EV-Nation

I may be among the last of my fellow trial participants to hit the first 1000 miles in the Mini-E.  I believe that shows me that a smaller electric commuter car really does suit my current needs.

MP gave the car a nice bath to celebrate the occasion.

The most notably new thing with the Mini-E is how much it has just become a normal part of our lives.  I don't tend to really think about it as all this new, environmentally friendly technology much anymore.  I am now finding myself a bit surprised when people want to ask me about it when I am driving around.  It's our going around town car.  When I am popping up to the hardware store to grab something, I don't really think of it as  any kind of an environmental statement. There are still those kind of proud moments.  But it is a testament to the production aspects of the car, that it often feels quite ordinary.  My wife and I both like driving it and have adapted to its quirks like any other car.  I really think that is a good thing.  You don't really need to "compromise" much or be willing to put up with edge technology to have this fill a functional role in your daily life.

We normally don't drive much on the weekend unless it is a trip out of town.  But this weekend we needed to go back and forth across town a lot it seemed.  Everything was in range of the Mini-E so we logged 192 miles in 2 days.  Could have probably done it on two charges but since the trips were broken up, we just threw it on the charger whenever the car was in the garage.

Considering the heat and we were running the AC most of the time (we had to leave the beach and it is hot everywhere else) I thought the car did great.  Originally, we thought we would just use the car as a weekday commuter and on weekends if we drove, we would take our "smoker".  But it is turning out that the Mini-E really does work for the majority of places we have to go.  So I am pretty happy with how it is working out.  Freeway range seems to burn battery quite a bit so we are taking that into account on our estimates now.  I currently think 70-75 miles as a rough estimate for solid freeway driving is best.  Though with careful driving combined with some surface streets we are still close to 100 in practice.

I find I think about the charging station as having my own gas station at home.  So whenever you get home, you just "top it off" in case you want to go somewhere long.  Once you are in the habit, it works really well.