It's 1:15 a.m. Monday, (Happy Columbus Day!) as I head upstairs to write this. I'm tired of watching the orange charging indicator atop the Mini E's instrument pod blink its monotonous rhythm here in the dark garage where I've been waiting for it to shut down, telling me the battery is all juiced up again.
I last plugged it in at 10:45 p.m. Saturday, with the read-out that lets you know how much distance (approximately) is left in the battery telling me I could drive another 18 miles if I wanted to.
Right now is says 74 miles. That's 59 miles of charge in 26.5 hours, or 2.2 MPH, so to speak.
I figure, based on my experience with our Mini E over the past few days, that it'll be at least 3:30 a.m. before the charger clicks off.
I'm the green car guy, so I should be waxing eloquent about the power, beauty and environmental benefits of an all-electric car.
All I can think about is what a cruel joke BMW's playing here.
Yes, the Mini-E's a hell of a lot of fun to drive, has lots of power and is cleaner (in California at least, where most electricity is produced with natural gas, not coal) that most everything else on the road.
But you don't get to keep in on the road very long.
If you've got the wall-mounted 220-volt charger you can juice it up in a lot less time, maybe 3.5-4 hours.
But if you're driving the thing from place A to place B and the trip won't leave you with enough of a charge to get home, you're stuck with the portable 110-volt charging line - which is what I've been using since I pulled the Mini-E out of the Edmunds' garage Wednesday.
2.2 MPG...takes a long, long time to top up the battey at that rate.
"Thanks for the nice party, Fed and Betty, and by the way, mind if we hang around for another 10 hours so we can store enough electricity to get us home?"
And if you disregard your fellow Mini-E drivers' warnings and keep it at a steady 80 on a wide-open late-night freeway, that 87 miles of range that showed on the range indicator when the battery was fully charged is another joke.
Try 74 miles.
Our Mini-E is a prototype, a test vehicle rolled out so that BMW could collect info about real-world use patterns. So I don't expect it to be anything more than it is.
But if it teaches BMW one lesson., let it be that to be viable transportation for most of us - to be more than conversation starters and rolling "I'm greener than you" emblems - battery-electric cars are going to have to deliver a lot more distance per charge, or be accompanied by a network on fast-charging stations so we can pull in and fill up, just like we do with our gas-guzzlers.
Both would be best.
Otherwise, a production Mini-E, or most any other EV, is going to make a nice second car. But that's it.
(FYI: The box on the wall in the photo above, with the red and green light, isn't a 220-volt charger, it's the natural gas pump I use for the long-term 2007 Honda Civic GX that's usually parked in the slot the Mini-E is occupying.)
John O'Dell, Senior Editor, Green Car Advisor
brn says:
08:37 AM, 10/12/09
John, have you been watching the electric meter on your house this whole time? I'm curious as to how much it really costs per mile. I'm willing to bet it's more than the EV hypsters would have you believe.
txmatt1 says:
09:09 AM, 10/12/09
The Mini E's battery pack is 35kWh, of which only about 28kWh is usable (not good for battery life to completely discharge it). So if 28kWh = 80 miles (depending on driving style), then 1 kWh gets you 2.86 miles. I think 11 or 12 cents/kWh is about an average electric rate nationally. So 12 cents would get you 2.8 miles or 120 cents would get you 28 miles. If you get 28 mpg in a gas car, 28 miles costs what a gallon of gas does: $2.20 - $2.40 at present.
jeepsrt says:
09:45 AM, 10/12/09
"I'm the green car guy, so I should be waxing eloquent about the power, beauty and environmental benefits of an all-electric car."
Isn't that a classic 60's Mustang parked next to the Mini? How green is that?
jaguar36 says:
09:46 AM, 10/12/09
Enough already with the complaints about the 110v charger. It's use is almost totally irrelevant to the car. Anyone who buys one of these is going to use it as a daily driver for commuting, coming home each night, maybe running a few errands, and plugging it into the 220V charger where it will be fully charged in the morning. No rational person will buy this expecting to go on long trips with it. They'll all have a 2nd car for that. The range it has is plenty for most peoples daily commutes, and its charge time is just fine. The fact that you guys for some bizarre reason keep trying to use it for something besides commuting is just ridiculous.
Regardless, a far more important question is what is parked next to the Mini.
louiswei says:
09:56 AM, 10/12/09
Hey, what's that white car of yours?
brn says:
10:01 AM, 10/12/09
txmatt, I've seen the theoretical math (which always seems to assume 100% efficiency in charging). I'm curious as to how it works in the real world. I'm especially curious as to how the efficiency goes down as the batteries wear (or deal with temperature extremes).
EVs currently don't pay for the roads. That (is supposed to) come out of gasoline tax. As (if?) EVs become more popular, a plan will need to be developed to tax EVs for road use. As such, one should compare with pre-tax gasoline prices.
Don't get me wrong. I look forward to the day EVs become commonplace. I just want to push through the hype.
rick8365 says:
10:30 AM, 10/12/09
I am with those above that want details regarding that other vehicle that snuck into the picture. Hmmmm....Mini E or Mustang....Mini E or Mustang....no brainer of course. Details about the Mustang, please.
bankerdanny says:
10:37 AM, 10/12/09
I don't see how an electric car will ever be practical. Even if the price can be brought down to a reasonable level, say $20k. That's a lot of money for a car with such a limited range limited carryinf capacity and overall limited limited usefullness.
A car like this could only appeal to the die-hard greenie and the wealthy who could afford to spend money on a car that they couldn't drive more than 40 miles from home. That seems like a very limited market to me.
bankerdanny says:
10:45 AM, 10/12/09
brn, that's a very interesting thought regarding EV's and he lack of tax support for road infrastructure. If you factor out those taxes from gas prices it would have a fairly significant impact on the cost-per-mile for gas/diesel powered cars.
coletrickle says:
10:49 AM, 10/12/09
So much hype, so little practicality.
I embrace most things "green" but bringing cars like this to market prematurely sets back the entire industry because it negatively shapes people's public perception.
txmatt1 says:
11:45 AM, 10/12/09
@brn - From some reading about the Tesla and Volt, it appears there's ~20% loss in charger and batteries, less if charged slowly via 110.
You'd really need a dedicated power meter to measure, since most people probably use $3-$5+/day of electricity anyway. You'd basically have to turn off everything/unplug the fridge during the entire charge cycle to keep from introducing significant error.
The road tax issue is a real one that will have to be figured out. The gasoline tax in some senses was pretty elegant in that it indirectly factors in both vehicle weight and miles traveled to determine how much one pays. Those two items are key in usage and impact/damage to roadways. Mixing in EV's will be tricky.
I think most people do, but it's good to keep in mind that the cost/benefit analysis of alt-fuel vehicles goes way beyond the $/mile that the consumer spends to fuel them.
jodell says:
01:44 PM, 10/12/09
Hmm, seems to be as much interest in the Mustang as the Mini.
Being 'green' doesn't preclude a love of classic iron!
I's a mid-year '65, stock C-code (289, 2 bbl, auto w/o'drive) w/white Pony interior and fixed up (mostly exhaust, steering and suspension) a bit here and there. It lives in garage, mostly, and goes out on average of 1x a month for maybe 30 miles (that's around 2 gallons of fuel), so isn't much of a strain on the planet.
As for the Mini-E....average cost of electricity in US was 12-cents per kWh at end of June, but it was 15-cents in Calif., so figure $1.50 per 28 miles at 100% charging efficiency and around $1.70 at 85% efficiency (if I did match right, which is a bit of a crap-shoot with me!). Not bad considering EVs have far lower maintenance and brake-work costs.
As for paying fair share, I imagine that as we see more battery-electrics and plug-in hybrids, such as the Volt, that deliver quite a bit of all-electric range, we'll see pressure mount to replace the gas tax with something like a pay-per-miles-driven scheme. It's already being studied in D.C.
bankerdanny says:
01:58 PM, 10/12/09
Good to see that readers aren't the only ones with double posting issues. If I sign in at the top of the page how come I need to sign in AGAIN to comment. It seems like at the top of the page OR during the comment process should be sufficient.
billt9 says:
05:38 PM, 10/12/09
ya another dumb post. Obviously insideline employees can't RTFM.
240 V required. 110 V for emergency only.
you don't fuel your gas powered car at a makeshift home gas station. you use a real gas pump.
you don't fuel your electricity powered car at a makeshift home electric station. you use a real electric pump.
milt721 says:
09:00 AM, 10/13/09
Is that a wildfire outside your garage door?