Faster Horses Running On Cheaper Gas

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
— Henry Ford

What people want today is cheaper gas, but is that really the answer?

I am one week away from my two year anniversary, 30,000 miles, driven in an electric car powered by sunshine. Those words of Henry Ford are as relevant today as they were over 100 years ago.

The BMW Mini-E remains the most fun car to drive in my 33 year driving history. The smoothness, the torque, the “jet on a runway takeoff surge” from 20mph to 80mph is like nothing I have experienced before except in a jet:) I am positive that BMW will keep this going in the ActiveE in the short term, then really step it up with the lightweight i3 in 2013.

The Mini-E is also by far the least expensive car I have operated in terms of reliability, and fuel cost. If you are solar or renewable energy powered like I am, today’s equivalent cost to a gallon of gasoline is $0.40 cents, you have to go back to 1915 to find gasoline that inexpensive.


Graph courtesy of Stellar Solar

In the future the price of electricity will only go down as renewable energy continues the long technology trend line of becoming less and less expensive.

Cheaper gas is most definitely not the answer. Funny thing is we still refer to horsepower as our way of explaining how powerful a car is, horse drawn, gasoline or electric. Some things never change.

Cheers
Peder
Mini-E#183, 205 horsepower, 29,500 sunshine powered miles.