My commute home from the office is approximately 20 miles.
Friday evening traffic was slow as usual on the freeway. When I slipped into the electric Mini E, the range indicator read 83 miles. With traffic moving but slowly, I was able to maintain forward momentum and keep the Mini E in regenerative braking mode for much of my commute.
In the picture above, you can see the yellow dots that indicate throttle or anti-throttle. when the topmost lights are lit, you are using energy. When the bottom ones are lit, you are gaining it back.
I ended up getting to my house with a 78-mile range still on the meter. I traveled 20 miles but only used up 5 miles of the Mini E's range.
In this picture:
You can see I was able to move forward at almost 40 mph while maintaining 3 dots thanks to a long downward slope. I kept my foot on the pedal to provide enough power to maintain speed but not enough to make the yellow lights jump up.
Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor @ 3,050 miles
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