800 in electric I've spent to charge up which is a $4,000 fuel savings. Even with a solar PV system, the electricity still "costs" me money because I could have sold it back to the utility at the current rate if I didn't use it to charge my car.

I didn't have to get ten oil changes, a savings of about $500 and I didn't generate 60 quarts of used motor oil that needs to be recycled.

I didn't have to stop for gas about 125 times. That would have added up to over 12 hours of wasted time sitting in my car at the pump. It takes me all of 5 seconds to plug my car in when I get home at night and I'm sleeping while it charges.
I would be close to needing a full tune up. Plugs, filters, belts, etc. All of which aren't necessary with an EV. That's one of the great things with electric cars, there are so few moving parts that can wear out, making the long term maintenance very low. Of course you still have the one big expense of a replacement battery pack that will probably come at around 120-140,000 miles. It's really not possible to predict what that will cost because the price of the Lithium Ion batteries are dropping all the time as more and more companies are making them plus the technology constantly improves. That being said, the money you will have saved in fuel and maintenance will more than cover the cost of the replacement battery pack.

Oh yeah, and since I didn't have to buy any "black gold" to power my car, none of my money left our local economy and went into the pockets of some radical foreign regime that's a member of OPEC. I think I like that fact the most.

Four Months of Driving on Sunshine

MINI-E roof graphics and my house & solar system in the background

It's been almost four months now since I installed a 8.8kw solar photovoltaic electric system on my roof. The system has generated nearly 5 megawatt hours of electricity and roughly half of that clean, renewable energy has gone into my MINI-E's battery pack to allow me to drive about 10,000 miles.

The great feeling of driving an electric car and not using oil has had even greater meaning to me recently with the disastrous oil leak currently in the Gulf of Mexico. Charging the car with electricity I produce myself takes it up even another notch. One of the arguments against electric cars is that a majority of the electric generated in the US is made from coal fired powerplants and that EV's just displace the pollution from the tailpipe to the smokestack. There is some truth to that but it still doesn't mean the electric cars aren't better for the environment. Every comprehensive study that I have read that compares the amount of pollution from electricity generation to the pollution from burning gasoline shows how much worse it is to burn gasoline. Then if you consider the cradle to grave supply chain of oil it becomes even more obvious. From wars over oil to oil supply chain disasters like what we are witnessing off the coast of Louisiana, there really is no comparison. Then consider the fact that you can make your own clean renewable electricity, as I do and the argument isn't even worth continuing, it's game over.

Hopefully with electric cars like the Nissan LEAF, the Chevrolet Volt and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV coming to dealerships in the very near future, I won't be such an aberration. I'm pretty sure as more and more people buy electric cars they will see the environmental and economic benefits of installing a home based Solar PV system to generate their own fuel. I'm not the only one that thinks that either, there even is a website that is dedicated to combination of electric cars and solar electric systems. It's called Solar Charged Driving and you can check it out here: SolarChargedDriving.com

Another thing I've heard is that our current infrastructure can't support the charging of hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of electric cars. This point has been countered also by people that point out that the majority of EV charging will take place at night when there is a great surplus of electricity. I can't really say one way or the other since I don't have the data that would support either argument. I can say it's true that most EV's will charge at night and you can program your EV to charge whenever you want so you can take advantage of off peak rates and charge when there is a surplus. Now if people follow my example and decide to install a solar PV array, they will be helping the grid instead of hurting it. By supplying electricity to the grid during daylight hours when demand is highest, and charging at night when demand is low and there is a surplus, I am actually helping the grid, not creating a problem with my EV. Now imagine if there were hundreds of solar arrays in every town, supplying electricity locally and reducing the strain on the local power grids. I think EV owners will be much more inclined to install solar systems, as I did. I had always thought about it, but it wasn't until I got the MINI-E and realized that I wanted to be driving electric cars from now on that I actually decided to install the system.

Soon we will see if the public embraces the electric cars that are coming to market. If they are received as well as I think they will be, than you can bet you'll start seeing more and more shiny black panels popping up on rooftops across America.

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?

Happy Independence...

The picture above is a Chevy Volt, an electric car with a small gasoline engine that generates electricity to recharge the batteries while you drive. This allows the car to continue to drive for as long as you want, all you have to do is continue to fill it up with gasoline. Kinda goes against the whole electric cars have no tailpipe and don't use any oil thing, but it's not as bad as it sounds.

The Volt will be going on sale, in limited numbers and in limited states starting this November. For those of you that don't know how the Volt works you are probably scratching your head about now wondering why an electric car needs gasoline and oil products to run. Well it does and it doesn't. The Volt has a 16kwh lithium ion battery pack (8kwh usable) compared to the MINI-E's 35kwh with 28kwh usable. So obviously the battery is  much smaller so it wound not be able to drive the Volt nearly as far as the MINI-E can go on a charge. Actually, GM is saying the Volt will go 35-40 miles per charge in battery only mode. Battery only mode? Isn't "battery only" how electric cars drive. Until the Volt, yes that's how they worked, but GM has brought a new twist to EV's. After you deplete 8kwh of usable battery, the small ICE turns on and acts as a generator to sustain the charge so you can continue to drive. It will not fully recharge the battery, but simply allow you to continue to drive. It is called an Extended Range Electric Vehicle or EREV. GM is betting that people will not want to live with the fear that they will be left stranded by their fully electric BEV so they will opt for an EREV. They do have a point, people that have not experienced living with an EV like I have are concerned that they will run out of power and get stuck. I have said many times here that that fear is way overblown and that once someone actually lives with an EV they quickly realize they really don't have to worry about it. Still, there are some people that will definitely need the added comfort that the car can continue for as long as necessary if need be. Then there are people that live in rural areas that drive 50 miles just to go to the supermarket. a 100 mile BEV just won't work for them and until battery technology gets better an EREV will be a great choice. Plus for those that frequently drive less than 40 miles a day, they will hardly ever need to buy gasoline. There are drawbacks though, as you will now need to maintain the whole internal combustion drivetrain; meaning oil changes, fuel filters, air filters, fuel pumps, water pumps, spark plugs, tune ups, mufflers, etc. All those moving parts wear out over time, which is why BEV's require so little maintenance. They have almost no moving parts and are extremely simple mechanically. The long term costs of a BEV will be extraordinarily  lower than that of an EREV with with you need to maintain BOTH systems.

That being said I do like the Volt and I will considering buying one when they become available in my area and the supply increases. I fear the initial buyers will be paying a premium for these cars because of the limited supply and I'm not going to pay a dealer over MSRP for any car. I don't even want to pay MSRP let alone more. I would use the Volt as a second vehicle that my wife will drive and for the few times we need to travel further than my electric car will take us. From now on I plan on driving a BEV for all my commuting and personal use as I have found it to be a very enjoyable driving experience as well as very economical. Whether an EREV like the Volt or a BEV like the LEAF is better for you and your style of driving, to me it doesn't matter. Both will help us begin to reduce our dependence on oil. The LEAF and other BEV's do it more dramatically, but the Volt is definitely a big step in the right direction and can be driven by many who simply couldn't use the LEAF because of their driving demands.

This year I am celebrating my personal independence as well as Americas. I have been driving the MINI-E for almost 13 months now and have driven close to 35,000 miles free of oil! I am no longer dependent on oil for my personal transportation! I charge my car from the sunlight that I capture in my solar PV system so I don't even need the grid to provide my fuel either. Independence, it's a wonderful thing!

Article on SolarChargedDriving.Com about me

Recently I was interviewed by Erin Holweger from SolarChargedDriving.com. She wanted to talk about my MINI-E and the solar P.V. system that I recently installed. The story was just posted to the webite. Follow this link to take a look.