Range anxiety was foremost on my mind yesterday when I found myself behind the wheel of Edmunds' Mini E pulling away from a home in Carlsbad, California, en route for Los Angeles International Airport, 91 miles away.
If I encountered heavy traffic, a strong headwind or other things I had no control over, I stood a good chance of running out of electricity before reaching the airport and my 7:22 p.m. flight back home to San Francisco.
But that wasn't all. While I needed to get to LAX and my home in Northern California, the Mini E needed to get back to its home at Edmunds' HQ in Santa Monica, roughly 11 miles from the airport, and it wasn't going to drive itself there.
Because my boss, GreenCarAdvisor.com Senior Editor John O'Dell, lives more or less halfway between Carlsbad and LAX, we decided I'd drive to a charging station we knew of along the way to the airport and top off the Mini E.
John would meet me at the charging station, located in a parking lot at Main Place Shopping Center in Santa Ana, and after leaving me at the airport, he would take the Mini E to Edmunds.
The shopping center was 59 miles from my starting point. Because I'd driven from the mall to the Carlsbad starting point the day before on a single charge - and because I'd been lead-footing it and taking detours much of the way - I had little doubt about my ability to get to Santa Ana without drama as long as I stayed the course and no major delays or obstacles arose.
It was a good plan, I thought as I left Carlsbad. Only no sooner had I transitioned onto Interstate 5 en route to Santa Ana than I found myself wondering whether I'd left myself enough time to top off the Mini E for the rest of the journey to LAX.
The trip from the charger to LAX was, according to MapQuest, 38 miles, and from there another 11 miles to Edmunds. So after topping off, I'd need enough juice to go 49 miles - more if there were road closures (which in fact there might be, due to the L.A. Marathon held earlier in the day).
I'd been at the Carlsbad home of Peder Norby, a San Diego County planning commissioner who is leasing a Mini E and charges it at the award-winning zero-energy home he shares with his wife Julie. Think estate home with all the amenities, plus low-profile arrays of electricity-generating solar cells on the roof. More on that at GreenCarAdvisor.com.
Peder had told me that when he knows he's going to be pushing the distance envelope on his Mini E, he looks for what he calls a big-box vehicle and tucks right in behind it. Because much of the fuel a vehicle needs is consumed pushing air out of the way, drafting's a sure - albeit fairly unsafe - way to save fuel.
So as soon as I got on I-5, I scanned the lanes for a big-box vehicle and found one in the form of a big-rig. For the next 36 miles, I stayed within two car lengths of the big-rig's rear end and, unfortunately, memorized the slogan, "Ralphs: Country Fresh Produce Every Day."
When that truck pulled off into a weighing station, I pulled right behind another big-rig that was leaving the station. I hugged its bumper all the way to the turnoff for the shopping center.
When I reached the mall, I'd gone 58 miles and had 41 percent of my charge left. Since I'd left Carlsbad charged to the max, I'd used 59 percent of the full charge to go 59 miles.
So, for every 1 percent of charge I used as I drove in the shadow of a tractor-trailer, I traveled 1 mile. Both truckers, and me by extension, drove at a steady 62 miles per hour nearly the entire way.
By comparison, when I drove from the mall to Carlsbad the previous day, I kept the Mini E at 80 mph almost the whole time I was on the I-5, going with the flow of traffic in the number-one lane. Adjusting for the time I spent off the freeway, I calculate I'd have averaged 84 miles on a full charge had I spent all my time on the freeway.
In other words, my freeway-speed fuel economy in the Mini E was more than 15-percent better traveling at a lower speed and in the draft of a big-rig than when I was traveling at a higher speed and with at least 75 yards between the Mini E and the next-closest vehicle ahead of me.
I suspect my fuel economy would have been as much as 10 percent better had I been only a foot or so off the big-rigs' back bumper, drafting like a NASCAR driver, but that would have been extremely dangerous and certainly not behavior anyone at Edmunds would condone.
As for my flight to San Francisco, I made it with time - and electricity - to spare.
Scott Doggett, GreenCarAdvisor.com Contributing Editor @ 5,379 miles
jeepsrt says:
03:18 PM, 03/22/10
Or you could drive a regular car and get there without worrying.
bodyblue says:
03:20 PM, 03/22/10
"albeit fairly unsafe "
There is nothing more unsafe than a hyper-miler....thanks for driving 80 one day and tailgating the next.....too bad the truck driver did not slam on his brakes.
mini2009 says:
03:44 PM, 03/22/10
@ Jeep SRT
I was thinking the exact same thing. What a lot of stress.
jodell says:
04:01 PM, 03/22/10
Now, now, folks - we do it, and write about it, so you don't have to.
stovt001 says:
04:20 PM, 03/22/10
You're doing a great job of turning everyone off of the idea of owning an EV. Not sure that's what the green car blog people are aiming for though...
minie183 says:
04:55 PM, 03/22/10
….so you could see whose face is on the dartboard, mine :)
99% of the time I race the Mini-E around like crazy with no range worries whatsoever.
However there are those one or two times I need to go 100 to 110 miles at a time and it’s a neat trick to duck in behind a big box van doing 70. I prefer a little farther behind however.
Cheers!
Peder
7driver says:
06:40 PM, 03/22/10
E-Car Newbie Alert!
"If I encountered heavy traffic...I stood a good chance of running out of electricity"
Heavy traffic increases your range thanks to regenerative braking and slower average speed. Sometimes I think that it's the general public that's not ready for the electric car rather than the other way around.
hybris says:
06:57 PM, 03/22/10
"he looks for what he calls a big-box vehicle and tucks right in behind it."
I heard a lot of nick names for big rigs and heavy duty trucks but this has to be the weakest of the bunch.
cr_driver says:
08:30 PM, 03/22/10
LOL at the comments!!
tomm250 says:
05:25 AM, 03/23/10
It's completely understandable that Scott was concerned and anxious. As I wrote here in me guest blog post last week, when you are unfamiliar with the car you will worry about "making it" from time to time. If anyone borrows an electric car with the intent of driving it to just about the charge limit what would you expect?
The point I was making is that if you live with the car for a month or so and drive it daily, you soon learn it's limitations. One example is he was worried that getting stuck in traffic would cut his range short. As 7driver above stated, traffic would be the best thing that could happen to him. Slow driving on a congested highway would have increased his range a good amount as compared to driving at highway speeds and trying to draft behind trailers.
91 miles would be no problem for the car as long as he didn't drive 75 or 80mph most of the way. I frequently to 100 - 110 mile single charge trips and I really don't even look at the charge meter anymore. With these cars, familiarity breeds confidence.
Tom
MINI-E #250 @ 24,050 miles
http://minie250.blogspot.com/
kchoz says:
08:25 AM, 03/23/10
Driving behind a truck isn't necessarily unsafe. As long as you keep a 1 or 2 second distance behind it, you're just fine. Trucks take a lot longer to come to a stop than a car, notably because of weight and because the brakes typically are a bit neglected and get worn down too fast. Expect a truck at highway speeds to take at least between 50 and 100 feet more than a car to come to a complete stop if brakes are applied completely.
The safest place to be on the road is arguably behind a truck, because if it starts breaking, you should be able to break a lot faster than it (just give yourself enough distance to react) and if the obstacle isn't avoidable, then the truck is just going to plow through it and clear the way for you. The most dangerous place on the road is in front of a truck, because if you have to stop quickly, it may just hit you in the back and ram you through whatever you wanted to avoid.
Following a truck also brings no negative effect at all to the truck. It is neither placed in a more dangerous position nor does it increase its fuel consumption (sorry if it seems evident, some people seem to think that). Probably that the driver doesn't even realize you're there.
spdracerut says:
08:30 AM, 03/23/10
Quite honestly, 'drafting' is not really a big issue to me as my 'drafting' distance is still greater than the average LA fast-lane driver following distance. If I'm feeling a bit more aggressive, I'll follow at about a 1 second interval. If I'm feeling a bit more lax, then ~1.5 second interval. At 70-80mph highway speeds, this equates to roughly 3-5 car lengths. People in LA often follow at 2 car lengths back in the fast lane.
In my S2000 rated at 23 hwy, I'll get between 26-29mpg. In my previous Evo, rated at 22-23 hwy, I'd get 26mpg. Do I feel safe at these following distances? Sure, because I know my previous car and current car would outbrake anything it was following and I pay full attention when driving in this manner. The S2000 is currently on 245 wide Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 tires (pretty much the stickest street tire you can buy) and the car only weighs ~2850lbs. The things I'm generally following weigh 4000-6000 lbs on the same width (or narrower) tires in a far less sticky compound, i.e. SUVs and Minivans. And I still stay farther back than the typical LA driver.
canadaphant says:
11:54 AM, 03/23/10
tomm250-thanks, I appreciate your insight with this car. I'd love the Edmunds crew to really push their Mini like you do. Drive it normally. If it dies, deal with it and get a cab home. See what this thing can really do instead of treating it with kid gloves all the time.
srlracing says:
12:30 PM, 03/23/10
I was wondering who the crazy guy in the Mini E drafting semis through Camp Pendleton was! hat is a very normal day of driving for me. There is no way a electric car could ever make any sense in my life but I an see how a properly packaged and designed electric car could make sense for a lot of people.
protomech says:
10:55 AM, 03/29/10
If you're that concerned about range, drive slower rather than drafting. A few percentage points of efficiency (which could as easily be accomplished by slowing from 65 mph to 62 mph) isn't worth endangering your safety or the safety of others around you.
Leave a few minutes earlier - 62 mph will take you maybe an extra minute over say a 30 mile highway jaunt. Maybe that means staying off the freeway if road speeds are substantially higher than what you can handle. Better safe than .. well, not.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/11/the-short-strange-trip-of-nathan-abbott-a-cautionary-tale/
@spdracerut: Don't kid yourself - feeling safe is not the same thing as being safe.