Guest Mini E Blogger: 30,000 Miles in 11 Months. What Electric Leash?

How much has it cost you to charge?

Banker: Thank you ;)

Jeepsrt: About $3.00 to charge a completely discharged battery. Or about 3 cents per mile average

That's about $900 for "fuel" to travel roughly two and a half years worth of typical driving distance.

$360 a year or a buck a day. Now if only the added tech didn't cost more than $20,000 we'd be all set for the future...

Am I the only one who thinks it's wild to pay $600/month to drive and guinea pig a car for some company? Why wouldn't they lend it to you and just make you write reports etc. to test it out.

Since he uses it for business, there is probably a good tax break. Other than that, I agree.

For us mere mortals, at this point in time, the Mini-E is totally impractical. In a few more years-- who knows? What we do know is we need to "reduce our dependance on foreign oil." A statement that is so overused that people are tired of hearing it. But it is more valid now than it was almost 40 years ago, when the word Ayatollah was on everyones lips as they sat in long gas lines. How little we have learned and how much time we have lost.

"saxdogg says:

02:56 PM, 05/14/10

Am I the only one who thinks it's wild to pay $600/month to drive and guinea pig a car for some company? Why wouldn't they lend it to you and just make you write reports etc. to test it out."

because how else would hipsters be able to show off their eco-cred?

i love how his blogs about how it can hold heavy tile boxes...
how much easier would it be if you drove a regular mini and could load them in the back hatch?
then you wouldnt have to act like your cars ability to hold them was some magical/mythical feat, when in reality most any car could hold the tiles.

50 days in the shop?!? yikes...

Knitbeanie: $0.03/mile is the answer to everything you wrote.

Thanks for the update. It will be interesting to see how much of the current tech ends up in the Megacity

Throwback: From what I understand almost nothing from the MINI-E will end up in the Megacity vehicle. The ActiveE that will be introduced next June will have most of the hardware and electronics that will be used in the Megacity. The drivetrain in the MINI-E was made by a AC Propulsion. This will not be used in future BMW EV's as they want to design and build their own drivetrain specifically made for the vehicle.

knitbeanie: I never claimed this car could haul around more than any other car. In fact it can probably fit less inside than just about any car other than some small two seat sports cars. I was just explaining how the car has suited my needs just fine and that I don't "baby" it. I beat it up as much as I can, I'm not responsible for anything that breaks on it so why not?

mcgs999: yeah 50 days is a lot. However I was given a loaner and received refunds for the time it was out of service.

knitbeanie,

friend, you are way out of line.

This is not about eco-cred.

Its about a moon shot. It's about a light bulb. It's about a Digital Operating Sytem (MS-DOS.) It's about a kite, a glider, with a new invention called an internal combustion motor straped on its wings. It's about a cure for polio........It's about independence from hostile govenments........it's about self reliance......its about cleaner air......and it's about progressing our planet beyond oil.

It's about leadership, inititaive and risk.

If you think the electric car efforts are not worthwhile, I would simple ask that your breath the exhaust of your own vehicle first in the cabin (first hand smoke) before venting it out your tailpipe to the rest of us. (second hand smoke)

We can and should do so much better.

Thanks Tom for a great post.

Cheers
Peder
Mini-E #183 14.500 miles.

Another great post Tom. I thoroughly enjoy your posts and insights. You are able to give a perspective on the car that the IL editors simply cannot by driving the car a few days here and there.

I am looking forward to the day that I can walk into any automobile showroom and have a choice of both gasoline powered and electric cars and I don't think we are very far from that being a reality.

Hopefully advancements in battery technology will bring the range of these cars up to 150 to 200 miles because that would make the cars infinitely more valuable.

"minie183 says:

07:25 PM, 05/14/10
Its about a moon shot. It's about a light bulb. It's about a Digital Operating Sytem (MS-DOS.) It's about a kite, a glider, with a new invention called an internal combustion motor straped on its wings. It's about a cure for polio........It's about independence from hostile govenments........it's about self reliance......its about cleaner air......and it's about progressing our planet beyond oil.

It's about leadership, inititaive and risk.

If you think the electric car efforts are not worthwhile, I would simple ask that your breath the exhaust of your own vehicle first in the cabin (first hand smoke) before venting it out your tailpipe to the rest of us. (second hand smoke)""

why would i force myself to breath un-cut exhaust? i dont see how that is the same thing as your "second-hand smoke"...

your viewpoint is vastly different than mine, thats alright, we can all have our own opinions...
but dont wax poetic about it being some cure for polio or crap, you my "friend" are way out of line comparing those accomplishments to the mini-e.

please dont tell me that i am part of your collective "we", and have to do better.

Knitbeanie,

it's all good, thanks for calling it poetry, I was referring to man's ability to progress, invent and to find solutions.

Diversity is to be celebrated including diverse opinion.

we can do better, in our own independent ways of course :)

http://www.heronshouse.com

Cheers
Peder

Tom,

I wanted more info on your 3c a mile numbers. When i calculate my monthly draw for #269 and i run that against the 2 different charges that I am billed for my home electricity, I am getting a number much closer to 8c/mile. Still better than gasoline, but nowhere near 3c. Are you getting some different rate at work that is pulling this number down? What is your number only based on your home charger use?

Mike #269

Seems to me reducing pollution to next to nothing and cutting the dependence on oil is close to a cure for polio. Countless people die every year for air pollution.

" firstwagon says:

01:11 AM, 05/15/10

Seems to me reducing pollution to next to nothing and cutting the dependence on oil is close to a cure for polio. Countless people die every year for air pollution."

uhm, how many lives do you think the polio vaccines' invention saved?
how many lives do you think the 500 mini-es have saved?

i'd say that one number is alot smaller than the other...

these 500 cars arent cutting dependence on oil beyond a MINI-SCULE scale (yes, i am punny)
what good are these cars if they arent widely available and affordable (along with other current drawbacks)

you can compare them to the polio vaccine when they are available on the scale and at the cost etc of the polio vaccine.

until then, they are just toys.

Knitbeanie: firstwagon and mini183 aren't trying to say the mini-e is as great an accomplishment as a cure for Polio that's obvious. The mini-e obviously hasn't saved any lives and isn't even the best electric car our there today. What I'm sure they were trying to get across is it's part of the movement to electrics, a beginning of the biggest development and change the auto industry has ever seen. A change that will dramatically improve the quality of air we breathe, so much so there will be health benefits for everyone especially those that live in congested urban areas.

The mini-e certainly isn't going to be responsible for all that, but it is a piece of the puzzle that is getting us one step closer to one auto maker, BMW putting an electric car in their showrooms for sale. All of the major manufacturers are currently working on an electric car that they will sell soon. This IS the beginning of something really big.

Remember that electric vehicles are only as clean as the powerplant that charges them.

Anyways, I must commend you on your bravery. 11 months, about 330 days... 50 of which in the shop... so 30,000 miles / 280 days -> 107 miles a day, assuming you never skipped weekends. Though there may be a hint of madness in selecting an electric vehicle with a maximum listed range of less than your average daily usage...

Still not sold on the concept. Hybrids are a much greater reward for the cost, since minimal amounts of batteries are required and you still take advantage of the two greatest gains in efficiency (for city driving) of auto-off and regenerative braking without range restrictions. The efficiencies are also more comparable than you might think: average coal power plants are 33.1% efficient (thermal -> electric http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/Impr_Effcy_of_CFPP_CO2_Redctns_1109.pdf). The faux-Atkinson cycle engine the Prius uses has a peak thermal->mechanical efficiency of 37%, with average efficiency in the 30-35% range (http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/HV/2.pdf). Factor in transmission/charging/mechanical losses, and they're pretty damn close, if not directly in favor of the Prius. With only ~28% of US electrical supply NOT coming from hydrocarbons, it's a wash between the options in terms of efficiency (depends on where you live really).

We can figure out battery technology while we're building hybrids. It makes more sense for the next 15 years to focus on hybrids and building nuclear powerplants/renewable energy.

moreau has a good point. Far too much of the US electricity comes from dirty fuels to make electric cars truly clean. However the problem doesn't lie with the electric cars, it lies with power industry. That's where the government should really pushing research right now.

In the meanwhile electric cars should be promoted most in areas that use the most green power. For example where I live (British Columbia) over 90% of over power is clean (hydro).

For obvious reasons that solution won't work everywhere but each area will likely have a cleaner method of generating power that works for them. Even if it's just switching to natural gas it would still be much cleaner the using coal. They should have a plan to eliminate coal power plants by a certain date in the same way they are pushing higher mpg standards and lower emission cars.

I'm not a fan of nuclear (costs and risks are too high) but there are countless ways to generate electricity.

Hey Mike,

I'm not being 100% scientific with my cost per mile. I don't have a separate meter for the charging which would be the best way to do it. I'm basing it on a couple things. For the first 5 months when I got the car last year and only had my home charger, I was exclusively charging at home and was driving roughly 100 miles per day. My electric bill was almost exactly $100 per month more than the same months of the previous year and we didn't change anything else in the house, so it should be fair to say the car was costing me about $100 to drive roughly 3,000 miles.
Now it's much more complicated because I charge at work some and at home some. Plus at home I have the solar electric system so my electricity bill is almost nothing. The car has a 35 kwh pack but of that only 28 is usable and I don't think that running the car to zero on the charge meter will even use the full28kwh. I think you can drive it about 15-20 miles before the full 28 is used so driving the car 100 miles probably uses closer to 25kwh. I'm paying about .12 per kWh at work so that would be $3.00 per 100 miles.
The national average for electricity per kwh is $.10, although it's higher here on the Northeast.

Now you get into the real complicated part and that's how efficiently you drive. What is your usual Ah/100 miles? I'm usually in in the 50's or 60's but can get in the 40's if I'm doing all city, low speed driving. In those cases I get 120 miles/charge. In the winter with the heater on and driving at 70 mph I have seen it in the 90's so I'm sure it was costing me 5 or 6 cents per mile in those instances. But I don't know how it could be 8 cents like you are getting unless you're driving like the MINI'S in the Italian Job did. ; )

Stop by the restaurant some time if you get near Montclair.

Tom

Thanks for the post, Tom, and for being willing to do this test. It's a step, a first step, in the technologic effort to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. We have a long way to go, but steps like this are necessary.

Tom I have said in the past and I will say it again.

You made a believer out of on the usefulness of a EV (at least for city driving) and of course I have to respect anyone who willingly overloads a already fairly heavy prototype vehicle.

knitbeanie - I don't really know what your complaint is.

Think $600/month is too expensive for a 2 seat EV with insurance included and almost free fuel?

Don't lease one.

To keep with the polio vaccine analogy, it's like saying the first batch of research vaccines was pointless because they cost thousands of dollars each and many hundreds of man hours to produce for that one batch. Of course, the subsequent widespread availability of the vaccine and all of its benefits would never have occurred without those first expensive and laborious samples.

Thinking back on, the Wright Flier was a real dog with only 12 horsepower and one-passenger capacity and stayed aloft for less than a minute. What a waste if it's not something usable on a grand scale.

Everyone's entitled to their opinions, but the electric-driven vehicles of tomorrow (whether battery-electrics, plug-in hybirds, fuel cell, etc) will have their legacy in the first models we're seeing today.

siarizona: Yes, It's just a small step but necessary if we are going to begin the transition to electric mobility and I do believe we are. It will undoubtedly take a while and a lot of people will be very reluctant but at least the auto manufacturers are making more and more efficient gas & diesel engines in the interim.

hybris: Thanks again for the compliment. I feel like I need to send you flowers or something ;)

txmatt1: I'm with you 100%. This is going to be a long process and bringing EV mainstream will take a lot of private & public investment which thankfully is currently happening. I'm not sure many people actually know how much investment is currently being put in the industry. Thankfully it seems that the major about manufacturers have finally realized they need to build and sell EV's to be competitive in the next decade so they are starting now. Within 3 to 5 years there will be at least one an EV in every auto manufacturers lineup and battery technology is getting better and cheaper at breakneck speeds. As anthonylam66 said above I think this is the beginning of the biggest development and change in the automotive industry since the Model T incorporated the assembly line.

Tom M
MINI-E #250 @ 30,410 miles
http://minie250.blogspot.com/

I really like Tom's posts. It is fun to "ride along" with a cutting edge early adopter.

It is also good to have an objective source of information about EVs available. Too much of the information about the current state of EVs is from biased parties - either auto companies with a large investments to promote (or old technology to protect) or naysayers who think that EVs must reach some unattainable level of performance and affordability that is always 20 years out.

Tom's experience demonstrates that the start of the transition to EVs as personal transportation is possible now, with some compromises, for appropriately situated consumers. In his case, the compromises are largely economic, as his experience shows the technologies are nearly showtime ready.

So while Tom and one small fleet of electric Minis aren't "saving the world" they are eliminating the arguments against large EV technology/infrastructure investment and expedited consumer trials of existing EV technologies. I suspect Nissan's Leaf program will create a number of new "Toms", beginning this December.

Great posts, Tom..

You really think you can answer whether or you'll lose range over time after 11 months? Really?

Unless you think buyers are going to invest in this kind of lifestyle for just a year at a time and then go back to gasoline or diesel powered cars, I think you should hold that answer in reserve until you've given it more time (not miles).

I'm also not a fan of the fact that you seem to have totally glossed over the fact that your car has spent 50 of it's 330 or so days in service. No buyer can tolerate their sole transportation being useless over 15% of the time, meaning it's only useful as a second (or more) car.

Most folks need their cars to get to work and do necessary errands... every day... for 5+ years. The fact that you have alternate transportation at the ready while your electrodream is constantly in the shop and that you feel good about it after a whopping not-even-a-year hardly qualifies as shattering the "electric leash".