It's always a tricky endeavor when I take our long-term 2009 Mini E home. My commute is 100 miles, round trip, which is just past the Mini E's range on a full charge. When I leave work at 100% on the battery I usually get home with about 47% left. Ditto when I leave home fully charged. That means I need to juice up, at least a little, using the portable home charger.
That was my plan when I drove the Mini E home Monday night and plugged in to the same outlet that our clothes dryer is hooked up to in the garage. Again, that was the plan...
The reality is I got up Tuesday morning, walked out to the garage where I'd left the Mini E plugged in, and saw that every light on the home charger was out. The clothes dryer also wouldn't fire up, and a check of the circuit breaker board confirmed my fears. The Mini had thrown the circuit at some point after I'd plugged it in and Tuesday morning. When I got into the Mini and started it up the charge meter read...47%.
This could have been a disaster, but did I forget to mention I wasn't driving in to work that day? I actually had another 24 hours to play games with the car, though I hadn't expected to need them. I threw the breaker, plugged the car back in and got the green charge light as I had the previous day. But this time I checked on the charger 10 minutes later. It was dead again from a thrown breaker.
I repeated this process two more times before I realized the problem -- user error. I hadn't switched the Mini E's charge setting from 32 amps (for our industrial charger at the Edmunds office) to 12 amps for the home charger. This means the Mini was trying to pull 32 amps out of my house, thus throwing the breaker. I made the switch and was at 100% when I left my house for work the next morning. But it points out one of the pitfalls of driving this car. If you don't adjust the car's charge setting, and go to bed thinking the electrons are flowing when they aren't, you might not be able to leave your house the next day.
Another item really struck home during this process -- why do I have to get into the Mini E and "start" it to know the status of the battery? Yeah, if it's fully charged the light on top of the speedometer will tell you from 20 feet away, but anything less than fully charged and you're left wondering where you're at in the process. It seems easy enough to include a charge meter on the home charger panel (and the industrial/office charger, too). It would be very helpful to just glance at the charger versus retrieving the key and climbing into the car to find out if I can drive 8 or 80 miles.
Karl Brauer, Editor at Large @ 7,231 miles
tomm250 says:
05:00 PM, 06/ 9/10
Karl:
You are right on with both things you point out. It would be really helpful if there was a readout of the state of charge all the time the car is charging so you could easily see it and the car should be able to detect the amperage provided so it doesn't call for more amps than the supply can give.
Remember though, this is only a prototype test vehicle and is definitely rough around the edges. The upcoming EV's that will be available for sale will have these issues corrected. Both the Volt and the LEAF will allow you to monitor the car as it's charging and even send you a text alert if the car has stopped charging for some reason.
Plus, using that emergency 110V charger that you have is really a drag. I haven't even plugged mine in in 11 months.
Tom M
MINI-E #250 @ 32,685 miles
http://minie250.blogspot.com/
kevm14 says:
05:13 PM, 06/ 9/10
Hopefully they have more charge modes too. 12 is good for a 15 amp circuit, but how about ~18 for a 20 amp circuit? Unfortunately there's no way to tell because not everyone's voltage drop under load will be the same.
This also highlights why most Americans will be much better off with something like the Volt if they want a quasi-electric commuter. It just works better in our spread out country.
texases says:
05:42 PM, 06/ 9/10
This expect 32 amps out of a 110v outlet? That would be very unusual. I'd imagine the production versions would be smarter.
tomm250 says:
06:28 PM, 06/ 9/10
Texases:
No, there are three settings to charge the car at, 12amp, 32amp and 50amp.
Just about everybody that has the car has a 32amp 220V charger at their home to charge and it takes about 4.5 hours to charge the car if the battery is completely discharged.
A few of the drivers and all of the MINI dealerships have a 50amp 220V charger. This will charge the car from empty to full in 3.5 hours.
Everybody also has a portable emergency charger that charges at 12amps 110v. The Edmunds crew has to use this because they don't have the proper charger at their homes like the people in the Trial Lease program have. Edmunds has one 32 amp charger installed at their office so when the editors take the car for the weekend, they really don't have anywhere to charge it so you see them writing about using the emergency 110v charger like this post does. The 110V, 12 amp charger is really for emergency use only and it takes about 35 hours to charge the car completely. I simply refuse to use it and luckily I haven't had to since I first got the car.
What Karl was writing about is that he took the car from the office and it was set to charge at 32amps because it was charged at the office charger. When he got home and plugged in the emergency charger he forgot to set the car to charge at 12amps to the car was calling for 32amps and it tripped the breaker. The people in the program do not have this problem because most everybody charges exclusively at 32amps so there is no need to change the setting like the IL editors here have to do whenever they take the car.
Tom M
stovt001 says:
07:52 PM, 06/ 9/10
So I just realized, if we all go to electric cars like this and there is a power outage, no one is going to work the next day. Yeah...that's a problem.
anthonylam66 says:
08:22 PM, 06/ 9/10
stovt001: You're assuming everyone would need to fully charge every day. Unless you have a long commute you could presumable drive a few days before you had to recharge.
Also, when there are power outages the gas pumps don't work either so you're ICE is SOL too.
texases says:
06:31 AM, 06/10/10
Tomm250-OK, I understand. I expect the car/charging system in future EV cars to know whether they're plugged into 110v or 220v. The driver shouldn't have to reset something.
tomm250 says:
07:08 AM, 06/10/10
Texases:
No they shouldn't. I never liked that on the car. I've already included it in my notes back to BMW on recommendations to improve for future models.
txmatt1 says:
07:23 AM, 06/10/10
Short of a text alert or app that communicates charge status, there should be an easily turn-offable recurring beep/chirp that starts if the charge process is interrupted.
jeepsrt says:
07:29 AM, 06/10/10
@anthonylam66 says:
"Also, when there are power outages the gas pumps don't work either so you're ICE is SOL too."
When that happens you can at least drive to another gas station where they have power.
jasper53 says:
07:39 AM, 06/10/10
A question for tomm250 -- is there any kind of battery memory issue (not able to fully charge or discharge) if you don't charge up to 100% or fully discharge the pack before starting the charge cycle?
snipenet says:
09:07 AM, 06/10/10
If the dryer is the washer breaker, I can only imagine what the other breakers do!
kingkhalas says:
09:11 AM, 06/10/10
it would be cool if your key fob had a battery meter you could check.
tcrook says:
09:27 AM, 06/10/10
Wanted to chime in regarding the 110 cable. Before taking delivery of #140 I was able to speak to some of the engineers at a dinner/gathering of other MINI E drivers. I knew due to my commute that I may want to use the "Occasional Use" cable on a regular basis so I asked them about that. They said "absolutely...use it every day if you like". For the past 9 months or so I've used it 6 to 8 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week. While I can make it to work and back (approx 85 miles) and did for 3 months prior to getting the cable, the extra charge allows me to drive in a more "sporty" manner sort of speak. :) I estimate that I'm able to get 18 to 20 miles worth of juice. I may be the only MINI E driver in the program who follows this type of charging pattern. Each morning I leave the house with a 100% charge, charge via 110 cable at work, return home and charge via 32amp charger. Yesterday I just passed the 20,000 mile mark and I've noticed no decrease in range. Perhaps this unusual charging pattern is keeping the batteries happy. I'm on board for year two, so we'll see how they hold up for another 20,000 or so miles.
http://electricminicooper.blogspot.com/
tomm250 says:
10:06 AM, 06/10/10
jasper53:
Like Todd, I haven't seen any memory issue with the battery. I'm at almost 33,000 miles in 12 months and I'm actually getting a little better range than I did when I first got the car. I don't know why. Perhaps I'm driving slower, but I'm not really sure. The past couple weeks I'm averaging about 109 miles per charge, and that's projected range to zero SOC. Once the SOC hits zero I've found I can still go about 15- 20 miles so I really can drive it about 125 miles without worrying about running out completely. I really don't think about it unless I know I'll be driving more than 100 miles before I can charge. If I know I need to go further, simply slowing down makes a huge difference. One of the other MINI-E drivers here in NJ, Ken Barbour, just did 147 miles on a single charge.
Tom M
MINI-E #250 @32,700 miles
http://minie250.blogspot.com/
editor_karl says:
10:24 AM, 06/10/10
Impressive Tom. I've notieced the charge reading swings a bit depending on current speed/driving conditions (as expected) and I've been curious how far it can REALLY go before it stops moving. My commute (round trip) is almost exactly 100 miles (to the tenth even). I keep wanting to try a round trip from work to home and back without breaking out the 110v charger (and dealing with re-setting the charge rate on the car), but I'm too chicken to actually do it. Sounds like I would probably make it.
Car goes away in a week. Maybe I should just do it once while I still can.
soareyes says:
11:41 AM, 06/10/10
Yes Karl, do it!
I think you would make it with plenty to spare as long as you are not doing 80 mph on the freeway the whole trip. Like Tom and Todd, I haven't noticed any decrease in range since the car was new a year ago.
Stan
http://web.me.com/soareyes/Stans_Mini_E/Mini_E_Blog/Mini_E_Blog.html
tomm250 says:
12:28 PM, 06/10/10
Karl,
Do it, I promise you'll make it unless you drive fast. Keep it under 70 and you'll make it for sure. I would love to see you or one of the other IL editors drive it till it shuts down. It would make a great post. Doing it on a track would be the best, but how about driving it around town until you get to about 5% SOC and then just circle your block until is stops. Just have a friend with you so you can push it back to your house where the extension cord is waiting. I know you're giving the car back soon so how about that as the final MINI-E post?
Tom
the_big_al says:
02:09 PM, 06/10/10
I second that... would love to see the car pushed to its absolute limit of no-more-juice.... but hopefully not on the side of the freeway.
cr_driver says:
05:33 PM, 06/10/10
I triple that!!!............ DO IT.
soareyes says:
01:39 PM, 06/14/10
I drove Mini E #059 till the battery died this last Sunday. Total mileage was 148.3 miles. I got to 130 miles before the state of charge reached 0%, so there was nearly 20 miles in reserve which agrees with what Tom said in his post above. Details are here:
http://web.me.com/soareyes/Stans_Mini_E/Mini_E_Blog/Entries/2010/6/13_148.3_Miles_On_ONe_Charge!.html
Stan
Mini E #059
skierpage says:
01:46 PM, 06/22/10
Interesting story, but I thought the whole point of the SAE J1772 spec is that the car and socket communicate and negotiate a current! So you shouldn't have to set the current yourself. So is the problem that your home connector (looks like a ClipperCreek box) doesn't implement SAE J1772, or that the Mini E botched its implementation? From the photo it looks like you're just plugging it into a regular outlet; if that outlet is 240V you're violating the National Electrical Code section 625, which requires "shall be permanently connected and fastened in place" unless "125 volt, single phase, 15 or 20 amperes"
Other EVs have the telematics ability to report their state of charge to that current buzzword, "a smartphone app".