A Halloween Trick, and Treat

So there I was, on All Hallows Eve, driving back from the store to go set up for our annual Halloween Party, when all of a sudden – after nearly 7,500 miles of issue-free driving – my experimental MINI E pulled an electric muscle and I suddenly lost almost all of my power.

I was on Veteran’s Highway in Orangeburg, NY – very near my house – when the “Noticeably Reduced Motor Power” icon came on. This is a feature that is meant to kick in when you’re very low on battery, and is intended to give you enough juice so you can limp off a busy freeway or drive ahead to a safe location before all the power is exhausted.  The trouble was, I still had about 80% of my battery charge remaining, so there was no good reason for this…except, this being Halloween, maybe I was meant to be forced off the road so I could meet a nasty end at the hands of a frightening, bloodthirsty monster.

Me (left) and Jay on Halloween

Instead, I met Jay.

About a minute after pulling off the road, while I was looking under the hood for an unplugged wire or some other obvious reason for my situation, I heard a beep – and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

After months of driving a MINI E without seeing another one on the road, there was MINI E #365 pulling off to join me. I knew there was only one other E in all of Rockland County, NY, and that one was 15 minutes away in Suffern – while this meet-up occurred not even a mile from my house!

Out popped Jay – who lives in the next town to our south, Park Ridge, NJ. He and I spent a about 10 seconds looking at the engine (“Uh…I dunno”), and then a couple of minutes exchanging stories and admiration for the car. He hadn’t experienced any problems so far (though he hasn’t driven as many miles yet) and he too was enjoying the silence of the drive, the pep of the motor and beauty of no visits to the gas station.

#217 meet #365

I took another photo of #217 & #365 together on the side of the road before Jay took off again. Then, weighing my options to get home – either call the MINI Roadside Assistance crew or try and coax it up and over the last hill, then coast down to my house – I decided to give the engine one more try. I put the key in, pressed the start button and – like magic – the “Noticeably Reduced Motor Power” icon was gone.

I hightailed it home, laughing at my first MINI E trick and treat of the year.

A MINI E “Pony Express” Trip

Don Young, MINI E #364, took an amazing trip last week – traveling almost 700 miles over 4 days from his Shelter Island, NY home on the eastern end of Long Island to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in the Hudson Valley, and several other stops in-between. To get there and back, Don organized a “Power Support Team” to recharge his MINI E #364’s batteries every 70 miles or so with high-voltage pit stops.

Original Art by Lea Miller

But Don didn’t just stop with the idea to take a high-mileage round-trip, he made an event out of it. Dubbing his journey the “MINI E E*TOUR”, he had custom window wraps and car magnets created to advertise and celebrate both his tour and “Power Support Team”, and also created his own t-shirts to give out to the many people he’d meet along the way. He also contacted a local newspaper in Bethel and did an interview there; plus he took the time to meet with strangers and bartenders (and probably some strange bartenders too) to show off the car and relate his experiences driving it.

I just love these kind of individual, people-powered quests, and my wife and I were very proud to support Don and fill him up on some solar-generated electrons last Thursday and Sunday. Infected by his enthusiasm for the project, my teenage daughter and I put together a poster to welcome Don and mark his journey to our home. Creating the poster gave us a chance to talk about things… like how weird it was that we were going to welcome a “complete stranger” to our home while most of us were away so he could plug his car in; about how normally we wouldn’t do such a thing; about how it was OK this time because we were all part of a broader community of people involved in the same thing – so while Don may or may not be strange , he was driving a MINI E just like us, for all the same reasons and with all the same desires for a better future, and that disqualified him as a stranger.

As Don himself noted, “On my MINI E E*Tour, I’ve had great experiences with 8 MINI E’ers, 2 companies, 3 corporations, and 1 foundation. I also learned that stopping once in a while to make new friends, and talking to bystanders about GP? (#364), is as nice a way to travel as I can imagine.”

At the risk of sounding corny or melodramatic, I imagine his experience was very similar to the old Pony Express system – Don too set out on the road in full awareness that his journey would only be complete if a group of people he’d never before met came together to help him. He too had to rely on faith in an unmet community. And in this day and age – where we rightly teach our children to be wary of strangers, and where we rely on standardized systems for everything from dining to refueling – what a unique experience that is.

In the few short years ahead, at just about the time my daughter will learn how to drive, electric cars will no longer be the domain of a few hundred pioneers. The frontier of “limited range” will be closed with the solutions of public recharging at the old ‘gas’ stations, battery swap technology, electrified liquid, or some other kind of innovation which will be hugely convenient and enable our modern and mobile lifestyles – but which will also be a bittersweet signal that this particular kind of unique, individual, community travel experience is unnecessary.

Don’s promised to post photos and tales of his experience, and I’ll be sure to link to them here.

The New Glossary of My Daily Commute

As part of the MINI E program, we get weekly emails containing driving suggestions and bits of insight from MINI on life in the prototype electric car lane. This week’s edition contained this handy little glossary and a tip on efficiently using the heater that I found interesting (who, for example, knew that a gallon of gas = 36.5 kWh!):

V: Volt; from the 17th century Italian physicist, Alessandro Volta.

In simplified terms, voltage is like electrical pressure. If an electrical wire were a water hose, the pressure or force of the water exiting the hose would be akin to the voltage level in a wire.

A: Ampere (Amp); from the 17th century French physicist, Andre-Marie Ampere.
Using the same water hose analogy, the Ampere is a measure of current flow. The volume of water which can flow through a hose is related to how wide the hose is – narrow hose, low volume, wide hose, high volume. Larger wires are able to carry a greater amount of current than smaller ones, and this current is measured in Amps.

kW•h or kWh: kilowatt hour
Those of you who are in tune with your electric utility bill are probably familiar with the kW•h because it is the unit measure by which you are charged for your energy consumption. A Watt-hour is the total energy used over time. Some of you have calculated your energy costs to drive the MINI E by using your kW•h rate to determine cost per mile. Your kW•h costs can vary based on such factors as where you live, when you charge and what your total monthly consumption is. A single gallon of gasoline contains approximately 36.5 kW•h of energy.

HV: High Voltage
There are two electrical systems we interact with on the MINI E. The low voltage system covers the 12V (Volt) components which are common to other MINI models. The power windows, windshield wipers, and map lights are examples of low voltage items. High voltage items are what sets the MINI E apart and typically runs in the range of 390V. The HV system is what propels the car, and provides heat and air conditioning.

SOC: State Of Charge
The amount of energy stored in the MINI E HV batteries, displayed as a percentage.

PEU: Power Electronics Unit
The magic gold box under the bonnet of the MINI E. It is the “brain” of the HV system and coordinates a variety of parameters such as power delivery and charging.

Module: High Voltage Battery Module
The HV battery in the MINI E is comprised of modules, each of which contain 106 cells. There are 48 modules in total which are individually monitored. Using a modular battery configuration enables more efficient packaging. If necessary, servicing the HV battery can be accomplished by replacing only modules which need to be, instead of the entire battery pack.

OUC: Occasional Use Cable
The 110V, or 12A cable which many of you keep with your MINI E, is commonly referred to as an OUC.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Heater Efficiency
This one works a lot like Goldilocks. Getting the warmest air from the cabin heater is achieved by setting the fan speed to the second setting. The lowest setting won’t take full advantage of the output of the heating element. The highest setting will blow so much air past the heater that it won’t have time to pick up all the heat. The middle setting is just right.

Hmmmmm – the closer we get to winter, the more I get nervous about this heater and it’s impact on my ability to get home….

Uh-Oh, It’s Getting Cold

Yesterday a big cold front hit the northeast, plunging temperatures into the 30’s for the first time since I began running on electrons, and it looks like it’s put a big chill on my driving range.

First off, let me say that it’s still early days as far as MINI E #217 and cold weather performance go, so there’s a good chance that all I need is a few more runs to figure things out, and the symptoms that I experienced yesterday won’t be an issue. And least that’s what the optimistic pioneer in me is hoping for. Now, here’s what put the “uh” next to my “oh” yesterday.

I had to take a day-trip to Atlanta, and so I drove 34 miles to Newark Airport in the morning, with the air temp at a relative balmy 50 degrees and my charge-o-meter reading 60% as I locked up in daily parking. Now my daily experience has been that, when I am parked, the charge-o-meter would actually gain 5-10% as the batteries relax and the remaining power consolidates. So I flew off to Atlanta, comfortable in thinking that for my drive home I should have about 70% or so. But this day the weather got colder and wetter (with snow flurries dusting the area), and so by the time I returned at midnight I still had only 60% showing. Not as much as I expected, but still plenty of juice to carry me 34 miles back home.

When I first started my trip back, things looked normal – loosing about 1% charge per mile. Then about 5 minutes into my drive I noticed my charge level started dropping much faster. With 20 miles to go, I’d lost almost 30%, so I turned the heater off (a decision not without regret as it was 38 degrees outside).  At about the halfway point, I was down to 15% – which is when I turned off the radio off, leaving me alone in the cold and dark with no human contact.

With 10 miles to go, I was under 8%, and resorted to turning my windshield wipers on and off manually (I have no idea how I even thought of that, but a desperate mind is a creative mind). At 5 miles from home, I hit 0% – and I was making mental preparation to feel the “reduced performance” kick-in, limiting me to 40 mph on the Garden State Parkway so I could crawl off the ride and freeze to death in the breakdown lane. The small part of me that was still warm was looking forward to the Roadside Assistance call, but the uncomfortably-cold majority of me was still searching for other ingenious power-saving manoeuvres like the windshield wipers. Remember that scene in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where they are throwing items overboard to maintain altitude? That’s where I was.

Luckily, I nursed it up to Exit 172 which, as previous readers will note, is the top of a 1/4-mile long downhill with loads of regen opportunity. That, along with the back-road speeds of around 40mph (for some reason at 40mph it feels like it could go forever), meant that I arrived home ok. But I still only had 2% charge when I shut down in the garage, whereas in warmer weather I’d gain 10% coming off the highway. That means I lost 30+ miles of range, and the temperature only hovered around freezing.

So here’s the surprise – I always knew that the winter was going to present range problems with running the heater because it takes so much juice to create resistance in the heating coil (some estimates are that the car will lose 14-15% range for each hour of heater use); but the cold also clearly impacts the battery pack’s ability to hold a charge. To get an idea of this, leave a phone or an iPod in a car on a frigid day with a full charge, and you’ll return to find it seriously depleted after a few hours.

So this winter is going to present a double-whammy of sorts — a limited ability to run the heater and, if yesterday’s experience is typical – anywhere from a 20-30% loss of range from the batteries. So starting with today’s commute, I’m going old-school — driving gloves and a big winter coat and hat.

Almost Too Green

You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get an E-Z Pass “Green Pass” tag – which entitles holders to a 10% discount on New York Thruway tolls, and is designed to help promote the adoption of “hybrid and alternative fuel cars”. You’d think a 100% electric car – with no emissions at all – would qualify and be welcomed to the program like a celebrity at a night club. You’d be wrong.

I first made the application back in June, and quickly got a form rejection letter stating that “Your vehicle does not meet the requirements for a Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle”. Now I don’t even drive on the NYS Thruway regularly, but the injustice of it all just killed me. So I made a second application, and followed up with a phone call. The person I spoke with sounded very pleasant and eager to help, and agreed that MINI E #217 should get a Green Tag, and that they would be looking out for my new application.

About a week later I got the identical rejection form letter in the mail.

At this point it became mostly a principle thing with me, so for my third application I did my research and was able to fax a paper along with the application that shows the car meets the standards as a “California Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle” (which EZ Pass NY uses as the basis for granting Green Pass status). I even had a funny moment when a weary EZ Pass NY employee and I got into a low-level circular discussion on the topic of what qualifies as “Super Ultra Low”:

EZ Pass: “Sir, according to my screen, your car isn’t a Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle”

Me: “Well, it doesn’t have any emissions at all…it’s Super Ultra Nothing Emissions really.”

EZ Pass: “Sir, it isn’t a SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) then.”

Me: “But isn’t the point of the Green Pass program to promote low emissions? And isn’t Zero about as low as you can get?”

EZ Pass: “It may be, but it isn’t Super Ultra Low.”

Me: “So if I had some emissions, that would let me get a Green Pass?”

EZ Pass: “It seems that way.”

Me: “Maybe I could hook up a small gasoline engine to the car, like they have in model airplanes?”

EZ Pass: “(Laughing) You can call us back then I suppose.”

Then, out of the blue, I received a new EZ Pass Green Tag in the mail a couple of weeks later. And the EZ Pass site now lists MINI COOPER E as a qualified car. The lesson here? Living ahead of bureaucratic categories isn’t always easy, but it can be entertaining!

New Badges

Inspired by several other E-drivers, I ordered up a set of “Electric” emblems from thirdplanetenergy.com. They were a snap to put on, look great and, judging from several looks and even a friendly honk on the road, they do communicate the fact that #217 is an electric car.

yup, it's electric!

It’s fairly simply – the word “Electric” on both lower doors, and along the back. My hope is that it both answers and raises some questions with people. I know when I went into this experiment I was expecting to be stopped every time I got out of my car – and in fact that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t want them to put the large Plug graphic on the side doors. But instead I’ve only had that experience twice so far, and I’m feeling a little guilty that I’m failing a part of this experiment  - that is to raise interest and curiosity about what it is like to drive an electric car.

My son had an interesting observation yesterday though – he noticed that gas prices have fallen again (which is funny in itself that he notes this, because I am completely blind now to gas prices), and he thinks that interest in alternative fuels will only peak again when the price goes way up. Could be – but for now I’ll have to rely on these 1″ high letters instead of the global gas market.

5,000 Miles

I really wanted to catch the moment when it clocked over on Monday, but I missed it – a Springsteen song came on the radio and all attention to detail vanished. But here are some facts and details about driving 5,000 miles on electricity:

- In a tank at the Boonton Hess station, there are currently about 222 gallons of gas that I didn’t burn.

- People who know it is electric always get an excited tone in their voice, like when they first hear the family is going to Disney: “Really?!? So it doesn’t take any gas, at all?!?  Wow.” The few who have been able to drive it all marvel at the regenerative braking, the silence of the motor, and the torque, but after that the most amazing thing is that it drives and acts exactly like a gas car.

- People who don’t know it’s electric don’t give it a second look. On the one hand I feel good that I’m not a traveling sideshow and can sing loudly, or even do the other most popular thing to do in a car, without having all of I-287 looking at me; but on the other hand, part of this experiment is to try and show my neighbors that an electric car is a viable thing. So a wee bit more recognition would be good – more on that coming soon.

- It took me a little over 3 months to reach 5,000 – but for the first month I wasn’t driving it everyday (see High Octane Recharging). My goal is to put on a total of 25,000 miles before the year is up. So I need to average about 100 miles a day for weekdays, and 50 miles/day on weekends.

- My early impressions of the pros and cons still hold up (see 1,000 Mile Review) – I love the “one-pedal” driving, I still don’t miss my old gas station, and I’m still pleasantly surprised at the difference a near-silent motor makes. I’m also still doing a lot more calculations then I ever had to do with gas (“If I drive to my son’s baseball game, and then to my daughter’s soccer game, will I have enough juice to get back home?”).

- I’m really interested to see what the next 5,000 miles bring – and I’m pretty sure that I’ll reach one of my goals during this period: to run out of juice and have to call in the MINI Roadside Assist crew. Why now?  Because winter is coming, and I’ll need to use the heater – which might just take the last 10-20% of my battery range out, and there goes the “safety” on my daily 90 mile commute. Gotta remember to put a pioneer blanket and some snacks in old #217…

Is Electricity The Right Fuel?

This question was sparked (excuse the pun) by a conversation I had with a neighbor last night. He works as a Distributed Generation Manager for Con Edison in NYC, and so he’s very knowledgeable and familiar with the current (more puns!) electrical distribution grid, it’s ability to incorporate ‘DG’ (solar panels, windmills, etc.) and it’s capacity now and in the foreseeable future.

While he is a supporter of the movement towards renewable energy sources broadly, he is skeptical/bordering on discouraging when it comes to electrical cars and our ability as a society to support them. “For the system we have, we use way too much electricity now – your car and the 250 others in the area are fine now, but what’s going to happen when there’s 10,000 cars plugging in? 1 million? The grid simply couldn’t deliver that energy. And don’t talk about building new transmission lines – no one wants them, no politicians will let them come through their districts. Look at what’s going on in Old Tappan right now (where a proposed electrical sub-station has drawn the ire of local residents).” It’s been an issue on the table for years now, and according to my neighbor there is still no consensus or movement toward a viable solution.

I countered that I thought electricity was still a more efficient and environmentally-sound way to power automobiles because the distribution system – ok, while old and in need of upgrading – didn’t have nearly the negative impact that the liquid fuel distribution system does, and that the energy use model is more efficient (in that it only ‘costs’ me $.03/mile in electricity, while gas costs me $.13/mile). His response was that “right now, the electricity that comes into our houses is only 30% efficient – meaning a full 70% of it gets lost en route from Canada or Upstate where it is generated – and we lack the ability to make that more efficient without running new high-voltage transmission lines, which would have a negative environmental impact.”  To which I opened and then closed my mouth.

He thinks we can get there eventually – his idea is to use electricity rates, tax credits and other financial incentives to encourage businesses, individuals and utilities to use less electricity/be more efficient than we are now – then use the additional revenue that would generate (pun!) to upgrade the transmission grid so that it can better accommodate DG (solar, wind, tidal, etc.). A DG-enabled power grid would then increase the distribution efficiency (the solar panels on my roof are, depending on the temperatures outside, about 80-95% efficient), which in turn would mean more juice to power our cars.

Sounds like a reasonable plan – but he and I and the rest of us recognize that even mentioning the idea of “raising rates” is a non-starter in a recession. Frustrating that – I wish we could make it a topic of discussion. I wish we did have political leaders who were strong enough to say “Hey, cowboy-up people – sacrificing for a better future is what this country is all about, so stop the whining and let’s all pay a penny or two more per kWh”.

At the end of the day I still think that electricity is the sound strategic choice here – no doubt it is true that our system couldn’t handle a huge, sudden influx of electrical cars on the market, but that isn’t likely to happen anyways. It is a long-term solution, and long-term electricity is a fantastic source of power because it can be produced here, is mobile, can be generated in a number of renewable, carbon-free ways, and holds the promise for additional technological breakthroughs to make our use of it more efficient.

But that’s from the 10,000 foot view – it was interesting and eye-opening to hear my neighbor’s very different view from down on the ground, where oil-filled cable transmission lines can’t be run along the interstate medians, and it’s a patchwork process just to keep our ancient grid up and running, with no money or will to take the steps required to improve the situation.

Bits & Pieces

Hello – here’s a chex-mix of minor experiences from my electric car test.

- I had my first spontaneous sighting of another MINI E last Thursday in Morristown, NJ. It was 8:15am, and i was waiting at a stop light when I saw a fellow E turning off the green – they were too far away to see even if it was a man or a woman, but we flashed headlights. Kinda fun and communal – like exchanging a fraternity handshake.

-  I’m thinking of getting some decals put on that say “Electric Car” – so many people have told me that they didn’t recognize the stylized “plug” icon, and some other MINI E drivers have reported success with these. Here’s a shot of #250 (Tom Moloughney).

Electric Car Bling

- After nearly 2 months of plugging in at the Morristown Bank St. garage and having no one express any curiosity about it, this morning I got two questions. The first guy was parking at the same time as me, and as we both emerged from our cars he asked “Hey, I have a question – what would happen if somebody stole your cord?”, to which I answered “Uh, then I guess they’d have my cord…” (I hate it when I’m not prepared). We then talked about the program, and he said he’d gone online to read about it. As we parted company, he said “Thank you for doing this – I know it isn’t cheap, but it’s great that somebody’s getting this going.”  Just a simple and honest sentiment, but it was great to hear it from a stranger.  The second person was a co-worker, who came into the office soon after me, and asked “Hey, I saw your car plugged in again. I got a question – what would happen if somebody stole your cord?”, to which I answered “they would be hit by a Clean Diesel bus and squashed – e-karma is hardcore”.  Ahhh, sweet preparation!

- Tomorrow is my scheduled “3,000 mile service” – though i’m already at 4,000+ miles. Honestly, I hope they get good data, but I’m hoping to get a nice wash and vacuum out of it.

Living On The Electric Edge

Last night I teetered between two worlds – one side promised the successful completion of my highest-mileage day yet, while on the other side there awaited a personal disaster that could derail my hopes and dreams for an electric car future, and put a serious dent in an otherwise happy marriage.

Just another day in pioneerland!

MINI E #217, now sporting over 3,800 miles, has been averaging between 100-110 miles on a single charge (it’s an inexact science because of the variation in speeds of my mainly-highway commute). Yesterday though I knew I’d need some extra juice because I hoped to drive it to a soccer coaches meeting I had in the evening, which would tack on an additional 26 miles. So i plugged in with the “Occasional Use Cable” during the day and got an additional 15% charge (for a total of 115% on the day).

It was going to be close, but in some previous experimentation I knew that #217 had at least 2 more miles left after I hit the “—–” (empty) line on the chargeometer. That, plus a burning desire to see where the limits on these batteries are, was all the push I needed to try for a 120+ mile day.

What were the reasons I shouldn’t have tried it? I had my wife in the car with me. Our two kids were staying at a neighbor’s house. It was a school night. And, finally, the meeting of course ran way too late.

Getting there wasn’t a problem. I drove fairly conservatively, but the 13 miles it took ate up 12% of the reserve, leaving us with just 8% to get back home. And back home was mostly uphill. And it was approaching 10pm. And our kids needed to get in bed.

That’s when I made the strategic decision to not tell my wife that we faced a potential hour-long delay while I tested out the MINI Roadside Assistance program.

9 of the 13 miles were highway, and so I kept it at 60mph. But the chargeometer still read “—-” with 5 miles to go. At 4 miles, I was getting the “Battery Depleted/Reduced Performance” icon coming on and off, and I resorted to making unnecessarily loud statements like “HEY – I Just Remembered To Take Out The Recycling On Tuesday!” to cover the audible alerts. Luckily that was when I hit a nice downhill for a 1/4 mile and I regen’ed all I could.

The final 2 miles were up and down hills, and while #217 never skipped a beat I kept bracing myself for the telltale dip in speed. At just 1 mile to go, I had one more major hurdle – a 200 yard long moderate hill climb – and  I literally held my breath to the top, trying to figure out how far I could push #217, bringing up images of the dog pushing the sled in The Grinch who Stole Christmas. At the top, my wife noticed the battery alert light and asked “Are we ok to make it home?”. “NOW We Are!” was the reply from the sweaty maniac behind the wheel.

Of course as I pulled into the garage, all I could think of is “I wonder how much further…” – but it was a school night, so that question will have to wait.

122.8 miles on 115% charge.