Mini-E, my drive, my take.

As a fan for years, and future driver of the Mini-E, I have read and re-read media accounts of driving the Mini-E, I’ve scoured the youtube/mytube/ourtube/blogsphere and anywhere else for video snippets of the car being driven.

I want to learn, to know all about it, I want it to be here, I want to live in the future. I’m a guy, I love cars!

Driving up to Irvine Ca in my 2006 300hp G35 for today’s test drive, I wondered how those media accounts would stack up against my own lay persons test drive, against my own G35, against the gas Mini that I am familiar with?

Would it be alien requiring a steep learning curve of new driving techniques? Would it be lethargic and an environmental compromise making me desire to get the hell out of the car and back into a real car. Would it be normal? Abnormal?

I drove the Mini-E today. My impressions were mostly different than what the magazine and news guys have said.

I’ll begin with the biggest impression for me. It was getting back in my G35 and driving home after driving the Mini-E and the sudden feeling of how old, cumbersome and incredibly complicated the car I was driving in and all that supports it was. I stopped to get gas on the way home, a mandatory monthly plan for me of $120 a month (at $2.60 a gallon) requiring three trips to the “convenience” station each month for a reload of the gas.

I thought about the extraction of the fuel from the ground from thousands of miles away, the pipeline to carry it to the port, to carry it to the tanker, to carry it across oceans to the refinery, to carry it to the fuel truck, to carry it to the station, to carry it to the pump, to carry it to my car.
A conveyance system of several thousand miles, several world and regional wars, a conveyance system of our planet to our next generation that is more polluted, more toxic and more barren of natural resources.

It stands against everything I wish to give to my child and those that follow.

Pumping the gas, I thought about the Mini-E soon to be in my garage, about the sun, carrying its rays to the solar panels, to the house, to the car. A conveyance system of millions of miles, of approximately 20 feet, distributed wealth creation for generations, a natural resource for trillions of years that billions of people could not exhaust even as gross consumers. Exhale……

The Mini-E is a friggin hoot to drive! Friggen is a highly technical term that the German engineers use. Sort of like Farfugnugen!

50mph onto the bending onramp, stay on the accelerator,. I get a little chirpy at the apex and coming out of the turn :) Torque steer is there, very strong, and the car pushes a bit, but hey, we will save that driving for the track and for a more controlled enviroment than the O.C. roads. Freeway speeds 75mph+ on Hwy 5, car cruises like a regular Mini. The overall feeling of the drive was how compatible the car was with normal driving, cruising parking lots at 10mph, city driving, freeway driving and enthusiastic driving. Very pleased with the regen, and how that was programmed. After about 30 seconds you get used to it, you can coast if you want by a lazy foot on the accelerator or lift and the regen brakes you in a similar manor to shifting down to second gear approaching a stop. It is effortless and at your calling. For ten minutes I touched the brake pedal exactly two times, once leaving the lot, once to avoid a driver gawking at the car and drifting into my lane.

I had to think about the gear selection. P,F,R, that’s all there is folks! It takes a bit for the mind to adjust to that. No slapping the tiptronic over and up and down like on my G35. I have owned some nice cars, a twin turbo Mazda Rx7 third generation, a Volvo S60R among others. I have never felt a car go from 40mph to 70mph like the Mini-E, It's a slingshot.

I have not had a ticket for 27 years, I am fearful that that my long distinguished career of lawfulness is about to be tarnished history!

The second biggest impression of the test drive was that I wanted a longer test drive. I am afraid a one year test drive will not be long enough, Hurry up and make a car like this that I can buy.
Please.

Cheers
Peder

Problems Today, Test Drive Tomorrow, It's all good!

Just a quick progress report from Carlsbad Ca.

It's been an interesting few days here with our utility. At issue is that we were one of the first neighborhoods to underground our utilities in the early 70's. The process back then was called direct burial and the cable was called sita. The expected life of the cable was 30 years or around the year 2000.

Well they quickly found out that it was wrong way to do things and beginning in the late 70's they started to do under grounding of the utilities by putting a 4" pipe or conduit under the road which would allow them to "fish" new service through the conduit instead of having to trench open the whole road to get to the transformer on the other side of the street.

So back to our house, the utility said sure you can have the car and charging station, all you need to do is trench across the road and upgrade our direct burial sita (past its life expectency) to conduit. And don't worry the cost with traffic control and all included would be around 25k.

After they picked me up off the floor and put the heart defibrillator away, I regained consciousness and started to have a reasoned conversation with them. Their concern of course is that the cable would not handle the extra amperage. I asked them to look at my usage the past 18 months and their response was classic! Sir, you have no usage just the minimum bill, $3.85 for a meter and .17 a day for the service.

So the utility is fine with my car, and realizes I am on an SDG&E ev2TOU rate structure and Net metering :) which means I will be charging at night between 12am and 6am when the juice is super off peak and 1/2 the cost. During the day our strain on the sita cable is in the reverse direction supplying power to them at more than double the cost compared to night.

So my story ends well thanks to solar and an efficient home and a utility that was willing to work with their customer. Contracts are signed and installation of the wall box is around the corner.

It does illuminate an issue with electric cars and that is the fragile and often antiquated infrastructure that in many case cannot handle 220volt 40 amp service.

For mass adoption, this will need to be figured out. I think the utilities are looking at the electric car as their next big customer so hopefully both sides, the car companies and the utilities, can ease the transition for the homeowner so we can do no less than change our motive power to electric in our transportation system.

Tomorrow, I get to drive the Mini-E for the first time! I am very excited and looking forward to how the actual experience compares to the countless reviews I have read.

The fruit is always out on the end of the limb, the important decision is which limb is strong enough to climb out on!

Thanks BMW/Mini for blazing the trail. Tomorrow is going to be a blast.

Peder

Gas Station Ordered!

Wow, my own gas station......and a fun license plate for the Mini E!


A few new words are going to be needed, and a few eliminated, for the electric car driver. Let's start with "gas station" If there ever was a term to be done away with for electric drivers it is gas station.

So, let's say charging station or fueling station or solar fueling station in lieu of gas.

Julie and I have had the wonderful life changing experience of living in a zero energy home that we built a few years ago. http://www.heronshouse.com/ Simple stated, a zero energy home is a home that generates as much energy as it uses. Accomplishing this is a mixture of about 80% design, low energy use appliances, passive solar, fixtures and lighting and a conservation oriented lifestyle coupled with solar P.V. that generates the remaining 20%.

With our selection into the Mini-E program and our positive inspection, we took the next logical step and ordered a "gas station" this will be 3kw addition to our 4.4kw existing system. In total we will be generating about 11,500kwh per year. This addition will supplement our existing 93% energy reduction with the 4.4kw system to 100% and provide an additional 2500kw for the Mini-E

The generation breaks down to approx 9000kw for our annual energy use at Herons' House and 2500kw for our annual use in the Mini-E for approx. 10,000 miles of driving.

Julie and I are in Carlsbad California and we are toying with idea of inviting Mini-E drivers in the LA and Orange county areas down to San Diego County for a "Mini" Vacation with their cars overnighting and recharging in our our guest house or guest rooms. Could be fun!

We thank our good friend Barry Cooper at Stellar Solar for their outstanding service and their assistance in helping us achieve energy independence.

Cheers!
Peder

Which way will we go?

There is a Moore’s law of sorts emerging for solar. That is for every doubling of annual solar P.V. production, there is a 20% greater efficiency and a reduction of 20% in cost per kwh of electricity produced. It is an undeniable technology based curve that is reducing in cost and accelerating as production ramps up.

A little history,

The Solar P.V ability was observed as far back as the late 1800s.

In 1954 Bell labs produced a solar panel with 5% efficiency, the cost was millions.

In 1958, first satellite Vanguard 1, deployed with 5% efficiency solar panels.

1970’s first commercial P.V. panels appear at approx. $25kwh with 6% efficiency,
NASA up to 12% on leading edge new sat launches.

1980’s P.V panels down to $18kwh with 10% efficiency, NASA up to 18% on leading edge for sat launches.

1990’s P.V. panels down to $12kwh with 14% efficiency, NASA up to 22% on leading edge sat launches.

Today, P.V. panels down to $6kwh with 20% efficiency, NASA up to 38% on leading edge sat launches.

Today, second market layer of thin film solar P.V with 6% to 10% efficiency, but cost down to $2kwh and dropping.

I’m sure you can argue a number or two in here depending on your advocacy, but the general point of declining price and increasing efficiency for solar P.V. is undeniable and in my opinion unstoppable.

This contrast with an opposite curve for extraction based fuels due primarily to extraction, importation, refining, delivery, storage, and retail delivery cost of the fuel.

Solar fuel has no extraction, refining, delivery, storage, and very small retail delivery (from rooftop to your panel) cost.

The two cost paths are about to cross in the next few years. We build our power plants to last 60-70 years (ours in Carlsbad California is from the late 40’s .) Guess which type of plant, renewable technology based, or fuel extraction based, we should be building?

....and some say that solar P.V. and other renewable energy sources, and its natural partner, the electric car won't work?

To them I simply say,

I'll show you my Ipod Nano with 2400 songs, if you will show me your record player.

Cheers
Peder

Solar "Fuel"

As I eagerly await picking up my Mini E (after the installation of the wall-box at my home) my thoughts have been about solar fuel as compared to fossil fuel.

There is constant argument between EV advocates and the “fossil fuelers” about the true environmental cost for BEV’s like the Mini-E or Tesla as compared to fossil fuel. The argument usually involves the environmental cost of the batteries once used, and the fact that electricity to power these cars is mostly generated at coal or gas fired power plants. Thus these two factors negating any environmental gains from reducing fossil fuel use.

On the battery front, Lithium chemistries are very good at being reused or recycled, much easier to do so than the Nickel Metal Hydride chemistry.

Now to my main point, “Solar fuel”

The average homeowner cannot make fossil fuel. They can make solar fuel. A huge advantage for solar, the electric car, oil independence, national security, and the environment just to list a few.

What if I told you that you could buy a fuel station for your home, your own personal B.P. Station that requires no land, for the same price that you would pay for 6 years of gas purchased at $3.00 a gallon? And that you would never have to pay for gas or visit a gas station again for the rest of your life? Just from an economic point of view, we would undoubtedly jump at the chance to do so, knowing that most of us will drive and purchase gas for approximately 60 years of our life.

Here’s how it works… Electric cars like the Mini-E and the Tesla average about 4 to 5 miles per kilowatt hour. Using a low number of 4miles per kwh and my driving average of 10000 miles a year, the car will use 2500kwh. To generate that much electricity, a solar P.V. system of 1.5kw would be needed. This system in California would cost the homeowner $6605. (this is based on my 4.4kw system installed on my home that generated 7230kw last year and the B.P Solar website for estimated system cost.)

The same Mini Cooper gas model gets 26mpg in combo driving. This is 385 gallons of gas a year at $3.00 a gallon or $1150 dollars per year. In less than 6 years of driving the identical gas car, you would have spent more money in gas than your cost of the solar fuel. Solar fuel that is inexhaustible and will keep on producing for 50 years or more for the average system.

The day that you can power your home and your car by sun is here. I look forward to a modest 2kw expansion of my existing 4.4kw solar P.V. system and the delivery of my Mini-E. I look forward to living in a zero energy home and driving a car powered only by the sun.

It’s real, it’s here.

Cheers!
Peder

Spark-e is coming!

I've named the new car "Spark-e" and for the record, I am not referring to spark plugs! The desire to live in a home and drive a car powered by nothing other than the sun is very close to a reality.

Stay Tuned!